Current week is 17
21 Apr. 2025 – 27 Apr. 2025.
This week's Aiki-theme is awareness of the space around us. Sometimes in Aikido we can be so stuck inside the technique that we reduce the space within which we can move in much the same way as we get stuck in our job at work that the potential of opportunities coming by is restricted. It's really difficult to see the big picture when we're stuck in the reduced space. Luckily there are exercises to help us expand our awareness of the space around us so that, even when busy with our job at hand or technique we can remain in focus of the global view and move around it freely.
Tori sets the intention to see Uke as part of the view whilst Uke prepares him- or her- self to reflect Tori's movement and thereby be updated with new views of the space they are being moved around in.
Not only is the exercise to be aware of the space in view but also the spaces that we cannot see so well. In particular, spaces behind, to the side, above and below. We then visualize our body movement not as a flat entity moving along one vector but a dynamic sphere that is changeable and flexible in direction of turning. Where we can embody the dynamic sphere in our Aikido, we have gained a heightened awareness of the space in multiple dimensions and we project the connection with the practice partner also in that space. It makes the Aikido experience much more expansive and exciting as the potential of movement is expanded.
This training prepares us in life for multiple attackers that try to lure us in to restricted space. In addition to keeping the global space in check, multiple attacks require also an awareness of time and the timing to enter and turn before addressing the next attacker that could come from any direction (the mortgage, the colleague, the boss, the spouse, etc).