AikiDale on Aikido

AIM

aikidale — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:56:08 +0000

I am now using the mnemonic AIM to convey the basics of the Aikido process. It represents Adapt, Improvise and Master. When we blend with our partner we are adapting to the movement; the environment, inertia, momentum, velocity, balance, muscular exertion and resultant vectors which comprise our coming together. Having adapted to our situation we improvise an appropriate response. Thus we learn to master ourselves; our fears, our anger, our daily conflicts, and, with a lot of practice, good intentions and a bit of luck make ourselves and the world in which we live a little better.

Aiki_20110305_099

aikidale — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:53:00 +0000

What are you learning?

aikidale — Mon, 23 May 2011 14:11:50 +0000

I see far too many teachers, let alone students, trying very hard to learn technique. There is a better use of one’s training time. Study aiki, learn aiki, be aikidoka not wazaka.

aikidale — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 22:33:48 +0000

It is the very mind itself
That leads the mind astray.

-Takuan Soho

The Beginner’s Mind

aikidale — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 14:43:05 +0000

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”
-Shunryu Suzuki
Suzuki was a Zen master. The quotation is from his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.
It occurs to me the more expert we become and the more we crystallize our style the more imperative it becomes to nurture the beginner’s mind, to maintain an awareness of the many possibilities available to us. To not be so aware could lead to an expertly dug dogmatic rut.

RIP Sunadomari Sensei

aikidale — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 04:30:08 +0000

http://www.aikidojournal.com/blog/2010/11/14/kanshu-sunadomari-sensei-passes-on-november-13/

Learning

aikidale — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:02:39 +0000

A Zen pistol shooter posted this recently and it is important enough to pass along here. Sensei, coach, instructor, professor, master, teacher. These are all guides. The better ones point the way with more clarity perhaps than others but the student must accomplish the learning. Then forget the learning and be. There is no dogma in the search for truth. Thanks Brian!

“You yourself have to be the master and the pupil. The moment you acknowledge
another as a master and yourself as a pupil, you are denying truth. There is
no master, no pupil, in the search for truth.”

-Krishnamurti

A few snapshots from the 2010 Instructor’s Seminar

aikidale — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:06:29 +0000

Click to view slideshow.

Once the efficient killing of enemies has been accomplished we begin to learn how to treat them as human beings.

aikidale — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 16:41:41 +0000

“You see, Elena, the whole trouble comes from treating your enemies like human beings. Don’t you see, my dear, that if you do that, they cease to be enemies? Think what that leads to—the end of patriotism, the end of war … It’s the end of everything.” From ‘Fire Over England’ 1937

Nice Ikkyo

aikidale — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 13:38:34 +0000