Kotsu Kotsu

A lot of people ask me what aikido has to do with music and here's the essential reason: Musicians, understandably, spend a lot of time thinking about music - learning tunes, listening to their tone, practicing technique. But in aikido I learned that there is a hugely important element to practicing and playing, which is to  practice mind-body coordination . This is nothing esoteric. It has to do with paying attention to your body in a specific way while you are playing. Go to the gym any day and you'll see rows of people on the treadmill, elliptical and stair machines, doing exactly the opposite . Many of us who are trying to learn a physical skill, whether it's a musical chord progression, throwing a perfect curve ball, or a tango "ocho," assume that doing the drills/exercises is primarily a physical activity. In practicing aikido I learned how to coordinate my mind and my body. And I learned why it leads to much better results. To improve mind-body c...

My instructor, Dan McDougall, often suggests that beginning students try picking one of the Four Basic Principles to focus on during ki development exercises. Here are a few specific ideas that may help during ki development exercises: Keep One Point :  Find your  one point . Try imagining that this point is very heavy and is grounding you, making you balanced and strong. As more movement is introduced into the ki exercises, see if you can keep your sense of  one point  just as strong.  Unlike gravity,  one point  is an idea, and maintaining it is totally under your control, so if you want to feel heavy, you can, but you can also feel light if you choose.  You may want to try imagining your  one point  to be very small, or imagine it to be infinitely large. Or you may feel its enough to simply feel it is there. Entire treatises have been written on one point. It's best not to get too carried away, just keep it simple...

"Relax progressively" is one of the four basic principles of Kokikai Aikido . It is a simple idea that can have profound effects. In Kokikai we learn that we can be physically relaxed and still remain strong-in fact, we can be even stronger when we are relaxed. This idea is counterintuitive for a lot of people, but you only have to spend a little time on the mat in a Kokikai class to see that it is true. The concept that relaxed can be stronger can even be extended to cognitive relaxation.  I've often found myself becoming anxious and distracted by a stressful situation, sometimes for days. Especially if my stress was based on an angry or feared interaction with someone, I would rehearse or replay the conversation endlessly in my mind. At some point I had a realization that there was no purpose to hanging on to this fear, anger and distraction. They didn't help me when the time came to handle the situation. And they made all the time in between pre...

A wise friend once said that you can't make yourself relax. You have to allow yourself to relax.

In his book " Peace is Every Step ," Thich Nhat Hanh writes: "When I see someone smile, I know immediately that he or she is dwelling in awareness. This half-smile, how many artists have labored to bring it to the lips of countless statues and paintings?.. Mona Lisa 's smile is light, just a hint of a smile. Yet even a smile like that is enough to relax all the muscles in our face, to banish all worries and fatigue. A tiny bud of a smile on our lips nourishes awareness and calms us miraculously. It returns to us the peace we thought we had lost." Remembering to bring this small smile to the face can do wonders, not only for our own mental state, but also for the way we treat others. But how much harder is it to retain this relaxed, calm state when engaging in self-defense? I remember about 10 years ago watching Maruyama Sensei experimenting with this half-smile. I would see him in quiet moments at the side of the mat, smiling a little more, a little l...