Interview with Bruno Gonzalez: From Constraint to Freedom

Guillaume Erard: Could you tell us how you started martial arts?

Bruno Gonzalez: As a child, I did some judo, but I didn't stay very long: I was rather frail and not really combative, so it didn't suit me. It was a school friend who told me about aikido, in a somewhat misleading way, actually, and who advised me to go see a class. I attended a session. I saw practitioners in hakama working in suwari waza. It was quite exotic.

But what struck me most was the atmosphere of study and tradition: people worked in silence and with rigor. I think at 15, that's what I liked first. Of course, I didn't understand the practice yet, since I was discovering it, but the idea of engaging in something that had depth rather than a leisure distraction, that's what motivated me to start.

Guillaume Erard: You already had this capacity for concentration at 15, which is rather unusual for someone that age.

Bruno Gonzalez: I was quite introverted, quite shy, an only child... so I naturally tended toward introspection.

Guillaume Erard: You're not from Paris?

Bruno Gonzalez: No, I'm from Bordeaux. I started aikido there with Alain Guillabert, who was my first teacher and is now sixth dan. I then left Bordeaux at 18, after the baccalaureate, to come train at the Cercle.

Guillaume Erard: Before moving to Paris, had you already met Christian Tissier?

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, he came to Bordeaux once a year. I also did his summer and Easter seminars. Around 17, I had in mind to come up to Paris. But at that time, Christian was leaving for the south and I didn't know if he was going to continue teaching in Paris. It was one of his students, Jean-Michel Mérit, who introduced me to him to clarify the situation. Christian then told me: "No problem, I'll come back twice a week to Vincennes, but continue your studies." That's what I did.

Guillaume Erard: Now, we know you as one of Christian's main uke, omnipresent assistant on everything Christian has done for several decades now.

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, for about thirty years.

Guillaume Erard: How did you make this place for yourself, or was this place attributed to you?

Bruno Gonzalez: It happened very naturally. There was no contract, prior agreement or anything... It's simply enthusiasm, intensity and regularity that made their way. Obviously, when you're often present, a particular relationship is created with your teacher. Then, there were the demonstrations, and the responsibility of a few classes... So everything was built naturally, over time, through work and love of practice.

Guillaume Erard: What was your relationship with the previous generation of Christian's uke? Was there a certain emulation?

Bruno Gonzalez: No, because there really was a generation gap. They were all much better and much higher ranked than me, so there wasn't really competition per se. On the other hand, I was very demanding, I went looking for all the good ones to work with them and get shaken up. I think they appreciated that a young person came with enthusiasm to practice with them. At the time I arrived, Pascal Guillemin was already in training. Since we were the same age, it's with him that I had the most affinities and complicity, throughout a very similar path at the Cercle.

Guillaume Erard: You didn't start aikido at the Cercle, and you weren't Parisian. From my limited experience, the Cercle was something very intimidating, the first times, even after several visits. What was your feeling when you arrived for the first time?

Bruno Gonzalez: I was super happy to be at the Cercle. I really wanted to practice high-level aikido with Christian, so I wasn't intimidated at all. I had no fear of going toward people to train with them.

Guillaume Erard: Despite your character being a little...

Bruno Gonzalez: I didn't say I was sociable. I wasn't necessarily. I came to train, for practice. I came to seek information, receive teaching, acquire experience with everyone. I didn't come to make friends, I really came for practice.

Guillaume Erard: Precisely, in a place like that, there were many classes, lots of people, regulars, visitors... Was there any cohesion in the Cercle itself? People, unlike you, who formed a group, or was it mostly practice and then everyone went home?

Bruno Gonzalez: Indeed, there were a lot of people at the time. Small groups naturally formed by affinity. Me, I didn't get too involved. These stories of more or less close circles didn't concern me. What motivated me was practice. Obviously, if you practice a lot and often, you're seen more here than elsewhere, but outside the dojo I didn't really maintain relationships. I spent my life on the mat.

Guillaume Erard: It wasn't only Christian who taught. Are there people who particularly marked or trained you on certain aspects?

Bruno Gonzalez: Clearly, the teaching and inspiration came from Christian. The other teachers' classes were mainly an opportunity to practice, and that was very good as it was.

Guillaume Erard: When you arrive in a place, you can clearly identify, as you said, people who are there all the time and who have particular motivation. For these people, was there a special curriculum, or even private classes?

