柔よく剛を制す
Ju yoku go wo sei shi
Softness conquers hardness
Warriors may bend, but they never break. With martial arts training, a physically weaker or smaller person can defeat a larger or stronger opponent. To explain this idea, teachers often use the analogy of being like “a willow blowing in the wind” or yanagi ni kaze (柳に風). The idea is that the willow moves with the wind and not against it. Yamaoka Tesshu, the great swordsman advocated this when he said, “The great essence of swordsmanship is the willow blowing in the gentle breeze.” In Aikido, we strive to understand the analogy of being like the willow as we harmonizing with our opponent’s attack. In striking, the strength of the strike follows an arc that goes from weak to strong to weak. Supposedly, when the arm is at 70% extension, it is at 100% power. Understanding this, an Aikidoist tries to time their movements to not only go with their opponent’s power but to also take advantage of it when it is at its weakest point. Thus, harmonizing is not really mindlessly yielding but mindfully using softness to conquer hardness. This idea of softness conquering hardness comes from Lao Tzu, the Taoist philosopher who said, “The soft overcomes the hard; and the weak the strong.” Aikido, like life, is about maintaining a balance between hard and soft or strong and weak. There has to be a balance as strength is unusable without flexibility and flexibility is meaningless without strength. The analogy of the willow teaches us to harmonize - when times are good, we should stand tall and be proud but when times are bad, we should also be patient and pliable. Being pliable doesn’t mean to be spineless. On the contrary, being pliable means having the fortitude to bend but also the strength not to break. Today, it seems that we are all reaching our breaking points. Please have the fortitude to bend and not to break.
Today’s goal: Be kind. Pliability is about being kind to yourself and others. Remember, everyone is suffering on some level.