Zachary Smith has just sent me the article below.
……………………………
Embodied Business – Zachary Smith
Using Aikido Principles to Build Body Awareness, Center and Extension
Introduction
Aikido is a Japanese martial art founded by Morihei Ueshiba in the latter half of the twentieth century. On the technical end, it is an amalgamation of traditional jujutsu, movements from various weapons arts like kenjutsu (sword) and jukenjutstu (bayonet). It also has an explicitly spiritual side based on the founder’s investigation and practices of esoteric Shinto via the Omoto-kyo led by Onisaburo Deguchi. Finally, a post World War II creation, Ueshiba also imbued it with a strong emphasis on peace and peaceful resolution of conflict.
Aikido began its global dispersal approximately 30 years ago. Since then, it has had a profound impact on the individuals engaged in its practice. More so than other Japanese martial traditions like karate or judo, aikido has inspired individuals to take their learning and change off the mat and into their lives, communities and workplaces. There is no one reason for this almost evangelical approach to practice and dissemination of the art. However, if we look at the life of the founder of aikido and the art’s strong emphasis on spirituality, personal development, and peace making we can see that there is great potential for this kind of reaction in aikido. Further, arguably more so than other arts, to be proficient at aikido requires a high degree of personal change. More than learning physical techniques, aikido requires that we move away from traditional models of power i.e. muscular strength in the arms and shoulders. Furthermore aikido asks that we go against our fight or flight instincts when in conflict, soften and accept that which we are opposing. The processes involved in making these changes have been made explicit by a number of aikido practitioners and commonly serve as the model for the application of aikido in embodied learning practices.
In this paper I will look at the work of three aikido practitioner authors who have taken their practice “off the mat” and are actively involved in embodied learning. First, I will look at the principle of “center”, how it applies to extension and how center and extension work together to form a foundation for effective aikido. Next, I will compare and contrast how practitioners have taken their practice “off the mat” and how they create awareness of the body in order and use the principle of center in their work with others. Finally, I will comment on how these practices could be useful to build capacity and better performance in business and the implications of what an embodied business practice could mean for organizations.
Part 1: Center
Center is considered the foundation for effective aikido technique. Without center aikido techniques are said to lack power and focus. If likened to a tree we could look at centering as the grounding and rooting of the tree, the dynamic tension that allows it to grow tall, broadly and strong. Paul Linden (2006) describes being centered as one’s weight being directed into the ground through your skeleton while lengthening upward. He describes the vertical lengthening as a feeling akin to a flower orienting itself to the sun. George Leonard (1992) states that being centered is concentrating awareness of the self in the center of the body, namely the abdomen. Richard Strozzi Heckler (1997) has this to say “Centering along the dimension of length begins by aligning the head, shoulder girdle, torso, pelvic girdle, knees and feet directly on top of each other…centering along the dimension of width we balance left to right along the horizontal axis” (1997, p. 97). In a more metaphysical sense he also describes center as “a living process of self-organization that increases our capacity to be self-generating, self-healing, and self-educating…a state of unity in which effective action, emotional balance, mental alertness, and spiritual vision are in a harmonious balance (1997, p. 96). Thus center is the place from which an aikido practitioner begins, perceives, moves, generates techniques, and returns. As demonstrated above it can be seen as a physical state of balance and alignment as well as a metaphysical state of being, growth and development.
Returning to the tree metaphor, from their centers trees grow. What gives expression to the principal of center is extension. Extension can be seen as the will, energy or organizing principles by which a tree sends off shoots and branches and supports them. Without extension the tree would fall over, collapse or like a flower starved for water, wilt. Extension is in many ways the projection of intention. Linden (2006) describes intension as a “vector quantity…a direction that it aims in, and an intensity” (2006, p.94). Enabled by centering, extension is what allows aikidoists to “connect” to their partners control them and apply techniques effectively. Along with intention, extension requires relaxation.