Bruno Gonzalez: No, we evolved among everyone. Of course, we did all the classes, we followed Christian to seminars, he took us with him in the car, we participated in demonstrations... Finally, you accumulate more hours of practice with him, he takes you more often in the middle, and you naturally receive more advice than someone who practices twice a week. That's where the particularity lies.

Guillaume Erard: Regarding demonstrations, these were highly publicized events, with, I imagine, quite significant pressure. It often went on television. How did you prepare for this kind of thing?

Bruno Gonzalez: With Christian, we didn't prepare that much. It must be said that at that time, we did many, up to ten demonstrations per year. So we had a certain habit of the exercise. It wasn't necessary to brief us from A to Z: it was mainly small adjustments on attitude, intention, rhythm... details to work out. The preparations were often done very late, often in the locker room before the demonstration. If there was a somewhat sophisticated sequence, then we rehearsed a bit at the Cercle. Christian already had a clear canvas in mind, but we received the roadmap at the last moment. That certainly creates a bit of tension (laughs).

Guillaume Erard: For someone like you, who is a bit shy, withdrawn, suddenly to find yourself under the spotlights... You must have worked on yourself, or is it natural?

Bruno Gonzalez: Honestly, stage fright is mainly before the demonstration. Once in the heat of action, in the intensity of the event, you are completely absorbed by what you do. You don't ask yourself how you're going to be perceived. This kind of tension disappears in action. After, depending on your performance, you can be more or less disappointed obviously.

Guillaume Erard: I think of an Aikikai teacher who told me that a teacher, according to him, had several aikido: his personal aikido, the one he taught, and the one for demonstrations. Is that the case for you, or for Christian, is there a form that adapts to demonstration?

Bruno Gonzalez: It all depends on circumstances. For demonstrations at Bercy for example, which is a very large hall, the performance must be somewhat enlarged, more demonstrative than in the dojo. If you make small movements, nobody sees anything. So yes, there is a formatting, a certain enlargement necessary according to context. For television, it's a bit different: it's the camera that enlarges the gesture, so practice can remain more "intimate". But in any case, it was swirling and full of energy, like in the dojo.

Guillaume Erard: Is there a particular event that you keep in memory for one reason or another?

Bruno Gonzalez: In terms of demonstration? Maybe the first one. I was very young. Christian had to do a demonstration abroad. Among his regular uke, there was Pascal Norbelly, who, at the last moment, couldn't come. Christian then offered me to replace him. The anecdote is that at the time, I was injuring my thumb repeatedly. With my hand bandaged, I was very worried about my ability to be a worthy uke. Of course I accepted, but I really wasn't confident.

Guillaume Erard: It seems to me that in this kind of event, especially when you do so many of those in the year, the planets are never perfectly aligned. You're never at 100% physically.

Bruno Gonzalez: Indeed, there's always something to manage.

Guillaume Erard: And for me, that's something very interesting to manage: being able to offer something impeccable, while everyone ignores what's happening in the background.

Bruno Gonzalez: It's the nature of live performance and professionalism.

Guillaume Erard: And if we can talk about teaching, when did you start giving classes?

Bruno Gonzalez: I don't have a very good memory for dates, apologies to the historian that you are (laughs). I must have been 22, 23, 24... I don't remember exactly. I started with beginner classes at the Cercle. At the same time, Christian had found me some small classes in other dojos in Paris. I shuttled back and forth, several times a week.

Guillaume Erard: Did he ask you to start teaching or did you want to?

Bruno Gonzalez: I would never have dared to ask for anything.

Guillaume Erard: Did that change something for you, in your practice?

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, it was the beginning of a process. At first, most of my students were much older than me. It was quite a strange feeling, a bit embarrassing, to direct and guide people who were my elders.

After a few years, as I was still in charge of the first-year beginner classes, a feeling of weariness set in from repeating the same exercises to newcomers each year: back fall, front fall, etc. While in my practice I was engaged in a dynamic and intensive process, teaching felt like I was going in circles. Coincidence or not, it was at this time that I discovered theater. What's interesting about theater is that you always repeat the same thing, especially in the classics. You have little freedom with the text, it's to the letter, and at the same time you have to make it come alive.

My problem in Aiki wasn't so much repetition, but the quality of presence that I put into it. Having become aware of this, a process of reflection and research began. From then on, by revisiting my practice to better transmit it, I never got bored again.

