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Aikido & the Classical Dance India When I moved to India from Australia in 1994, I was keen on immerse myself in the culture of this unique and ancient land. I already knew that I was going to travel extensively within India and meet lots of new people through my work as a consultant. I knew that I would establish an Aikido dojo, and naturally develop teacher/student relationships with those who wanted to pursue the art seriously. I also planned to study Yoga. Quite by accident, however, I became involved with a classical Indian dance school, located 35 klms outside Bangalore. Situated on a ten acre site, the school was named “Nrityagram” by it’s founder, Ms. Protima Gauri Bedi, who was one of India’s most famous classical dancers. In India the school is simply called “the dance village”. This is the story of my experience with that dance school and my gradual understanding of the elements that Indian dance shares with Aikido-Yoga. India’s classical traditions date back at least 2000 years. Indian classical dance is a synthesis of many elements - Mythology, Literature, Music, Sculpture, Poetry, Painting and Temple Architecture. Like the forms of Aikido, the classical dance forms of India are kept alive by a few distinguished masters who dedicate their lives to perfecting the art form and handing it down to the next generation. While Aikido has an “uchi-deshi” system in which live-in students are mentored, India has a “guru-shishya parampara” system. In this tradition, devoted students live with their masters as if in a family, perfecting their dance training over a number of years. The students grow vegetables and fruits on the land, cook, clean and earn an income through dance recitals. Nrityagram is the last surviving village dedicated to dance to nurture the student/teacher relationship via the guru-shishya parampara system. A few months after we arrived in Bangalore from Australia, my wife Susanne heard about “the dance village” from a friend. We drove out to take a look. As we walked into the village, I was struck by the natural beauty of the rustic architecture in its peaceful, rural setting. The haunting sound from a conch shell resonated throughout the village, and I noticed that everyone stood quietly in silent reflection. We took off our shoes and entered the training hall. Two dancers, perspiring profusely in the mid-summer heat, were rehearsing a classical Indian dance. Their slow, deliberate, intricate movements and gestures depicted a story that derived from an ancient Sanskrit text. Whether in movement or stationary on one foot, their balance was steadfast - obviously the result of many years of dedicated training.
I also watched with fascination an exercise in which two women put on blindfolds and placed a 3’-long bamboo stick between them approximately two inches below their navels. All that held the stick in place was the light pressure of their bodies. If either moved too quickly backward or moved too much off the center-line, the stick would fall. As one of them moved slowly forward, the subtle pressure of the stick on the other woman’s lower abdomen made her shift her body backward in response. Conversely, if one of them moved backward, the subtle release of pressure of the stick caused the other to shift her body forwards in response. One woman would even slowly lie down and then return to her feet, while the other maintained the correct distance required to keep the stick suspended between them. The women walked backward, forward, sideways, and in circles. They moved up and down. But the stick did not fall once. After their training session, one of the women, Bijayini Satpathy, described (in perfect English) how she consciously “held her centre of gravity”, which (she said) is “located about two inches below her navel.” As she said this, she formed a fist and pressed it against her lower abdomen for emphasis. She added that the training with the stick also gave her “an intuitive sense of connection with her partner.” I mentioned Aikido, explaining that the ‘hara’ is in the same spot as their “centre of gravity.” The dancers were fascinated by Aikido and its concept of the hara. After some discussion and a request from their teacher, Ms. Protima Gauri Bedi, I agreed to conduct an Aikido workshop for them on the following Saturday. After their enthusiastic reaction to my workshop and their sincere request to undertake regular study of the art, I got 20 training mats made, donated them to the dance school, and began to teach them Aikido every Saturday afternoon from then on. The decision to volunteer my time to “the dance village” each week was made easy by the fact that my wife loved the village’s atmosphere. The village also provided my children with a place to roam and play - a welcome relief from the hustle-bustle of city living. I myself, I made the commitment to drive to the village each week because I felt a strong affinity with the spirit that permeated the school. The Aikido classes I conducted at “the dance village” were structured in exactly the same way as those I conducted in my Bangalore-based dojos - nothing different. We did not mix Aikido and dance. The way the women applied themselves to training was exemplary: They remained quiet, focused and disciplined, but never lost their sense of the joy of discovery. They trained hard, and to my surprise, were also very interested in jo and bokken suburi and in exercises like happo giri (eight direction cut).
