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Aiki no Nagare - Bajutsu and Budo - A Vital Relationship
Before the dank, dark breath of excessively Machiavellian machinations cast its pall over the land, warriors had one goal: to unite the land. To this end they bent every effort. Sure, at first they though it would be their clan that would do it, but that is of small incident. In the end one clan did.
During those darker days of destruction and endless feuding there was little concern for dividing skills more than absolutely necessary. The multi-skilled are an interchangeable asset forming a secure in depth backup methodology. Resultantly each motivated individual acquired skills, for, specialists are only of value in limited context.
One teacher of such skill, a compatriot of paramount usefulness since time immemorial; and one having great say in the destinies of nearly all peoples and nations, was the horse.
Equestrian skills have determined battles throughout history. Bajutsu teaches much and most of it is unspoken. The survival instincts of the horse are transmitted silently at close quarters. A horse is not a bike that you just ride but an immensely conscious living entity and an ally in battle as well as peacetime. The horse is a source of many potencies among which are superlative zanshin, understanding of ma, immensely powerful reflex action, timing, synchronicity, feeling, sensitivity, immense heart and spirit, stamina, strategy for survival, understanding of terrain and much more.
True equestrians will understand what I'm talking about. To catch, "tame" and work with the horse, requires that you learn to think and feel like one. In so doing you learn much.
Without aiki you cannot tame a wild horse. With aiki it is possible to make friends, using ki no musubi or horse sense, in the open plains, on foot and without a rope. Ignorant fools mimic horsemanship with brutality, ropes, pulleys and stupidity but they make no friends in the animal kingdom. And I guess they treat their unhappy womenfolk in a similar manner. Horse "whispering" has nothing to do with mumbling although that too may help if you know how to mumble. THE PRIME FACTOR IN HORSE TRAINING IS AIKI AND MUSUBI. Make no mistake of this. I'm stating this fact advisedly from experience, mine and that of many others.
By the way, those big armchairs people strap on so they can't fall off are not saddles. They are gadgets for fools who can't ride as are cruel bits. If you can't ride bareback without a bridle or with minimal saddlery, you can't ride. Period.
Many ancient warriors were horsemen. Only the best. Whether on the ground or riding, success and cooperation requires aiki. All good horse persons know this to be so, although they may use different labels.
If there are any equestrians out there who also train budo and Aikido, I'd like to hear from you and your feedback. C'mon, it's time to stop hiding all the secrets.
At the apex of skill in combat we've established Two Key Principles that make Aiki the effective too that it is:
a) The capitalizing on involuntary reflexes
and;
b) Riai, in all its mixes
But there's more: The body-mind connection as it integrates breathing, DYNAMIC BALANCE, musubi and hara and which is best honed on horseback.
Whilst Koichi Tohei describes these as ki, horses (Uma) will impart it far better than any human explanation. Dangerous but valuable training. Nowhere is this better found than in Horse Riding Arts, classical dressage, or in Japan: Ba-jutsu, Yabusame (archery on horseback) being a small but valued part of it, not only because of archery, but because you have to master the other essential attributes to stay on to conduct said archery.
Being ACTIVELY involved with such practices as manual farming, oceanic diving, firefighting (or in the case of old warriors-igniting them for purposes of strategy), mountain meetings with tengu (believe what you will), solitary mountain meditations, ocean-faring in small vessels, lots of walking and some other activities which bring forth core survival aiki principles. (Refer - Ueshiba mountain training, misogi etc); horsemanship is not only one of the most demanding, but, if you stick with it, will be one of the most empowering.
Morihei Ueshiba and Minamoto no Yoshimitsu and many others did these very things as part of their personal development, or of necessity.
Japanese legend maintains the early days of Japan, said to be founded about 660 BC. by the Emperor Jimmu, a direct descendant of the sun goddess... Primary from the earliest days until now Bajutsu, Japanese Dressage, or horsemanship has been considered foremost.
Japanese equestrianism, also known as Jobajutsu or Bajutsu is the term used in Japanese martial arts to refer to horsemanship.
And Yabusame which is archery on horseback. The archer shoots arrows at a wooden target whilst galloping the horse past it. All the early warriors are all horsemen. This ancient method saw the Mongol Kan or Han conquer much of the world and also China.I realize that mere reading does not bring about the required body-mind link transformations, but: a) everything helps; and; b) who knows, you may well get an opportunity to face these activities and the teachings they bring actively, if even in a small and unexpected way.
Good reading on horse/equestrian arts as related to Aikido may provide some small insights in the following books:
* Ride with Your Mind by Mary Wanless
* Centred Riding by Sally Swift
* Riding Towards the Light by Paul Belasik
Deep dressage/ Ba-jutsu however takes years to master and that on horseback as well as all the equestrian maintenance procedures. The horse(s) become your compatriot(s), friend(s) and teacher(s) (sensei from a different dimension - as do other animals whether domestic or wild.)