There is a well-known aikido exercise called the “unbendable arm” that demonstrates the principle of extension. The exercise involves extending ones arm, straight out from and in front of the body. A partner then applies downward pressure on the extended arm. The person extending her arm first attempts to resist the downward pressure, in essence pushing back. She next projects intention into and through her arm reaching in a relaxed but determined manner, for example, for something across the room without actually grasping it. The partner then applies the same downward pressure. What is often experienced in this exercise is that the relaxed arm projecting intention is more capable of “resisting” the downward pressure. It is often described as feeling more connected to the body. When the person holding her arm out actively resists the pressure, her ability to resist is actually decreased. The state of the arm is often described as disconnected or isolated. Also it is not uncommon for the person holding out a resistant arm to lose her balance in the struggle to keep her arm in place. Thus relaxation and focused intention are preferred in aikido to muscular strength and power. As Leonard states “relaxation is essential for the full expression of power” (Leonard, p. 166).
To summarize, the principle of center is literally at the center of effective aikido practice. Extension is what gives expression to center. Extension depends on relaxation and the stability of the center for its resilience while center both depends on and helps facilitate physical and metaphysical alignment. It is these principles that a number of aikidoists apply in their work to help their clients connect to themselves and achieve a deeper sense of balance, resilience and power.
Part 2: Creating Body Awareness and Centering
In this section we can clearly see the notion of extension at work. The authors below, are extending from their centers, that is their aikido practice, into broader realms of therapy, counseling, performance enhancement, leadership development and general capacity building. Each takes slightly different approaches to their work and each has developed their own vocabularies, methodologies and practices. Yet, I would argue that they all are working on creating body awareness and centering as core components of their practices.
Before developing a physical sense of center though, the authors recognize that we must first have a fundamental sense of body, breath and ki (the vital energy which animates us). From there we can begin to locate center and then expand and extend our practice to the relationship between the above and our emotions, perceptions and thinking, and finally, interactions with others and the world.
A number of exercises have been developed to help generate this basic body, breath and energy awareness. Linden works on areas like loosening the tongue and throat, softening the belly, directing breath and projecting intention. Strozzi Heckler uses some basic aikido exercises to create awareness of body and center simultaneously. Leonard follows a similar path focusing on breath to locate the center, find a balanced point and then interact with a partner. For each, though, the goal is the same. They want the practitioner to deepen awareness of their bodies, locate being centered and then use the sense of center and balance to improve their relationship with others and the world around them.
For Linden (2003), relaxing the belly is an essential part of increasing awareness and locating center. To soften the belly he first has people work on consciously tightening the muscles of the belly, the genitals and the sphincter and attempt to walk around. The intention of this exercise is to experience being really tense to locate a better sense of relaxation. Importantly, he states that wearing restrictive clothing will actually trigger an involuntary response to fight the pressure of the tight clothes. Next he advises to let the belly “plop out” (2003, p.8) and to consciously try to release the muscles of the anus and genitals. This is often a difficult exercise for people who have been conditioned to believe that they should be sucking in their belly makes their selves look better or more attractive. Other feelings associated with this letting go include feeling “fat and sloppy…embarrassed to go out in public” (2003, p. 9). As he states quite succinctly, “For many people it takes a good deal of practice to feel comfortable with being comfortable” (2003, p. 9). Strozzi Heckler (2002) also recommends artificially creating tension by lifting the shoulders, sucking in the belly and walking around up on the toes to exaggerate what is clearly an uncomfortable way to carry oneself.
Leonard (1992) states that we should physically locate what the Japanese call the tanden. To do this he asks us to press a hand into the abdomen about two inches below the navel and then allowing the breath to sink down to the abdomen let it “expand with the incoming breath, from the center to the front, to the rear, to the sides of the pelvis, and to the floor of the pelvis…” (1992, p. 155) He then later expands the breathing practice to include breathing into the neck and throat, back, into the feet and the top of the head. Linden (2002) describes a similar exercise that he has termed six directions breathing. This exercise involves sitting or standing and breathing which involves directing the breath down and out the spinal column, up the spinal column and out the top of the head, in and out of the right and left sides of the body and in and out of the front and back of the body and finally breathing in all six directions at once. Linden also has an exercise that follows the same process but instead of using the breath he has the practitioner project intention into the six directions. Heckler (1993) details a similar exercise but has the practitioner first assume an aikido-like stance and then “with your attention sweep the bodily dimensions” (1993, p. 81). The above exercises all help the practitioner to gain a better awareness of his body and, in doing so, begin to find his physical center as well as begin to feel centered, more balanced, and relaxed and calm. The next step is to try and maintain that state of alignment with a partner who is actively trying to disturb it.
