Protective Arts

INITIATIVE: TERMS AND CONCEPTS

Timing and initiative are related concepts, especially once one steps onto the mat and is required to embody them rather than merely discuss them abstractly.

In my earlier article, Jo v Bokken article, I deliberately used traditional budō terminology, rather than exclusively use concepts from George Silver, Bruce Lee and John Boyd. That choice was intentional: the traditional terms deserve to be understood on their own terms before they are translated into other lexicons. What follows is an attempt to do exactly that.

The vocabulary of initiative emerges most clearly in early Edo-period sword theory, especially in the writings of Yagyū Munenori, recorded in Heihō Kadensho (c. 1632), and in the later tactical reflections of Miyamoto Musashi in Gorin no Sho (c. 1645).

Several points are immediately clear from these sources: Sen is not synonymous with speed. Acting early is often condemned as error. Initiative is taken after the opponent’s intention has fixed, not before it has formed.

Munenori repeatedly warns against premature action. The swordsman who moves too soon reveals intent without consequence; the swordsman who waits for fixation acts with inevitability. Musashi likewise emphasizes rhythm (hyōshi) and the breaking of rhythm to dominate the moment of decision.

What is notably absent in these texts is a clean taxonomy. The distinctions are present, but they are descriptive and situational, not codified into a pedagogical system.

The modern fourfold system (sen, sen-no-sen, go-no-sen, sensen-no-sen) is largely a pedagogical consolidation, refined through late kendo instruction.

Term	Common Explanation
Sen	Taking initiative
Sen-no-sen	Acting as the opponent acts
Go-no-sen	Acting after the opponent
Sensen-no-sen	Acting before the opponent

It is useful, but only if understood descriptively, not prescriptively. It does not tell you what to do. It describes when you when you are doing it.

Sen (先) Initiative Proper

At its root, sen simply means initiative. In classical usage, this refers to the moment the opponent’s commitment becomes readable and binding.

It is not attacking first, or moving quickly (speed), or forcing action. It is recognizing when the opponent has demonstrated intent and started along a trajectory and thus acting because the opponent can no longer recover safely (or change vectors).

Sen-no-Sen (先の先) Acting at the Moment of Commitment

Sen-no-sen describes action taken as the opponent’s initiative manifests.

Traditionally, this is the ideal timing: It is not preemptive, nor reactive, but coincident with fixation.

Structurally, this is the moment when the opponent’s attack is real, but its outcome is not yet decided.

In classical weapon systems, this timing preserves defense while seizing control. In budō, it became the model of “simultaneity,” though that term often obscures its precision.

Go-no-Sen (後の先) Initiative After Initiative

Go-no-sen describes action taken after the opponent has already initiated.

Classically, this timing accepts that the opponent has already seized advantage, and larger movements and compensation are required.

Both Munenori and Musashi acknowledge this timing as necessary, but inferior. The swordsman who relies on go-no-sen is already behind the decision curve.

Sensen-no-Sen (先先の先) Preemptive Disruption

Sensen-no-sen refers to acting before the opponent’s initiative fully forms.

In classical contexts, this often meant applying psychological pressure, threat, or provocation. (Watch early videos of O’Sensei and you will see numerous instances.)

Critically, because no commitment yet exists, this timing is structurally fragile. It relies on judgment, deception, or intimidation rather than inevitability. Used improperly, it puts you at risk, by moving first you show your intent and could over-commit.

So a fourfold system emerges that simply describes when one acts relative to the opponent’s irreversible commitment:

Sensen-no-sen — before commitment

Sen-no-sen — at commitment

Go-no-sen — after commitment

Sen — the condition of initiative itself

Again: this is not a tactical prescription. It is a descriptive ordering.

In Aikido, initiative correlates not to victory, but to the emergence of the axis of the encounter. The axis is the dynamic line of force, balance, and intent that emerges only at the moment uke commits and only where nage intersects that commitment.

