Judo and God’s Will

We may press our own will and attempt to move ourselves in its direction, but God leverages our movement to his own will. In this way, God is like a practitioner of judo, using the opponent’s force against him. Kenji Tamiki writes, “In the standing position techniques the contestant does not act against the force applied by the opponent, but, while following it, he makes use of the force and tries to break the opponent’s posture. … In short, the principle is to pull in response to the opponent’s push and to push in response to his pull. In other words, while yielding to the force of the opponent’s action upon you, you break his balance by striking at the weak point in his posture” (Kenji Tamiki, “Principles of Judo,” Judo Online Dojo, accessed September 2, 2020, https://judoinfo.com/tomiki/).