In my last column (rant? Nah, not ME ...), I mentioned the 'Five Magic Principles' and that they could be applied to groundwork as well as other aspects of what we do. OK, they're not magic, but if you implement them, you can make it look like magic.

I know this is a bit cart-before-the-horse, but I'd like to discuss those five principles now.

If you've ever been in my classes (or damn near anyone else's budo classes), you've heard the terms -- Relax! Extend! Stay low! Hips first, body follows! Breathe! -- in one form or another. They all relate to the 'Five Magic Principles.' With a nod toward the Ki Society and Tohei Koichi's teachings both in Ki Society and in the old Aikikai, here are my takes on those ideas and ideals.

Tohei espouses four principles of 'ki' that make aikido effective. Those are:

• Maintain the one point
• Keep weight underside
• Relax
• Extend

I think that's a simple, direct and effective exposition of the things we need to accomplish in order to move smoothly, execute good technique and protect ourselves in many situations. I've added one more tic on the sheet: Breathe!

Maybe breathing is a given in those four original aikido principles, or maybe it's incorporated into Extend! Dunno. However, I have found that breathing (at all, much less properly) is not a given with beginners (and often to folks who've been around a while).

To simplify (and perhaps demystify) a bit, I'd modify the first two principles:

• Move from your center
• Bend your knees and keep your center low

Let's examine each of these five ideas briefly.

Moving From the Center

This one seems like it ought to be a no-brainer, but in truth, it's not. Western ideals of strength tend to focus on the upper body and we view the head (brain) as the center of thought and emotion. Consequently, we tend to move from the shoulders, lead with the head and generally live pretty high up in terms of body awareness.

A lot of people don't walk so much as they expeience a somewhat controlled fall. Lean forward, start falling, throw a leg out and catch the weight, repeat.

Most of the budo teach us however, that we need to be aware of the center and move from the center. Ideally, the center (tan tien, tanden, seika no itten) is deep in the gut. Sort of a rule of thumb: If you're wearing a standard (traditionally cut) gi and belt, your belt knot should be below your navel and snug about your hips. Your center lies two or three finger-widths below that knot and in the center of your body.

As we train, we should keep that point in mind; simple awarness can help us learn to move from the center.

A simple exercise: Walk across the mat. Do nothing special, just walk and be aware of how you feel, where your attention lies, how your weight and balance shifts with each step.

Now, find your center and press your fingertips firmly against your belly at that spot. Walk across the mat again, this time trying to capture the feeling of having a string tied to your fingers, attached to your belly. Seek a feeling of having that string pulled taut as you move, actually pulling you forward as you move. Again, be aware. Feel the changes in your posture, balance and stride.

The challenge: apply that feeling to your techniques on the mat -- and more importantly, maybe, to the myriad of things you normally do in your everyday life!

Bend knees, Low Center

Consider the lowly fencepost. Grab one (or a jo) and stand it upright on the floor. OK, try again. No, really. Try to stand it upright. If it's got a broad base, you might accomplish this. However, even if you do get it standing, go over and tap it sharply.

Now, if that post or pole had a knee and could bend that knee, flex itself ... would it topple so easily? OK, OK, self awareness and motor skills (or lack thereof) notwithstanding.

You have a distinct advantage over the pole. You have knees. Bend 'em. Any old soldier (or veteran marching band member) can tell you what happens if you stand around with your knees locked straight. Why ever would you want to try to move like that? But you know, people do. Even people who have otherwise good gait and stride will lock up and become Log-man upon trying to execute a technique.

Bending your knees gives your support stems (legs) flex, mobility and maneuverability. It also puts your center closer to the ground. Remember Weebils? You know ... Weebils wobble but they don't fall down?

What was the Weebil secret? Weight underside.

Dropping your center consciously and keeping your knees bent (comfortably, not exaggerated, not too deeply) puts you closer to the earth and lets you attain a more stable stance while remaining mobile.

