From the Aikido Center of Los Angeles’ Aiki Dojo Message - Don’t Rush
If there is one piece of advice, I could give a student, I think I would encourage them not to rush. Rushing activates our physiological "fight-or-flight" response, which releases adrenaline and causes tunnel vision and decreases our peripheral vision. When this happens, we cannot see the mistakes that we are making because we are too hyper focused on that one thing despite everything around us caving in. In Japanese, they say, isogaba maware (急がば回れ) or “haste makes waste.”
The other day I was reading this article on why rushing feels so exhausting and the author explained this idiom. In his article, Takayuki Togo wrote, “Isogaba maware offers a gentle yet powerful counter-philosophy. Its idiomatic meaning is ‘Haste makes waste.’ More positively, it teaches that ‘The quickest way to reach a goal is by taking the safest, most reliable route, even if it appears to be a detour.’”
I never thought about it like that. If we are in a hurry, we should take the long way and not shoot for the short cut. The reason is that because our fight-or-flight response is activated, we will most likely miss a crucial detail in the short cut which could set us back. Haven’t you ever been late and taken a short cut only to go the wrong way which caused you to be later than if you just took the regular long way?
The same thinking is true in Aikido training. Often times, we think that to improve quicker or learn faster, we should somehow force it. Forcing it means going faster, pushing harder, or using too much strength. This may work in the beginning but, in time, this only leads to frustration for you, the teacher and everyone else in the room who are not on the path of forcing it.
When we train with our partner, we need to create a synergistic balance and harmony with them. I am not advocating for going easy. What I am referring to is that you and your partner need to create this intuitive bond where both are working together to learn and improve. If one person is trying to force it when the other person is not ready to train that way, it only leads to feelings of frustration or bad blood. When working with your partner, you should try to gain an intuitive sense about how much effort, speed, strength, etc is needed and what they can handle, or what they want. If you cannot read your partner and just force it, you are training self-centeredly and this can only lead to disharmony.
Trying to read the person intuitively is hard and takes years of training. Therefore, until you can intuitively read your partner, you should just ask them. This is the easiest way to affirm if you intuited them correctly. This can be hard too if you are shy and not assertive enough, but this is also a part of training. The worst thing to do is to just force yourself upon someone else. Then, when you are not getting your way, the frustration will be shown on your face or in how you treat them. Everyone can tell, even if you think you are hiding it, that you are frustrated or having a bad day. This show of frustration can create hurt feelings and cause that person to resent you or rise up against you.
The people who come to class are not there for us to vent our frustration upon and they are not there to be our throwing dummies. Everyone should train hard, but that doesn’t mean that they should be treated in a dehumanizing or bullying way.
The philosopher Lao Tzu said, "Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." One of the hardest things about Aikido training is that it kind of comes when it comes and the more we force it, the more it doesn’t come. Please don’t rush.
Today’s goal: If you find yourself rushing, take a breath, slow down and maybe take the long way around.
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