Guillaume Erard: Did you try to adapt this pedagogy to each person's body, their capacity, their personality? Was there this research in terms of differentiation at that moment?

Bruno Gonzalez: Maybe not much at the beginning. At first, I delivered mass teaching: each person took what they could according to their abilities and level. Later, of course, I began to adapt instructions according to what I saw in students.

On this theme of transmission, I want to go on a slight tangent. I think it's very important that the students take responsibility for their learning. It's also up to them to go seek the information they're missing, even if they make mistakes. When I arrived at the Cercle, for entire weeks, I only watched one detail in Christian to try to integrate it. By focusing my gaze, I favored a proactive approach.

Sometimes also, during my classes, I go see people and ask them "What are you thinking about, there, when you do that?" 80% of the time, people don't know what to answer. Or then, a general idea comes out, like "I'm trying to be fluid, to be relaxed", which isn't really functional. So I ask them: "Yes, OK, but how do you achieve that?"

I try to push students to be active. You can give all the advice in the world, it's not enough for them to integrate it. Finally, it's really their responsibility to accomplish this personal work of integration, visualization and reflection, even at home. In my opinion, it's the main interest of gradings: creating a space where one makes this personal effort to clarify the constructions and internal logics of movements.

I think the student has most of the work to do.

Guillaume Erard: Regarding this way of thinking about things, you said something during your class earlier. You were speaking to one of your students and you advised him to try less to "do something on the person" and more to concentrate on cuts and structure. Do you reckon that what we think about affects the way we move, even on very repetitive and stereotyped exercises within the katageiko framework?

Bruno Gonzalez: Of course, the way you think about your technique will influence its execution. In the example you cited, the essential idea is to build your movement around a constant, and not directly according to the specificity of the situation. That's why we use atemi or cuts.

When you give an atemi, you're obliged to take into consideration the partner's axis, which is in itself a constant. Then, in a second time, you manage the specificity of the situation. For example, when students do yokomen uchi kotegaeshi, they often tend to focus too early on the wrist. They forget the partner and the whole process that leads to the final kote gaeshi. In this sense, sword work is interesting: if you have a ken, it's to cut an axis, not a wrist that could disappear in the instant.

It seems important to me to always think your construction around a constant.

A virtuous effect of this is appeasement. If you have to produce a specific response to each particular situation, you implicitly cultivate a form of fear, because the unexpected will always appear and lead to a feeling of urgency. Whereas if your movement takes into account a constant, you rely on the known components, which greatly facilitates priority management. This aspect is very important in my teaching.

Guillaume Erard: I remember the kaiten nage you were showing, where you told the student to work on the partner's axis, even if there's no grip to make the movement. So you visualize this axis. I imagine you function around this axis. That caught my attention, because I also reason in terms of axes. That's why, when I look into aikido books, they sometimes mention "taking the center of the partner". That poses a problem for me, for a number of reasons. Is "center" a term you use?

Bruno Gonzalez: No, I'd rather speak of axis. Whether you attack chudan, jodan, shomen or yokomen, all contact points will find themselves on the same axis. They won't occupy the same place on the axis, but they'll all converge there. That's why I speak of axis.

As I was saying during class, the best placement in action is generally to find yourself behind the partner. To stay there, you must maintain yourself around his axis, you have no choice. Little by little, you yourself become the axis of movement, instead of making constant back-and-forth in front and behind him.

At the beginning, learning situations are often static: the partner doesn't know how to move and mainly serves as a reference point. It's you who performs 100% of the displacements. Little by little, by developing more intention, we start moving together. At some point, you need to move less because you no longer artificially stop the action. If you don't hinder the partner's attack, it becomes the motor of your movement. Simplifying a bit, there is less of a need to go behind him, because it's him who tends to pass in front of you. This maintained mobility makes your work much more economical.

Guillaume Erard: We're bipeds, we have a spine, it seems natural to organize our movements around it. To go further on this notion of axis regarding your own movements, that is, your own axis, your own movements, how does your experience in dance feed into your aikido?

Bruno Gonzalez: My experience in dance is mainly limited to the whirling dervishes ritual. When I was spinning, my axis wasn't very straight. I tended to move a lot in space because I liked to take up speed, which made my balance precarious. We often spun on ourselves for more than an hour, the challenge being clearly to maintain an axis while living the effects of dizziness.

