An open heart is a generous and loving heart. And a vulnerable heart. When confronted by life’s vicissitudes, we naturally build barriers and adopt behaviors to protect our gentle hearts. Yet, these same protective barriers and behaviors impede our natural flow of generosity and love.
Without practices and gatherings which allow us to reopen and reconnect to our loving selves and others, the path away from love grows wider every day and harder to reverse.
Reopening your heart is an act of courage. Learning practices which replace resistance with resilience and competitiveness with compassion begins the process of turning our hearts back to our original state. From clutching to caring, from bitterness to benevolence, and from a living death to a living life.
What practices do you do to reopen your heart? What gatherings do you attend which put you in the company of like-minded people seeking the same goals?
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The Quest for Non-Harming Techniques
It's clear from research that O'Sensei took the old martial arts techniques he had learned and modified them according to his spiritual practice. This evolution of techniques is part of our legacy from him. And one of aikido's cornerstones.
He left us a "work in progress." And it's our responsibility to continue searching for new effective self-defense techniques, and modifying old ones to become even less harming.
The analogy I often use is knee surgury. (Something too many are familiar with.) In the "old days" surgeons cut open your knee, spread it apart, repaired whatever was necessary and closed it up. Very invasive and it took a long time to heal.
The current "modern day" knee surgury is often arthroscopic. A couple of small holes, minor invasion, and shorter healing time.
Doctors are continuing to look for new and inovative ways to solve old problems. Less invasive, less traumatic. That type of quest is also necessary in aikido.
I call it the "Quest for Non-Harming Techniques."
Why throw someone in a way that might cause them injury when another, less risky, way will do the job? Why not deal with the situation in the most effective and yet least traumatic way possible?
So next time you're on the mat, why not look for a new way? Reducing the amount of violence in our lives is well worth the effort.
He left us a "work in progress." And it's our responsibility to continue searching for new effective self-defense techniques, and modifying old ones to become even less harming.
The analogy I often use is knee surgury. (Something too many are familiar with.) In the "old days" surgeons cut open your knee, spread it apart, repaired whatever was necessary and closed it up. Very invasive and it took a long time to heal.
The current "modern day" knee surgury is often arthroscopic. A couple of small holes, minor invasion, and shorter healing time.
Doctors are continuing to look for new and inovative ways to solve old problems. Less invasive, less traumatic. That type of quest is also necessary in aikido.
I call it the "Quest for Non-Harming Techniques."
Why throw someone in a way that might cause them injury when another, less risky, way will do the job? Why not deal with the situation in the most effective and yet least traumatic way possible?
So next time you're on the mat, why not look for a new way? Reducing the amount of violence in our lives is well worth the effort.
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