Enter Aikido.

I discovered Aikido when I was in Rochester during my freshman year at Eastman School of Music. Before I came to pursue my studies at Eastman, I had a brief background in Tai Chi and had always been interested in different studies of martial arts. While at Eastman I was browsing the internet and stumbled upon a compilation of Morihei Ueshiba's teachings called The Art of Peace. It immediately piqued my interest and I started researching Aikido more thoroughly. Luckily, Rochester's Aikido Kokikai is less than half a mile from the Eastman dormitory so I was able to walk to and from without problems. After my first class, I was addicted. I still joke with my friends today telling them that I need my weekly doses of Vitamin "A".

After I got a feel of what Aikido Kokikai was about, I started to realize the similarities it had to the study of music. Feeling was the first thing that came to mind. I still remember my professor at Eastman asking if I knew the difference between sound and noise in music and piano playing. He said that sound is controlled, supported, and pleasant to the ear. Noise, on the other hand, can be harsh, unpleasant, and simply sounds uncontrolled or scattered. In order to achieve sound instead of noise, one has to know how to strike the key on the keyboard of a piano. The keys on the piano cannot be approached by the finger alone. The keys have to be approached by the finger, which is lead by the hand, which is lead by the arms and into the shoulders, which in turn is felt in the body. The keys on the piano have to be approached with the entire body with preparation. As far as I know, this is also true with string instruments, such as the violin or cello, and how the bow is placed and drawn across string. Approached with tension, muscle, and all the wrong ingredients, the sound that will come out of the body of the string instrument can be very repulsive. Approached correctly, the sound can be full, deep, and very beautiful.

When striking a key on the piano correctly, it is as if the sound from the piano is responding to your body and its approach, rather than a reaction of the mechanisms in the piano to the finger hitting the key. The concept of unbendable arm, I have found, is very effective when applied to piano playing. We have to relax the shoulders, make note of our elbows, and simply flow with the music. I have found this to be much harder that it seems, and I still tense up often which affects my sound and music making.

The second connection that I made was breathing. Surprisingly, a lot of pianists forget to breathe when they perform. I am a victim to this. I remember a guest teacher giving a class and I was performing for him. I only played a small passage in my music before he stopped me and screamed, "You aren't breathing! You have to breathe! Nowhere in the music did the composer mark 'do not breathe'!" We can become so tense that our breathing suffers, our posture suffers, and our music suffers, and ultimately our bodies suffer. Being tense and having the wrong posture or positioning can lead to many injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, bursitis, cubital tunnel syndrome, just to name a few. This isn't to be taken lightly because it can seriously affect a musician's career.

Aikido has helped me to rethink and become more aware of what my body was doing and, more importantly, I started listening to how my body was feeling. I remember an exercise one of my professors made me do. I was with another colleague performing for my professor when she stopped us, made us literally sprint up and down the halls of Eastman until we were out of breath and made us immediately play again. Only this time, the music flowed. We weren't playing our instruments because we had to - we were listening to each other, responding to each other, and living the music. The piece that we were playing finally became very enjoyable. After this particular lesson, my colleague and I expressed how much fun we had and how happy we felt about how things went. It was one of those moments when things seemed to take on a whole new perspective for me, and I matured just a little bit more because of it. This is what keeps me practicing the piano. Aikido has taught me the same thing, just in a different way - to flow, to listen, to respond, and to live in the moment.

Through my music making I am practicing Aikido, and through Aikido I am practicing my music. I cannot think of many things more fantastic than that.

Anna Ka and Rose Pleninger continued our long and brilliant history of outstanding camp testing "demonstrations". Their performances were stellar making us all proud.

We are all proud of them both, but more significant is that they are both proud of themselves. This is not always the case. Often a student feels that they could have done this or that better. That next level of improvement is always better left for their next test/demonstration.

Rose achieved two goals: that of the shodan rank but also her goal of increased calmness since her test last year. Anna demonstrated that small women can really throw like big men.

In February Pat Gibbons tested for sixth kyu (first orange belt) and in March Brad Dingman test for fourth kyu (first blue belt). Congratulations to both Pat and Brad on their new ranks!

April Mind/Body Class - Thurs. April 19 at 7:00 pm, lead by Judy Warner and Dan Rozman.

Dojo Meeting - Dojo meeting for blue, brown and black belts, Tues., May 22 at 8:00 pm, more details to follow.

Summer Camp - Thurs. July 19-Sun. July 22, Villa Nova, PA in the air conditioned Jake Nevin Field House, watch bulletin board for more details.

Maruyama Sensei in Rochester - Sat. July 28 - Sun. July 29, more details to follow.

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have mastered, you will never grow.
~ C.R. Lawton