Hoerikwaggo Aikido Centre

https://africanarguments.org/2024/05/lake-tanganyika-reaches-record-levels-submerging-parts-of-burundi-floods/

Not just in Kenya, parts of Bujumbura are also washed away. I almost didn't recognise the street the kids were swimming in from my visit a few years ago..

Lake Tanganyika reaches record levels, submerging parts of Burundi | African Arguments Burundi is struggling to provide relief to hundreds of thousands and protect infrastructure as floods cause devastation.

Aiki Dojo Message - Letting Go

“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 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.” - Morihei Ueshiba

As the year comes to a close, it is helpful to remember that in training, and really in life, it is actually a process of subtraction rather than addition. We do not become strong by adding things to build ourselves up. We become truly powerful when we cultivate the skill of letting go. In Japanese, this process could be called bakyaku wo arawasu (馬脚を現す) or the process of “revealing one's true nature.” The Buddhist believe in this idea of honrai mu ichimotsu (本来無一物) or “Originally, there was nothing.” Honrai mu ichimotsu is a Zen reminder to free oneself from attachments and get back to “nothingness.” Nothingness is not apathy or being a nihilist. Nothingness and attachments are about freeing ourselves from the things that have accumulated over the years that we are desperately holding on to which are clouding our true natures. For each of us, the attachments and the natures we are revealing are different. However, what is the same is that we are all immensely more powerful and greater than we think, we just don’t realize it, yet.

When I was a student, Reverend Kensho Furuya Sensei would often admonish the students taking his ukemi by saying, “You’re too stiff.” Stiffness in an Aikido sense is when we tense our bodies out of fear or lack of training when taking ukemi. This stiffness affects how we move our bodies. A person whose body is “too stiff” cannot move with the technique which disables them from being spontaneous when being thrown. It is said that we can feel the confidence, or fear in the uke by how they grab us. Too much power or strength can cause the uke to get stiff which can be dangerous, and this overcompensation can also transmit the uke’s fear or lack of training. Therefore, the uke trains themselves to only grab strong enough to maintain the connection and give their partner the sense of a good attack.

In the process of carving the famous statue David, Michelangelo supposedly said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” Interestingly, in Aikido training it is essentially the same thing. It takes an entire lifetime to strip away all of our conditioning, preconceived notions, and fears and just move spontaneously without fear. Ideally, with each throw, we let go of a little something which gives us a truer picture of who we really are or reveals our true inner Davids. Miyamoto Musashi said, “Do nothing which is of no use!” Thus, in Aikido and in life, don’t build yourself up, learn to let go of those things which are of no use and learn to let go.

This is the last blog message of 2023.
Have a wonderful New Year’s.
May Peace Prevail on Earth
Sekai jinrui ga heiwadearimasu you ni
(世界人類が平和でありますように).

Today’s goal: Furuya Sensei once wrote: “There is no end nor beginning to practice. In all training, we follow the rule: You are only as strong as your weakest link. All weak links must be rooted out and corrected. Reflect and study your misses and correct them. Make your weakest link into your strongest. Then start again on the next weakest link.”

This post appears in a slightly different form @ www.aikidocenterla.com/blog

Terasaki Budokan - Little Tokyo Service Center

Sait Sensei sera fier de voir ça

Under floodlights ❤️

Aiki Dojo Message - Be Positive

The best martial artists have positivity bias. In Japanese, Kokorogake (心掛け) is one way to say “way of thinking.” Kokoro means “heart” or “mind” and gake means “to hold.” Thus, the way we think is based upon the things that we hold in our hearts. Anais Nin said, “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.” A normal person tends to think more negatively or be more negatively biased. Negativity bias means that “our natural tendency is to give weight to and remember negative experiences or interactions more than positive ones.” Martial artists are not normal people and so they tend to think of things in a more positive way. Don’t get me wrong, martial artists have their bad days too, but the difference is that they don’t allow themselves to wallow around in their misery and if they do, it is not for too long. To have a positive mental attitude is to have “a mental and emotional attitude that focuses on the bright side of life and one that expects positive results.” One metaphor for a positive mental attitude can be something called komorebi. Komorebi (木漏れ日), in Japanese, means the “sunlight coming in through the trees.” In the forest, when the trees darken the light of the day, we can focus on the dark or take some solace in the little rays of sunlight that are peeking through the branches. Seeing the sunlight peek through is natsukashii (懐かしい) or “nostalgic” but in this sense it means the “nice feelings” that focusing on the rays of light bring us. Martial artists strive to live their lives in the present moment by focusing more on the good rather than doomsdaying on the bad. In the Hagakure, Yamamoto Tsunetomo wrote, “There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. There will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue.” Therefore, a martial artist knows that focusing on the positive things might not change the outcome, but it makes the unbearable just a little bit more bearable. In training, it is the same way. Every day in class, we are supposed to be challenging ourselves to improve. To improve, we focus on changing the minutest details of each technique which we know will influence the whole. By focusing on the small things that we can change, we are unknowingly teaching ourselves how to focus on the good and not catastrophize on the negative things which we may not be able to change. For instance, sometimes when we can’t best our partner, the only thing we can do is keep attacking. By not giving up and with every repeated attack, we learn to have heart or to have unwavering perseverance in the face of adversity. With time and experience, this mindset then carries over into our daily lives and we learn to focus on the good or the things that we can change. Henry Ford famously said, “If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.” Thus, we learn that what we choose to focus on is a choice. We can choose to see the dark or we can choose to see the sunlight. The best martial artists have positivity bias and so they always choose to see the little rays of sunlight breaking through the trees.

Today’s goal: Nothing is 100% bad. Choose to focus on the good even if it’s only 2% good.

This post appears in a slightly different form @ www.aikidocenterla.com/blog

Terasaki Budokan - Little Tokyo Service Center

Another big lost for the martial arts world. We are saddened with the departure of Yamada Yoshimitsu Shihan, ranked eighth dan in the Aikikai, and chief instructor at the New York Aikikai, and President of the United States Aikido Federation(USAF). He entered Hombu Dojo as an uchi deshi in 1955 at the age of 17. Yamada Shihan was instrumental in the development and expansion of Aikido in the USA and Latin America.
Rest in peace.
# martialarts

Coming up next month in Zanzibar