In aikido, what I like is the verticality of attitudes. The attitude of someone upright, whom nothing disturbs, who isn't affected by the situation. I have the image of Christian, obviously, or that of Yamaguchi Sensei, they were never in twisted positions, they were always open. At one time, I was a bit head-on, leaning, head forward, and Christian regularly repeated to me: "Open up." It took me time to straighten up, to open up.

Faced with an attack, your natural reflex is to close yourself, protect yourself, be afraid, be aggressive, accelerate, eventually flee... The challenge is to do the opposite: open yourself, breathe, slow down, calm yourself. The idea of an open body in action, for me, is a primordial perspective in my practice.

It's also what interested me in bullfighting: immobility, holding your place and your attitude facing horns coming at full speed, without a hair out of place, as if nothing was happening. For me, that's the ideal: action, however constraining and intense it may be, doesn't disturb your tranquility. The ideal of a shomen uchi ikkyo omote, for me, would be someone who advances calmly while managing the attack, without their walk or attitude being unsettled. The adversary is then perceived as a partner, a source of information to perceive with which we work. Today, I no longer want to be reactive, to twist arms. I see too many limits in that.

Guillaume Erard: Yes, I often ask myself this question. Someone like Christian, who has decades of aikido behind him... What can motivate him to continue? Because if it's just to think about twisting wrists, that doesn't justify so many years of practice. There must necessarily be something else.

And when you describe these things, it makes me think of what Tada Sensei or others say: the idea of non-attachment. Not letting yourself be caught by constraint or by the person, and keeping this freedom.

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, completely.

Guillaume Erard: In aikido, particularly in the FFAAA, I've heard certain teachers speak of "relationship with partner". Is this a term that you use?

Bruno Gonzalez: What interests me now is seeing the adversary as a partner. A source of information to perceive, not a situation to change or against which one should fight. The idea is to keep ease and freedom within constraint. If you try to force the other, to impose a change on them, you wake up the beast. Conflict sets in. So yes, you can "win", but in terms of perspective it's not satisfying.

On the contrary, defusing a situation by not giving hold to the adversary, by identifying what is free in action, by preserving your mobility and naturalness, these are things that interest me. It's not about uke becoming docile or complacent, it's about developing ease by making your technique acceptable. For example, katadori menuchi kotegaeshi. In the descending phase, the partner holds your shoulder and controls your hand. It's a constraint. You could tear the movement to free yourself, but that doesn't interest me, because it will generate reactivity in the other: opposition, fear, loss of contact... What's interesting is identifying what remains free in action. Often, it's the legs. They're not blocked. Then constraint becomes just a framework. You move freely inside. Uke's action loses its relevance. Conflict defuses.

Guillaume Erard: Do you try to apply this way of managing constraint in everyday life, outside the mat?

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, implicitly practice influences me in daily life.

We clearly realize that our own reactivity easily rubs off on others in everyday life, like a mirror effect. If you perceive me as mobile, supple and calm, that will rub off on you, if you're tense, aggressive and rigid, you'll generate the same thing in the other person by symmetry effect.

In summary, if someone tries to grab my arm, I let them do it. That doesn't prevent me from moving freely elsewhere. And this perceived freedom is already the beginning of the solution.

Guillaume Erard: Dance, theater, yoga... You have many centers of interest. Do you let all that infuse into your aikido practice?

Bruno Gonzalez: Not from a formal point of view, practices are really different. On the other hand, when you push the study far enough, you find yourself faced with the same problems and the same principles. In its essence, theatrical practice consists of studying and rediscovering the mechanisms that favor life in a form that doesn't belong to you. In other words, it's about repeating, night after night, someone else's words, repeating the same staging, the same "kata", but with the freshness, presence and naturalness of a first time, as in aikido.

In all arts or rituals, you end up realizing that you constitute 80% of the problem. The challenge is to sensitize yourself enough to understand what favors or blocks naturalness, tranquility, fear... Practice of another activity sometimes brings this freshness that can get your head out of the handlebars and clarify certain principles. But it's not because of dervishes that I became interested in rotations in aikido. This theme already existed in me, which had moreover earned me the nickname "dervish" at the time.

Guillaume Erard: A form of self-fulfilling prophecy, finally (laughs).

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes (laughs).

Guillaume Erard: You were saying earlier that you don't remember very well why and when you started theater...

Bruno Gonzalez: I think it was by challenge. Standing alone on stage in front of an audience seemed like a complicated exercise. I must have wanted to challenge myself, but I don't really remember.

