EQUANIMITY
Living as the Prescence as our authentic self brings about the state of equanimity in the body mind. We no longer have to try to stay centered, our wholistic condition is centerless center, a circumference that seems to extend into a fathomless but solid feeling condition. We are included in a greater life that is connected with the essence that is the source of all.
In our practice of Aikido we are always practicing from this essence even if we haven’t practiced for any great length of time, by being inclusive of another’s energy field and harmonizing with them as one with our energy field we have in essence transcended ourselves within the Principles of allowing and yielding to their field and so let go of resistance and truly start understanding the powers available that previously were not apparent when we based our practice and existence to only what we could see with our eyes.
The assumed solidity of physical vibrational existence seems so real because everything feels like it is so dense. This is one of the elemental stages that we have to go through in Aikido, which is the element of Earth which teaches us the grounding, stabilizing and integration of our physicality as it relates to our practice.
Once we have learned our lessons on this level we can let go of trying to muscle our way through our katas, then we can move into the next level which relates to the element of water which starts to loosen the constraints of the Earth level so that we can start practicing some fluidity as it relates to the Earth phase which can limit us if we stay strictly on that level so we can now allow earth and water to mix so they can create another platform for our next transition.
If we don’t move on we can think kata is our only level of practice, I have practiced with people who haven’t and they seem to be afraid of practicing a lot of randori which tends to show us where we truly are practicing, either trying to not get got by always being over muscular in the situation or trying to over control the situation by not committing to the attack, and only expressing what I call “controlled commitment,” which is not helping either person to understand because when one is in a real fight scenario, everyone is trying to bust your head.
This is difficult to get out of, because when these people train others, they demand that you have to break their balance “their way” or you are not going to get their approval and this leaves one most of the time without any real internal authentication to base their practice around.
Our speed and quickness can be controlled based on the level of the person we are practicing with, if they are new we definitely want to be slower and as the person goes through their understanding, speed and power can be added so as to gradually help them perform the technique with as much equanimity as they have realized to that point.
Equanimity, being the sattvic balance point within us when we access the place of allowing the flow of the situation to be what it is, similar to zero point discussed earlier. Once we start moving and practicing from this internal feeling then we can move into or around and truly flow with most insertions of momentum, at that point, it won’t matter if one is being attacked with just an arm, leg, or the whole body, movement is movement, and momentum is momentum, true commitment to one’s demise has commenced.
As this arises, we need to stay as close to equanimity within ourselves as possible, hopefully our practice has shown us the value of absorbing their energy and becoming one with them. Now we are staying in equilibrium with them as we are going to use their whole body and mind to reflect back to them and it doesn’t matter what this looks like, if they have thrown themselves and we are out of danger, we don’t need to run to them and try to affect a technique on them, we need to leave!
This is simple self preservation if we are not trying to prove ourselves to someone who has randomly attacked us, we should be moving to safety as quickly as possible instead of engaging the situation unless the confrontation has escalated to more dangerous levels.
This is a fine line in communicating to people what they need to be doing after they have affected an effective move or technique, we train people to complete an effective technique in practice, but there is a need to know when to apply this to total immobilization and when to leave the situation once the evasion has been accomplished. This is where awareness in the moment comes into play, the aggressive energy may have come out of nowhere, when evasion has happened, is there any need to stand there and try to figure it out?
This is why we have always practiced our art slowly so as to more accurately access our true kinesthetic input to the subconscious as we practice from the principle of “fast is slow and slow is fast”, this allows us to practice from the profound context of “what is” in the moment, not conceptualizing about it , dealing with it as it is, no matter what form it has taken. Many of the practitioners have used this in combat and in their daily life, it seems to bring equanimity into play so one deals with the situation at hand or “what is” from a more profound effective wholistic presence.
I am writing this post around the subject of equanimity because this is a vital point that we need to access in ourselves, it seems some people don’t have this contact which is awareness, psycho-physical balance, clarity of judgment, and intuition all functioning simultaneously to be able to understand the situation that one may be in at the moment and make spontaneous decisions moment to moment and let as little of the adrenaline based reactions make less of our decisions than our centering.
Being able to discern the escalation of a situation in the moment is invaluable, we stay as calm, centered and responsive as possible and deal with the situation in relation to what we feel we need to do instead of jumping to conclusions and try to forcefully make their body do what we think it should be doing.
Once kuzushi is effected, their body has to go through its own re balancing cycle, if you have never had your balance taken effectively to the point where you don’t know what happened and find yourself on the ground it might be of interest to practice with a style of Aikido that does because one can consciously attack someone and not get one foot down and then be physically air born, I know I have taken numerous un predicted flips and falls over the years from testing the uke role and practicing on the edge of creative discovery that helps us self authenticate the martial art we are practicing so we may stay in equanimity to find our true confidence.
Thank you, Will Gable