The One Point: Aikido and the Point of a Story

All---

Shihonage, Aikido throw
(photographed by Magyar Balazs)

A great many of the things I write begin in my mind with a philosophical question or idea.  A story forms when I envision a character and then throw them cruelly against that question or idea and see what happens.  This is the essence of my particular slant on psychological suspense: a dark story that begins with the tension between individual psychological and transcendent human philosophical questions.

Just the same, I don't make care of the idea of boiling any story down to a theme, a topic, a moral, or (perhaps worst of all), a "point."

Instead, I think it's like something we talk about in Aikido as, "the one point." In Aikido that "one point" is both the source of energy and center of action.  You might link it to the center of gravity.  You might relate it to the focus of psychological centeredness.  At the core, the one point is both the drive and the pivot point for everything we do in Aikido.

The one point isn't static.  It's dynamic.  It moves and shifts with the person.  It changes with the context.  The one point also isn't a physical X, Y, Z coordinate.  It's not something that everyone can look at, touch, and feel.

That's more like the role of the philosophical quesiton or idea that starts my story. It's the driver and the pivot point.  It's always there, and it's source of energy and the center of action -- but it may not be apparent.  You may not be about to see it, touch, or feel it.  You, as a reader, may sometimes see it as clear as it.  You, as a reader, may never know it's the there.  But that's okay, because it may be the one point, but it's not the point of the story.

.Nevets.

Writing from a One Point: The Thing Steven Seagal Taught Bill Shakespeare

All---

photo by Tharso

This afternoon, I was smarting off to author Roni Loren on Twitter.  She had expressed a very real authorial frustration with not knowing where to start her current novella project.  I offered her some #CannedWritingAdvice.  When she asked for a a can opener, I spouted off deep-sounding drivel, drawing on my old radio improv skills:


Start with the voice and let the narrative flow in all directions from that one point.

While a fair summation of how I right, and how I structure stories, and reflecting some of the resonance of Scott GF Bailey's unified theory of writing, I meant this to be flip.

Only.

My word choice tripped me up, and I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since.

You see, in aikido, we talk about a one point.  Your one point, thought of as the center of the energy which the martial art draws on, is somewhere between two and four inches below your navel, depending on your physique, health, mindset, etc...  Sometimes, you also work around an extension of the one point, a point in space measured out from the point in your physical body. 

The idea of the one point is complex.  Here are a couple of examples.  

To the left, you can see  me, in a rusty aikido ready stance.  Most of it's not terrible, given my dress, circumstances, and rustiness.  If I were doing this properly, my arms would be drawing from my one point and extending the energy out through my fingertips, directly at my target. 

Below, you can see an aikido master, using the one point to lever his 

opponent down.  He first drew his attacker in, and then controlled him, essentially like bending a flexible rod over his knee -- except bending his opponent over the one point, in stead.

photo by Ygonaar 

Sometimes you redirect energy from the one point.  Sometimes you redirect your subject around the one point.  The one point is the center of a dynamic sphere of activity at the heart of everything in aikido.

Now, back to what I said to Roni when I was smarting off: Start with the voice and let the narrative flow in all directions from that one point.

I'll be darned if that's not true to how I write.  The voice really is my one point.  It is the center of energy withint he body of what I'm writing.  Everything else I do is to redirect that energy or to redirect my readers around it.  The voice is the one point at the center of the dynamic sphere of my writing.  It is the thing which I extend out into the universe, and the thing which provides the lever point for whatever impact I hope to have on the reader.  The rest of the narrative really does flow from there.

Perhaps it's a little thing this analogy, but it helps me embrace the idea even further.  Because I love working with analogy, it also helps me understand other things.  Aikido disciplines suddenly seem directly applicable.  Focus and directionality in my ready stance tells me about preparing for writing.  It's about deliberate extension of voice, not about character and plot notes.  Aikido exercises suddenly seem instructive.  Routines in which we practice complex circular motions while pinned to one point give me insights in how to perceive my story as revolving around the voice.

Love those epiphanies...

.Nevets.