Guillaume Erard: And for other disciplines, like dance or bullfighting, were you looking for something specific, or was it just an opportunity that presented itself and you seized it?

Bruno Gonzalez: For bullfighting, it's a bit particular. I was doing a seminar in Athens, and among the students, there was a Spaniard. At the end of the seminar, he tells me "Ah, it's funny, you have matador attitudes...". At that time, I was exploring dodges on chudan tsuki, getting closer and closer to the attack and opening the upper body. He then spoke to me about Recortadores, these people who dodge bulls without material, just by feinting them, in jeans and t-shirt. Despite my surname, I didn't know this universe at all. I started doing some research on the internet and it's true that at the crucial moment, Recortadores develop a lot of openness facing the bull. Facing a 500kg beast, protecting yourself with arms by closing would make no sense. I looked for seminars, but this practice didn't exist in France.

So I initiated myself to classical bullfighting, with cape and muleta, facing cattle. There, you quickly understand that it's a profession with real know-how. As a beginner, you have so many things to integrate that your mind isn't free. It's difficult to be in phase with the bull. Him, beginner or not, he doesn't care, he charges you at full speed. And even if he only weighs 90kg, you have to save the furniture...

Guillaume Erard: Do you still do yoga?

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, mainly by myself now. Through training and systematic work, certain muscle groups were more solicited than others. I felt the need to balance the body, to regain amplitude and openness in closed areas. People think I'm naturally flexible, but that's not the case. It's really hard work.

At the Cercle, we didn't dwell too much on stretching. And when you do it somewhat superficially, you do it moderately, it loses interest and finally you don't do it anymore. It's in this context that I chose Iyengar yoga, with its very meticulous approach to symmetry and proprioception. I practiced intensively for seven or eight years.

Guillaume Erard: So there, unlike other things that you started more or less serendipitously, you went looking for something specific in yoga from the start?

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, I was mainly looking to gain mobility in the upper body. As the study became interesting, I let myself get caught up in the game and fully invested in the practice.

I've always had a curious mind. I love being a beginner, feeling the body in new situations, and reflecting on solutions to different problems encountered. When I discover something beautiful and well executed, I want to try, to touch the accuracy and depth of the practice in question. I have trouble remaining only a spectator. And what's surprising is that the more you go deep into a discipline, the more you find common principles with aikido. Even if the forms are different from each other, you virtuously cultivate the same principles.

Guillaume Erard: What about other martial arts? Did you explore that too?

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, I experienced striking with Muay Thai for two years. I followed the first seminars of Rickson Gracie in France, in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I also did Systema, very focused on non-opposition as well. I've taken some exercises for my teaching.

Bruno Gonzalez with Rickson Gracie at Le Cercle Tissier

Guillaume Erard: However, are there things, particularly in body use, especially in martial arts, where you said to yourself "This isn't how we use the body in aikido"?

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, each martial art has its specificities, its codes, its tradition. Foot position in karate, for example, has nothing to do with that of aikido. Arts differ in their formatting but meet in their principles. It takes a certain technical maturity to realize it. It's always interesting to explore different disciplines. If you do it intelligently, it's virtuous. Otherwise, it can quickly parasite you.

Finally, what matters is developing your sensitivity, your listening, your eye and your discernment, and it doesn't matter what tool you use.

Guillaume Erard: You were talking about staying a beginner... Obviously, being Christian's assistant, his uke, automatically gives you stature, an image in people's minds, whether you like it or not. And sometimes, it can even be a bit reductive compared to what you really are.

Bruno Gonzalez: People perceive you as they want and especially as they can. I don't worry about it too much.

Regarding beginner's mind, when I teach for example, I really have the feeling of being a student too. The sensations I perceive from my movements and those of my uke are so many teachings that nourish my exploration and maintain my enthusiasm. Without this spirit, I would certainly get bored.

Guillaume Erard: That's it, precisely. You were telling me that at the beginning of your teaching, you tended to get a bit bored. And actually, people talk to you now, today, it's your main activity. So, this switch had to...

Bruno Gonzalez: I wouldn't have had the personality or character to repeat the same thing mechanically all my life. What nourishes my enthusiasm is really study.

Moreover, if I have a piece of advice to give, it's to plunge fully into study, into the love of the art. Sensitize yourselves to perceive all its subtleties.

