While no single practice is obviously a ready-made solution to the situation we are experiencing [March 2020 lockdown], continuing a daily practice often helps us to hold our inner course and keep our balance in an unstable situation full of unknowns.
The practical philosophy taught by Itsuo Tsuda is also a path to rediscovering our “inner freedom”. Current events impose severe external constraints on us: it is no longer possible to meet up to practise, or even to move around freely. Some people are also unable to do their jobs, preoccupied with financial difficulties, their loved ones, their health… In short, there is no shortage of reasons for concern and constraints. We are all affected in one way or another, but while recognising this fact, we can look within ourselves and around us for elements that will help us get through this period.
_Inner Peace_, calligraphy by Itsuo Tsuda
This can only be personal; some will need a programme, some will need to practise, even alone, some will need rest, there is no universal answer. It is an opportunity, despite everything, to draw on our inner resources and decide how we want to live in the moment, whatever it may be.
To do this, we have tools at our disposal: the Respiratory Practice, the Regenerative Movement, Itsuo Tsuda‘s nine books, Régis Soavi sensei’s articles, but also what we have discovered through this: the awakening of our inner strength.
It is not a question of overcoming fear or fleeing reality, but of facing the situation while maintaining inner calm. This is one of the meanings of budo for martial arts practitioners: overcoming difficulties while maintaining one’s integrity.
As Régis Soavi sensei reminds us in his latest article, our art teaches ‘freedom of mind, intuition, life force and all that goes with it – flexibility, mobility, resistance, the ability to re-centre oneself in order not to sink after a fall or in the face of difficulty.’1Régis Soavi, « Reishiki: a Music Score », review Yashima #07 (in French), March 2020
We invite you to read these words by Master Tsuda commenting on a sentence by his own master, Haruchika Noguchi:
‘I am free and without barriers. I detach myself from life and death. The same goes for old age and disease.. [H. N.]
The fixation of ideas that guides us in the organisation of life, can also work against us by imposing unpredictable constraints upon us. Freedom becomes a fixation that fetters us. The more freedom one has, the less one feels free. Freedom is a myth.
We struggle against constraints to acquire freedom. Freedom gained never fails to produce other constraints. There does not seem to be any definitive solution. For the freedom we seek is primarily a conditional freedom. We do not possess any idea of absolute and unconditional freedom.
For Noguchi, to be free and without barriers is unconditional. In fact, for his entire life he was anything but free, working fifty years without a day of respite, extremely busy schedules, unable to go on vacation as office workers do, roused at impossible hours by clients needing his help, seeing to the education of his live-in disciples until four in the morning, then a short sleep, etc. This is the opposite of the idea we have of freedom in the West. It is slavery, pure and simple.
For Noguchi it was work around the clock, without interruption. A heavy responsibility requiring that he remain available at all times.
When we think of the organisation of modern life, which increasingly discharges individuals of responsibility, with limited work hours, leave of absence and vacations, group protection, verbal concealment, etc., such unrelenting responsibility is unthinkable.
It was the same with Master Ueshiba, who said to his disciples: you can attack me anytime, anywhere; that included the hours of sleep as well. Availability around the clock.
How could they lead such intense lives, like deep-sea fish that endure great pressure, and also feel free? Let us restate this question as a reverse proposition: it is because they felt free that they could enjoy such intensity of life.
They were beings who belonged to a different dimension from ours, some would say. As for us, we are assailed by all kinds of fears: the fear of not being able to keep ourselves alive, the fear of lack, the fear of pain and most of all, the fear of death.
I detach myself from life and death, said Noguchi. I detach myself from human affairs, said Ueshiba.
Life in Europe is dominated by the Administration. One must not do anything that does not correspond to some administrative category. All these categories are a century old by now. It is not surprising that Aikido is classified as a combat sport, despite the spirit of the founder. Everything has to be stored in the drawers of an old wardrobe, shirts here, and socks there. But what exactly does the Administration take care of? Human affairs. There are no drawers for things that do not concern it. There is no place in Europe for Seitai or Aikido unless they are disguised as something else. If the Administration decides that Aikido is a handkerchief, it must be ironed, folded into quarters and put in the top left drawer. We cannot do anything about it.
Life, death, old age, and disease are all themes that keep the waltz of structures going, as well as the foxtrot of money. So they are extremely important.
But when one backs away from it all, what a relief! Then we can talk about real freedom without barriers.’2Itsuo Tsuda, One, pp. 24-6, 2016, Yume Editions
Notes
1
Régis Soavi, « Reishiki: a Music Score », review Yashima #07 (in French), March 2020
