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moon in the water Blog Tools Rating: Rate This Blog
Creation Date: 04-26-2010 10:46 PM
niall
Offline
rss2
the water does not try
to reflect the moon
and the moon has no desire
to be reflected
but when the clouds clear
there is the moon in the water
Blog Info
Status: Public
Entries: 155
Comments: 1,111
Views: 1,924,257

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In Spiritual Does your aikido reflect your heart? Entry Tools Rating: 5 Stars!
  #2 New 05-14-2010 10:59 AM
Does your aikido reflect your heart? A famous aikido teacher whose technique was impressive and graceful was in fact a petty, arrogant and unpleasant man. It was very difficult for me to reconcile that with his beautiful aikido.

At a spiritual level he didn't understand ai or aiki - harmony or blending of energy - at all. And at a simpler level he didn't understand reigi - courtesy and respect. Come to think of it that reminds me of some of the posts in the forums.

I don't want to get into a personal discussion about him so I'll just say one of his initials was Y and anyone who wants to know his name can ask me. I want to talk about the interesting concept of a person's art reflecting the person's heart.

In the final analysis a work of art must stand on its own. We can appreciate the stark truth of a painting by Picasso or the textured brilliance of an opera by Mozart without having to know if they were good humans.

But I can't accept that for aikido. Especially from a teacher. Aikido should reflect the openness, the sincerity and the goodness of the person doing it.

So my conclusion? Years later I realized that my eyes just hadn't been ready to see past that teacher's technical brilliance to the truth behind it. That his aikido was sterile and dead.

At an aikido seminar once a young guy with a white belt asked me to show him something - anything - he could teach his students. He was a teacher - not because he wanted to be but because he was the highest rank in his town. But he was honest and open and his aikido shone.

So if we try to live our lives the best we can and become the best humans we can our aikido will naturally be living and wonderful.

photo: Two Hearts Beat As One by Luc De Leeuw http://www.flickr.com/photos/9619972@N08/2771032841/ photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/9619972...th/2771032841/ used under creative commons licence

© niall matthews 2010
Views: 7997 | Comments: 17


RSS Feed 17 Responses to "Does your aikido reflect your heart?"
#2 05-15-2010 04:00 AM
niall Says:
Thanks Peter. I don't know whether he was like that openly with his own students. I'm very impressed you were able to deal with the ura so efficiently. As I said it took a long time for me to realize the truth (that - for me - there was an emptiness in his aikido) and at the time I thought this apparent disconnect between reality and appearance was an almost insurmountable flaw in aikido itself. Now I know aikido reflects the real heart.
#1 05-15-2010 02:28 AM
Hello Niall, Of course, I have a pretty good idea who the shihan is. This is the first omote/ura I learned in aikido and I learned it as early as I learned omote/ura in the waza. The learning was especially vivid after I came to Japan. Best wishes, PAG
 




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