My teacher describes Aikido as "physically precise, mathematical movements, entered into through feeling." For years I have vehemently denied being a "feeler," preferring to access my world visually and analytically and, for years, my teacher has been trying to convince me otherwise. I am 5'6" tall on a good day and tip the scales at 140 lbs., and so I have never had much success in using size and strength to compensate for bad technique. Being visual and analytical, I could clearly see that technique did not require size, strength, or speed to succeed, only precise application to uke. With this perspective, the first part of my teacher's description made perfect sense and I studied Aikido as the precise application of waza to each uke, achieving fairly predictable results.

The concurrent study of ukemi, as per most aikido curricula, was entirely different. I was not taught ukemi as waza. I was taught that ukemi is not a predetermined set of movements corresponding to nage's predetermined technique, but a continuous endeavor to remain centered and present without judgment or assumption such that I, at any given moment, am able to continue my attack and enter upon any suki presented by nage. I learned to study ukemi, not take ukemi. While I excelled at all of this, in my denial of "feeling," I chalked up my ability to agility and athleticism.

It wasn't until recently that I began to realize that I actually learn most of my Aikido through ukemi; that, as uke, I am able to move with mathematical precision relative to nage and that precision is based on intuitive feeling - yes, feeling. <sigh>

With this "aha" in hand, I re-evaluated my Aikido from the perspective of nage. I found that in applying technique to uke, I was committing myself to a predetermined set of movements without regard to whether or not this set of movements was appropriate to what uke was doing. I was trying to move uke precisely, in a kind of refined, choreographed wrestling. I found in order to do Aikido to uke, I had to make the uke the center, creating a suki, an opening, making the martial art martially ineffective. Further, to do anything to uke is violent, totally against the loving protection we claim to be striving for in Aikido. O'Sensei was teaching non-violence. I should, therefore, stop trying to do anything to uke and just move myself with intuitive precision, relative to uke, such that I remain centered and present without judgment or assumption, and uke is continuously falling in an ever tightening nullification of aggression. This did not require a physical change in my movement. It required a shift on a mental and emotional level, an emptying on an attitudinal level, if you will. The precision remained. It was just applied relative to uke, not to uke.

In the "lineage" that has been the primary influence on my Aikido, there has always been a pervasive, underlying feeling that Aikido should be as much of a spiritual study as it is a martial study. Not 50-50, but 100% of each, such that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole -- such that we can practice loving protection and martial effectiveness, simultaneously. In fact I believe it is required, by the very nature of Aikido, that we strive for this.