Extra breathing room

The Japanese word yoyuu, applied to daily life

The Japanese word yoyuu is a little hard to translate exactly into English. I’d heard Sensei use this word before, but when he told me my aikido demonstrations need more yoyuu, he brought out a Japanese-English dictionary and handed it to me, red-vinyl-bound with thin pages, open to the entry for 余裕.

The definition grasped at many English words and phrases, room, extra space, ease, margin, allowance, surplus. Online, people use “elbow room” or “breathing space” to help describe the concept.

Some people use other aikido concepts to explain yoyuu, like having extra ability, not needing to use all your strength in reserve, or even for a practical application, a change in momentum.

Sensei said my techniques were too close together in the demo, in a real street fight everything would blend together but for an audience, you need some separation, perhaps for drama, perhaps for easier understanding and appreciation.

So in the next demo I had the opportunity to show with Dave, I threw, then paused, frozen, for half a second to show my pose at the end of the technique, backed up or stepped quickly to a good position, then stood as still as I could, inviting the next attack. Dave moves extremely fast so all of this gets compressed into literally two seconds, between throws. But I did my best to make a separation not only physically between us, but with my speed, going from zero to fast and back to zero.

The concepts to do good aikido can be applied to daily life also. For example, if you move from one work project to the next, continuously, without breaks or varying your speed, you will quickly become exhausted. It is better to be able to come to a complete stop at the times when you need to rest. Easier said than done, but I’ve found as a freelancer, I can always keep doing more, but sometimes it’s not healthy for me to do more. Being able to make a clear separation between work and rest is a valuable skill that I am still working on.

Somewhat ironically, I find myself without extra ability this week to say everything I want to about yoyuu. Perhaps I will write a follow up post later!

Please let me know what you think in the comments.

Take care,

Rey