Seishin Aikido
as
Creative Adaptability
Creative Adaptability - the ability to spontaneously adapt the art to the changing nature of the attack.
Creative Adaptability is a key component of Seishin Aikido. Like the mountain stream, we are always in motion and adapting to the changes and challenges life presents us. The unfolding of any encounter is not predictable, and approaching it with a head full of fixed learned techniques is not the answer. The body of classical arts contains valuable principles that are designed to be learned and applied. They are embedded in the techniques that one learns. This classical formality assures their transmission over time and the development of a strong base upon which to build one’s art.
One Needs to be Formal
– in being formal one gains discipline and awareness.
– from discipline comes the exactness of technique and the preciseness of movement.
– from awareness comes knowledge of the Way.
A primary aspect of Creative Adaptability is to get one to the point where one feels the art and is not thinking of what technique to use, looking for a technique, or trying to make a technique work.
Feeling is faster than thinking. When we run down the stairs, we do not think about what we are doing – we feel it. If we were to think of which foot is moving, we would find ourselves grabbing the handrail to prevent falling down the stairs.
This is the body-mind in action. The mind that allows one to be spontaneous and make the most effective use of the learned principles. Here the thinking-mind becomes but a calm observer. It is only when one begins to practice the art from the body-mind that one begins to utilize the principles embedded in the classical arts and be able to express them spontaneously in creative and novel ways not practiced before. This is the realm of Creative Adaptability.
Seishin Aikido makes use of drills and practices that support the student in letting go and using the body-mind to do the art – to move from the thinking-mind to the body-mind. This is referred to as “forgetting what you have learned."
W. Muryasz