‘First Contact’ in Aikido and Horsemanship: How Subtle Changes Can Lead to Dramatic Results

Of all the wonderful things I was introduced to at the recent Aikido seminar with Hiroshi Ikeda Sensei, all of which was quite magical, one exercise will stay with me forever. It’s one thing to have experienced some success in applying the concepts that Ikeda Sensei was demonstrating but it is quite another to feel them applied to you by the man himself.

In order to teach us, Ikeda Sensei initially performed the exercises with what he described as ‘large’ movements and over what he termed ‘longer periods’ of time. ‘Large’ in this context involved visible shifts of his centre by about 1cm, ‘longer periods’ meant as long as it took. Whilst sending energy to our partner, he advised us to allow sufficient time for the effect to take place. 10 secs can seem like a lifetime when, as a beginner, you are hesitantly exploring these ideas and it is easy to assume you are just doing it wrong. Ikeda Sensei constantly encouraged us to persist; to just continue once we had started.

Every so often, Ikeda Sensei would demonstrate the same techniques but applied internally so that the shifts in his centre became invisible and the effects became instantaneous. At these times, his partner would grab him and instantly lose balance and fall, often quite dramatically. Sensei pointed out that these were merely exercises in breaking balance (Kuzushi) and he went on to demonstrate how these concepts would be used in practice to enable us to form our usual Aikido techniques even against moving attacks, when the physical contact, or the “Touching Time” as he termed it, was very small indeed.

One particular exercise made it clear to me how ‘invisible’ internal changes can produce quite dramatic effects. We were instructed to make a blow with our forearm across our partner’s elbow, as he stretched his arm out, palm up, as he stood in a stable Aikido posture. We stood at right angles to our partner’s outstretched arm and brought our arm down smartly, Shomen-Uchi style. We started light and increased the force and noted that all we got was more and more brace from our partner. Ikeda Sensei pointed out that if we were bigger and stronger then we would beat our partner but if we were smaller and weaker then we could NEVER win. He also pointed out that however strong we were now, we would eventually become smaller and weaker through age. So the challenge was how to make the same action but in a different manner so that it would work however small you are and however big your training partner might be.

So this time we were instructed to just let our arm fall – applying no ‘push’ or muscular force. Then, at the exact point of contact, we were instructed to shift our same side hip back a few millimetres or so by rotating our centre – and to just let our arm continued to fall. As our arm continued to fall, we were instructed to drop our Centre (of gravity) vertically about 1cm by bending our knees. We soon learned that the initial small ‘impulse’ movement of our hip unbalanced the partner in a very subtle way – in fact he often wasn’t even aware of it – but once we had broken his balance in this subtle way, the second small impulse movement of dropping the Centre took him to the floor.

As we started to practice this in pairs, Ikeda Sensei interrupted a couple training near us to show them how to do it close up. We stopped and knelt to watch, as is traditional. Sensei then invited a few of the bystanders to get up to see how it felt. He then invited me to stand up with a nod of his head so I got into my most grounded Aikido posture and offered my outstretched arm. He smiled and, seemingly, just allowed his arm to gently drop.

I felt very little – but all I can say is that he nearly sent me THROUGH the floor. There was an almighty crash and everyone stopped training to see what had happened. It felt like a tipper truck had just unloaded 2 tons of bricks on me. The strange thing was that my knees didn’t just give way so that I collapsed vertically. I actually landed fully on my left side as one unit – hence the loud crash. Somehow, my legs had come ‘up’ as my torso and head were going down and I had landed very heavily but completely flat.

As I fell, I remember wondering what the loud crash was. Then I realised it had been me. Then I lay wondering why I was not hurt or at least winded. In fact I was not hurt at all!

What I felt has been described as ‘Soft Power’. That experience is something I shall never forget and something I will continue to aim for in the years to come :)

If anyone thinks this stuff is fake, they should keep an open mind and seek out Ikeda Sensei and experience it for themselves.

Ikeda Sensei said often, “It looks like a fake, right? But only your training partner truly knows. If someone says what you are doing is a fake, take it as a compliment. It means what you are doing has become invisible. It means that you are getting it right!”.

Aside from his skill, Ikeda Sensei is a warm, open, welcoming man with a keen sense of humour. He showed great kindness to others and expressed a healthy sense of gratitude and humility. He was extraordinarily positive and encouraging and he had a very empowering message that this was OUR Aikido and that it was up to us whether we wanted to train this way – or not. Both options were fine by him and there was absolutely no pressure to do either. He merely wanted to offer us a way to develop ourselves. Even if we wanted to continue to follow other Senseis and other styles he pointed out that we could continue to develop ourselves in this manner ‘on the inside’. I remember considering designing a T-Shirt, or badge for my Gi, that would mimic the Intel advert, using the same logo and font but saying ‘Ikeda Inside’ ;)

Ikeda Sensei left us with a message that change was in the air in the next few years for the world of Aikido as, regrettably, the last of the older teachers who had been direct students of O Sensei passed away. But his was a positive and empowering message. He held a vision that we could develop ourselves using these concepts in a way that would mean that it is WE who could form the future of Aikido…

What Has Horsemanship Got to Do with Any of This?

