Ikkyo, and making an argument

At my job, I'm often in the position of pitching an agenda to a sometimes reluctant audience.  I'm a Project Manager in a high-tech company, and my presentations often determine whether we're going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on all kinds of stuff.   I can sometimes get a lot of "push-back," especially when the situation is complicated or difficult for a whole host of possible reasons.

So, the for the past couple of days, we've done Ikkyo in Aikido class.  First technique.  O'Sensei called it the "twenty-year" technique.   I, personally, have had lots of difficulty with this technique.  In particular, the timing is very tricky -- especially from a Shomen-uchi attack, and especially the way we do it in our Dojo, which is very, very direct and linear.  Even if I get the timing right, I often over-extend myself (I lean forward), which makes the technique hard to finish.

So, during my last presentation at work, I'm anticipating an attack from some "Uke" in the room, and, sure enough, there it is (Shomen-uchi -- a strike right to the top of my head).  It occurs to me that the visual presentation on the screen (the PowerPoint presentation) is like the hand/arm technique, and the technical, commercial, and political "posture" I'm taking, manifested in my physical and verbal delivery, is my "center."   

So, I focused on not letting what was on the screen get too far ahead of the attack, nor did I minimize it (a la "T-Rex arms").  I focused on my own posture, my own center, and how it related to Uke's.  I met the attack before it had built up any real power, and moved through it -- from my center.

The fight was over before it began, and nobody got hurt.   I even got comments after the meeting like "I don't know what you did, but it worked."

Yes, this stuff really works!