Isn't it odd...

...that when things are at their worst, you always feel like training? Right now, things are so hectic in my life and yet the things I most want to do are train and Zen. But when things are on even keel, I find my motivation waxes and wanes. Odd...

Just a personal obervation. Back to your regularly scheduled program ;-)

Yeah I've always considered aikido my "therapy"..

--JW

I feel the same in some way.

It's not that I have some critical issues with my life.

But whenever I'm going to the dojo (after work), as I enter the mat, stay at seiza and at the beggining of the class...Man, I go to another dimension. No matter how hard my work day was, no matter how much things I still have to solve or complete (job issues)....I just take all them out of my head.

I don't know of any other thing or activity that can put me in that state/peace of mind.

Sometimes it happens the other way...You feel just very good, and feel like to go train.to feel better.

Good and safe training

It is just the other way for me, when things are bad, I have to struggle to get to class, but when things are better I can't stay away.

Must be the amphlication of depression with my Meniere's disease. Causes symptoms simular to having the flu and a hangover.

Although I do spend more time reviewing books, and online research increase, I think that training also has to do what you can see hidden in the techniques for variations, and comparitive analysis for other techniques in other martial arts also.

I know when we do things we haven't done in months, or begin to adapt and change techniques, I am motivated to get to class, even if I just sit and watch.

I believe that preachers always report an influx of piety in times of crisis. Most people don't pray until they "have" to. I guess the trick is to weave it into your life, that way in times of crisis, you're already there!

Peace

Sieger

My art is not wholly Aikido, because it's heavily involving Kung-Fu as well, but still, I find the same thing to some degree. When I feel frustrated and apathetic, I vent my frustrations, my rages, my irritations, all through calm exercise of the arts of peace. It's an amazing thing to do something so animal and so masculine, but yet something spiritual and graceful and feminine all in one. Martial arts covers so many bases that it's really quite an amazing thing, especially in light of the fact that on top of all that, it can save your life, or at the very least, save you from serious harm, both in combat and just in life in general.

I have to say though, once I realized that Aikido and Kung-Fu gave me what I get out of them, I put as much into them as I can, even though things are now great, even though they were terrible when I started. There's a transition point, where you're sitting in Seiza and everything is calm and you just breathe, and you feel like things are ok. I think most people get that at some point in their lives, doing some activity. Just a point where they have an epiphany and things change. For me that change was the change from needing Aikido and Kung-Fu to vent my sadness to wanting Kung-Fu and Aikido to enhance my happiness. It's a discipline thing, it's a breaking of dependancy, going from needing your art, to doing it because you want it.