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My persOnal insights on aikido, karate, macrobiotics and daily life applicaTions
I was recently reflecting on how in many TV shows and movies, the main characters often face a situation and reach a point where it seems hopeless. All logic tells you they’re doomed and there couldn’t possibly be a way out. Then at the last minute, a new possibility is found and they manage to turn the situation around, coming out triumphant. But this is not just fiction. This is possible in real life. And in fact, in Aikido, we are constantly practising this.
In Aikido, we fully receive and join with the energy of the opponent’s attack before redirecting it. Because we are not blocking it out or fighting against it, this can seem like we are being overcome by the opponent. In fact, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, it is this full receiving of the attacker’s energy which enables us to overcome the situation. We actually use the attacker’s energy, it helps us. At last minute, only once the attack is complete and we have fully absorbed the attacker’s energy, we redirect it, we join it with our own energy and extend it outwards, emerging triumphant (not triumphant OVER, but triumphant WITH the opponent, but that is another story). We do not accomplish this by remembering set techniques. No, we accomplish this through our awareness of the opponent’s energy in this current moment. Previously remembered techniques are not enough, because each attack is different. Hence the saying “there are no techniques in Aikido”. We learn techniques to open our mind to the possibilities in different situations, but ultimately we must go beyond techniques and use them only as a guide to how to find the opening in each situation. Once we have fully felt and joined with the attacker’s energy, with awareness we find and opening and enter it. This applies to daily life. I say this through my own experience. I have had many experiences that seemed hopeless, only to turn out beautifully in the end. All my logic was telling me I was doomed. But the problem is, our personal perspective is so small. We see only a small piece of the big picture. Through my awareness of the present moment, and my openness to new ways of doing things, along with awareness of help that could come to me from outside, I was able to emerge triumphant from these situations. Like in Aikido, where we cannot rely fully on techniques previously learnt, in daily life we cannot rely only on our current knowledge. We can use it, but we must combine it with an awareness of, and openness to, the current situation, and new possibilities, new ways of doing things. I credit my success in life like this to my Aikido training. Aikido trains our brains and bodies to automatically respond and create harmony. What you have practised is what will come out spontaneously in crises. Using this, you can turn around the most hopeless situations and emerge triumphant. That does not mean that everything will always turn out the way you think it should, because your thoughts see only a small piece of the big picture. It can, however, turn out in the most wonderful way, which is often even much better than what you could originally think of.
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