Kotsu Kotsu

This is the first post in a series. It was originally written as an article about Kokikai Aikido , but the ideas could apply, more or less, to meditation, yoga, or, well, life. --- Recently an aikido student wrote from Japan where he was on an extended trip. He was taking a calligraphy class and he asked the teacher, “How should I do this brush stroke?”  She answered, “Boldly!” The calligraphy teacher was using aimaisa . In Japanese, aimaisa means something like “vagueness,” or “ambiguity.” If the teacher had used descriptive words like “with a downward stroke,” or “thin at the top, fat at the bottom,” the student would have focused on trying to make his work look correct. She knew that if the student wrote it with the correct feeling, the character would be more correct. By telling him to write “boldly,” she was helping him gain a deeper level of understanding based on direct experience. Beginning students of Kokikai Aikido are often similarly focused on objective aspect...