On a recent visit to Seoul, Korea, I happened on a martial arts demonstration in a park. One of the techniques used a long pole with a short curved blade at the end. The demonstrators neatly thrust the sharp end into various targets with no difficulty, it looked so easy to do! At the end, they invited members of the audience to try to hit a simple target. One after another everyone who tried failed miserably, missing the target completely.
The demonstrators had all moved the same way we train to move in Aikido, from their centers. They all held the pole so it was connected to their centers and thrust from their centers by moving their whole bodies. They didn’t thrust from their arms which hardly moved. The pole stayed aimed and hit the targets every time. In contrast, everyone in the audience who tried held the pole out from their bodies and then thrust with their arms without moving their whole body with the pole. For each of them, the pole wobbled and their thrusts never came close to the target.
This is exactly what sensei tries to teach us in weapons practice. When we tsuki or thrust with a jo (spear pole) or bokken (sword), he wants to see that movement coming from our center with our whole body behind it, not from our arms moving away from our bodies. That same body movement is exactly what he also wants to see in the empty handed techniques on the mats in the dojo. If I reach out with my arms to grab my partner, I get drawn out of my center and there is no Aikido. But, if I move my whole body from my center and connect with my partner, it doesn’t really matter what technique I am doing.
Ashore and Afloat 