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-   -   How is aikido related to your spiritual path? (http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4812)

Martin Ruedas 07-28-2004 05:13 AM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
hi! Aikido made me concentrate more on the present (or the Now)rather than the future or past. It made me calmer and relaxed than before. Made my life simple. It made me arrange my room in a "minimalistic" way. :do:

Devon Natario 08-22-2004 03:11 AM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
Aikido, even though I have studied for a short period, has made me change my outlook on the arts.

I used to teach people agressively, and now I train them in a calmer fashion. It has done wonders for me.

I do have to say, that in most arts, people that are calm and of higher dan rank become professors. To me it seems in Aikido we are training everyone to be professors, more so than anything.

A Professor is simply a person that needs no strength because they know the techniques so well and have practiced so long that they can use only technique and Chi (Ki) to perform the manuever correctly.

thisisnotreal 08-22-2004 10:06 AM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
My Answer to the question:
  • learning how to listen.
  • learning how to relax and be sensitive.
  • learning how to be flexible in mind and body and spirit.
  • learning i need Help to survive this life.
  • learning I am weak when I thought I was strong.
  • learning to fight when I am weak.
  • learning to hear my Ego. And to know what it means.
  • learning to live in the Moment. And to know what it means.
  • learning to know myself.

Josh

Charles Hill 08-23-2004 11:02 AM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
Quote:

Devon Natario wrote:
A Professor is simply a person that needs no strength because they know the techniques so well and have practiced so long that they can use only technique and Chi (Ki) to perform the manuever correctly.

This is fine, I think, just as long one remembers that the Founder, himself, said that he didn"t reach this stage until he was in his 80's. Another good story is: Shirata Rinjiro Shihan, 9th dan, when in his late 70's, said, "I'm finally getting the hang of shihonage."

Charles Hill

Ali B 08-29-2004 01:20 PM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
Eight years I've been practicing and have changed association, teacher, style, faith often along the way. Aikido has led me into healing & meditation, gradually glimpsing the inner light, opening heart and mind.

Very interesting thread, one which will take me a while to process, as some VERY profound concepts.

*I hope I am still doing Shiho nage at 90 - and understanding it*

markwalsh 08-29-2004 02:23 PM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
Cousin :)

Aikido to me is about kindness, discipline and friendship. It's healthy. That'll do me.

Actually, its kinda my actual path in the Winter as I travel around involved in it.

Whats Naropa like BTW Mr Thread Starter? A uni where you can do aikido for credit, sounds like a dream?

Anyway gona go sit under a waterfall...on second thoughts I'll make it a shower and get down the pub.

Be well fellow tree huggers/choppers,

Mark
x

Anders Bjonback 08-30-2004 11:12 AM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
Naropa can be very good... and very bad. Some classes can be a complete waste of money and time, full of mindless new-agey pop pseudo-Buddhist culture, sometimes even with teachers that ask students to grade themselves. Luckily, I have succeeded in avoiding the really bad classes. Other classes are just awesome. The writing program is pretty good, I hear, and I know the Religious Studies department is (that's my major). Naropa tries to combine "the wisdoms of the east with the academia of the west," sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. At least personally, at Naropa I'm always careful about which teachers I choose to take classes with--if I hear a certain teacher or class is full of crap, I avoid it like the plague. Because of the nature of the education, classes can sometimes push buttons that would otherwise never be pushed in other academic institutions (which is generally considered a good thing at Naropa, since its purpose it to make you grow as a person and expose you to those aspects of yourself you'd rather ignore so you can accept them). For instance, I took a class in Judaism with Reb Zalman, the founder (?) of the Jewish Renewal Movement. I HATED that class for the longest time because it really pushed my buttons in terms of belief in God, and stuff like that--I had to comment on, from my own experience, about this deep practice text that the teacher wrote, and there was all this reading from this insanely dry and thick book called Jewish History and Thought. Everyone in the class was so INTO REB ZALMAN, and I felt like the only person there who wasn't into him or wasn't devout towards him. One person I talked to later described him as "this huge vortex you get sucked into and when you get out all of a sudden you find yourself Jewish." That's true. He has such a love for his tradition, and he's such a wise person, that you feel yourself get sucked in. The problem is that my alienation, and being unsure of the grounds of my own spiritual beliefs, caused me to react extremely negatively. But I felt like I couldn't really talk to him about this because he was such a kind person and a respected elder. To tell the truth, I practically didn't do any of the work for the class until the last couple or few weeks, when I went to the required synagogue visits. Those synagogue visits completely flip-flopped my view of Judaism and the class. It was like, "Wow! People actually practice this!"
By the end, so few people had actually done the requirements for the class, the requirements were cut in half and I ended up getting a B or B- in the class. On one hand, I don't think that at a better academic institution, the teacher would have cut the requirements like that. On the other hand, despite my being able to be lazy and angry thought the semester and yet still get a good grade at the end, I grew to have a lot of respect towards this other religious tradition.
In the Religious Studies department, you have to practice the religions you study, or at least compare them with your own experience, so you get a much deeper understanding of the religion than you would if you studied it in a purely academic way.

