Shihan Dan Ordoins at KMD 2011 – Part 2

There is a time between moments – between point A and point B, between here and there, you and I or then and now. Within this “and”, there is a sense of suspension and uncertainty, where the possibilities of what may follow are endless. I understand how one can become caught up with being in stances because as a fresh Earth rank, although I can trust my strong stance, I must learn to move past being confined by it. Shihan Dan uses the term “living in the ‘and’”, meaning staying in that state of constant change, as opposed to hunkering down into a kamae. Shihan describes stances as brief checkpoints within the constant “and”, similar to when Sensei Richard Ramnarine, says in Hoshindo there are no stances, only positions. I noticed when playing with this concept that when one is moving between the stances there is a lull or what seems to be a slight fog because of the uncertainty of where one will end up. Once an uke has stopped their movement and is now in what would succeed the “and”, there is a sudden clearing. When facing an opponent in a stance, it is quite easy to see their balance, positioning and intent. If the person before me is not in motion, I no longer have to adjust my perception millisecond by millisecond to judge their balance and positioning. Once a kamae has been “locked-in”, the haze of battle and the unknown is momentarily lifted to allow the opponent to see the situation more clearly. Shihan Dan shared an essential tool with us that we can utilize when playing in the “and”: never totally committing to any one technique. If you apply a lock, strike or throw, it should be done to the point where it serves its purpose and then you must move on to the next position. You can lock-on a technique but once you have fully committed to it, your only choice is to complete it because you have sacrificed your option to move freely in and out of it. This only enhances your opponent’s sensation of drowning in the “and” as he is the helpless victim of multiple techniques in succession, making it nearly impossible to adjust to the attack. A discovery that my friend Rustam Mann, shared with me was that you can create the illusion of being in a stance and still keep your uke suspended in the “and”. He accomplished this by going into a specific kamae and maintaining the slightest, smallest constant movement. Even if the movement is so subtle that one may not see it, the feeling of the void is maintained. When playing with this concept, I found it very important to keep the opponent in a period of stasis and not allow them to adjust to you as you are consistently moving through the void. This is precisely what Richard Sensei means when he tells us to adopt no stance as our stance.

Life in every breath – RSR

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