Transitions: How training for my black belt is helping me learn how to let go.

For the past year or so I’ve been focused heavily on two things. 1. Training for my black belt test in Aikido and 2. healing injuries to both of my knees. The two don’t seem like they really belong together in the same sentence. I know that my previous idea of how to train for something physical and important never would have involved not doing physical things. After 10 months of doing both, I now think differently.

I have been struggling for awhile with my Aikido because I feel less stable with my injuries and am overprotecting. This has caused me to shut off some of my receptors to other’s and to turn others on too high. I have been cautious around people who either I can’t keep up with,or who are not paying attention to those around them. My legs are not as stable, so my ability to move around others is diminished for the moment, making beginners and seminars a bit scary.

My old ways of big movements and circles and finding ground through my legs is not working as well. I have been forced to change to smaller movements and circles and rely on my core more for balance and control. It is funny because we usually use suwari waza to teach people how to move their hips. I can’t do that anymore, but I am learning the same lessons.I now understand the purpose of the hips in my centering and movement and feel more stable, at least in smaller circles because I can feel them as I slow down.

More and more I am seeing how being injured for this extended period of time has really forced me to slow down and pay more attention to what is happening. In the beginning it made me hyper aware of minutia, which was incredibly distracting. As time has gone by, however, I have noticed that I am aware of subtleties that I never saw before. I am more aware of how people move, and what their mood is like on the mat. I sense anxiousness and intent before it shows on my partners’ faces. I also am much less concerned with doing things correctly.

The last might be a problem when it comes to my actual test, who knows. But in life it seems to be helping me let go of the need for perfection, and be more relaxed. I am less concerned with form, and more concerned with connection and some with function. I don’t care if I did the technique perfectly as long as it was effective and I was able to feel my partner’s movement. I feeling more of the flow between two people and how uke’s reaction guides me, possibly to a technique that is different that the one I first intended. I can let go of the need to complete the original technique and just go where the energy takes me. Maybe that is why henka waza is on the shodan test. This is the point where we are supposed to feel those changes and recognize that not everything goes the way we intended.

I don’t think I would have felt that if I was still charging forward at 500 miles an hour. I don’t think I would be able to feel shifts in angle or how the circle turns on its end if someone’s hand is in a slightly different position.

I also don’t think that I would understand that what I’m really learning is how to feel where the person is going. Before, it was all about me and what I needed to do to get the technique correct. And if uke didn’t cooperate, it was their fault for not playing fairly. Now things feel differently. It is more about feeling where they are headed and intuitively knowing what to do in that moment to keep us both safe, and maybe even finding multiple movements to get them back to where I wanted to be in the first place. Ultimately it is about letting go of the plan and moving with what is. Learning how to be with the situation and react to it rather than holding on to expectations and losing the moment because of the shock of not getting what or where I wanted in the first place.

One of my teachers suggested that this is like being a big satellite dish- receiving information on a broad spectrum while also projecting our intent in a modulated way. That makes sense to me for where I am on my path.

I am also seeing this all play out off the mat. Conversations that feel are zero sum games really are not. When I find the flow, I can see where the other person is coming from, even if I don’t agree. It is becoming easier to stay calm in the conflict and simply keep moving through the interaction. I don’t always end up where I intended, but it usually ends well. (Assuming I can stay in the flow, which is not a given).

Don’t get me wrong. I am still frustrated by my injuries. I still struggle with conversations and relationships. I still want to train hard. I don’t always succeed at finding my way into this flow. And yet, I’m excited that I am finding a new way to learn despite having to train differently. Perhaps I am what is different now. I am transitioning to a new me and passing a way stone on my path. That may or may not be my black belt. Who knows when I’ll be healthy enough to take that test, but in the end… at least for life, maybe that doesn’t matter.