by Régis Soavi
Tension and relaxation are the two most visible aspects of the human inner movement; like yin and yang they may follow one another, intertwine or overlap, but they are never totally separate despite the intensity of the reactions they provoke.
Our world offers us reasons for tension every day, which in itself is not to be condemned, as it is more often an involuntary function, even a defence reflex in the face of adversity. Human beings have a thousand reasons to tense up, but the tension that seeks to relieve itself very often provokes aggressive attitudes that lead to a snowball effect. It is then difficult to bring a little relaxation to resolve the situation. We try to get relaxation from voluntary processes, but very often it is even worse and the situation escalates. The more you try to relax, the more you reason, the more the tension increases – an escalation that seems to never end.
Involuntary
Tension is merely a response to a given situation. If the response is appropriate, everything is fine. But very often it carries us to something we do not want and causes us to exceed the limits acceptable to others. At other times it causes blockages that make it impossible – or at least difficult – to resolve a fear or an internal conflict. In these cases, obtaining relaxation often results from a voluntary effort, rigorous training, a conscious overcoming of the situation.
In contrast to the search for control through willpower, Seitai has a relatively simple yet common-sense view of body movement, and I have often heard Tsuda sensei expound it during his conferences. In his book The Dialogue of Silence, he sums up Noguchi sensei’s thoughts on health in one sentence:
So death does not happen abruptly. We approach death through a gradual loss of elasticity.’ 1
Tsuda sensei explains to us in another book, Even if I don’t think, I am:
Encouraging relaxation during immobilisation
Is tensionless something inhuman?
There are adages that give food for thought, like this one: ‘Only the wise man, like a living Buddha, remains even-tempered at all times and assumes a tranquil posture that reflects the most perfect relaxation’. Is this true or is it, as usual, a misunderstood idea, a message that loses all its value because of its simplistic reduction? And who can make such a claim?
Martial arts practitioners are often looking for ways to remain calm, not to be overcome by fear, whatever the circumstances. Meditation as well as exercises designed for this purpose can lead us to some kind of serenity but, when you find yourself unexpectedly in a difficult situation, most often everything flies out of control, “one goes to pieces”.
Staying Cool
How do you stay calm and peaceful when a situation becomes perilous? The answer depends of course on the situation itself, but above all on the person’s Taiheki (postural tendencies) and therefore on their posture and their body’s capacity for movement. What is called Taiheki is the visible expression of the polarisation of vital energy at a particular location in the body, most usually an area including the Koshi and one or more vertebrae. This obviously has an influence on bodily habits and therefore can cause blockages as well as greater ease of movement, and affect the speed with which you take action.
Faced with a given situation, a certain type of practitioner will only be able to find relaxation through action: a blockage of energy in the third lumbar vertebra forces them to twist and act in order to spend it, whatever the consequences. Once the problem has been solved, even if they realise they have acted foolishly, they will relax.
Another one needs to think before she acts, she knows techniques to protect herself in the event of danger, but when she is actually in the situation she moves away from the scene – if she can – to remain a spectator. This detachment enables her to think critically and make objective judgements. Her energy is blocked at the first lumbar and third cervical vertebrae; it tends to rise to the brain but cannot easily flow back down. She relaxes because she is satisfied when she finds the theoretical solution.
Yet another one will be an excellent practitioner, a sportsman in great shape, but for him relaxation comes when he has calculated his shot well. He is ready and knows how to react, his techniques are sure and he dominates the situation. His energy is concentrated in the fifth lumbar vertebra, which pushes him forward.
“Solfège”, relaxation exercise before practice
Balance
Whatever our posture, our agility, our difficulties or our blockages, what we seek in our daily lives to maintain our fitness – and therefore our health – is balance, the ability to tense up when we need to and to remain relaxed when it is no longer necessary. The capacity for tension is favoured by relaxation, which acts as a regulator of human health. It is the alternation of tension and relaxation, fullness and emptiness that governs everyone’s life. It is our involuntary system – when in good working order and therefore capable of reacting – that will give the right answers to all the circumstances that may arise, because intuition – as philosopher Henri Bergson declared3 – is ‘a consciousness more and more wide awake and luminous’ and, when properly awakened, is the indisputable judge of the situation.
