“An imperturbable demeanor comes from perfect patience. Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
In our Aikido, we are supposed to simultaneously hide all of our “openings” or suki (隙) while searching for an opening in our opponent’s defenses. In these “openings,” we are vulnerable and open to our opponent’s attack. At the beginning of one’s training, these openings leave us unguarded physically and mentally. Later with more experience, one realizes that the openings are purely a lack of mental focus. Training teaches us how to be mentally awake or “mindful” so that we may fill in these physical gaps or mental lapses. Furuya Sensei once wrote, “In Zen, this is called ‘mindfulness’ and in swordsmanship, this is referred to as sukima ga nai (隙間がない) or ‘to have no openings’ whatsoever.” In Aikido there is no attacking, but that doesn’t mean that we are passively waiting. In swordsmanship, there is this concept of sen no sen where one “knows” what the opponent will do and thus strikes before the opponent moves. In Aikido, it is sen sen no sen which can be a kind of intuitive movement. O’Sensei said, “If I were to try to verbalize it, I would say that we control our opponent without trying to control them. That is, the state of continuous victory. There isn’t any question of winning over or losing to an opponent. In this sense, there is no opponent in Aikido. Even if we have an opponent, they become a part of us, a partner we control only.” Today, our opponent is a global pandemic on the microscopic level, but that doesn’t mean we cannot still be calm and mindful and look for an opening. What opening is our opponent creating for us to take advantage of? This is Aikido and this is our training.