One of the secrets of Aikido is to specialize in being a multi-skilled all-rounder operating from centralized consciousness. All of the above practices, and of course dojo training and walking contribute strongly to this status.
Motion within stillness and stillness within intense motion is the very nature of the deepest secrets of the universe. So also horsemanship and Aikido.
Be still and understand motion.
* Be still, do not move, heels down, toes slightly inward, drop your seat, drop your shoulders, back straight hands in front, noticing the moment.
* Keep weight underside, topside light like a balloon rising, top of your hard as if pulled into the centre of the sky by a slender thread, spine upright present and conscious.
* Watching the breath, relax, focus on one point, balanced, still, motionless, fully present noticing the present moment as it is.
* Let gravity do the work, breathing naturally, toes slightly out, let go, focus etc.
Q. Which one are meditation, horse riding, budo practice, aikido, and yachting.
Q Assign a country of origin
ANSWER: They are interchangeable AND every place on earth.
When babies learn to walk, they incorporate these principles and later we are misdirected by dysfunctional parents, teachers and artificial social constructs causing us to learn to tense up, be distracted, be unbalanced, tense, etc. Having said that, I feel there is an underlying harmony back of existence itself that may improve any function provided we learn to let go in the appropriate manner. Whatever you do a lot of; you become good at because of this, irrespective of what it may be.
Ichi go-Ichi-e. Each moment is itself and we are adaptable creatures. When you ride a horse, if you know how, you sit/stand still, let gravity do the work, breathe naturally, focus on one point=seat, balanced, still, motionless, fully present noticing all in the present moment as it is. Spine straight, balanced etc. etc.
OíSensei of Aikido spent a few years on a horse at Hokkaido. (Not permanently affixed, he got off at the end of the ride each day and probably used different horses from time to time)
Could this have contributed to improving his Aikido?
Most of the ancient warriors in most cultures of the world spent time on horses. (Even today Horse training, dog training, archery, sword work follows the ancient battle protocols - which are a result of sustaining efficiency in action and minimising wasted effort, best practice etc.)
Equestrians use different jargon but identical body-mind principles as required for Aikido. As a teenager I spent some years on Cattle Stations (Ranches) mustering cattle and horses. On some musters we were in the saddle up to 15 hours a day for months. Whilst it did not occur to me at the time, it does wonders for hara, ki, balance, focus, timing, spacing, determination, endurance, ki, kokyo, aiki and more. It also teaches you to communicate using ki. And communication is two-way traffic.
In order to sustain, be balanced and allow the horse to balance with your weight on its back, one has to let go of excrescent body and mental tension. We changed horses 2 or 3 times a day for the sake of the beast. We virtually lived on a horse during musters. This breaks down resistance and forces you to move correctly. Balance, relax and flow is a must. (Ki-no-nagare) Otherwise you would not last one hour let alone 15. It is not what you do that provides success but WHAT YOU LEAVE OUT DOING THAT IS NOT NECESSARY. And this allows you to continue.
Real riding ALSO FOLLOWS ancient battlefield protocols. Riding technique is identical to standing combat. As a rule of thumb put power into 90% seat=hara, 9% legs, 0 to 1% hands AND USE PINKY POWER!
An equestrian master needs no bridle because (s)he rides with SEAT which is identical to HARA. You start, stop and turn USING YOUR SEAT. (Yes you got it, B-U-M, hips, hara!)
Amateurs do the opposite, which is why any real horse soon gets rid of them, because a horse is not a bike. For reference you do not steer a horse by reefing on its mouth, as do the extremely ignorant and unskilled. Nor is a bridle for stopping the horse either! You request using hara/seat and the horse always complies. When you know how to ask.
A horse feels. Many living activities have much in common. Horse stance practice, sitting meditation, real horse riding and budo have identical requirements and all trigger the awakening of skills such as: zanshin, ma- ai, de-ai, metsuke, kokyo, hara, kokoro, taisabaki. ki-ai, ki, ai-ki, tsuki, atemi, ukemi and running.
Most animals are born masters in all these and more skills including telepathy, (believe what you will). And their communication skills are superior too. Words are limited and carry a delayed reaction and the potential to be misunderstood. Many of these qualities, developed over millions of years of survival, seem to rub off when working with them.
Horse riding requires Absolute BALANCE.
Hara equals seat.
Buddha explained meditation as: "Our natural state, " and its practice as: "Being intensely mindful and fully present in each moment, with what is as it is ñ whether in action or stillness."