If we are interested in the inner development of the individual, the practice of Aikido leads us – and I dare say even forces us – to have a non-dualistic vision and understanding of the world in which we live. It allows us to rediscover the profound meaning of Tao as unity, to experience yin and yang as non-separate forces that run through the body. Whether we are contracting or relaxing, we can feel these forces as currents, biological flows carried by the muscular networks and animated by what we find difficult to define, but which each of us knows and recognises. All that remains then is to guide them so that they harmonise us and our partners in every movement and every technique.
‘Humanity probably began with such an intensity of life, as well as a large gap between tension and relaxation, between the concentration of energy and its dispersion, to be able to make its way with nothing but intuition. With the development of intelligence, intuition withdrew, giving way to logical, rational explanation and the imperative of order. The use of crutches multiplied.’ 4
Exhaling
All Aikido sessions in our School begin with a breathing practice and, even more precisely, with a deep breathing exercise that was taught to Tsuda sensei by Seitai master Noguchi Haruchika sensei and integrated into this first part one performs alone albeit at the same rhythm as the others; a part that was very important to O sensei, that he practised every morning and that, despite the transmission by Tsuda sensei, Tamura sensei and many others, has disappeared from most dojos; a part that was forgotten for lack of knowledge or understanding, because it was very often mistakenly equated with a religious rite or a sports warm-up, when in fact it was a Misogi – in other words, a ritual of purification, of union with nature and at the same time of realising oneself as being part of a whole, of being both the whole and the part, without distinction.
The Seitai exercise works like this: seated in seiza, on your heels, you place your hands at the level of your solar plexus and, pressing lightly, you bend forward until you touch the tatamis, exhaling with your mouth wide open but relaxed, somehow a little like a child being ‘speechless’ in front of an unexpected gift. You then straighten up with the inhalation. This is in fact a kind of artificially induced yawn – because, as we all know, you cannot yawn voluntarily or even on command. Even if it is not spontaneous, this yawn has a profound effect on the parasympathetic system and causes a relaxation that can last for a long time or, at least for a beginner, for the duration of the session. You do this exercise three times in a row, quite leisurely, before continuing with the breathing practice, which will be punctuated by the alternation between inhaling and exhaling.
It is the amplitude of the breathing, and the fact of remaining concentrated on this act, that allows relaxation to follow tension, creates that possibility of not remaining in one or other of these states that block our actions and reactions, because of too much unspent energy or a lack of reactivity due to flaccidity.
Aikido loses its identity without relaxation
No need to look backward far away: if Aikido has had its moment of glory as a martial art, it is due more to the relaxed way in which our masters taught, the beauty of their gestures and the simplicity of their behaviour, from which the effectiveness that fascinated us when we were beginning flowed obviously. It was this attitude that touched us, much more than the tension, the abrupt or even violent gestures, or the aggression that manifests itself in many aspects of our social world or in war practices.
I believe it vital not to forget our roots, nor to deny what has always been part of the teaching of our art, but on the contrary to understand its importance, its power and its finesse. To guide new people, the generation of millennials, like the elders of the previous century, by modestly offering them what we have been able to discover and experience: the result of a practice that is as gentle and supple as it is intensive at times, but always in search of an understanding of the other, of a fusion of sensibilities, of relaxation, in order to always foster life.
This is the path I follow, this is the path of our School, this is the path taught to me by my master Tsuda Itsuo. This is the path that allows us to be in this world while living in another. This is how I can make my own the aphorism of philosopher Raoul Vaneigem:
‘In the irrepressible desire to live, the laws of a world that is not mine are dissolved and abolished.’ 5
‘Complementarity’, an article by Régis Soavi published in July 2024 in Self et Dragon Spécial Aikido n° 18.