The Aikido class is pretty cool. The teacher and T.A. are just great. I decided not to get a major in it, though, because I felt like I'd be able to graduate without really getting a university level education. It would have basically been devoid of intellectual rigor. I also didn't want to take the Anatomy: Learning through the Senses class that was required for the major, due to stories about it from my roommate. No thanks, I have no interest in what my spleen is trying to say to me. They have a different teacher for that class, now, probably due to student complaints, but still, despite my interest in traditional Japanese and Chinese arts, I'd rather study something that will challenge me more.

Please keep in mind the views I have presented here are pretty one-sided, and someone else is bound to say something different.

markwalsh 08-30-2004 11:42 AM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
Cheers Anders, always wondered what the inside story was on that place was. I'm quite into writing as well as Aikido, so gave it some thought before realisng I was too skint anyway.

btw, achieved enlightenment at the pub last night. Unfournaelty couldn't remember it when I woke up, so can't get significant sceond income through new guru status. Something to do with peaunuts and children being our present not our future...oh well.

Mark
x

Anita Crowhurst 09-02-2004 02:06 AM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
Heck, I don't know where my spiritual path will take me. But I know aikido has touched me in a way that karate never did, or an awful lot of stuff in life that hasn't either. Maybe it's the connection that's different to sparring with an opponent, or struggling with tough decisions in life.

I think it has helped me realise I am on a journey, & to take it one step at a time. I need to learn how to be all I can be.

Aikidoiain 09-12-2004 12:52 AM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
Directly!

Aikido is a Spiritual Path.

For me, it's the search for inner peace amidst a turbulent world.

Iain. :)

billybob 09-13-2004 02:16 PM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
aikido uses the body as a spiritual lens, for me that is. i keep finding out that other people's stupidity, aggression, arrogance, violence is usually my stupidity, etc.

i think it's cool that the aikido scholars wrote on this thread. a different thread is about aikido and jazz. i'm not sure god isn't something we just made up. i've experienced some amazing openings 'spiritually'. what i've learned is that it doesn't matter what our point of view is - it seems that we all intuit a higher power, or greater universe beyond ourselves. i realize this reads very disjointedly, but the path of aikido is using the physical body to meet ourselves, whoever we turn out to be - and that search bears fruit.

billybob

JAHsattva 09-27-2004 09:28 AM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
the way of harmonious spirit is related to my spiritual path,harmoniously.

roninja 09-28-2004 01:43 PM

Re: How is aikido related to your spiritual path?
 
Before I came to Aikido, I had studied Buddhist philosophy, a little bit, and was really starting to get into it. Then when I came to Aikido, I was thoroughly disgusted at such a... non-applicable style of fighting, and it wasn't for about a month that I decided taht I would throw away my preconcieved notions on what is and is not a martial art and see what this aikido guy was saying. So i went and started reading the Art of Peace in my school library and checking up on other sources. what I found amazed me. I had had it all wrong, coming at it from the wrong angle. Approaching Aikido with the aggression that is encouraged in other martial arts really is not the way to go. And reading the material, I found myself agreeing with Ueshiba. Well it wasn't long before I was gonna drop out of college and study Aikido full time. Well I didn't quit school, because i studied aikido with a school society, and going all the way down to the city everyday to study aikido would be too hard for me to do, plus I do kind of really like school. So as I thought my understanding of aikido, and Buddhism, was progressing, I came to realize that I had now over-assumed my knowledge and understanding, which was a very humbling experience for me. So I decided taht I would quit philosophizing about aikido techniques and really work hard to learn them properly and that my study of Buddhism would go beyond just sitting around and talking about it. So here I am a Sankyu (so you might realize that this has been a very short trip thus far) in Aikido and a Desciple of Grandmaster Wei Chueh.
hmmm... I need to learn how to tell stories.
So I'll tell a story that I read in a book called "Kodo: The ancient ways" I dont' remember who the author is.
And I wont tell the story very well either, so prepare yourself.

There was once a great Zen Master, who was also very fond of, and good at, Budo. So this Master built a dojo in his temple so taht he could practice and train other students. Well word of the master's skills got around and he became very famous, but very seldomly did he like to display his abilities.
So one day a Fierce looking Samurai came looking for a match with the master, who just so happened to be doing cleaning around the temple, thus wearing old worn out robes. When the Samurai saw the master, seeing the robes, he did not think that this could be the master, so he asked "Where is your master?" "He is not in today" said the master while picking up, with ease, a big rock so that he could clean around it. Seeing the strength of this person the samurai asked "Who are you?" "Me? I am I just a novice student of the master. But if you would like to cahllenge him, I'm sure that if you return tomorrow he will be more than glad to oblige you" giving no response the samurai took his leave, with nothing short of a hasty get away.

ok, so I am horrible at telling stories :crazy: , but if you think the story looks like it might be interesting, check out that book.


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