Rather than seeking to end the fight, Aikido seeks to perfect the encounter. This requires a different emphasis for timing and initiative. Seen this way:

Sensen-no-sen occurs before an axis exists. There is no binding yet.

Go-no-sen occurs after the axis is already controlled by uke. Nage must compensate.

Sen-no-sen occurs at the birth of the axis. This is where Aikido’s internal logic is strongest. At that moment posture can be preserved (shizentai), movement becomes mutually constrained, and ki-musubi becomes perceptible.

Because these are descriptive labels and not prescriptive maxims, they are more neutral than other lexicons developed by fighters like George Silver, John Boyd, and Bruce Lee.

I discuss George Silver in an early post, but to provide a summary and contrast:

Silver does not speak of initiative. He speaks of combative safety. Silver’s “times” are not abstract tempos. They are priority rules of mass and threat:

Element	Why it matters
Hand	Least mass, fastest threat projection
Body	Adds structure and power
Foot	Commits total mass, hardest to retract

I frequently use Silver’s maxims in class, but his logic is what matters:

Actions that commit greater mass before threat is established are unsafe.

Thus:

Hand–Body–Foot → true time (threat first, commitment last)

Foot–Body–Hand → false time (telegraphed, unsafe)

This is exactly right. But why? Because Silver cares about survivability, not initiative.

Silver Term	What it Actually Describes
True Time	Correct sequencing of threat → mass
False Time	Premature commitment
Measure	Whether contact can occur safely
Judgment	Recognition of opponent’s commitment

Silver does not care who “goes first.” He cares who cannot safely change.

Concept	Silver	Budō	Axis Model
Commitment	Mass sequence	Initiative	Irreversible posture
Timing	True vs false	Sen categories	Axis emergence
Safety	Defense preserved	Harmony implied	Shared constraint
Error	Death	Technique failure	Compensation

Silver and Col. Cooper speak the same language: employ the body with proper tactics. Budō speaks more abstractly. The axis model attempts to restore structural accountability without (necessarily) reintroducing lethality.

Perhaps the more interesting integration is an overly of Bruce Lee’s analysis of the Five-Types of Speed. In Tao of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee breaks speed into five distinct but interrelated functions. These are not attributes of technique; they are failure points in perception and action.

Perceptual Speed
How quickly one recognizes what is actually happening.
Mental Speed
How quickly one decides once perception is clear.
Initiation Speed
How quickly one begins action after decision.
Performance Speed
How quickly the body executes the chosen action.
Alteration Speed
How quickly one can change or abort action when conditions shift.

Lee’s taxonomy maps almost perfectly onto Boyd’s OODA loop, but at the scale of a physical encounter.

Boyd (OODA)	Bruce Lee	Function
Observe	Perceptual Speed	Seeing what is actually happening
Orient	Mental Speed	Interpreting without distortion
Decide	Initiation Speed	Committing without hesitation
Act	Performance Speed	Executing physically
Re-orient	Alteration Speed	Adapting mid-action

Lee’s genius was recognizing that most fighters fail before action: They see late, interpret poorly, hesitate, and then try to compensate with physical speed. Boyd would say the same thing (just with jets instead of fists).

THE AXIS OF THE ENCOUNTER

Aikido pedagogy has a recurring failure mode: it introduces words long before it stabilizes their referents. Terms like center, connection, and timing are used frequently but imprecisely, because they are experienced with the body (somatically). The very point of practice is to refine how those concepts are felt, both individually and in a partnered exchange.

In the last several classes I tried to show to the axis of the encounter and then attempt to demonstrate how several foundational Aikido ideas (sen, shizentai, ki-musubi) are not separate principles, but different descriptions of a shared physical encounter.

The axis of the encounter is the dynamic line of force, balance, and intent that emerges only at the moment uke commits and only where nage intersects that commitment (any specific attack).

It is not a static moment nor a metaphor. It is a definite moment in time and a relationally fixed point; a temporary structural fact, produced by two bodies entering a shared mechanical problem.

