La Cagne, in the part of France where I was born, is the name of a river. It's also the name of any place in the Midi of France that's used for far niente, basking in the sun with no scruples. Nothing to do with the Khâgne, a place of scruples on the contrary, where the minds of Khâgne students are trained from an early age in conscience, and sometimes also - unbeknownst to them - in a good conscience.
And a million pardons Milord, with all due respect I'm a cagneux too, because I went to university in a cagne. My mind was shaped there as best it could in the fresh air, my thîronnage was truant, so I have no scruples, and I don't have as good a conscience either, but at least that I know.
By a fair return of fate in the cagne you learn to find the cagnard - the calm zone . The cagnard is protected from the bad wind. And on a battlefield, the bad wind blows from all sides. Life is a battlefield where the unexpected is everywhere.
Aikido is the art that protects you from the unexpected, it's the art of the calm zone. And it's the calm zone that this video is about:
The Founder had a right idea of Aikido. Unfortunately, Aikido practitioners do not share his idea, as shown by the blatant contradiction between their movements and the instructions handed down by O'Sensei. We worship the photo of the old man on the kamizama, and make a few vain references to his misunderstood words. Well, for my part, I'd rather see O Sensei's picture thrown into the fire, if only in return we'd listen to and apply his instructions. From Tokyo to Iwama, via all the dojos on the planet, nobody does.
Yet no Aikido movement can bear this name if it does not systematically secure tori against the unexpected at all times. This is the rule of survival in any martial situation. The movement that allows this to happen is not the result of chance or of the vagaries of combat; it is rigorous, regulated like music paper, always equal to itself - eadem mutata resurgo - and it obeys the following scheme:
