Ki Development Exercises - Part III - Finding a Focus in the 4 Basic Principles

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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.

Find Correct Posture:

  • Are your feet under your shoulders? 
  • Are you leaning forward or back? 
  • Is your chin level and your spine long? 
  • If you are in natural stance, is your weight distributed equally on both feet? 
  • Are your eyes open and focused ahead, or are you looking down or up?

Relax Progressively: 

  • Check that you're shoulders, upper back, and legs are relaxed as you move. 
  • How about your feet? Are they cramped up, clutching the floor?
  • Are your shoulders tense or relaxed down over your back? 
  • What about your face? Is it worried? Frowning?

Positive Mind: 

  • What you think affects your ability to practice self-defense! So check in with your thoughts. 
  • Can you detect any self-doubt, or negative thoughts? 
  • Are you thinking you're to small to practice aikido, or too big, or too out of shape or old, or it's going to take years before I can learn this, or I can't do the rolls? 
  • Tell yourself those thoughts are duly noted, and allow some more positive thoughts to come to mind. 
  • Remind yourself that the other students, and the instructor, were beginners once, with much the same feelings.
  • Gambatte! You can do it! 

There's a lot to be gained from practicing ki development exercises - I hope these ideas can help!

This is part 3 in a series of posts about ki development exercises in Kokikai Aikido. Here are links to the other two posts:
Ki Development Exercises in Kokikai Aikido - Part I
Ki Development Exercises in Kokikai Aikido Part II - What is Ki?
Ki Development Exercises for Musicians

Other related posts:
Practicing When you Can't Practice


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