AikiWeb: The Source for Aikido Information AikiWeb's principal purpose is to serve the Internet community as a repository and dissemination point for aikido information.
Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the
world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to
over 16,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a
wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history,
humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.
If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced
features available, you will need to register first. Registration is
absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!
Sassan has started an Aikido program in Arlington. If you live around there, please stop by, try out a class and sign up.
It's nice to see two programs being run so successfully, one at the Katy YMCA and now one in Arlington.
I had the wonderful opportunity to train last night with Vinny, Rafael and Sassan. It was just awesome. It was nice to be around people that appreciate Aikido so much and really want to learn.
Getting it right, performing when the time comes, getting it down, it all feels great, but it's nothing more than hard work and sweat!
Yea, I can hear you saying that it's not how hard you work but how smart you work....yea right......but it's true, putting hard work into smart work is the combo that's needed.
If you just work hard without working smart, then it's just hard work, but hard work and smart work can really make a big success.
Do ikkyo 1,000 times in a row, that's hard work, but do it mindlessly and that's not smart!
Think about it each time you do it. Do it as if it were the very first time everytime, but put that same amount of energy you put into the class the first day of class, and you'll be working smart, again.
OK, if you were in class for the past two weeks you got a deep understanding to my 5 steps to better Aikido, if you couldn't make it, it's OK, because I'm in the process to writting a book about it.
This week we are focusing on Tenkan. So, let's call it Better Aikido through Tenkan. That's going to be the title to my next book.
Tenkan.......Step in, pivit, Step back all while you are turning.
Three basic movements to my Aikido - Omote, Ura and Tenkan.
At some point in your training you may reach a point when you say, "Aikido is boring! I don't want to do this anymore."
I've reached that point many times throughout the 16 years I've done Aikido. I've even quit several times; but there is just something about the way I learned Aikido and from whom I learned Aikido that completely changed my life.
For some reason, I keep doing it.
While in Japan, I remember a very good friend of mine, photographer, Mr. Sasaki, once counseled me. When you reach a wall, you have to find a way to climb over that wall. In everything you do, no matter what it is, you will usually hit a wall. That's what separates the quitters from the conquerors.
When you get to that point in Aikido when you start to think it's boring, you've hit a wall. A wall that shows how limited your thinking is. Can you get out of that "box"? Can you climb over or go through that wall? Are you going to make something out of Aikido?
A wall gives us a choice: #1. Do I want to quit? or #2. Am I going to learn something here? It's up to you to make the choice.
Last Thursday ended the 12 day seminar I held for the dojo. It's amazing because the more I do Aikido the more I learn.
I guess it could be very confusing for everyone, because as I learn, my technique changes.
As my technique changes what I did yesterday is no longer what I am doing today. I guess this is the part that makes Aikido very Zen like.
Zen is something you can never grasp. If my students are trying to grasp what I am doing today, and tomorrow I am doing something different, it will be very confusing.
Well, the seminar had a wonderful turn out, and it was amazing how many students stuck with it and came just about everyday.
12 days is pretty demanding, especially since we all have lives outside of the dojo.
Now that the basics are out of the way, we can spend the rest of the year training!
02-21-2009 11:26 AM 
02-02-2008 01:55 PM 