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Ikkyo is not the answer
I was recently in conversation with a good Aikido friend, and what I was trying to express didn’t seem to land. Most likely, I didn’t say it very well.
So let me try again.
If I do ikkyo, the first technique in Aikido or any technique, I’m not really doing Aikido.
I’m performing a technique.
But if ikkyo emerges from the relationship I have with uke, if it arises from a sense of quiet and an appreciation of the “us,” then I am coming closer to Aikido.
The difference might appear subtle, but it changes everything, because one is about doing more, and the other is discovering the us.
When I do more, there can always be objection, resistance. The aim of Aikido is to dissolve that resistance, because in the absence of doing, there is only relationship.
I like the old saying, "Can't we all just get along?" How much better the world would be if they followed that old saw! Cooperation, rather than competition. We should all stop trying to show how much better, stronger, faster, prettier or richer we are, but just to be content with who we are as Ben Zoma would have said.
Yes, this is critical, a Most Excellent point.
My thoughts while reading this Scott.
Art is something in response to novelty.
When Doing Falls Away,
what remains is not passivity
but
Participation—
A single movement lived by two people,
where Nage and Uke dissolve
into one event unfolding.
Aikido is not the performance of form.
-It is the recognition of the Us,
-that existed
before the technique ever began.
Technique is
no longer the starting point,
If ikkyo arises from the relationship between myself and uke — from listening rather than imposing, from quiet attention rather than intention to succeed — then the technique is not something
I apply,
It is something that emerges.
No Agenda.
-Which might mean no closure
It can not be reduced.
The difference is subtle but can be transformative.
-One approach asks:
“How do I perform ikkyo?”
The other asks:
“What is happening between Us right now?”
In the first case, I am doing more.
I organize my body,
I apply structure,
and try to make the technique work,
Because I am adding something,
Then Uke can oppose it.
Then Resistance becomes natural,
even inevitable.
In the second case,
I am not trying to overcome Uke,
I am discovering the shared space
We already inhabit.
Technique becomes a consequence of relationship rather than an act of control.
Autopoiesis.
When action comes from effort,
there is always something to resist.
But When Action comes from relationship, resistance has nothing to push against.
This is why Aikido often feels paradoxical.
The Aim Is Not The disappearance of technique — techniques remain essential as forms that educate the body —
(Pedagogical)
They move from being solutions we apply to becoming expressions of connection.
At that point, ikkyo is no longer my technique applied to the other,
-It is simply the shape the relationship takes in that moment.
And perhaps that is what Aikido points toward:
In the absence of “doing,” what remains is NOT passivity,
but participation — a shared movement where Nage and Uke are no longer opposing roles, but two aspects of one event.
Aikido, then, is not the execution of form.
-It is the discovery of
The Us already present before the technique begins.