by Régis Soavi

There are several ways of considering at Jiyūwaza work and each school has its own way of seeing and practising it. As far as the Itsuo Tsuda School is concerned, it has undoubtedly made it one of the basis of its teaching and pedagogy.

Jiyūwaza: “Free movement”

Although Tsuda sensei was Japanese, he rarely used technical terms from his mother tongue. An intellectual of great subtlety, writer and philosopher, lecturer and Seitai technician, he attached great importance to being understood, if possible, at all times. Therefore, as he had a perfect command of the French language, during Aikido sessions he spoke only French. For me, who followed all the sensei who came to France at the time, it was quite strange to hear him explain or show a technique without even saying its name in Japanese. On the other hand, some students who only knew his Aikido were used to it and were not at all shocked. Personally, I have maintained the practice of using Japanese names as a means of communication in my teaching, only when it is indispensable, and this has become a tradition in our dojos. That is why in our school, what we call “free movement” at the end of each session, just before doing the kokyu ho, is an exercise that could be called “Jiyūwaza”. It is a kind of light randori, and it is a very important moment, because the spaces between people are reduced by the fact that everyone is moving in all directions at the same time, and everyone acts as they please following their inspiration, depending on their partner, or the angle at which they are in relation to the other. Sometimes, without transition, while continuing the exercise and without anyone going to sit down, I make people change partners. Then, after a few minutes, I say “change” again, and finally, I announce with a smile “general brawl!” and there is a joyful scrum, in which everyone is both Uke and Tori, in turn and at the same time, it is a bit of a mess but in a light way, so that no one gets hurt, and yet it is important that everyone gives their best according to their level. This is an important exercise that I often use in workshops where there are a lot of people, because it shows what we are capable of doing in a chaotic situation. It is essential that the attacks made are not violent, that they do not cause fear, but that they are firm enough to feel the continuity of ki in the gesture. If they are superficial or hesitant, you are wasting your time or deluding yourself about your abilities. It is a difficult learning process that takes years, but it is of great pedagogical importance, which is why we practise “free movement” in pairs every day at the end of each session.

Once again the sphere

While watching a documentary on evolution that one of my students had sent me during the lockdown, I was astonished, like him, to discover the visual representation of the sphere surrounding a very special fish belonging to the Mormyridae group. Although they have been known since ancient times – curiously, they were often depicted in the frescoes and bas-reliefs that adorned the tombs of the pharaohs – we have just discovered some remarkable qualities about them. They are fish with a bony skeleton, which is already quite rare, and furthermore have unique abilities. They hunt and communicate by means of electrical impulses, emitting small electrical discharges (between 5 and 20 V), extremely short, less than a millisecond, which are repeated at a variable rate without interruption for more than a second. A special organ produces this electric field that surrounds the fish. By converting the electrical impulses into sound and then into lines, we get an image like the one in this article, and we can thus visualise the sphere of these fish, which they can also use as a defence system. Thanks to this field, they can distinguish a predator from a prey or from one of their own kind. When a predator enters this field, it distorts it, and this information is immediately transmitted to the cerebellum. Their cerebellum is considerably larger than the rest of their brain. This ability to generate and analyse a weak electric current is useful for orientation in space, and enables them to locate obstacles and detect prey, even in murky water or in the absence of light.

A mental representation or a function of the cerebellum

The human sphere may be no more than a mental representation of people’s unconscious capacities – we will perhaps know in several years or centuries – but that in no way diminishes its reality, as felt by the practitioner of martial arts, or its effectiveness. Ki, that mysterious feeling of our own energy, our observation, the atmosphere, which all peoples have known and passed on in their cultures without being able to give it a precise definition, could well be the answer, although considered unscientific, it has an empirical reality which is attested by the experience of many masters, shamans or mystics. If we look to cognitive sciences for answers, we can find elements that, taken together, give substance to this research.

The cerebellum plays an important role in all vertebrates. In humans, its role is absolutely essential for motor control, which is the ability to make dynamic postural adjustments and direct the body and limbs to perform a precise movement. It is also a determining factor in certain cognitive functions and is moreover involved in attention and the regulation of fear and pleasure responses. It contributes to the coordination and synchronisation of gestures, and to the precision of movements. In case of a simultaneous attack by several people, martial arts – and Aikido in particular – must have prepared the individual, through repetition and scenography in kata or free movements, to provide the necessary responses to get out of such a situation. When it comes to survival, the “organs” that are the cerebellum, the thalamus and the extra-pyramidal motor system must be ready. The learning must have been of a high quality, including surprise, attention and even a kind of anxiety, so that the involuntary system can draw on these experiences to make the right gestures.

Like a fish in water

Jiyūwaza is like a dance where the involuntary is king. It is not about being the all-powerful leader over subordinates or minions, but rather about entering a subtle world where perception and sensation lead us. Like the fish mentioned above, it is about feeling the movement of the other the moment it unfolds and touches our sphere. Above all, we must not start in advance, with the risk of the attack changing as we go, but rather be in a position, a posture, that elicits a certain type of gesture and therefore response. The technique must not be predictable or foreseeable, but adaptable and adapted to the form that is trying to reach us. A rereading of Sun Tzu offers us some choice quotations, such as: ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete.’ ¹. Knowing, while not knowing what is going to happen: how is this possible? It is through the fusion of sensitivity with our partner that we can discover how to behave, how to act, how to react without prior thinking, without hesitation. Little by little, this kind of exercise creates a kind of trust in which all answers are possible. This is the time to go further, to ask our partner to be more subtle, and also more persistent. Whenever possible, he should reverse roles and present himself as if he were Tori instead of Uke.

Fudōshin

When practising with different partners, or when it comes to stepping out of the comfort of everyday practice with people we know, in order to express what some call our potential, various reactions of tension occur, the body, fearing this different encounter, stiffens and becomes rigid. Tsuda Itsuo sensei provides us with an answer, or rather deciphers the situation through a text by Takuan which he quotes, while developing two or three concepts for us Westerners that shed light on the behaviour and resources that we need to find deep within ourselves.