Reflections on reflection

A lesson I took away from a recent guest-taught class we had with Gordon Jones Shihan was about something he termed “reflection”. That is, the energy or tension you put into your technique and how uke will reflect it back.

It is a fundamental of aikido to use movement, not strength, allowing physics to do the work. But in particular this idea chimed with me, that any strength you put in will instinctively cause uke to react. We are such an intuitive species that an uke that feels resistance will, even without consciously registering it, understand that the attack has changed.

It’s obvious that trying to muscle through technique will turn it into a fight where the strongest wins, but this is something more subtle. You want uke to always feel their intended attack is working, so being as relaxed and mobile as possible allows that illusion to continue until their balance is gone and it’s too late for them to change.