View Single Post
Old 06-22-2012, 02:53 PM   #118
graham christian
Dojo: golden center aikido-highgate
Location: london
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,697
England
Offline
Re: My Spiritual Aikido.

Quote:
Don Hebert wrote: View Post
Graham,

I am not sure I understand what you are trying to say.

For me, the Aikido invites me into a more vivid experience of being alive and the opportunity to confront myself. However, the pratice itself is firmly rooted in the mundane. I can't move my partner, I just got hit, my structure just collapsed. These "problems" are the places where I actually make any progress. The rest is comfort zone.

Another example: It is easy for me to care for partner's well being when training. They are my friends, most of them are nice. I am a nice guy. What a recipe for collusion! I am better off with partners who give me a hard time.

Training doesn't have to be grim but I better be working hard or I will never advance. The clearer I become about what doesn't work for me personally the more interested I become in things like IP that can really inform the basis for effective movement in Aikido without having to depart from its goals or forms.

Such skills are hard to acheive (and ultimately may require more dedication than I am able to invest). Ikeda Sensei has shown me personally how to do certain things multiple times and I still can't do them well (yet),

Best regards,

Don
Hi Don.
For me too it leads to the same, more vivid, more alive, more confronting of self.

Student: "I can't move my partner"

Me: "Well we know that's not true, you're not moving him, that's true."

Student: "Thus I got hit and structure collapsed and, and, and......"

Me: "Yes, it appears that way but following that logic is not Aikido."

Student: "Then how do I move him?"

Me: "First by having no intention or desire to move him. Your only lessen is how to harmonize with him and he will move himself. This is Aikido."

So Don, this is how I talk and do. This doesn't mean your way is 'wrong' just explains mine.

Keep going.

Peace.G.