臨兵闘者皆陣列在前
Rin pyo to sha kai jin retsu zai zen
The bravest warrior excels at the front of the battlefield.
The best warriors always move forward. Zenshin (前進) is the Japanese word used when talking about moving forward on the battlefield. In Aikido, moving forward toward our opponent is referred to as irimi (入り身). A number of years ago, a famous Aikido teacher visited our dojo and watched class. After class, he admonished me by saying, “Your Aikido is too aggressive and relies too heavily on irimi.” From what I gather, because he didn’t have any other sagely wisdom, he was insinuating that irimi was a form of aggression or violence. He is not wrong on a certain level, but Aikido is about balance and one can think of irimi as yang and tenshin and tenkan as yin or that they are two side of the same coin, and one cannot exist without the other. The movements of Aikido are weapon based movements. So, if we think about it from the standpoint of swordsmanship, irimi must be learned first. Prior to the 16th century, swordsmanship was primarily irimi based but in the mid 1500s, Yagyu Munetoshi, the founder of Yagyu Shinkage-ryu, developed muto (無刀) or “no sword” techniques. He was considered genius or enlightened because he was able to incorporate tenkan and tenshin movements and use them to disarm a person with a sword. Before that time, it was unheard of person to irimi on a swordsman empty-handed let alone tenkan or tenshin. In my opinion, people learning Aikido need to be able to have a balance between irimi style movements which can be thought of as “aggressive” and tenkan/tenshin movements which some think are more “peaceful.” Furuya Sensei referred to this balance as, “Saikan Kobai” [sic] or “the elegant apricot flower and the strong plum blossom.” He said, “To focus too much on war makes us rough and crude while the emphasis on too much beauty makes us weak.” Thus, in Aikido and in life, we have to learn how to move forward (irimi) before we can learn to yield or draw back (tenkan/tenshin). Training in the martial arts gives us confidence in ourselves to move forward toward that which confront us and it is why the bravest warriors move forward and excel at the front of the battlefield.
Today’s goal: Figure out what in life you need to move forward on?