Relax, said Frankie

This is the hardest thing for some people. You must understand: relax does not equal jelly. So many new students have two modes, jelly or stone. The human body is a wondrous piece of engineering. The skeleton provides internal support, muscles are attached in opposing pairs and joints allow the muscles to move the frame in many axes.

However, if you tense up both halves of the bilateral muscle arrangement, what happens? When we tense the tricep to extend the arm (really cool pulley system that), and tense the bicep (so it looks manly), what are you really doing? You cannot push and pull simultaneously. If you push, you must relax the appropriate muscle groups and let the proper group do the work.

Tension is a good thing in its place, but we tend to take it way past economical limits and wind up working against ourselves.

So much of proper training is aimed toward letting us relearn the economical, efficient use of our bodies. Rule of thumb, if you're straining, it's probably wrong ...

Extend Yourself

One of the most common traps beginners fall into is to direct energy or force into a target (for instance, an opponent's body). What's wrong with that? The energy or force stops at the target.

In order to use our bodies effectively to execute techniques with empty hands or weapons, we must learn to extend out energy -- and our intent, if you will -- not just into, but through the target. A punch must not stop at the target, but must project through the center and beyond.

Step out of the dojo for a moment and take a look at sports. In baseball, tennis and golf, players are constantly admonished to 'follow through' -- extend. If they don't they severely limit the power of the swing. Several years ago, a noted pro football player (American football, not the real stuff), talked openly about how he achieved such success in passing. I don't remember who he was or everything he said, but the gist of it was that he made a conscious connection between himself and his receiver -- extension. The idea was that he retained a connection with the ball even after it left his fingertips, all the way into the receiver's arms.

Extension is as much a mental picture as it is a physical practice. I use imagry to teach the concept, flowing water most commonly. Many martial arts use similar menmonics to help students reach past the perceived goal and beyond; rays of light, silver threads, firehoses ... all are handy tools to convey a sense of reaching beyond the obvious.

Waiting to exhale?

Finally, I want to address breathing. OK, this IS a no-brainer. As a noted diet guru (and semi-bald woman) said "If you don't breathe, you die!"

Yeah, yeah, talk about understatement. However, in budo training, this statement takes on some really interesting connotations!

The very rhythm of your breathing is dictated by the tempo of the technique. There are specific places and times to use inhalation and exhalation to enhance your power, speed and overall effectiveness.

Some of that is determined by form, some is gained through long years of practice. Mainly what I want to address here is the simple fact of breathing. Way too many people try to do technique without breathing. They clench up, grunt, hiss or just hold their breath.

Ideally, generally speaking, I want to see my folks inhale on the interception, exhale on the projection. This is very simplistic, but a good starting point. I like to hear good audible respiration. Move lots of air, feel the rhythm and use your breath in conjunction with movement. It's a terribly simple concept, but also very difficult to implement sometimes.

There are very good reasons to breathe well and deeply when engaging uke. Among them, proper breathing is key to relaxation. It's an enhancement to extension. Proper breathing happens deep in the abdomen, thus enhances awareness of the center ...

Practically speaking, too, if you take a hit and are holding your breath, you're going to be much worse off than if you breathe. You should be forcefully exhaling to take a hit, to take a fall, to receive a technique. You should be forcefully exhaling to make a strike, to project uke or to cut.

Putting it All Together

That's the hard part. Usually, new folks can grasp these concepts easily, but when things start moving, it's hard to put the ideas into action. This is one reason we train a a fairly low tempo with beginners and the reason we decrease the pace and tempo from time to time for seniors as well. Reinforcement is a grand thing!

In order to use these ideas effectively, here's a suggestion: Take one concept and pay special attention to it for a week or a month of your training. You're not going to master it, but you can focus yourself somewhat. Rotate the concepts in your training. That doesn't mean ignore the other four, but just pay closer attention to the concept du jour.

Want to read the last Reflections?

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