Slow is Fast

Musashi once said something along the lines of what is fast is slow, and what is slow is fast..  




Slow seems simple to do and simple to explain but it aint.  You can't see slow because slow is fast.  If you have done hand randori with a high level guy you know what I mean. 

Theres this old saying about the small in the large.  In martial arts practice a lot of folks tend to make big movements.  The big movements help you see things better.  If you think you are ever going to pull off that #2 release around the world throw in Yon Kata you are smoking wacky weed.  That's to show you something.  It's big and obvious and utterly useless, but somewhere inside that thing there's something to be learned.  Something useful.  I can't see it, its in the corner of my vision.      

The Old Timers said that in Budo things are determined in a flash.  Against a high level Randori player you know you are screwed on in that space between one and two even in absolute slowness. The longer things go on the more they tend to collapse and break down.  Aikido is an art of diminishing returns the longer things carry on past the first touch.  That's the lesson of Jodo.  A damned stick against a four foot razor blade. 

I like to go workout with the other Aikido place in town not because they are flashy and cool, its because fast is slow.   You can see and tell what they are doing.   A big grab, a big shomenuchi, a big yokomenuchi, you can see it.  It's a matter of slow blindness. 


I said a thing or two about how the Morty Aikido folks can string things together and ours is waza in islolation.  That may be true, except in randori.  The point of the string is to keep moving, and to keep the guy three steps behind.  You can be slow and put a guy three steps behind. Happens to me every damned week.  That's another truth about aikido: It's the Art of Keeping the Other Guy Three Steps Behind.  You three step him into the ground.   Kuzushi starts all over once the guy is on his knees.   That's the simple kuzushi, that's the point of all the seiza pins.  From the knees to the pin,  pull em, push em, Kuzushi.  

It's a lot easier to jump out of the way of a hand chop, its another thing to offline off of finger pressure.  Cottonballs falling on your arm is the same thing as a sword swipe. 

I like Aikido Kyogi because you see how Tomiki taught the stuff.   It was in big movements.  His principle of Non resistance was getting offline, he literally jumped out of the way, BIG.  He always employed two hands. BIG.  He was showing a student what to do,  It was offline, and Tsukuri.  It was implied transition combining walking steps and Techniques,  the 3 steps ahead spot.

 Kuzushi, the simplest kind, lies in moving offline. Sometimes a good tsukuri is kuzushi.  Kuzushi also lies in transition to the 3 ahead spot, and in reception.  High level randori guys blur all of these.   And they can do it slow.