Читать книгу Aikido Weapons Techniques. The Wooden Sword, Stick, and Knife of Aikido онлайн

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Contact can be initiated mentally and physically. Some will talk about the initial eye contact. Eye contact—the eyes being the window to the heart, mind, and soul of an individual—sets the stage and foretells the outcome for the rest of the encounter. Others suggest that contact can be made by means of an energy or kinesthetic sense, by just feeling the attacker’s presence and intent. Contact may be auditory, by hearing the attacker’s approach. Without contact, there is no attack or defense, and there is no aikido. O’Sensei Morihei Ueshiba would instruct students not to focus their eyes on the weapon, for one can then easily be deceived. Rather look through your opponent’s eyes, using your peripheral vision and all the other senses to simply perceive and be aware, rather than focus. This is extremely important due to the extended range and potential danger of weapons training in aikido.

Once contact is established, it should be maintained in one fluid movement, throughout the execution of the technique, and even during the resolution of the encounter or attack. Initially, techniques are practiced in a step-by-step, systematic manner or pattern. This allows the practitioner to focus on the correct form at different stages of the technique’s execution. Eventually, the follow-through of one stage, or phase, naturally and fluidly follows the momentum and inertia into the next. This ongoing flowing execution is characteristic of aikido. The weapon of aikido never stops. Defense flows into offense that flows into defense. Never stopping, all weapons training techniques enter and blend into one motion.