On a horse, a real horse not a broken and sad underfed creature you find at these tragic horse for hire places, if you daydream, think too much or allow your consciousness to depart from what IS in the immediate moment, you end up on the ground dead, injured or practicing ukemi. Just like a fight.
On this basis real horse riding, equestrian dressage conducted with a powerful living conscious communicating, beast who is also cheeky, personality plus, volatile, tempestuous, vivacious, contrary and very, very conscious of your presence Ö HARMONIZATION IS NEVERTHELESS POSSIBLE!
Truth be known, so-called horse breaking is a form of unnecessary brutality. Communication IN THE HORSE'S LANGUAGE is sufficient. This is all KI work.
The horse is many times stronger and heavier than any human, FORCE IS NEVER NECESSARY (only for idiots), communication is everything, doing less achieves more. You can develop a relationship with a so-called wild horse to the point he lets you ride within an hour or two of playing with the beast and this without any equipment, pulleys, ropes, whips, beatings or brutality. Forced riding is the behaviour of fools who are riddled with fear and lack skill.
Horses prefer women riders. Women are more predisposed to communicating emotionally and with ki. Horses understand this better than being bullied. They understand bullying too, but naturally fight back. Despite our sometimes mistreatment, this noble creature has carried our species from time immemorial.
To succeed, it becomes necessary to develop a different relationship with gravity, motion, timing, spacing and energetic relationship. Well, different from dormant that is. We have to get into the ocean of existence as-it-is, instead of a conceptual head trip and learn to swim, so to speak. Experience all its moods.
When riding, balance is everything or both rider and horse will tire quickly and risk injury. Economy of motion is essential.
You have to SIT STILL, DO NOTHING and COMMUNICATE through very minimal movements and thoughts. It is called asking in equestrian circles but when you get a really good horse you don’t even have to ask, you just think it and the horse thinks he thought the thought and does it anyway. I won’t go into a long-winded stories about horses I have known,. Take my word for it. Some are truly remarkable. None of my horses were broken as such. A broken horse is like a broken human being, he fears the master and subjugates himself to slavery, bullying and domination but does not want to be there. It is a tragedy. That ís not riding or horsemanship. It ís the clumsiness of the unskilled mimicking of something they do not understand. You don’t break a horse; you develop a working relationship through establishment of mutual respect. And communication. Just like you run a real dojo.
Anyway over millions of years of survival, the horse and all other living creatures, developed certain attributes. In the case of the horse, zanshin, deai, maai and balance are pre-eminent. And running from trouble.
When stallions fight in mating season, whether for real or in play they rear up and strike with the pointed part of the hoof much as in boxing. Mares on the other hand tend to turn and kick with their hind legs. There is a reason for this difference.
By the way. I was once told by a certain martial artist that high flying kicks by people were developed to unseat a rider. I don’t know how people get into these delusional states. It can’t be done. If there is anyone out there, I challenge them to try. If a stallion, the dude with the high flying kicks will be struck dead. And if a mare, you want to see taisabaki and a rump strike to send you to kingdom come? Maybe this great master was referring to little miniature ponies or a donkey. In that case I concede. Maybe.
In order to be successful, the rider has to think/feel like a horse and speak the language which is A TACTILE, GESTURAL, MAAI AND MOVEMENT BASED COMMUNICATION. (Although most horses also seem to understand the fs and bs very well for some reason.)
As stated earlier, SEAT is pre-eminent. This equates to Hara. In equestrian terms sometimes called GLUE BUM, STICKY SEAT = hara, low centre gravity sitting deep. Bucking is relatively easy to stay on but shies are a different story. That is usually a mare's specialty where they suddenly move sideways as a fear or attention getting response. To stay on you have to BE the horse. (KI-NO-MUSUBI- BONDING) Thinking is far too slow. Move simultaneously, awase, synchronicity. Otherwise you hit the deck. Nothing wrong with the horse. If you come off, LOOK AT IMPROVING YOUR RIDING SKILLS.
“Become the opponent, embrace the energy of the attack O’Sensei.
The same in a fight. There is no such thing as a wrong attack. By definition all attacks are wrong. It is you who has to immediately adapt and harmonise. Real attacks have no style. They just happen. And if you want to live, then YOU have to happen with the event.
Just like a horse’s shy. Drop your centre of gravity, sit deep and move with what’s going on. If you just happen to be thinking, reflecting on the shopping list, daydreaming or mentally wandering, it’s over! Whether horse or a fight, it can be a pain in the butt if you can’t ukemi. If you’re lucky. Or hospital or worse if not. Part of this “luck” is ukemi training.
