Daily Aikido

Yet another great Aikido post:
Aikido Writings contains a couple of insights into Aikido. I particularly like the second:

The river flows naturally, blending with the landscape before it,
changing its shape while maintaining its form.
The large boulder, solid and impenetrable,
does not succeed in stopping the river.
The body of water does not cling to the rock, grab it or hold it.
Perhaps it just pushes just slightly into the boulder as the river simply passes by.
In fact the boulder is slowly eroded by the water on it’s way to the ocean.
Ultimately it is not the land that shapes the water but the water that shapes the land.

We endeavor in aikido to emulate this quality in our mind, body and spirit.
Allow oneself to be the river.
My personal hope is that through manifesting aikido in my life
I can slowly erode the hardness, the anger and the clinging despair of the boulders in my life
and the boulder i know that i can be.

One of my favourite bloggers recently posted an article titled Are You Ready for the Unexpected. A great post for us bloggers but it did get me thinking.

Chris mentions that his family is suffering from some sort of illness and he even states that there is a good chance he will get that same illness. Wrong kind of thinking Chris! The mind controls the body just as the body controls the mind. How can we use this knowledge to bolster our defences? (more…)