Once formed, the axis defines: where balance can no longer be recovered; which posture can survive without compensation; which movements increase instability and which resolve it.

Crucially on timing: The potential to create a shared axis exists briefly. Miss it early and nothing meaningful happens. Miss it late and you are managing damage, not controlling the encounter.

The axis is created at the moment nage adheres to uke’s initial attack.

I used adhere because, in Aikido, nage is never blocking or even meaningfully redirecting uke’s attack. The developmental goal is to learn sen-no-sen timing: to blend with the attack, capture initiative, and recognize the felt binding of the encounter. That felt binding is what we later call ki-musubi.

Thus the axis simply is that locus of those concepts manifested in time and space.

Once the axis forms, both uke and nage orient themselves around the same constraint. The encounter becomes intelligible precisely because there is now a shared problem. Neither party is “free” anymore. Every movement tightens or loosens the same structural limitation.

This mutual orientation is what aikido language often calls connection or blending. Those words are not wrong, but they tend to obscure the harder truth: the axis binds because it limits options.

Traditional discussions of sen categorize initiative as early, simultaneous, or late. I have discussed timing in several posts from an efficacity or strategic perspective, but in this context: Before commitment, uke’s movement is ambiguous. After commitment, the outcome is already collapsing. Sen exists only in the narrow interval where posture, intent, and trajectory align strongly enough to be predictive.

This reframes several common errors:

Speed ≠ sen
Fast movement before commitment produces motion without consequence.

Waiting ≠ patience
Late movement recognizes the axis only after uke already controls it.

Correct timing is recognition of uke’s intent, followed by immediate entry with positive and correct structure.

This leads directly to shizentai, which is often misunderstood as a neutral stance or relaxed readiness. A more precise understanding is:

Shizentai is not merely a posture you assume before engagement; it is the posture that remains intact after correct entry.

When the axis is entered properly: The spine remains vertically organized; weight settles rather than shifts dramatically; footwork is corrective, not compensatory.

This is the reason I am focusing on a lighter and less muscular engagement. Muscular bracing, large horizontal movements, and dramatic changes in force vectors are not signs of power, they are signals of axis failure.

Properly employed, shizentai is structural conservation. It preserves posture while force resolves around it.

Ki-musubi is not a mystical concept and has a practical meaning. Stripped to essentials:

Ki-musubi describes the felt certainty that uke and nage are now bound to the same axis and cannot disengage without worsening their condition.

At this point: uke should feel drawn forward (invited) even when resisting; nage should be committed even while relaxed; and ultimately, conjoined movement becomes inevitable rather than chosen. This is not harmony in the sense that both players elect to cooperate. That lexical label is just a convenient way to describe a more complex shared constraint.

Slow practice makes this sensation unmistakable. Speed allows evasion (and misses the point of the practice). Slowness forces both parties to inhabit the axis honestly, revealing whether posture is doing the work. If you have to put more energy into the encounter, then (ipso facto) you were not moving around the axis.

Hence foregrounding postural awareness at the axis is a pre-condition for correct technique.

I flip my pedagogy because I am not inherently convinced of the best developmental path. My current classes assume a developmental sequence:

Shizentai preservation
Ki-musubi sensitization
Technique emerging as necessity, not choice

This is why slow is smooth, smooth is fast is not a slogan but a neurological truth. Speed amplifies what already exists.

This is not the developmental path I learned under. My training was less refined:

Tanren builds the body
Technique is deployed deliberately
Failure of technique reveals problems to resolve

Those problems were then identified as issues of timing, structure, or intent. In other words, the learning sequence ran in reverse: from body to concept, rather than from perception to structure.

I am not convinced that either approach is inherently superior.

The working assumption in my current classes is that: Axis literacy will automatically generalize to resistance. I recognize the risk that without pressure escalation, students may mistake calmness for control. Furthermore, I assume students can tolerate ambiguity without continued mapping to kihon techniques. The risk is that (especially beginners) students require consistent presentation of form to anchor perception.

