Blue Eyes and Water

My first training is a Friday morning women's class. The women are soft and gentle in both their manners and movements and can teach me a lot in that and many other respects. But our official teacher, a man full of wisdom and friendliness, is Shihan S.
Shihan S has blue Japanese eyes. During my first class, demonstrating a move with N-san, he tells us this:

In aikido we try to move like water. Water can do many things. It can seep into the ground. It can change the shape of rocks. It can enter the smallest cracks and flow from the mountains in waterfalls, and fill pools, and rivers, and the sea. The power of water is used in many budo to describe what we should aspire to. If somebody grabs me, and I say: “No, don’t grab me like this, grab me like THIS!” then that’s my mistake, not hers. It is the attitude with which we meet people that matters to us in aikido. I meet an opponent with the mindset that whatever encounter there will be, it will be harmonious. You achieve this harmony through your own movements. When water hits sand, it seeps into it, between the tiny spaces. When it meets a cup, it fills the cup. When it flows from the mountains, it fills the pools. That is what we have to do. We have to use whatever space opens up to us, without trying to resist any forces met. The forces we meet guide us to the places where we meet no resistance. That’s what we’re trying to achieve.