Turning the Wheel: Al Smith

It’s a warm Thursday evening in late July. Even though the door to the Twin Cities Aikido Center is propped open, the whirring sound of ceiling fans serves to mute the sounds of the city outside. The space inside is neat and white from floor to ceiling. It’s not sterile, like a hospital - the simplicity has an organic feel to it. A thin wall divides the shoebox office from the rest of the room, which is large and uncluttered. The floor here is blanketed by a white canvas mat that absorbs both the sounds and the physical impact of bodies thudding against the ground.

This dojo (at 2390 University Ave. in St. Paul) is one of the largest Aikido practice halls in the Midwest, with classes running every day of the week. Instructors teach on a volunteer basis and beginning students are encouraged to learn from their more experienced counterparts. Classes do not follow a set curriculum, so students bring varying levels of experience with them to each class. On this particular evening, Sensei Al Smith has permitted me to come in to observe a class session geared more towards Aikido newcomers.

Turning the Wheel
About fourteen men and two women are perched on their knees in seiza position. Most of them are clad in white garments called keiko-gi. A few (Smith included) wear wide-legged black trousers called hakama, which can indicate the rank of a black-belt holder.

Students are attentive as Smith finishes demonstrating how to grip a partner’s hand above or below the wrist and deter his attack with a torqueing movement. They separate into pairs and spread evenly across the room. Looks of intent concentration creep across their faces and the hall is soon filled with a graceful choreography of seizing and falling.

Smith stops to observe a nearby pair. As one man launches into attack, his partner grabs him by the hand, stepping sideways to pull the arm up and back. He applies pressure to the attacker’s elbow, gaining enough leverage from the angle to get his attacker off balance. The attacker loses footing and falls backward onto the floor with a swift rolling motion. His back is rounded and both legs swing up automatically to bring him back to his feet.

When Smith claps his hands, all students are once again seated against the wall in seiza position and call out, “Hei, Sensei.” He takes a volunteer by the hand and, extending it outwards, shows the arc that is formed by the curve of body from wrist to waist. “I’m taking the wheel,” he says in his distinctive Southern twang, “and turning it into shape.” With a spiraling movement, Smith brings the volunteer down to the ground and shows the group how to pin the attacker by placing one knee at the short rib and one at the wrist. He then twists the attacker’s arm until a slap on the floor signals that his attacker has had enough.

Smith’s movements are gentle, but firm – reminiscent of someone trying to soothe and immobilize an agitated animal. Since the philosophy of Aikido is rooted in self-defense and non-aggression, there is no attempt to counter-attack. The emphasis is on harmonizing with the attacker’s aggressive movements by using circular motions – essentially, using the attacker’s own weaknesses to diffuse the confrontation.

Students split into pairs for practice, sometimes slipping from movement into quiet consultation with one another. They work through the actions verbally, illustrating techniques with the flat planes of their hands. One student complains to Smith that his partner’s arms are too strong to effectively manipulate. Smith jokes, “That’s why some people carry guns, you know,” then proceeds to show the student a more effective technique for bringing his partner down.

Smith claps his hands again and students reassemble in a line against the wall. “Imagine the wheel, imagine you’re holding on to the tiller of a ship – turning it, not forcing it,” he instructs, “Visualize yourself behind that wheel.”

With another volunteer, he demonstrates how to catch an attacker’s hand in the web of his own. “It isn’t a secret Masonic handshake or anything like that.” He brings the palm of his hand forward, catching the back of the other man’s hand in his own. He pulls the man down to the ground easily with a swift spiraling motion.

Smith then shows how to rapidly shift his center to avoid a direct line of attack. As the attacker charges head on, Smith shifts his weight to the side so that he is standing parallel to the other man. From this angle, he grabs the man’s arm without difficulty and swings him down to the mat. “Here,” he says, “You can grab above or below the wrist – just don’t brace the wrist with your fingers.”

There is a chorus of “thank you’s” from the students as they break out once more into pairs. From where I am seated against the wall, I can hear short eruptions of cooperative and respectful conversation between partners as they compliment, critique, and offer explanations to one another.

Directly in front of me, one student is dragged to the ground with his arm bent at an easy angle. Helpfully, he says, “Try pulling it that way,” and flicks his head to indicate a location somewhere behind him. His face reddens as his partner tries this and he rests his head briefly on the ground before slapping to show his submission. “That was good,” he says, rising to his feet.

Locating the Center
As practice continues, I allow my attention to drift away from individual moves to the pattern of movement itself. I am momentarily reminded of Bjork’s factory-centered musical number in the film, Dancer in the Dark. The film’s clutter-crash-bang cacophony of grinding machinery and rubber-soled shoes is replaced here by a much more peaceful syncopation: the whirring fan, the vinyl slip of bare feet padding against the canvas, of hands slapping, bodies thumping, and voices lowered in consultation. Smith’s resonating clap pierces through these noises from time to time, centering and reshaping them.

