Creative/Tools

There are many exercises in Aikido and other martial arts that are used for developing skills.  I have heard these skills referred to as tools, and rightly so.  I remember Sensei once saying while showing a unusual type of footwork, "this method of stepping will feel ackward and will be slow at first.   But, if you don't learn it, you will never acquire True Speed."  (When he spoke, you could hear the Capital Letters in his words.)

I did some stained glass in the past. To work with the copper, lead and solder I needed to learn skills that I saw plumbers had. To cut glass, I had to learn the skills of a glazier. But, to be a stained glass artist I had to learn the skills of someone who could fix my hot water heater and someone who could replace a broken windshield and make something special and indescribable.  The skills to be a painter and the skills to paint house are much the same.  The skills to carve wood and the skills to be a carpenter are the same; the tools are the same.  The tools are the path to the creation, not the creation itself.

Like a poet trying to write without any knowledge of the ABCs or a novelist trying to make a book without grammer, skills are the tools for self expression.  e.e.cummings was not ignorant of the English language; he worked beyond the rules of grammer.  He made a choice.

While each tool must be understood and mastered to be expressed in the depth and breadth possible, an artist must do something more. If I painted the house, I am not automatically on the same level as a Monet or a DaVinci just because I understand the technical work of paint and brushes.  Yet, even Monet and DaVinci had to learn what a circle was at some point in their careers.  Picasso was not ignorant of painting technique, he worked beyond realism and made a choice.

I have experienced having a desire to create something memorable and beautiful and attempted it and found afterwards that my physical skills could not allow the translation and transmission of the creation.  In the same way, I have been stopped cold in a project for lack of inspiration even with the tools ready to go.  The act of creation is about both elements.

I remember the first Karate Kid movie and Miyagi Sensei is having Ralph Macchio trim a banzai tree.  "Miyagi Sensei, what if I make a mistake?"  The young man was paralyzed with concern.  "If it comes from inside you, no mistake." 

It sounded nice and deep, but I learned without sufficient technique and understanding, my creation was not going to come from inside me without something being lost.  The beautiful image in my mind wasn't going to magically come out my unpracticed fingers on unfamilar materials - if I cared about the final creation, I had some work to do.

I wanted to do a Stained Glass of a Ted Harrison painting - my mundane glass skills were not up to it. But, even if they were, to take a Ted Harrison and copy it? What is the artistic skill in that? I am not creating but merely recreating. A master forger versus a master artist - who do I give higher credit to?  I would be making a bad copy.  Mr Harrison on the other hand talks about how he looks at another's art and learns things he adds to his own to create something even more unique.

The cook who can follow a recipe, or the one who can make a variation on a recipe or the one who creates the recipe? Who is the greater chef?  I give credit to the last one, as the creativity is the key for me.  The skills of cooking are still important.  The chef who imagines a new recipe but can't execute it is the one who makes the food I would least like to eat.  If a someone imagines a beautiful meal but can't use a stove properly, the food and the creation will suffer.  On the other hand, the chef who learns good knife work is not less of a chef.  Following the exercises of the basics, they don't become less creative.  They gain the skills to take the creation from in their mind and their heart and place them in the real world.

A person who can cook fish, but choses to serve raw fish can claim a certain artistic license in their choice and creation.  Picasso could claim artistic license in his paintings, and e.e. cummings in his poetry.

A person who claims artistic license in serving raw fish but really has no idea how to cook fish is maybe not really answering to some deep sense of artistry but rather to the limitations of their ability.  Some abstracts I made exactly as I wanted, expressing what I wanted to.  Some abstracts I made were accidents; failed projects that I decided I could live with or decided I wasn't going to work on futher because I wanted nothing more to do with them.  Even when they were respected as art, I knew better inside.

In Aikido, we are taught a handful of types of movements:

In Front

Behind

Front to Front

Back to Back

Front to Back

Back to Front

High

Middle

Low

Linear

Circular

Triangular

Controlling

Throwing

Small

Medium

Large

Solid

Flowing

Inside the Center

Outside the Center

Leading

Blending

Entering

Each of these types of movements can be combined in any particular combination with practice.  I like to lead down, but I found doing this exclusively caused a problem with circling.  My creativity was stunted.  Circles don't just go downward, they lead out and then rise again, then lead further only to fall once more.

I was studying while working in Mental Health and Young Offenders. I had decided that I needed to know pins.  Throws are dangerous for people that don't know how to fall; especially with chairs, stairs, tables, hard floors.  My ability to throw did not keep pace with my ability to control.  I didn't practice high falls much - I wanted to be pinned and locked myself in my free practice.  I specialized - and while I got very good at one thing, my overall practice suffered.

I learned more by being led by my teachers to study types of movements I didn't spontaneously do.  I wasn't immediately in love with certain movements that I learned the most from.  I needed to revisit and reexamine material I thought I instantly understood because I worked on it less.  In coming to understand what I didn't, I realized I had gaps in my knowledge of what I thought I had already acquired.

I came to believe in a structured teaching method.  I make a plan before I teach a class, and I think about what I want to teach well in advance of my having a chance to teach.  I still don't confuse a tool or an exercise with a creation.  I became something of an art critic by learning more about art.  In the same way, as an example I see that people who don't understand Chudan (middle) techniques are more at risk for shoulder and back injuries.  The exercises to learn Chudan are important, but are they creative spontaneous Takemuso Aiki?  They aren't even techniques in any useful sense of the word.  I started to see the beginner exercises and rote memorization with no soul, and the uninformed poorly expressed creative impulses that could be so much more powerful/healthy/effective with basic training.

I remember Sensei once saying that only Yudansha were even students.  This was a statement on his curriculuum and not a dismissing of the white belts.  People who had gone through all the white belt testing were thought to have the minimum of understanding to even begin to consistently and spontaneously move correctly without thought in any situation - Aikido.

The white belt ranks were for learning the tools, the black belt ranks were there to analyze, synthesize and learn from what they had already been taught.  "White belts do it this way or this way;  Yudansha do what you will."  Sometimes Sensei would say this; sometimes he would be very clear that he didn't think we were ready to explore no matter what colour belt we wore.  But, it was always aimed at our growth and development.

The Shodan test was really about did you already have the tools to teach yourself.  There was tons of learning earlier on, but it was mostly memorization.  Until the basic skills are acquired the learning is lopsided.  You can't delve deeply into a type of movement you haven't actually studied or practiced.

Past a point, all the advanced work is the basics reimagined and spontaneously recreated.  Having tools is an important first step - but it is only a first step of a very, very long path.  Some students resist the idea of the tools because they want the final product.  The final product is the result of the tools.