In the world of academia, there is very little learning that can be considered “mentally effortless”.  If I want to understand Hernstein’s Matching Theory, or memorize the output pathways of various sub-nuclei in the brain, I had better be prepared to spend some serious time with some serious coffee!  At times Aikido can feel similarly taxing. I can spend an entire class epically failing every single technique shown to us, and leave feeling mentally drained.  But Aikido is supposed to be “natural”… Where could this misleading concept have come from? 

Maybe we can gain some insight by thinking about the training patterns of the Shihan who espoused this ridiculous statement in the first place.  O’Sensei, Saito Shihan, and others were farmers.  Not only did they develop “farm strength”, they used that strength to do thousands of bokken cuts every single day.  They didn’t have to consciously think about connecting their centers to do techniques because the farm work and solo exercises did that for them.  It WAS a natural byproduct of their lifestyle.  Does that mean that if we hope to make our Aikido effortless, we need to be able to crush bamboo under our arms?  Well, it probably wouldn’t hurt.  Unfortunately, I am all out of bamboo – BUT, I do have a nice little 15lb suburito.  Did I mention that it’s all natural Bradford Pear?

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