At this point I perhaps ought to apologise to my fellow course students for continually talking, to anyone who would listen, about the connections between Ikeda Sensei’s concepts and those of Horsemanship.

There are numerous connections between Aikido and Horsemanship. In the end they are both about forming connections where a relationship is formed in which one leads and the other follows. If it is done well, one finds himself willingly following the other. No force is used and this means there is nothing to resist.

In the end, what we were exploring in this kind of Aikido was what my Natural Horsemanship friends would know as ‘Feel’. It’s an inadequate term used to try and describe the ability to sense what the other being (animal or human) is projecting, mentally, emotionally and physically whilst at the same time remaining aware of what you are projecting toward them. Awareness of what you are projecting allows you to have an active choice over this. In Horsemanship terms, this ‘Feel’ starts as soon as you enter the horse’s field. Horses are extremely perceptive creatures so we need to be able to read their state, mentally and emotionally, from a large distance. What makes the biggest difference is what we are projecting, mentally and emotionally, as we enter their field. Once we are aware of what we are projecting, and this is often via the feedback gained from the horse, we can choose to remain calm, collected, open and compassionate – despite what the horse might throw at us.

In the purest sense, all we really need to ‘do’ in any trying circumstance, be that a troubled horse or an irate individual is just ‘be’ our authentic selves. Traditionally, this is a journey of self development that is expected to take a lifetime. More contemporary approaches have realised that this was never meant to be a process of ‘becoming’ something we are not – but rather a process of peeling away the layers of conditioning and learned behaviour – to reveal our inner self. Luckily, more modern developments in psychology and spirituality are allowing us to reach, and reveal, that inner self more directly.

Ultimately, our gift to the world lies in our uniqueness and not in trying to become someone else – to slavishly copy someone else’s path. I think this is why Ikeda Sensei was so keen to emphasise to us that this was OUR Aikido and that he was there to merely offer extra information to us that might help us on our way. I deeply appreciated his enlightened attitude. As someone later posted on FB, what we get in Ikeda Sensei is not just the best of Aikido – but also the best of humanity :)

I suspect that ‘Feel’ described in Horsemanship operates exactly the same way in Aikido. It’s not something that seems to get talked about too much but it would be of crucial importance on the street. Sensing what the other person is projecting physically, mentally and emotionally – whilst simultaneously remaining aware of what we are projecting – could make the difference between having to defend yourself and avoiding the conflict in the first place.

In Horsemanship, the mental and emotional connection that we form at a distance is often termed, ‘Heart Connection’. It concerns our mental state, what we feel emotionally and how these effect our partner. It is a two-way thing but if we can at least choose to remain calm, collected, open, compassionate yet decisive, the horse will often end up wanting to follow us precisely because we are embodying the mental and emotional qualities what they perceive as being Leadership. If we can manage to just ‘be’ (our authentic selves) then the paradigm of ‘Leader and Follower’ evaporates and the horse just wants to ‘be’ with us. Ikeda Sensei constantly referred to ‘Unity’ – the point where both partners are so deeply connected, Centre to Centre, that what one does, they both do together. This feels very different from just ‘following’ where a certain passivity in involved. Doing things together feels very, very different.

In Natural Horsemanship this is sometimes called the 51/49 (percent) relationship . But this is often interpreted as the human always having the 51%; of always having an element of control. And it has been argued that all control is born of fear. In the purest form, it is possible to consider a 50/50 relationship where all it takes is the smallest shift (1%) in order for both partners to do something together. In this case, ‘taking the lead’ occurs by merely offering an idea or a suggestion – which the other finds irresistible! Which is exactly what we saw, and felt, in the Aikido of Ikeda Sensei!

Good Horsemen can engender the same quality of relationship with their horses as Ikeda Sensei does with his Uke. For me it is epitomised in my chosen discipline of Liberty. In Liberty, the human is on the ground and has NO physical contact with the horse ie rope or halter. In the best Liberty, the horse is also in a large open field and has the opportunity to leave at any moment. The human influences the horse through body movement, intent and through sending his energy to the horse.

How different would our Aikido look if we could do something similar? What if we could apply something of what Ikeda Sensei has shown us but at a distance? What if our opportunity to apply these concepts was not just during a physical connection ie when our partner grabs our wrist? What if our ‘First Contact’ was, just as with the horse at Liberty, when we first make connection at a distance ie when we ‘Bow In’ to begin our practice?

Steve with Ikeda Sensei , Coventry, May 2nd, 2015

“It looks like a fake, right? Only your training partner truly knows. If someone says what you are doing is a fake, take it as a compliment. It means what you are doing has become invisible. It means that you are getting it right!”

~ Ikeda Sensei [Photo by courtesy of John Burn]