After several months of Aikido training, I noticed that they were incorporating the centralized extension that is characteristic of Aikido into their dance movements. As Aikidoists might test our postures for stability to ensure correct mind/body unity, they would test their dance postures to ensure their sustained extension of ki. Protima told me that “the dancers’ Aikido training was changing the way they approached dance.” At dinner one evening, the women told me that their classical dance postures faithfully imitate archetype dance forms preserved on ancient temple carvings. I decided to drive to some of the more famous temples to see for myself. All the temples are made entirely from hand chiseled rock. Their exteriors are covered with stone carvings. The architectural beauty and detail of these temples points back to a time when many artists and builders devoted their lives to their construction. A temple in Hassan stands out in my memory. As I entered it, I noticed that there were far fewer carvings inside than in other temples. As I ventured deeper within the temple, I encountered a small room that contained the entrance to an even smaller room: the inner sanctum. Pitch dark, the inner sanctum is free of all distractions and carvings, except for a large, smooth, jet-black stone carving called a lingam.
I began to think of this temple as symbolizing the human condition. The material world, full of distractions for the conscious mind, is symbolized by the temple’s busy exterior, which is covered with carvings. By “going within” itself, the mind becomes less distracted, and it is therefore easier for it to become still. I saw the quieter, less distracting interior of the temple as symbolizing this state of mind, which is free of the negative and destructive fabrications of the conscious ego (such as anxiety, hatred or greed). The meditative faces and postures of the statues within the temple portray the quest for the intuitive experience of our connections to one another and to nature. It was clear to me that meditation was symbolized by the movement toward the centre of the temple - through the successively smaller, less distracting rooms - until finally, there existed only the solitude of the inner sanctum, which housed the lingam. Filled with these thoughts and analogies, I studied the shape of the lingam. This sculpture has been given many simplistic interpretations. I am told that it is an emblem of creative power. In Japanese philosophy, that power might be called “ki”, the “vital energy of life” or the “universal life-force of creation.” I am also told that the lingam symbolizes the unity of matter and spirit. In our Aikido training, through focus on our hara, we attempt to unite our physical bodies with this life-force of ki. O’Sensei defined “takemusu aiki” as being “the force of procreation and harmony.” So, standing inside the temple, I could not help wondering whether Aikido’s concept of “aiki” is somehow related to the message behind this strange ancient sculpture. In front of the entrance to the inner sanctum is a slightly elevated, circular dance area that has been chiseled out of the rock floor. I watched my 3-year-old daughter, Olivia, pirouette in the middle of this small dance floor, and I visualized the time when Indian women offered worship in the form of dance. For the temple dancers of ancient India, the most worthy form of worship was to exhibit nature’s life-force by coordinating mind, body and spirit in skillful, spontaneous movement - uninhibited by conscious thought or ego.
As I reflected on my experience in the temple, the common elements of Aikido and classical Indian dance slowly became apparent to me: the feel of the dance-village “dojo”; its “uchi-deshi” program; the relation of student to teacher; the dancers’ sincere and disciplined attitude towards training; their conscious focus on their centre of gravity; the exercises (like the one involving the stick) that develop the connection between dancers; the spontaneity of movement - unfettered by conscious thought; the poise and balance that reflects their “stillness of mind”; and the dancers’ cultivation centralized extension. Teaching the dancers caused me to reflect on my own training. When I started my Aikido training, I just wanted to be strong and skilful – a carryover attitude from my previous martial-arts training. As time progressed, however, my motives changed. Just as the objective of the ancient temple dancers had nothing to do with applause or critical acclaim, my Aikido training - which I undertake in the privacy of my dojo - has nothing to do with feeding my ego. I remember one of the dance village women, Surupa Sen, telling me that for her dancing is “therapeutic.” “If I don’t dance, I get sick” she said. “It might be psychological, but it happens. I am spiritually satisfied only after I have exhausted myself by dancing. The dancing is for my soul.” Whatever their initial motives, the women of the dance village dedicate their lives to dance because they love it. It has become “a part of them.” They “have to” dance in order to feel more fulfilled, more alive. For much the same reasons, I “have to” train in Aikido-Yoga. That is how I choose to seek a deeper understanding of myself, and a deeper understanding of my interdependent relationship with the earth and with my fellow human beings.
Julius Aib,
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