LISTEN TO THE BREATH

Aiko San always surprised me with her depth of understanding, intuition and wisdom.

One evening about 10 years ago, I was doing kata and Aiko San was standing with her back to me, and all of the sudden she turned around and said: “you are using too much top power”, and I felt it was true but asked her how could she tell, since she did not look at me, and she replied that she knew by the sound of my breath.

Since than she surprised me over and over, without looking at me she told me if my elbows were disconnected or my pelvis was misaligned, or I did not use the stance well, she was always right, and only by listening to my breath.

It should not be such a surprise since the breath should activate the muscles in the right sequence and in the right amount according to the purpose, the breath should match the muscles action and timing of the technique.

Now, I constantly listen to my student breath, and try to know their movement by the breath, and by doing so I get more tune to my own breath, muscle action and technique synchronization.