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One time during a seminar with Endo sensei while I was experiencing some quite severe difficulties with doing the lowering/extending the arm exercise, something really funny happened. As I was standing there struggling to relax my shoulders (and extending my arm) Endo sensei comes walking by. He stops and looks at my failed attempts for a little bit, then he smiles and asks me: “What mean hmmm?” I didn’t at all understand what he meant there, so he laughs, shakes his head and walks away.
The next session we did the same exercise again. Once more I had problems. However, this time I realized something that made me immideately break down in laughter: Every time I got stuck I was making a sound like “hmmm”!
From the seminar with Endo sensei in Prague October 2011. Photo by Aikido Karlín.
By being conscious about the sound I made helped me analyze my feelings at that exact moment. Not being able to succeed creates a socially weird moment together with the partner. This is kind of scary, I think. This fear becomes a great obstacle when I try to do this kind of thing. Maybe my sound was a desperate attempt of trying to make the situation a little less weird than just struggling with something together with the partner in silence, an uncomfortable silence. Also, it expresses puzzlement and some frustration. “I really want to do it, but I just can’t!” translated to “hmmm”. As I realized this, the exercise suddenly appeared less difficult the next time I tried it. At least I didn’t have to say “hmmm”.
From the seminar with Endo sensei in Prague October 2011 (a few seconds after the first photo). Photo by Aikido Karlín.
It is fascinating for me how sounds can be triggered by feelings, and also the other way around!
Enjoy your practice! Aikido make people happy!
Thoughts from the Keiko 
the problem is not realizing one makes these sounds until a sensei tells you..
experienced the same when Irie sensei throws me around, usually in the moment he breaks my balance my body modulating my breathing in some sort of sounds.. then i experienced that sensei was able to anticipate of a millisecond the exact moment i was going to lose my balance and he was making the same sound i would make just a tiny bit after…
this tells the amount of control they have at every step of the technique while for me it is still often a random moment when i break my partner balance.,. i know often it is going to happen, eventually.. but the precise moment.. i realize it usually after..
my next goal is getting a better feeling of that moment..
put the “hmmm” away and get the “puff” out a tiny bit before my partner…