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Old 06-26-2017, 10:09 AM   #26
Peter Boylan
Join Date: Aug 2001
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Re: Aikido and Stress

Quote:
Amos Barnett wrote: View Post
I see a lot of mention of Aikido as a means of relieving stress, but how about as a means to learn to deal with stress?

One of the things I appreciate from having practiced Aikido is that it puts me under situations which have triggered fears within me, including personality flaws, and through practice I've learned to overcome them.

This also relates to the other side of the situation where I've seen people become senior enough that they don't have to confront their character flaws and instead end up abusing their students or juniors in various ways.

I've come to appreciate each time I screw up a technique somehow, as it gives me a chance to examine myself and find what part of me, often my own thinking, is causing me to move in an bad way. For example, we have all found ourselves forcing techniques, even slightly when we know we shouldn't. I've found often this might be with a particular partner, maybe someone very senior, with whom I'm not confident about being able to do the technique well. By examining both my mental/emotional state as well as the technique, I can learn to deal with similar reactions in situations outside of Aikido and improve my interactions with others overall.
This is the sort of thing I was really looking for. I wonder what different dojo and groups do to inoculate students against stress. How is this dealt with? Or isn't it? What specifically does your dojo do to help students learn to handle stress?

Peter Boylan
Mugendo Budogu LLC
Budo Books, Videos, Equipment from Japan
http://www.budogu.com
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Old 06-27-2017, 07:17 AM   #27
lbb
Location: Massachusetts
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Re: Aikido and Stress

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Peter Boylan wrote: View Post
This is the sort of thing I was really looking for. I wonder what different dojo and groups do to inoculate students against stress. How is this dealt with? Or isn't it? What specifically does your dojo do to help students learn to handle stress?
Peter, once more, you are failing to define "stress". You may think it's obvious what it means, but it is not -- it is a broad umbrella term that means many things to many people. If you want a discussion, and particularly if you want a discussion guided into channels that you are "really looking for", you should define your terms.
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Old 06-28-2017, 02:21 PM   #28
ninjedi
 
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Re: Aikido and Stress

I respectfully disagree. Stress is a pretty standard emotion, not sure how differently it could be defined by others.

Stress is emotional (oftentimes physical) strain/pressure resulting from uncomfortable/demanding/confrontational circumstances and/or situations.

Right?
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Old 06-28-2017, 03:06 PM   #29
Peter Boylan
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Re: Aikido and Stress

In this case, I'm specifically thinking of the stress of physical confrontation, where you are genuinely concerned about getting hit, grabbed or otherwise attacked. How do you train to deal with the stress of waiting to be attacked and dealing with the actual attack? Does your training increase the type, speed and force of attacks to raise the stress students are accustomed to dealing with in the dojo? If so, how?

Peter Boylan
Mugendo Budogu LLC
Budo Books, Videos, Equipment from Japan
http://www.budogu.com
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Old 06-29-2017, 07:21 PM   #30
Adam Huss
 
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Re: Aikido and Stress

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Peter Boylan wrote: View Post
How are Aikido and stress connected? Like any physical activity, Aikido practice can help relieve stress, but are there any other ways Aikido and stress are connected? Could it help you handle situations so they aren't stressful to begin with? I argue that good budo training does this in this blog post http://budobum.blogspot.com/2017/05/...nd-stress.html

What do you think? Does your aikido help you to handle stress better?
I feel my time as an uchi deshi at a Yoshinkan dojo helped me significantly to successfully complete one of the toughest training schools in the US Marine Corps. Training techniques are great, but after acquiring reasonable efficiency one can focus on efforts and stresses trained through by regularly putting oneself in uncomfortable situations....and persevering through them. Stress can be defined as the reaction to change, and aikido training...budo training...presents a unique opportunity to continually train in this way. Unfortunately it seems, especially in aikido, people like to settle into comfortable routines and lose themselves to frustration when normative regiments are disrupted. This is particularly present in training environments where closed circuit atmospheres appear. Places where students not only don't train with other groups, but aren't really even aware that other styles or organizations exist.

Ichi Go, Ichi Ei!
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Old 07-26-2017, 04:09 AM   #31
Avery Jenkins
 
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Dojo: Litchfield Hills Aikikai
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Re: Aikido and Stress

There is another aspect to aikido's stress-relieving properties that isn't physical. It's the community created by the dojo. As I edge toward the precipice of 60, I've come to realize that much of my life has been a search for community. Having been a part of that dojo community for a long time, then having been absent for nearly a decade and finally returned, I realized just how important a role the dojo community -- call it camaraderie, if you want -- is to my well-being. And I'm not talking about the beer & pizza after class, I'm talking about the community that is formed on the mat.

Of course every dojo is going to be different, but for the most part it's like different flavors of ice cream. Yeah, one's chocolate, one's vanilla, but they're still ice cream.

I grow in those communities.Even the more stanky ones, I find I am better/less stressed with them than without.

Of course, this isn't unique to aikido. But, having found, participated, and discarded many groups in my search for connections, the aikido dojo's appeal is unique to me. And a few others, I suspect.

Avery Jenkins
Author of Dark River, to be released in Oct. 2020
www.averyjenkinsauthor.com
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