The title of this blog is a reference the title of Terry Dobson’s wonderful book on aikido and his life and it came about because of research I was doing for a previous piece. Somewhere I had heard the teaching that “head leads body, hips lead feet.” Search as I might I haven’t been able to find any reference to it, so either I imagined it, or one of my teachers made it up.

Nevertheless, the first part is really important. The head does lead the body. At the most basic level you can see the improvement in people you practise with when they start turning their head first when doing tenkan or tai sabaki; obviously you can’t see the improvement in yourself, but your friends will tell you.

And this act of turning the head first has a definite impact on technique too; it is particularly noticeable when doing irimi nage or kotegaeshi or indeed any tenkan or ura technique.
There is a further argument that as aikido always assumes multiple attack, you should always be turning your head to look around you as you perform technique rather than focusing your attention solely on your uke.
So I was telling one of my students to turn her head whilst doing a technique and she said, “Like dancing?” She had done ballet. And I got the chance to say, “Yes, it’s a lot like dancing!”
The fact that she had been a ballet dancer lead me to do a little research on the turning of the head in ballet. Obviously I’ve seen dancers spinning around on their points and not falling over and I had always assumed the head-turning was a technique in order to prevent dizziness. But then I came across the “Rules of Classical Dance.”
They were first set down definitively in 1723 by John Weaver and they are the principles essential for a dancer to learn about the age of 9 or 10. Here they are all seven (I’ve edited out some of the more specifically ballet-related comments):
1. Stand Correctly
• Tail down, spine up.
• Shoulders and hips face same direction.
• Weight balanced on the Triangle of Foot [this means the weight falls evenly through the outside of the heel and the little toe and big toe side of the foot with the arches lifted].
• Head erect and centred.
• Body centred over pelvis.
2. Turning Out
• Legs rotate from hip socket, feet follow.
• Knee remains in natural alignment with leg and foot, whether bent or straight.

3. Moving Correctly
• Each body part needs to be in the natural relationship to all others, and to the dancer’s centre of balance.
• Eyes and head lead the movements; arms and shoulders, body, legs and feet follow.

4. Balance
• Epaulement [literally means “shouldering in French and refers to the position of shoulders, head and neck]:
o Natural — the leg in front is matched by a slight forward movement of the same shoulder.
o Opposition — the opposite shoulder moves slightly forward.
• Opposition: the leg in front is balanced by the opposite arm coming forward.
• The weight is evenly distributed throughout the body, using the least amount of energy for the technique as possible.

5. Classical Technique
• The Head:
o Head moves independently, and leads movements of the body.
• Feet and Legs:
o Movements pass through the centre of the leg and the longitudinal centre of the foot.
• Principles for the Arms:
o A continuous flow of arm movements brings life and artistry to port de bras [basically, movement of the arms].
o Arms do not go behind the shoulders.
o Arms are rounded for the basic positions.
o Arms do not cross the centre line of the body, unless expression dictates otherwise.
o Arm movements should be sensed throughout and coordinated with the movements of the entire body.
• Principles for the Body:
o Shoulders and hips face the same direction and are level, except where use of correct muscles and body structure determines otherwise.
o The direction the hips face determines the direction the body is facing.
o Nothing must inhibit the breathing.

6. Transferring Weight
• The entire body weight must go to the new supporting leg, moving through the centre of balance.
• Dancer must be completely balanced against gravity all through the movement.
•
7. Coordination
• Noverre [Jean-Georges, a French balletmaster] stated: “Accuracy in classical dance is what matters, and if there is to be accuracy then there must be unity and discipline. Only then will there be coordination.”
• Another author says that if all the other principles are present, coordination will not be a problem.

When I came across these rules I was at first astonished, because I could see so many parallels with the martial arts in general and aikido in particular. But then I started thinking about the samurai: they were expected to have interests in other arts such as dancing, the game of go and tea ceremony, literature and poetry. This balance of cultural and martial was considered the pinnacle of the samurai culture.

Takeda Shingen (1521-73), the greatest general of the Ashikaga shogunate wrote, “A man’s learning is like the leaves and branches to a tree; he cannot be without it. Learning, however, is not just in reading something but rather is something we integrate with our own various ways.”

This is not the same as “The Renaissance Man”, as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as some who “is interested in and knows a lot about many things”, or even as embodied in Leonardo da Vinci, the archetypal Renaissance Man, who drew on his wide body of knowledge to solve specific problems.

The samurai seemed to view the arts as something that completes us, with one art informing another. This is not to say that everything should be viewed as a weapon, rather that swords have been beaten in ploughshares and ploughshares into swords.

To finish with a mundane example: a few years ago my wife and I took salsa classes. Now I would be the first to admit I have no sense of rhythm and two left feet, but once I started treating the dance steps as kata, I was surprised how easily it came to me. I probably wasn’t interpreting the music very well, but at least I didn’t look like a complete klutz (I hope!).

So now when I practise in the dojo, I will attempt to draw on John Weaver’s seven principles, and hopefully I can integrate some of the grace of a ballet dancer into my aikido.