Guillaume Erard: When we look at your path, or Pascal Guillemin's for that matter, you're obviously important people in aikido. And yet, if we look at your Aikikai grades, we could expect, as Christian Tissier's assistants, a more rapid climbing of the ranks. But in reality, that's not the case (laughs).

Bruno Gonzalez: So... (laughs)

Guillaume Erard: I don't know if you want to answer on that.

Bruno Gonzalez: I can answer you. The first thing is that I never asked anything of anyone. It's true that can slow down the process. It's not that grades don't interest me, it's just that I have trouble begging. And then, very honestly, the race for grades is far from being my main source of motivation.

Guillaume Erard: Indeed, not begging can often slow things down (laughs).

Bruno Gonzalez: For the record, I started receiving Aikikai grades because I had to participate in a demonstration in Saint Petersburg for the Combat Games. The participation condition was to have an Aikikai grade. I was already fourth dan in France, but not Aikikai. 

For French grades, I got them in the standard allotted time... well I think so. Grades, in a structured system, have their importance, but generally I think we give them too much place. The essential thing, for me, remains the quality of practice.

Guillaume Erard: Perhaps at the individual level, yes. But I ask myself this question when I see people who started young, with a very influential sensei, who really gave their all, but who, in the end, don't have grades that accurately reflect that experience, especially when in parallel, you have practitioners much less invested who obtain the same grades. In the long run, doesn't that pose a governance problem in aikido?

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, certainly. That said, it doesn't take away from the quality of your work. Whether we have the same grade or not, your value remains the same. We just have to hope that people have enough discernment to sort things out. After, if ambitions are more of a political order, things are still different...

Me, I hang on above all to practice and its exploration. That's what led me where I am, grade or no grade.

Guillaume Erard: Now that you're in charge of classes at the Cercle permanently, you must ask yourself the question of your students' progression, not only technically, but also in hierarchy. For example, a student who's there four times a week and who practices seriously... should we give them some visibility on hierarchical progression? Tell them: "If you continue like that, in so many years you'll have such grade"? Or is there still a part of obscurity, that is, if you don't ask for grades, higher ups don't necessarily think of you? Do you feel responsible for your students' hierarchical progression?

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes of course. I don't deny at all the interest of gradings, on the contrary. The preparation they require is an important moment to appropriate and conscientize know-how. From the first kyu, the student must take responsibility, memorize, integrate constructions... Then, of course, you have to stay attentive to each person's level of investment and act accordingly. But again, the grade must remain a by product of practice, and not the main goal.

Guillaume Erard: Not having graded in France, it's difficult for me to get an idea, but in Japan, as soon as you have a grade, people count on you. As soon as you have your grade, you're automatically going to take responsibilities toward people less experienced than you, potentially give classes, etc.

What happened to me in Daito-ryu is that I didn't what to grade, because in aikido, it was already complicated enough. But at some point, I was told, "listen, you're dragging a bit there, you should really ttest. If you really don't want to, well, you should maybe think about stopping.". It was meant in the sense: "take your responsibilities in the group."

Another example, at the time, in Miyamoto Sensei's close circle in Japan, it would have been unthinkable to apply for an exam while your sempai hadn't been promoted to the superior grade, or without asking their blessing. So the system is so formalized that it makes things simple, clear.

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, I understand.

Guillaume Erard: That said, even in France, it seems to me that from the moment you have a certain grade, you're in exam juries, you have things to do.

Bruno Gonzalez: Of course. But then, I think that it happens naturally. If a student is ready to take responsibilities, he'll do it. As a teacher, you must encourage him in his path, it's the least of things. But the student also has the right not to have particular ambition.

Guillaume Erard: There's also the fact that the number of aikido practitioners is decreasing. Do you sometimes find yourself encouraging certain people by telling yourself: "Ah, this person might have something to bring to aikido, in addition to their personal progression"? As if it were important to have someone with this potential.

Bruno Gonzalez: In an ideal world, we'd like everyone to have passion for practice and persevere to their heart's content. After, I don't know if I have that power over people. What I can do, on my scale, is apply myself to my art with sincerity and passion hoping that will inspire people.

Guillaume Erard: In terms of pedagogy, you've been teaching at the Cercle for a long time and you've developed your own style. Did the fact that Christian no longer teaches regularly change something in practice at the Cercle? Do you do things differently now?

Bruno Gonzalez: Since he left the Cercle?

Guillaume Erard: Yes.

