Women often make the best Aikido students.

Womens Aikido Techniques: How Can Relaxation Generate More Power?

Imagine an Olympic level weight lifter getting ready to do his final lift in the hopes of winning a gold metal. We see the explosive force as the barbell is lifted over the head in one smooth movement and the athlete stands straight up. Aikido techniques are obviously not weight lifting but it is also true that the clean and jerk is not just a matter or brute force where one uses only muscle to horse the weight overhead. In both, there is the excecutions of correct technique where power is applied at the right time and not all the way through the technique.

Aikido Techniques: Differences Between Men and Women

I believe that women are often more intuitive than men in their Aikido technique because they do not have a substantial amount of upper body strength to rely upon. But can you truly relax when you are trying to generate power? The answer is Yes, but to explain how this is possible we must first review the Four Basic Principles of Aikido: Keep One-Point; Relax Completely; Weight Underside; Extend Ki.

Koichi Tohei Sensei, one of O-Senei’s direct students has said that these four principles are essential to the proper executions of Aikido techniques. He also points out that if any one of the four are missing, you have none of them. Relax Completely is a principle that women “get” faster than men in my opinion because they can’t rely on their upper body like the boys wrestling in the sand box.

Aikido Techniques: Relaxation Promotes the Clean Transfer of Energy

If one is relaxed, movement is fluid, which permits the most efficient transfer of energy. This clean shift of momentum is what permits a high-level practitioner such as Steven Segal Sensei to exectue a kokyu nage in a seemingly effortless manner. It is also the reason why O-Sensei seems to through ukes almost without touching them. My observation of womens Aikido techniques is that their progression is directly related t

o the fact that they de-emphasize muscle in favor of the smooth weight transfer achieved through

relaxation.