“This implies a much greater depth of philosophy than simply martial practice. Aikido is designed around a martial art, so it is important to understand and integrate that level of performance/skill, but the true practice, meaning, and beauty of it only starts there.
Aikido offers different things for different people. One thing Aikido practice provides is an arena for constant feedback as to whether or not one is able to function in the experience and awareness (consciousness) of Aiki, or, being in harmony with Ki/energy. But Ki and therefore Aiki can mean different things at different levels of subtlety, perception, and personal and spiritual development.”
Please click here to read entire article.
Stanley Pranin… the name rings a bell, doesn’t it? It should! That’s the editor-in-chief of THE Aikido Journal. Thanks to Stanley Pranin, many of the videos of O’Sensei and other early masters are available for study on DVD, on aikidojournal.com and on YouTube. Stanley Pranin is also the man behind the DVD “Christian Tissier – An Aikido Odyssey.”
“After enlightenment, the work begins..” Venerable Geshe Thubten Dawa
“In recent years for our practice of Aikido, my realizations of what exactly we are moving towards as a real outcome of our art have been very revealing for us. We can stay in the realm of kata only and practice the basics for many years and have some very rewarding outcomes in the grounding, centering and stablization process. This foundation is necessary for us to be able to move on to another plateau for ourselves and pass this on to our fellow practitioners.
“This movie was a nice surprise gem on Hulu. I wasn’t expecting to be emotional but you can’t really help it since the storyline and characters draw you into human fundamentals such as honor, family, humility, gratitude, sacrifice, and duty (while kicking major butt with a samurai sword). We all strive to be better and to be able to provide and support a family. Some times this means making difficult sacrifices and I love how the main character does this with such humility and graciousness.
“Yamaguchi-sensei was one of Morihei Uyeshiba’s “third generation” students. Unlike some of the others of this generation, however, he never gave his personal interpretation of Uyeshiba’s art a particular name, in part I guess out of respect for the man who was his teacher, and in part because the kind of aikido Yamaguchi taught was too intangible to be given something as concrete as a label or a name.
“I want to start this discussion linking to the last session in relation to the insights that have come from being able to practice and move from just “being awareness”. First, simple awareness almost always escapes most of us because we are caught up in the mind field of distractive thinking, or the heaviness sometimes of imbalanced emotion that consumes the possibility of just being consciousness awareness in any moment.
“Thank you for considering my work. Someone not trained in the painting arts might overlook my chosen colors of green and red; they are opposites to go along with the yin/yang theme. I have recently completed a painting with oil on canvas. The 20×24″ realism piece depicts an eager, perhaps twelve-year-old Japanese girl beginning to throw a twenty-year-old male uke. She is employing the technique of shihonage. She wears a white dogi jacket and pants, while he wears a white jacket and a hakama. Portrayed in a number of ways, the blending of yin and yang is my primary theme.”
“In the United States, the rank of sandan in Aikido can take ten years to achieve, often even longer. This accomplishment is a significant milestone and as I stand at this point in my training career I contemplate the real meaning of the rank…”
“There have always been questions about whether or not Aikido is an effective martial art, or whether it is a martial art at all. The simple answer is yes, it is a martial art in that at the physical level it addresses the issue of self-defense, albeit often in a very lofty and idealistic manner. Aikido does deal with being attacked, and does have techniques that, when executed properly, are designed to deal effectively with an attack, so we can in fact call it a martial art.
“A historical context is necessary in order to understand the concept of Shugyo. Japanese Martial arts developed at a time where combat was engaged in primarily with the sword and typically “up close and personal.” Interactions were not about winning or losing, but about life and death. When a man became a samurai, he pledged his life to his war lord. This meant that he had proverbially given away his life- died! This freed that person, because every living moment after that was simply an amazing gift! This deep and profound appreciation for life led to a higher level of decision-making as to what was important and unimportant in life.
“Judo advice from Dr. AnnMaria Demars: … I think once every few months the instructors should schedule a ‘no students’ workout and get together. There should be 90 minutes of people just showing each other drills or new techniques that they have been thinking about. This should be followed by 90 minutes of beer-drinking and swapping lies about how good and good-looking we all used to be.