Unfortunately, the world, the people who populate it, even our loved ones, tend to make it difficult for us to stay calm, centered and relaxed. All of the authors mentioned above, recognize this and have invented exercises to help the practitioner test himself while a partner actively attempts to disturb the peace. For each of the authors a key element of the simulations is to replicate situations of stress or conflict that are still, in a sense, safe. This is essential because a number of the people with whom they work have come from backgrounds with trauma, abuse or other very deeply penetrating experiences that need to treated with a great deal of care, compassion and sensitivity.
Linden (2003) has used a simulated attack to allow clients to put into practice what they’ve learned from softening their bellies and the six directions exercises. He’s stated that throwing tissues at the client is a good, relatively safe place to begin. From there he has had to calibrate the experience both upwards and downwards. In one case, even the act of being pelted by tissues was felt to be too invasive or violent while, on the opposite end of the spectrum, a former military man required a bit more intensity before he felt challenged at all. Strozzi Heckler (2002) has employed a sudden grab on the arm, sometimes from behind. The objective of the exercise is for the participants to experience their response to surprise, conflict and disturbance. What he has discovered is that “the reaction to this physical grab is the same reaction we have to other forms of pressure, mental, emotional, or interpersonal” (Strozzi Heckler p. 26). Leonard (1992) also uses the unexpected grab. However, his framing is slightly different. He uses the attack as a way to learn how to turn “unexpected blows” into energizing, positive moments.
What these approaches have in common is that they were forged on the mat, in the practice of aikido. During the course of a typical aikido class we frequently are grabbed, pushed, and are targets of a multitude of striking attacks–all of which demand the best balanced, relaxed, non-resistant, centered response we can muster. In order to build proficiency, though, practitioners must go through the same basic process outlined above of building self-awareness, dealing with their fight and flight responses, and deepening a sense of self in conflict which is both positive and powerful.
Part 3: Embodied Business: Implications for Organizations
To examine what possible benefits the principle of centering might have for an organization the most logical starting point is with the most essential constituents of the system, the people. Simply in order for an organization to benefit from centering work, the people in the organization must also benefit and that benefit must feedback into the organizational system.
Robert Dunham (2003), an executive development and management consultant, writes that in order to help get a group of overworked and overcommitted software engineers to move their development projects back on track he first had to teach them to say “no.” Realizing that saying “no” is more than just forming and pronouncing the words, he worked with them to find the center in bodies that, when approached with demands for more than they could effectively deliver, “can be settled, clear, and connected with demand and not driven into fear and inarticulate collapse or acquiescence” (2003, p. 60). In helping them develop a resilient and empowering center he also helped them achieve dramatic improvements in their business results. They went from delivering late to delivering on time and from turning in software with hundreds of coding errors to turning in error free versions. Dunham writes: “To do this, they had to learn new skills in communication, new ways to speaking and listening. But they had to get past the words to a new embodiment of commitment and action” (2003, p. 61).
In working with a senior vice president Peter Luzmore (2003) writes about transforming the VP and his team from “a bureaucratic culture that created resentment and resignation into one that was entrepreneurial and driven to build an organization that produces both customer and employee satisfaction” (2003, p. 89). To do this Luzmore worked on a set of core competencies, the foremost of which was to center. He used aikido partner work to develop a personal sense of center as well as a sense of center in dealing with others. He also employed jo (a 5 ft. staff) work to get them to learn extension of center and how to establish a regular practice. The above then helped the team to communicate more openly and handle stressful situations more effectively. In terms of return on investment, it was estimated that the return was approximately 375%. Clearly a good investment!