Class ends with a meditation. Some students close their eyes for this; others leave them open, directing their gaze toward the altar. The altar is flanked by several racks holding wooden shafts of varying lengths: the jo (walking sticks), bokken (wooden swords), and tanto (knives). A scroll at the left bears the Japanese characters ai (harmony), ki (energy), and do (the path). To the right hangs a portrait of Aikido founder O-Sensei (Morihei Ueshiba).

All bow to the portrait, then break formation to join a more informal semi-circle. One by one, each student introduces him- or herself to the group and Smith takes the opportunity to ask if there are any questions or comments. Tonight there are none, and while some students disappear to change into street clothes, others start right in on tidying up the place. To my right, one student switches on the vacuum cleaner. Another student bellies down with a cleaning rag to scrub a spot off the canvas mat.

Whereas the center of an individual is located somewhere in the gut area, the center of the Twin Cities Aikido Center appears to lie in its collaborative nature. With a 501(c)3 designation, it is a non-profit organization that is run entirely by volunteers. “It’s not a strip mall martial arts center,” Smith tells me, “No one draws a cent of salary. It’s not a business – everyone, students and instructors - pays membership dues. It’s about harmonizing.”

Appointed by the board of directors, Lynn Vongries and Cal Blanchard are the center’s co-chief instructors. As with all of the instructors at the center, they are yudansha (holders of black-belt ranks) and certified by Hombu dojo, in Tokyo. The Twin Cities Aikido Center assists students in qualifying for the nationally standardized ranking examinations, but is careful to point out that “Aikido is not a sport. There are no competitive tournaments. The Aikidoist betters his or her self without belittling others.”

Walking the Wok
After the place has been cleaned and everyone has changed into street clothes, Smith and his students invite me to join them at The Village Wok for their weekly Thursday night dinner. It’s a cozy restaurant near the center and just off the University of Minnesota campus. The staff here is clearly familiar with the group, calling members by name and engaging in light banter. We’re taken to a quieter room in the back where several tables are pushed together to accommodate the size of our group.

It’s an intimate setting and conversation flows easily at the table. The formality and focus of the classroom has been abandoned for a more light-hearted tone. A gold panel at the rear wall reveals a scene with white cranes on long delicate legs. Beneath this picture, two students joke about the cult-like nature of the martial arts in general and kid Smith about needing to find a resident cult leader for the center. Smith smiles good-naturedly and shakes his head.

From the tabletop exchange, it’s evident that many of the members (Smith included) arrived at the Twin Cities Aikido Center after sampling several of the other martial arts. From the other end of the table, someone comments, “If you wanted to learn how to fight, there’s Judo, Jujitsu….” His neighbor counters that, unless you’ve already devoted several years to studying these arts, you’re almost better off in an attack situation if you’ve had no training at all. A few chuckles skip down the table.

“In that case,” another guy adds, “a gun or a can of mace will do it.”

After the waiter has taken everyone’s order, Kevin - one of the group members - signals that he has an announcement to make. His girlfriend has been admitted to a master’s program in neurology at King’s College and, in love, he has decided to go to London with her. There are congratulations all around, as well as utterances of surprise and dismay at their departure. It is, in a sense, the response of a village to one of its members, and an indication of the communal nature of the center itself.

And, like a village, there is a range of ages reflected in center membership, as well as a relatively balanced distribution of genders. The composition of each class varies, Smith tells me, depending on individual schedules and how often a practitioner can make it every week. Though tonight’s class consisted primarily of men in their twenties and early thirties, he says that nearly a quarter of the center’s members are over fifty-five and there are usually a good number of female participants. The structure of the group is always changing.

Even the communal dinners, such as the one we are attending tonight, arise from the special circumstances of the group. The early morning classes, Smith says, sometimes go out to breakfast together afterwards if they don’t have to be at work right away. But there is no hard and fast rule – it just happens and evolves naturally, “arising from the philosophy of the group itself.”

After fourteen years as an Aikido practitioner, Smith’s approach both inside and outside of class is one of harmonizing with the nature of the things around him. He demonstrates, but does not dictate. He fields questions, but does not compete with the answers. He is responsive to situations, but does not force them.

I recognize it later when I stop to read the center’s literature, quoting O-Sensei’s reflections on Budo (The Martial Way): “True Budo is to accept the spirit of the universe, keep the peace of the world, correctly produce, protect, and cultivate all things in nature.”

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Photos by Valerie Borey