Feminist Aikidoka: Ukemi the Bane of My Existence

Falling hurts. There is no way around it or so I thought. Ukemi is the art (or technique) of falling safely and I am obsessed with it. The idea of absorbing a fall by rolling diagonally onto my arm and on to my back at first seemed very unnatural. But after absorbing the impact with my shoulders and head a number of times, I can honestly say that falling on your arm and back hurts way less. What's more perplexing is when I fall right it doesn't hurt at all. Falling on purpose is still a scary thing for me. And the floor is a really long way away when you need to do a standing forward roll.

According to Dennis Sensei, falling safely allows you to quickly pick your self up, find your balance, and locate your center. One practice that has been helping me is Linda Sensei's penchant for pairing newbies with black belts for individual instruction on our ukemi at the beginning of the intermediate class. This has been super useful because everyone has a different way of describing mae ukemi (forward rolls). I have heard about how your arms should form a wheel, that you should extend your ki (life force, energy) into your arms, and that I should think of the un-bendable arm exercise. Yet it wasn't until last week when Cory told me that I just needed to imagine myself as a ball puffed up with air that my rolls started to improve. I could envision being a perfectly inflated round basketball. The perfect bounce comes from the air inside the ball as it embraces the ground. The light bulb moment for me was realizing that the extension of ki requires effort on my part in that I need to be aware of my body (while I'm falling) long enough to make it round. Even so, it's still hard to know if I am falling correctly. It's difficult to watch yourself fall! Thankfully, Aikido of Santa Cruz has amazing practitioners like Sadie who doesn't mind staying after class to help me obsess over ukemi.

Ukemi - the art of falling safely

Now let me explain ki which is essential to the practice of ukemi. The western tendency to separate out the mind from the spirit and body is a relatively recent development in the history of western theology and philosophy. The concept of ki comes from a tradition where one’s life force is mental, physical, and spiritual and can be affected through practices designed to strengthen it. Ki is thought to originate in one’s center or hara – that one point two inches below the navel. Concentrating on that spot produces the unification of the physical and mental parts of the self which increases the power of ki that fuels Aikido movements. Finding your ki, particularly for those of us at the beginning of our practice, is tough. Apparently we all have ki, but thus far mine seems to be hiding.

Kochi Tohei Sensei, who was primarily responsible for introducing Aikido to the West via Hawaii in the 1950’s, was a huge influence on my mom’s Aikido's practice. Kochi Tohei Sensei felt that one of the most important aspects of Aikido was the cultivation of ki. He felt so strongly that ki should be cultivated in life as well as within the context of Aikido abroad that he founded an offshoot branch of Aikido in 1974 called Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido, also known as Ki Aikido or the Ki Society.

So what can you do with ki other than ukemi? The un-bendable arm exercise of course!!! This and ki are two concepts I remember my mom talking about my whole life. For her ki was the most important principle in life, something she saw as being reflected in the Aikido practice of the un-bendable arm. The basic idea is this: if your arm (stretched out and raised on your partner's shoulder) is stiff, it is very easy to bend but when it is relaxed and the practitioner envisions ki extending from the outstretched arm thousand of miles forward, the arm becomes impossible to bend. This principle was what my mom intended to do at the United Nations demonstration in New York in the 60's. But given she was in an audience of skeptical New Yorkers, she raised the stakes and applied the un-bendable arm exercise to her entire body. My mom was subtle that way.

Virginia Mayhew at the United Nations demonstration

Kochi Tohei and Virginia Mayhew

Another important influence on the practice of Aikido (and my mom’s understanding of it) is the philosophy behind Oomoto-kyo (a re-envisioning and re-fashioning of Shinto religious beliefs that took place in the nineteenth century). Oomoto is defined as the Great Source or Great Origin. Oomoto teaches that there are many different paths to God and that every religious tradition is equally valid because they all come from the same source. Through the unification of dichotomies humans can bring themselves into harmony with the universe and effectively bring about an end to war and conflict – a peaceful stance (with an implied objection to the buildup of military power) that led to the imprisonment of their spiritual leader during World War II. And by the way did I mention that this religion was founded by a woman?

We often hear in official histories of Aikido that O-Sensei was a disciple of Onisaburo Deguchi (a man), the co-founder of the Oomoto religion. While I’m not disputing the undeniable influence of Onisaburo Deguchi (who took the family name of his wife, the second spiritual leader of Oomoto, Sumiko Deguchi), what often gets lost in this statement of history is the influence that Oomoto women had on O-Sensei. Oomoto began with Nao Deguchi, a woman born into poverty, who had lost her husband and was struggling to support her children. Immense socio-economic changes (e.g. imperialism and capitalism) were taking place during the nineteenth century that increased poverty and violence. Nao responded by establishing an activist form of religion – one that emphasized community, cooperation and peace. In February of 1892 at her home in Ayabe, Nao was possessed by a kami, Ushitora no Konjin (an ancient spirit), who declared that he had returned to purify and remake the world. According to his instructions the spiritual leader of Oomoto would always be a female descendant of Nao on the matrilineal line. Given how important this religion was to O-Sensei, I find it surprising that women, particularly Oomoto women, are rarely mentioned in the official histories of Aikido. While this has a definite gendered dimension, I also think class may be at play as well. Onisaburo Deguchi (the male co-founder) was able to take Nao's message (remember Nao was a poor peasant woman) and translate it into a script more readily accessible to the literate elite.

Here is how Pranin (1993 http://omlc.ogi.edu/aikido/talk/osensei/bio/mori2.html ) discusses the emergence of Oomoto:

"The upsurgence of the Omoto religion in the beginning of this century was the product of the efforts of two charismatic figures. The first, its foundress, was an illiterate, peasant woman named Nao Deguchi (1836-1918). The other was the eccentric and energetic Onisaburo Deguchi who masterminded the rise to prominence of this powerful and unorthodox religious sect."

While there is nothing factually untrue here, Pranin draws a parallel that clearly does not recognize the patriarchal society in which Nao lived or the privilege afforded Onisaburo (it also smacks of neo-liberal policies that want to "help" poor women/people who have no agency of their own; it feels patronizing). Moreover, in this same article, Pranin continues to talk about how O-Sensei after his father's death begins to live at the Oomoto center in Ayabe in the spring of 1920. This entire discussion, while again probably factually true only speaks about Onisaburo, and NOT Sumiko Deguchi, the official spiritual leader of Oomoto at the time. Again, I have to wonder if there is more to the story.

Just FYI in Wikipedia about religious influences on Aikido (see below) (obviously not the font of truth, albeit the "truth" of the masses) it contributes the entire religion of Oomoto to Onisaburo Deguchi. Funny how women, particularly poor women get quickly dropped out of official histories.

"After Ueshiba (O-Sensei) left Hokkaido in 1919, he met and was profoundly influenced by Onisaburo Deguchi, the spiritual leader of the Omoto-kyo religion (a neo-Shinto movement) in Ayabe."