The work with the senior VP allowed the man to move from being short-tempered and resigned when things weren’t going his way to someone who people describe as “connected…patient and focused on listening…[possessing] much more calmness [and] compassionate” (2003, p. 94-95). The centering methodology that facilitated these changes in the team and the senior vice president were recognized throughout the organization as a new and valuable technology for developing leadership and teamwork. Importantly, even after Luzmore’s intervention was finished, the participants were still diligently working on their centering and extension practices.
In my own work, I was privileged to work with a senior manager that I will refer to as Hiro, who was having difficulties communicating with global colleagues. His superior attributed his troubles to a lack of English proficiency. However after spending 10 minutes with him it was clear that although his English was not at a native level that it was more than adequate to communicate with native speakers. What was missing was Hiro’s presence and engagement in the communication events. Whether he was in a large management meeting, talking face-to-face or even writing email, Hiro was disconnected from his colleagues and disconnected from himself. To help him reconnect I worked with him to find his center. We focused on both cognitive and somatic approaches to discover what being centered for him would feel like and what kinds of behaviors being centered would generate. We worked on developing a posture of engagement and experimented with being off-balance to experience what the differences between the two might be. At the same time we also created a conceptual center with principles and behaviors that helped him with extending from his center to communicate with people in a more present, engaged manner. The latter practice also gave Hiro a template and model he could apply with his team to encourage their development. We only met for two and a half months but even in that short time his superiors and coworkers were able to notice a change in his communication. He was described as more focused, clear and concise in his written communication. In meetings with global colleagues it was remarked that he was participating more fully and effectively and, in general, seemed more engaged. Hiro has pledged to continue his work with me and will be bringing in another five or six people with similar needs for similar coaching as his organization has clearly recognized the benefit of his centering work.
Conclusion
Aikido, originally developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a martial art with a deep spiritual side and aspirations of creating or spreading peace has been extended well beyond its roots in Shinto, jujutsu and other Japanese traditional martial practices. Widely practiced in a multitude of countries by millions of people aikido is also being creatively applied “off the mat” by practitioners the world over. In taking aikido “off the mat”, practitioners have found that the practice and principal of center has been extremely effective in helping people improve performance, recover from abuse and trauma, and, in general live more engaged lives. However, in order to recognize or gain a sense of center, practitioners generally find it necessary to first work with a more general sense of bodily, breath and energetic awareness. From this general enlivening of the body it is then possible for people to localize a feeling of stability and balance which, traditionally is associated with a relaxed, skeletally well-supported lower abdomen. From their center people are then able to extend themselves and their learning in a number of ways.
For organizations, the positive implications of centering work by their employees have been consistently documented by a number of practitioners. Centering work when targeted with improving individual and team performance, developing leadership or improving communication has proven to be an effective method for adding value to organizations as well as the lives of the people involved in the intervention. It is my sincere hope that more people and organizations will open themselves to the possibilities of somatic learning and the connection between body awareness, being centered and becoming more engaged and valuable members of their communities.
Dunham, R., (2003) The body of management. In Heckler, R.S. (ed), Being Human at Work: Bringing Somatic Intelligence into Your Professional Life Berkeley: North Atlantic. Heckler , R.S.(1993) The Anatomy of Change: A Way to Move Through Life’s Transitions. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books Leonard, G.B. (1992) Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fullfillment. San Francisco: Plume Publication Linden, P. (2003) Feeling Aikido: Body Awareness Training as a Foundation for Aikido Practice. Columbus: CCMS Linden, P. (2003) REACH OUT: Body Awareness Training for Peacemaking—Five Easy Lessons. Columbus: CCMS Linden, P. (2001) Winning is Healing: Body Awareness and Empowerment for Abuse Survivors. Columbus: CCMS Luzmore, P., (2003) Leadership development and increased productivity at work. In Strozzi Heckler, R. (ed), Being Human at Work: Bringing Somatic Intelligence into Your Professional Life, Berkeley: North Atlantic
© Zachary SmithAll rights reserved