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Old 07-14-2003, 07:48 PM   #16
DaveForis
Dojo: UW-L Aikido Club
Location: La Crosse, WI
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 38
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I have to disagree with Lynn and with Damien.

Thoughts don't come first, and thoughts and emotions are not independent. The emotion comes first, then the thoughts jump right on the bandwagon and start justifying the emotions. Have you ever spent an entire day stewing over something stupid and trivial? How about spending your day in a dreamy state after falling in love? After the emotion happens, the mind just naturally latches on, because minds do that. They hate to be empty. That's why Buddhists, especially Zen Buddhists, train their minds to be silent all the time. It keeps you relaxed and spiritually centered. (Still working on it myself. :\) When there's no mental chatter, emotions, even strong ones, can come and pass. If you try to fight your emotions (No! I can't be angry right now! It's not appropriate!) then your emotions just fight back. As long as you're fighting to control yourself, you're creating more negative emotions... There's a LOT of parallel with Aikido... which just feeds the negative emotion you're feeling. So. Just realize that you ARE angry, or hateful, or jealous, or malicious. State it as a fact. Realize that you don't need your mind to elaborate it any more than that. (In other words "Keep It Simple, Stupid." ) Then you can let the emotion go and although you don't control it, it doesn't control _you_.

As for exercises to control the emotions...

There is a way. You just have to teach yourself to think nothing but positive. NOTE! THINK positive. First step is getting the mind to let go, as described above and breaking the cycle of negativity. It also helps to immeditaely feel forgiveness (A.K.A. loving acceptance) for yourself for having experienced the emotion you don't want. Then there are meditation exercises you can do that help you actually internalize positive emotions so that they become your natural state of being. Not your natural reaction, but your natural "baseline" emotional state. You know those people who are always cheerful? Aren't they harder to anger? Well, all you have to do is learn how to be like that.

For the technique, go to www.hoshinjutsu.com and go right to the products page. You need to either get Glenn Morris' book, Path Notes, which has the meditation written out, or get the CDs, "The Basics I" which has the exercise as a guided meditation (which I find more useful as you don't have to memorize it first. Just follow directions.) I'm not trying to sell this stuff. I just don't want to put up his meditation on a BBS for everyone to see, even if I do think it's something everyone should learn. I respect his work a LOT, and his meditation stuff is good for anyone--particularly martial artists. The exercise is called The Secret Smile and is a slightly reworked version of a Kung Fu/Chi Gung meditation called the Inner Smile.

So there's yer answer to "How do you control emotions?"

Again, I don't mean to be a salesman, but I don't feel good about giving out someone else's work. If you're interested and want to know a little more before you look into actually buying anything (I know the feeling) feel free to email me at daveforis@hotmail.com

If I actually find it or something like it on the Net under free domain, I'll be sure to post.

As for using emotion in techniques... Well, that's something everyone has to play with, isn't it? I've noticed that uncontrolled emotions DO equal uncontrolled techniques, but I don't have sufficient enough control yet to go out and toy with my own emotions on the mat. on a side note, I personally can't help but think that when you do the two steps above and you can control your emotions (most notably being able to bring up specific emotions at will, something only actors usually do) and then you use that to always be in a POSITIVE mindset whenever you train, you teach your body and mind to respond, even just a little, with that emotion if someone attacks you off the matt. (It's called classical conditioning) But that's the slightly different topic of learning theory and Why You Should Always Keep Your Dojo a Happy Place.

Behind every flaw in technique is a flaw in the mind or spirit
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