I know it’s difficult in today’s world but if you would like your Budo to improve remarkably, I strongly urge that you find a way to do regular horse work for a few years. Yes, this includes shovelling manure, which forms the beginning of apprenticeship. If you are not prepared to do that, forget riding! Riding is a small percentage. Horses are high maintenance creatures. If you are serious, then find someone like Monty Roberts, who understands horses. The horses will teach you more about Aikido and Budo than most men ever can. I love horse work and dream of an Aiki dojo with horse work incorporated into the training.
Millions of years of survival instinct and skill are ALIVE, ON THE SURFACE, FULLY ACTIVE in any animal. We humans sometimes cloud it over forget we have it too. Regular training reboots up the computer so to speak.
FULLY PRESENT WITH THAT WHICH IS, AS IT IS, AND INTENSELY MINDFUL IN THE MOMENT, EACH INSTANT ACTION is Buddha’s definition of life and meditation.
Not falling asleep and daydreaming.
Balanced relaxation.
This applies to ALL SKILL IN ACTION.
Particularly Budo training and its related, or other arts such as the Equestrian Arts. Incidentally Haute Ecole now preserved in very few places like the Vienna Riding School and some places in Spain are all things HORSES DO IN NATURE and at the same time BATTLEFIELD TECHNIQUES. Forget buck jumping, that’s for fools with ego problems. Interesting but futile.
Sitting on a horse and or fighting skilfully requires that we half way between sit, stand and levitate and yet with weight underside, deep centre of gravity. HARA EQUALS SEAT, hence Horse Stance Training and moving in context! To the required action of the moment. Stillness within action and action within stillness. The Universe as it is!
Aikido, Budo and Riding all deal with ENERGY RELATIONSHIP of action, mind, body, mass, energy, space, time, and intention in a Dynamically Balanced state.
Finally it is my opinion that in good quality training we DO NOT TRAIN as such. We are actually UN-TRAINING the crap and clutter that gets in the way of us being what we really are and thus moving in accordance to natural harmony.
And we then learn to notice NEW PARADIGMS to which we were previously blind and NAVIGATE these successfully, naturally and harmoniously.
To get to the point: Equestrian masters are forever yelling and telling their students to: "Be still, be still, be still, and stop moving." Conscious stillness in action. You cannot begin to learn to ride, or fight, using aiki until you can sit or stand totally still.
An immense portion of Aikido can be learnt from horses!
The Hakama was actually developed as RIDING CHAPS.
Morihei Ueshiba was a horseman as were numerous ancestors in the Aikibujutsu tradition.
If you want you Aikido to shine and you get the opportunity, don’t knock back the art of dressage and good horsemanship.
Oh, one more thing: An ancient Arab poem about the horse goes something like this:
"When God willed to create the horse, He said to the South Wind: "I will make a creature of you. I shall create from thy substance a new being which shall be a being which will be a happiness to the good and a misfortune to the bad. Condense thyself!" And the wind condensed itself. When the wind condensed itself, Angel Gabriel caught a handful and presented it to God from which He created therefrom the horse of a dark red colour... addressed him saying: "I have created thee and named thee Horse. I have bestowed my blessings upon thee above all other beasts of burden and made thee their master. Success and happiness are bound to thy forelock; bounty reposes on your back and riches and happiness are with you wherever you may be. And I have endowed thee to fly without wings; you are for pursuit and for flight. I establish thee as one of the Glories of the Earth. And God imprinted upon the horse's forehead a white star, and on its foot a white marking and He bestowed a blessing upon it above all creatures of burden... The colour red stood for liberty, faith and charity and represented the perfect colour... The white star symbolizes influence in the lives and destinies of humans, while the white markings on the foot denote life and inspiration... When God created the horse...”
The poem goes on somewhat, but makes one singularly important omission. It leaves out the fact that it was the horse who inspired man to discover The Principle of Ai-Ki, not only in battle but also in many things.
Good Aikibujutsu contains several vital principles among which primary are:
a) Capitalizing on reflex action; crude and simple aiki.and;
b) Mixing it up it up with unexpected variety and weaponry, the cutting edge of riai.
But there is another principle that locks these two in and multiplies their effectiveness exponentially.
And that is:
c) Aiki no Nagare - Dynamic Flowing Equilibrium using Balance and Hara with all entities interacting as one. Aiki no Nagare is defined by absolute Musubi transcending ideas of awase, or sen no sen or go no sen, or attack and defence, or me and enemy, (or any separation between horse and rider). Aiki no Nagare rises above the action and rests into the action, dominating by using total allowance in an ongoing dance of kaeshi cooperation where the attack supports and gives power to the defence entirely.It is more than an idea or concept and must be incorporated into the Aiki-budoka’s total being.
Aiki no Nagare and many other attributes are best learnt and perfected with horses.
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