Welcome to Iwama Aikido - Aikido in Everyday Life!

Aikido in Everyday Life

So.. How can aikido principles be used in everyday life?

• Sensei Sargeant teaches that aikido is basicly about letting people go by and guiding them rather than physically trying to move them in order to complete a technique; about moving around the attack and attacker rather than moving them!
  When walking down the street and somebody is walking in the opposite direction towards you, I'm sure, most of us have experienced that moment of thought which says " why should i move out of the way? "
  To stay in harmony with the universe we should not want to create wasted energy by bumping into someone! So therefore we move out of their way!

• A key principle in learning aikido is dedication. Dedication to learning, dedication to ones self improvement! If we can spread this dedication into everyday life then each and every task that we do, we would complete with care and attention. This will improve career, relationships, and every aspect in our lives.

• In aikido we should understand that we can accept guideance from all of our fellow aikidoka, including lower grades. If we "rise above" our ego then we can learn more of the techniques we thought we already knew, from everyone including the lower grades. The ego can get in the way of learning because it causes us to think that we know the technique better than the person we are training with or it just causes us to think that we are technically better than we actully are.
  
  So.. when training always listen to your teacher, in every situation, and realise that we may think we know something but we can always learn it better!
  If we try to rise above our ego in everyday life then all sorts of posiblities can arise. The ego is just an animal instinct which we should out grow.

• These are quotes from O'Sensei:

  Manifest yang
  In your right hand,
  Balance it with
  The yin of your left,
  And guide your partner.
  

  The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here for no other purpose than to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter

• The path to enlightenment can start anywhere. When training in aikido I believe perfect technique will come when nearing enlightenment this is because perfect aikido is to extinguish a conflict without coming to blows!

• Here is a quote from Sensei Sargeant

  To judge is to criticise; this means thought, thought means you have made a decision, and in making that decision time was used wrongly when it could have been used to look at beauty.

• Sensei Sargeant has talked a lot about our body being "together" i.e. our arm with our legs and being moved all together by our hips. So.. Bringing Aikido into everyday life also means that we will be one with our body. It is very easy to pull a muscle in our backs by over stretching in a certain direction or by not being as one whole body e.g lifting with just our arms. If we can connect our whole body this will mean we will lift with our legs, torso and arms. This, I think, is going "some" way towards what O'Sensei talked about when he said we should be at one with the universe!

• Awareness in our lives is something that we can all train. When training in aikido awareness is an aspect we consider and therefore improve. To be aware of our surroundings has a number of implications towards improving our everyday lives. I.E. being aware that a car is coming and not stepping into the road etc.

• Aikido in everyday life also means excatly that training everyday in order to improve our aikido. This does not necessary mean to goto the dojo and train everyday, but to think about how we approach each situation that arises. Moreover, it is to try to learn something from everything that we do.
  Remember that Aikido means The way to Harmony with your spirit. O'Sensei called the art Aikido for a reason!

• People who train in aikido are automaticlly united by the art, there are many stories of aikidoka uniting despite disputes between their countries. This is what O'Sensei wanted, Aikido is a way of life and not just a martial art.
  
  So how can we achieve world peace through the art of aikido?
  
  We must be united with everyone in the world rather than just fellow aikidoka! We must great every person we ever meet with joy and delight. It is very hard for someone to be aggressive towards someone who has a warm, sincere, glowing smile towards them.

• There is a natural rhythm in life and training in aikido as well as other arts, meditation, tai chi etc enables an individual to start to understand their own natural rhythm as well as the rhythm of people around them. It becomes easy to spot someone who is forcing the issue and not in natural harmony with themselves and everyone around them.

If you have any thoughts on how aikido can improve our everyday lives please send me an email and I may post your views in this section!

AIKIDO EVERYDAY