Tenchi Nage or Heaven and Earth

In tonight's class we worked on Tenchi Nage also known as Heaven and Earth throw. It is a study of where one hand travels upward towards "heaven" while the other hand travels downward towards the "earth." This set of movements provides Shite or the "Doer of the technique" with the study of taking Uke's "receiver of the technique" center of gravity off-line and creating an unbalancing with a minimum amount of effort.

I recently read this "Aikido-like" poem and shared it with the class. I hope you enjoy it!

Heaven On Earth
Author Unknown
I could not define it exactly--the thing I felt about this home. But I could feel it and it warmed my soul. It was the manner in which everyone addressed everyone else. There was no shouting, not even a raising of the voice. Sure, there were disagreements, but I can still remember the reasonable way in which they talked them out. I somehow knew that it would have been very painful to all if someone had spoken sharply because, you see, they loved each other. And how can you harm someone you love?

I remember one day when the father had to take a trip out of town over the weekend. As he left the door that morning, everyone was there to bid him "good-bye", and it was right there I learned the meaning of that expression.
To them, as tears gathered in their eyes, it meant literally "God be with you until we meet again."

I always say that you can tell about a home by observing the apparent "little" every-day events. In this home every event was important. To them each day was the most important day in eternity.

I can still see the scene when we all kneeled down to pray. You know how some people pray; it gets to be more or less a matter of form and has something of the mechanical in it--something you do because it's your duty. But not here. They all joined hands as they prayed, and it seemed to me as if angels were talking to each other. Such sentiments of thankfulness, such please for wisdom, such feelings of Divinity.

I suppose you could say there was a distinctive kind of Spirit in this home. Yes, I'm sure there was. It was the spirit of kindness, patience, loveliness, beauty, and love itself. The thought occurred to me as I left, that to these people
Heaven itself would not be strange when they went there, because they had a corner of it right on earth.
http://www.scrapbook.com/poems/doc/254/49.html