Bruno Gonzalez: Circumstances are different. At the time, there were many beginners, with specific classes. Today, they're integrated into all-grades classes. Before, in my classes at the Cercle, I mainly had graded people. So yes, pedagogy changes: you have to both take care of beginners and continue to nourish the seniors. My practice remains personal, while adapting to different audiences.

Guillaume Erard: If we project a bit into the future, in ten years, will Le Cercle's aikido be Bruno's aikido? What could that look like according to you?

Bruno Gonzalez: It will be the aikido of the people who practice it.

Guillaume Erard: When Christian offered you to take over classes at Le Cercle, what went through your head? Is this something you had already considered?

Bruno Gonzalez: No, not particularly, but I was obviously honored. Things happened little by little because his decision to leave the Cercle wasn't made overnight. Discussions took place in time, it was done quietly according to everyone's circumstances.

Guillaume Erard: You were talking about the fact that you've been doing seminars for a long time, that you had your classes here and some classes elsewhere. Did you, at some point, see yourself stabilizing in a place like this?

Bruno Gonzalez: Me, I've been settled here for a long time, I've always been at Le Cercle. The private clubs I may have had when I was 22-23 only lasted a while, five or six years. In those first years of teaching, I had to change dojos several times either because they became too small, or because the owner ceased their activity... So I recreated a section at least four times in six years. Finally, that got a bit tiresome, and I decided to devote myself only to teaching at the Cercle.

Guillaume Erard: Maybe it's just a bias on my part, but thinking back to what Le Cercle was a few years ago, I have the impression that today, there's more clemency in the way of interacting and teaching. Is it just me seeing things differently?

Bruno Gonzalez: From teacher toward students?

Guillaume Erard: Or even students among themselves.

Bruno Gonzalez: I think that at a certain time, the level of physical demand and intensity were higher: there was an audience for that, and with energy, we approached the limits of each other more quickly.

Today, without sacrificing the martial aspect, nor the potential for sanction, practice has "softened". It has become more economical.

Guillaume Erard: Your position, yours and Pascal's, can seem ideal. Moreover, when I was younger, I dreamed of taking over after you with Christian (laughs). But thinking about it, I'm not sure I would have liked to be in your place, facing Christian's demands and rigor.

Bruno Gonzalez: If you're passionate, demands and intensity pose no problem. On the contrary, you want more. Of course, it can be hard sometimes, but it strengthens your taste for effort.

Bruno Gonzalez taking ukemi in Christian Tissier's latest book.

Guillaume Erard: Pedagogically, do you situate yourself in continuity with Christian's teaching, or do you develop your own approach? I'm not talking about technique.

Bruno Gonzalez: I think we both function in terms of process, and that's what we seek to transmit. Christian's aikido evolves quite rapidly; he always has a new sensation that he shares almost immediately. I think I function the same way.

After, like any bad student, I sometimes tended to highlight a bit too much, to transmit my process somewhat abruptly, without always taking into account the audience I had in front of me.

Guillaume Erard: Abrupt or premature in terms of the maturity of reflection?

Bruno Gonzalez: Since everything is perfectible, everything is always premature.

At the start, to integrate something, I need a microscope, to go into detail; otherwise, it remains too general for me. If you want to learn to run like a sprinter, you have to consciously work your stride in detail and discern the dozen steps that compose it. It's a complex process, but it's a necessary step if you want to become a sprinter. In the same way, in theater, you can't directly play a general idea: you have to decline it into small functional actions that, put end to end, evoke the idea you want to transmit. At the time for example, I made the entry of ushiro ryote dori a ten-step process. From the outside, it could seem complex: ten things to think about instead of three. But for me, it was actually a simplification process: I was setting reference points around which I would navigate. For students who weren't in the same trip, it was way too much information.

In summary, my practice and my teaching approach pushed me to become very analytical and to detail each aspect of an action. This flow of information allowed me to highlight certain connections, the principles that link actions and situations to each other. With time, I much less decomposed my movements and rather relied on principles to realize and evolve them. This reappropriation work made my practice more organic, more natural, more personal and sometimes more creative.

It's then that another form of complexity appeared for the student: the apparent simplicity of the gesture. These are the echoes I have, in any case.

Guillaume Erard: At a certain level of technical competence, it becomes obvious that most people cannot reach that level.

