Aikido is extraordinary, but it is not magic. There is no universal technical recipe. Aikido is a balance to be found constantly, at every moment of the movement. To make this point, O Sensei often used an image borrowed from algebra: 2+8=10, 3+7=10, 4+6=10.
What does this mean? Well, first of all, 10 represents the One, the Absolute, the Whole. To go beyond 10 is to look for a solution outside the Whole, and nothing exists outside the Whole. If an opponent applies a force of 7 in a shomen attack, for example, trying to oppose him with the same gradient of force amounts to adding 7+7=14. This leaves the realm of balance and harmony behind, since - by definition - going beyond 10 is tantamount to ‘’overstepping‘’ the limits of the Universe, which obviously has no chance of happening, but which does, on the other hand, force you into conflict with the Universe.
The example in the video illustrates the impossibility of this situation:
On the other hand, to remain below 10, providing, for example, a grade 2 complement to a grade 7 attack, is also to miss the perfection of the Universe, because 7+2 is not equal to 10 either. Nor is balance achieved, and such a situation is no less a source of conflict with the Universe than in the previous case.
A force of grade 7 can therefore only be opposed and associated with a force of grade 3. Only in this way can balance be achieved.
Being the Universe means balancing the complementary forces in the Aikido movement in such a way that their sum is always and at all times equal to 10, no more and no less.
Moving the body is the means by which this balance is achieved. In Aikido, this movement is called tai no henka. It allows the division of the initial undifferentiated principle into two polarised elements (irimi-tenkan), whose complementary relationship then allows the technique to appear.
