Are you confident that you know what you are doing? Is what you are doing what you actually thought it was?
After 40 years of practising the art, I am now hitting a confused patch. Not that what I have done didn't work but I wonder now was it real ai ki do. Was it really a harmony of spirit that I had? Did I inflict my aikido on others? Did I use my mind enough? Did I co-ordinate my whole body and mind enough? Was my desire to win too much? Should I have been more sensitive to the physical attack and more empathetic with the mind of the attacker? Should I even have considered it an attack. . . does this in itself contravene the spiritual ethic of Aikido? I am no longer sure about these things but look forward to finding out.
We often tell others, 'I do Aikido', but do you really? What is real Aikido, what was O-Sensei's discovery all about?
'The journey is everything, for there is only one destination;
it's how we make our way there that matters'.
After 40 years of practising the art, I am now hitting a confused patch. Not that what I have done didn't work but I wonder now was it real ai ki do. Was it really a harmony of spirit that I had? Did I inflict my aikido on others? Did I use my mind enough? Did I co-ordinate my whole body and mind enough? Was my desire to win too much? Should I have been more sensitive to the physical attack and more empathetic with the mind of the attacker? Should I even have considered it an attack. . . does this in itself contravene the spiritual ethic of Aikido? I am no longer sure about these things but look forward to finding out.
We often tell others, 'I do Aikido', but do you really? What is real Aikido, what was O-Sensei's discovery all about?
'The journey is everything, for there is only one destination;
it's how we make our way there that matters'.