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, but that remains valid everywhere and at all times. We can never totally appropriate someone else's practice: we only grasp bits of it. As an expert, you cannot be entirely accessible on the technical level. Each person, according to their level, must go seek the information that will nourish them. The teacher can provide a technical point capable of unblocking a situation, offer images or perspectives, but it's up to the student to make something living and useful for their own path.

Guillaume Erard: Me, I have a more global approach, it's perhaps why Japan suits me well. I see a movement, I emulate it, but I don't immediately question the "how". It's only when I teach that I force myself to detail the steps. You, on the contrary, it seems to me that you rather build up from details.

Bruno Gonzalez: Yes, before, that was exactly it: I built from detail to arrive at principle. For example, to develop a certain relaxation, a certain fluidity in action, I had to dissect the constitutive elements of this fluidity. Understand what makes a situation become organic and natural, even under constraint and on what levers I could act.

Guillaume Erard: Something that's working me right now is that I tell people "relax", but I don't really know how to explain it. I feel a bit powerless. I've been repeating it for two or three years to certain students, and apparently, I'm not getting many results.

Bruno Gonzalez: The idea is to find pedagogical strategies that are both operational and personalized.

The first step, which isn't always simple, is awareness of one's own tensions. Then, it's accepting this tension, to "de-dramatize" the situation, and favor relaxation. There will always be different temperaments: some will remain naturally more tense than others, and wanting at all costs to change this can become an additional source of tension for them.

To bounce back on what we were saying previously, couldn't we learn to develop ease and harmony with this tension? A piece of dry wood floating on water doesn't give the impression of being stiff or in disharmony, and yet, it's indeed a piece of wood... How to compose with what is, while finding freedom and fluidity in action.

Guillaume Erard: As someone with your background and intrinsic rigor, how do you accept people who don't share this state of mind at all?

Bruno Gonzalez: The goal of practice is practice itself: the relationship to the instant.

Recently, a student came back after a few years' break. At the end of his return class, he told me: "When I see you, I find it really beautiful, simple, but it's so much work. I'm light-years away, I'll never be able to approach that, and it frustrates me." I answered him: "That's not a problem, you're there to sensitize yourself. You sensitize yourself at your level, with what you are now. The pleasure is there, in the tactile exploration of the moment and relationship. The essential is to be lived here and now. We don't care about being able to jump six meters high. The important thing is the experience and joy of feeling your body in action in the instant."

Of course, you can't reach the level of someone who has devoted their entire life to it, and that's normal. But that's not the problem. Me, that's how I react when I find something beautiful. For the little story, I also did tap dancing. Well, don't tell anyone, I wasn't very gifted (laughs). But when I saw the masters, I found it magnificent. Obviously, it's super complicated, it's the learning of a lifetime to approach the beauty of mastery, but that's not an issue. I didn't tell myself: "I'm not going to succeed." I had a lot of pleasure beginning, entering the game, feeling my body in a different context, even if I was bad. Rather than thinking in terms of objectives, people should refocus their attention on exploration in the instant with the joy that flows from it.

Guillaume Erard: So, I realize something about you that I hadn't perceived before. I don't know if the term is exactly appropriate, but there's this side where you allow yourself a certain dilettantism on certain things, while putting into practice what you explain to others. No matter the level or intensity of experience, you found pleasure everywhere. And now, I understand that's how you envision things for others in aikido.

Bruno Gonzalez: Wait, I've never been a dilettante. Even if I'm not particularly gifted in a practice, I always invest myself fully. Each time, it's the total: I document myself, I get enthusiastic, I get fully involved, no matter how long it lasts.

Finally, it's the quality of presence you put in the instant that procures a form of joy. And if stars align, it's precisely this joy that potentially will lead you to a certain result.

Guillaume Erard: I'm going to finish with something a bit impertinent. I've heard quite a few people say that lately, "Bruno has changed".

Bruno Gonzalez: Oh really? I'm always the last to know.

Guillaume Erard: The constant point is that you seem nicer, more accessible than before. From your point of view, has something changed in you for this to be the case?

Bruno Gonzalez: I think I've moved past the geek stage who isolates himself in his activity. My practice and everything we've talked about have certainly opened me up. I remain quite solitary and silent nevertheless, I don't need to be surrounded permanently or for very long. That's how it is. I much prefer being in action with people rather than staying around a table for hours remaking the world again and again.

Guillaume Erard: Thank you.

Bruno Gonzalez: Thank you, Guillaume.

Many thanks to Frédéric Peters for his help with logistics and filming.