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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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I want to present to you a fresh perspective on learning, which applies not only to aikido, but to life in general.
I first started martial arts with karate. I learnt quickly and was soon recognised for an outstanding ability. I excelled in state and national tournaments, I received "most outstanding student" awards. But then I started aikido. I felt like I could do nothing right. I was being corrected every few seconds. This was so hard for me and my ego, being the amazing karate expert. I went home and cried after classes. However, I knew aikido had so much to offer, so I persevered. A while later, I started just feeling great after classes. No more of this being so upset. What happened? Most people would probably answer something like this: "You got better at aikido and started to feel more confident because now you could do it well." But in fact that is very wrong! Yes, I improved. In fact I am always amazed when I look back at how far I've come and all that I've developed in aikido. However, at every class I go to, even after fifteen years, I never stop feeling like a beginner. Every single class has something I've never done before. Something confusing. Something that's too hard. Something I'm not good at. So I've never really got to feel like I'm "good at" aikido. So what happened? I let go of feeling like I have to be good at it! If you feel you know something and you can do something, you're not learning anything new. Trying something new, extending yourself with something that's too hard, that's called being alive! If you are just doing what you can already do, you're pretty much dead. Energy has stopped flowing. You'll feel good about yourself in your ego, but you'll feel empty too. You're likely to get bored soon. Also, if you think you know something, you're actually wrong! No two situations are the same. In aikido, you can never know a technique. Yes you can know the movements, but this new interaction with your partner is different. The height, weight and shape of your partner may be different. Their level of energy might be different. You need to feel the situation and adjust your technique accordingly. And if you have a good teacher like I do, they will constantly get you to try new variations on familiar techniques. If you feel you know this situation, you're wrong! This is life. Every moment in life is new and fresh. Don't be stuck in your knowledge from the past. Yes, use your knowledge, but be open to being aware of the difference in this moment. Let go of having to know. Be open to feeling the flow and freshness of this moment. Enjoy being confused! Confusion is just letting go of being stuck in your logic, so you can fall into something deeper. You fall into intuition, you fall into life. Life is bigger than what your human brain can think, bigger than your knowledge, bigger than what you can do. Life has to be felt. Feel the moment, flow with the moment, enjoy this, and you will feel life! I remember the first time I ever read about aikido. It was in a book about a variety of martial arts, with a chapter dedicated to each. It said something along the lines of "don't let anyone tell you aikido is useful for self defence". It's unfortunate that there's a widely held belief among martial artists that aikido is not effective for self defence. In this blog post, I would like to address the reasons why this common idea exists, and also present a convincing case as to why it is not necessarily true.
First, let me knock out this myth of ineffectiveness with one swift strike. We need only to look at the example of Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido. He remained undefeated in the many, many challenges that came his way. Experienced and highly successful martial artists (including, for example, boxing and wrestling champions) could not lay a hand on him without suddenly landing on the floor wondering what just happened. Morihei Ueshiba had "aikido" in the true sense of the word. Its meaning in self defence is to fully harmonise and coordinate with your opponent's attack. If you do this, there is no way you will be defeated. So aikido, then, could be said to be the MOST effective form of self defence, as you are developing a higher level then you would otherwise if you had trained to defeat your opponent through superior strength or even skill. Rather, you have fully joined with your opponent, so there is no longer any fight, so you cannot be defeated! Still following? If not, don't worry, just come and try an aikido class and you'll understand :) So why the common idea that aikido is ineffective? It's important to understand that when we are training in aikido, we are not always necessarily "doing aikido". Rather, we are working towards the goal of achieving aikido, that perfect harmony. However, many students and schools fall into various pitfalls that prevent them from achieving that. One pitfall that is commonly criticised by other martial artists is that sometimes when practising aikido techniques, your partner is too cooperative and just lets you do it. In Shin Sen, we avoid this pitfall by providing "centred resistance" and not going with something that doesn't take your centre. Again, if you don't understand, join us in training and you'll see! Another pitfall is getting too caught up in the mechanics of technique, rather than harmonising with your partner, finding their balance etc. After the founder passed away, different schools of aikido have diverged in different ways. They all have their positives and negatives, but they usually emphasise some aspects of aikido while missing other important points. This moved them further away from the overall "aikido" that the founder had. My sensei trained in a range of aikido schools, and, seeking the original aikido of the founder, combined the positive aspects of the diverse schools, while working to avoid the pitfalls common to each. That's why Shin Sen Dojo provides an extremely high quality of aikido training. Shin Sen students who have unfortunately found themselves in self defence situations have invariable found their training came out effectively, even if they didn't trust it would really work before. At high school, I was attacked and got into fights many times. This continued even after I was experienced in karate. But that all stopped completely once I started aikido. It was like something changed in my energy and the way of presented myself and interacted, nobody felt the need to start a fight with my anymore. Finally, aikido provides self defence in a more absolute sense that you can't achieve by simply learning a set of techniques to deal with particular physical attacks. Aikido trains your survival instinct. You learn to sense danger and avoid it. You learn to flow with danger and remain unharmed. You learn to deal with verbal attacks and all the challenges that life throws at you. I have applied aikido to verbal attacks, dangerous situations on the road, even walking around and avoiding collisions with people or objects (happens a lot less to me now, and hurts a lot less when it does happen, due to the skills in absorbing force painlessly). To summarise, aikido in its truest sense is the highest form of self defence. I will attempt here to give my understanding of a very complex topic in a relatively quick and simple blog post.
Aikido is a Japanese word made up of three parts - "ai" (harmony), "ki" (energy/spirit) and "do" (the way). So it can be translated as "the way of harmonising energy". Aikido emerged out of the ancient martial arts of Japan. As a martial art, rather than fighting against your attacker, you fully join with them and combine your energy with their's. It is the way of restoring peace, or harmony, when there is conflict. Ideally, you aim to protect your attacker as much as possible. Rather than destroy or even harm them, you simply cause them to lose their will to continue fighting. Thus, they become peaceful again. If you understand the principles of aikido, you can apply this to verbal "attacks" as well. When you have a verbal conflict, disagreement or argument, you can respond peacefully and harmoniously, leading to a win win situation where both people are happy, rather than trying to defeat the other person in argument (which only leads to more emotional pain, resentment and further conflict). "Aiki" can also be translated as coordination. Harmony and coordination both carry the meaning of everything working together. Through aikido training, you first establish harmony in your body - whole body coordination. Interestingly, this is a very difficult skill to develop to a high level. Next you develop coordination of your mind and your body. Unlike simple physical exercise like a lot of popular forms of cardio for example, aikido really requires you to strongly use your mind together with your body. When you have established these two levels, then you can aim for harmony with another person (attacker). All of this is developed in aikido training. The beautiful thing about this is that once you have developed this feeling of harmony in your training, that feeling naturally starts affecting your daily life. You became more comfortable, joyful, positive, calm, happy and effective. You more naturally turn challenges into something good. Plus, if you consciously think about how to apply the principles of aikido in your daily life, it will have an even stronger affect. Aikido can lead you to achieve harmony in any of your daily struggles - conflict with people, health issues, challenges in your work or study, or simply the struggle to just enjoy life. I could go on with more detail, but that's about enough for now... |