Good Body Posture Brings Power

It recently occurred to me that if we had not gone into national lockdown due to pandemic situation with covid-19, I would not have felt what I now feel to be so prominent and strong when I have recently been practicing Aikido by focusing on my own body posture.

Let me elaborate on what I mean by saying this.

Before we entered this global crisis with Covid-19, we, Aikidokas, were all practicing Aikido in our Dojo or club with a partner or a number of partners performing lots of Aikido techniques unarmed and with weapons depending on the Aikido style you practice.

Speaking for myself as I have been practicing Iwama Aikido, we study a fair amount of weapons practice & Taijutsu with an emphasis to train with partner or partners.

When the national lockdown was announced due to Covid-19 pandemic, we had to cease any sports activities and Martial Arts training overnight, so to speak. For many of us, this was extremely hard physically and mentally too.

At that point, I had a choice of practicing alone or doing nothing and wait until we resume our normal practice hoping for the best that the pandemic would stop. But as you know it went on (and it still is) for nearly 18 months in the UK, when we were heavily restricted to resume with our normal practice in with other people.

So had I made a decision to pause any Aikido training until we could resume, it would have meant 18 months of no training (sadly, I know some Aikidokas who did just that). I am very glad that I did not choose this option!

I began practicing on my own in my garden and I was very determined to do this for as long as it would take.

I also recorded my practice and shared the videos on my YouTube channel, which turned out to be an exciting project (which kept me busy killing time with isolation). I also realised that by doing this, I could help and encourage others to do the same and continue their own solo practice. I know a few Aikidokas who have done just that and were inspired by the frequent video releases on my YouTube Channel.

It is fair to say, that this decision was probably the best I have ever done for me & Aikido, as I learnt tremendously without having a ‘Teacher’ although to be more accurate, there was a ‘Teacher’ who was ‘me’ analysing any videos I made and this process, made me very critical correcting myself and I was seeing huge benefits and I felt I was self-learning and improving my Aikido.

This project not only helped my Aikido but it also helped me coped with my mental health to stay positive despite isolation and to be strong when things did look pretty grim learning about devastating effects that Covid-19 did to so many people in the UK and the rest of the world...

My solo training helped me to focus but also made me realise an important sentence that I had heard many times before but it did never quite ‘sunk’ in enough in my body: ‘good posture brings good power’.

Indeed, let me explain: when we practice with a partner, we may have heard this phrase before from our Teacher, but many of us still neglected it and still compromised our posture to subdue our partner, as we believe this is what Aikido is about, isn’t it? Our posture can become ‘slightly compromised’ but we think it is still ok as long as we can pin down or throw our partner…

To be frank, the national lockdown got me to do solo training and got me to understand and appreciate this sentence better and to apply it more consciously than ever before or since we were not allowed to practice with anyone outside our home so no contact was possible.

So for many Martial artists and notably Aikidokas in many parts of the world especially if weapons practice is not taught a lot, they were quite limited to continue practicing Aikido.

As I practice Iwama Aikido, I quickly realise how lucky we were to have all these wonderful Bukiwasa syllabus that Morihiro Saito Sensei has left us, such as 7 Ken Suburi, 20 Jo Suburi, 13 Jo Kata (solo & paired practice), 31 Jo Kata (solo & paired practice), 7 Kumitachi (and Henka), Ki Misubi No Tachi, 10 Kumijo (and Henka), 10 old Ken Tai Jo, 7 new Ken Tai Jo (and Henka), 18 Lost Jo Kata, 20 Jo Fluid Form, 7 Ken Suburi No Kata etc. And that we could do them outside in a park or garden and it felt even more wonderful than doing them in the Dojo, as we could sense a deeper connection with nature around us.

You can see by just mentioning all these, we were (and are) benefiting a huge amount of weapons techniques that one can practice alone and this even includes all the paired practice that one can do still alone imagining a partner attacking you in a specific way, so you could even create in your mind ‘Awase’ and perform the Kumitachi from Tori side and you can also do them from Uke side etc.

And this is exactly what I did during the duration of lockdown, I kept practicing alone working on the Bukiwasa syllabus and I gradually benefited from doing them – self corrected myself at times and work on improving my technique but posture, feet placement, hips and timing etc.

If you are interested, you can see all the videos freely accessible our my YouTube channel with specific playlist if you are interested in watching them (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5t0M64Mu6GPXejkqj7vVIw).

The solo practice I have been doing gave me deeper feeling and understanding how important it is to getting a good posture. Hence why I advocate this: ‘good posture brings power’.

Now that I am back teaching and practicing Aikido, I see this even clearer than ever before. We should not focus on trying to subdue our partner but to focus on our own body posture (finding the correct hips positioning with correct footwork) is my primary goal, which will naturally affect your partner posture (and without trying hard too).

I am convinced that good posture brings a more powerful Aikido, without having to try tensing our muscles but feel from our hips or Hara (the inner feeling). And the study of weapons (Aikiken & Aikijo) will help you find these very specific body shapes such as Hitoemi for instance.

I think if one does not practice weapons, they may not fully ‘feel’ what is the Hitoemi positioning, which is developed thanks to the study of the 2nd Ken Suburi.

Please note that I am only referring about Iwama Aikido so this is not intended to criticise other Aikido styles as each Aikido style offers something truly unique!

So, if one Aikidoka is not practicing weapons enough, they may not feel (inside) the feeling of Hitoemi, although they may be able to do the physical shape of Hitoemi stance but it may still be ‘empty’ inside.

Hence why, when I continued doing solo training during pandemic, it helped me develop further with my inner feeling.

I also come to realise that the study of weapons is not really (although it does) to merely use the weapons per se but to teach our body movement and placement of the feet and to feel our hips moving in very specific ways and foremost to feel an inner feeling in the form.

So by practicing weapons on your own you practice the inner feeling of every form you do, which are also felt in your Taijutsu practice. In another word, when you practice weapons correctly, you are also practicing your Taijutsu (and vice versa!).

If we pick Morote Dori Kokyu-Ho, this two hands grip technique is a very specific exercise building your Kokyu feeling and finding hips stability and strength which can only be felt if the placement of your feet and upper body posture is correct and of course to get this inner feeling I referred about when we do Bukiwasa.

During the lockdown, I was still able to practice Taijutsu alone in a form of Kihon (Static allowing a partner to attack fully with a grip for instance) and I was imagining someone firmly gripping my hand and because no one was gripping me, there was a strange sensation building from my own centre and I could feel the Kokyu building in my arms forming a united feeling with the centre from hips and feet positioning that I immediately felt working on my own posture to make sure my back is straight, to make sure that I am moving as one with the hips, hand and feet.

So the entire solo practice I was doing became an absolute joy to train and I discovered another side of Aikido training that I would never have felt before ie doing Aikido without a partner.

The inner sensation grew even stronger and when we resumed our normal practice again, practicing Morote Dori Kokyu-Ho is now done differently, ie my focus is to retain the good posture and by achieving this, it was noticed that my partner was more affected as there is no longer a thinking of dropping your partner down to the ground, but because of the good posture you adopt, your partner posture becomes naturally more affected following a number of other principles with Kokyu, precised Hanmi, keeping elbows low, connecting with the partner and getting close enough etc.

So, I would strongly encourage anyone to analyse how you have been practicing your Aikido: do you focus on your posture or do you focus on subduing your partner first? I leave this for you to decide…