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My ki has been depleted by hard practice; only pizza can restore it. If you do not understand this fundamental truth of aikido then you will never be any good.
Take the character this clearly shows a roof over an oven and represents the feeling of joy and love that one experiences when eating pizza. of course expresses the energy contained within the pizza and finally illustrates a man carrying a stack of pizza boxes with sides and drinks on top.
If you do not understand and agree then you are wrong. Simple.
So I went to Karate tonight; I've not seen my mate in a while and he's going through a rough patch and he was teaching so I decided to train with him. In my previous post I talked about the way of the Aikidoka being found in getting hit and I had this very much in mind as sparring came up.
I'm very hard to hit; I see everything as it develops and either I block it or I move. My acceptance of being hit and my determination to watch the blow as it hits me has massively improved my timing. I suppose this is what the old stories mean when they talk about battering the student with a bokken until they stop defending themselves as an initial step of training and perhaps part of what O-Sensei was talking about when he talked about non-resistance.
In this case I am not mentally resisting the attack, I'm allowing it to develop, there is no thought in my mind of stopping it or avoiding it. I create no desire for things to be different, I embrace reality on it's own terms.
I used to have this problem where I flinched and stiffened up when attacked. Then I remembered how many times people from Kato Kiyomasa to Miyamoto Musashi to Yammamoto Tsunetomo have said "You're going to die; get over it" and then I formulated my own version.
"The way of the Aikidoka is found in getting hit" and from then on everytime I faced being hit I simply accepted that I was going to be hit and there was nothing I could do about it. Occasionally I even let myself be hit, mainly to check that the kohai are attacking properly, but ever since I adopted the habit of accepting I'm going to be hit I find that I no longer flinch and I can move freely.
11-25-2011 03:46 PM 
this clearly shows a roof over an oven and represents the feeling of joy and love that one experiences when eating pizza. 
of course expresses the energy contained within the pizza and finally 
illustrates a man carrying a stack of pizza boxes with sides and drinks on top.