It’s A Wonderful Life

It’s a Wonderful Life was my father’s favorite film, and now, years after his death, I see why: it honors the difficult grace of choosing a small life on purpose. George Bailey thinks he has forfeited greatness but the film quietly insists he has achieved it.

Part of the movie’s power comes from James Stewart himself. He returned from World War II not as a glamorous matinee idol but as a veteran who had flown combat with the Eighth Air Force, rising from private to full colonel and earning two Distinguished Flying Crosses before continuing in the reserves to become a brigadier general. That résumé isn’t trivia; it explains the gravity in his eyes. The war had changed him; the lightness of his early comedies never fully returned.

There’s a famous account, substantiated in Stewart’s own words, that during the barroom prayer, he didn’t “act” so much as break. He later said he began to sob on camera, drawing from “something very close to me” after the war. Director Frank Capra kept the take. When Stewart pleads, “I’m not a praying man,” the line lands as a confession. You sense a man asking for permission to go on living.

Jim Caviezel interviewed by Shawn Ryan

Even the film’s survival was tenuous. It stumbled at release, then was saved decades latter, when a lapsed copyright renewal sent it into the public domain, and stations ran it endlessly at Christmas, turning it into the classic we think it always was. Republic Pictures later reasserted control via the underlying story and music rights after Stewart v. Abend reshaped derivative-work law, but by then the movie had entered the national expectations. It “lived” because ordinary people kept returning to it. That feels right.

The parallels between George and my father are uncomfortable for me. George lost hearing in his left ear saving his brother; my father lost the sight in one eye after a car fan exploded when he tried to wire it to a 120v outlet. Both injuries redirected their lives. George’s deafness kept him from enlisting; my father’s blindness spared him Vietnam. George inherited a vocation from his banker father; and my father’s father was that same kind of small-town banker. Peter Bailey kept a failing building-and-loan alive because neighbors needed roofs. My grandfather kept a small Connecticut bank honest, and my father learned that stewardship is not an abstraction. The film never romanticizes that duty, it just refuses to call it failure.

George has his bitter moments. At one point he spits, “Playing nursemaid to a lot of garlic-eaters!” a burst of contempt for the same townsfolk he serves. It’s ugly and it’s true to life. The pivot of the story is not that George stops resenting his obligations, it’s that he masters the resentment. He learns to love the very people his ambition made him despise.

What the film understands, and what my father silently modeled, is that “greatness” is often the long obedience to duties: a town that still has a savings-and-loan because you show up; a marriage that endures because you tell your own panic to wait; a household that works because you fix the thing that’s broken and go back to work the next day. My father taught high-school art, built additions badly but sturdily, read before dawn, and kept moving. He was no saint. He could be stubborn and he smoked too long. But he chose to be needed where he was. That is George Bailey’s wager.

Capra’s sentimentality has always made some critics itchy. Fine. Strip away the saccharine and you find three hard truths. First: the counterfactual of a life consists mostly in other people’s welfare. Second: worth is measured not by distance traveled but by the spaces that collapse if you are removed. Third: despair is a form of pride, the belief that only spectacular lives matter. Stewart’s prayer, and my father’s life, refute that delusion.

The movie also carries a warning that feels sharper now. Potter’s power isn’t just capital, it’s abstraction. Once help scales beyond faces, people become data, and mercy becomes efficiency. The Building & Loan’s messy, personal credit system was moral precisely because it was inefficient. It stayed moral because it was a humane institution.

Stewart kept that ethic. He continued to fly reserve missions, including an “Arc Light” mission over Vietnam, and to play men who were decent before they were impressive. The “ordinary hero” wasn’t a role he wore; it was who he was.

When I watch It’s a Wonderful Life now, I don’t see a Christmas fable. Mostly, I see my father: a man who chose modest obligations over ambition, who believed that love is proved by labor, and who taught without words that a life can be both unspectacular and indispensable.

Merry Christmas Dad.