Aikido from the Inside Out
The Techniques:
Problems with techniques
Techniques are a two-edged sword. On one hand, they can lead you to an understanding of the principles of aikido. The tragedy is that techniques often become an end to themselves. Techniques can be like the sword that takes life or the sword that gives life. They take life when they become rigid, unyielding, and authoritarian. They give life when they open up the inner meaning of aikido.
If you come across a school where the aikido teacher insists that his demonstration is the proper or only way to perform a technique, you'd do well to look for another school. The specific details of the way a technique is taught are peculiar to a teacher's style, temperament, body structure, and history. It's also specific to the attack he's receiving and the person who is attacking. When a teacher insists that your foot must go precisely this way or your hand must always be such and such, he is confusing his personal expression of the art with the principles and tactics that make aikido work. Teachers like this think that, since their aikido expression works for them, their way must be effective and must be transmitted to their students. They've forgotten that aikido embodies universal principles that express themselves uniquely each time.
You can easily discover this richness of aikido for yourself. If you have the opportunity to train in many different aikido schools, even if the schools are within your own "lineage," you will find different ways of doing the same techniques. And even though the techniques may be different from yours, they'll still work if the practitioner is skilled.
I can't stress this point enough: aikido techniques are personal expressions of the practitioner. Aikido principles are what make the techniques work. The principles remain constant, no matter who practices or what the situation is.
