Kotsu Kotsu

Trying A New Technique Can Be Bumpy At First  This year, for our annual Kokikai Aikido Winter Camp, we decided to try selling t-shirts using an online seller. It seemed like the modern thing to do. Instead of guessing what people would want and ending up with leftover shirts, people could go online in advance and pre-order the exact size, style, color they wanted. They'd all get shipped to my house and we'd hand them out at camp. I'd order a few extra for those who like to make spur-of-the-moment purchases but there would be a lot less waste. My son, Martin, works for an online business printer. He said he knew a cool little startup he had worked with before that had a great website. He set up the campaign and we were all excited...UNTIL... The promised delivery date came and...no shirts. Not even a tracking number. Luckily I still had over a week's leeway: "Hope for the best, plan for the worst" is my motto. This  very online company had no custome...

My brother Ben lives in a big city that definitely has its dangerous spots. Recently he asked me for some advice on how to stay safe. "I'm going to give you four things," I said. I could see I'd already impressed him by having a ready answer. He knows I’m a martial arts instructor , but that stuff is never real to your own family. At that time there was a subway strike in the city, and everyone was seeking alternate transport. Overground trains and buses were jammed, the roads were packed with private cars, taxicabs, bikes, and the sidewalks were overflowing with hurrying, disgruntled pedestrians. "First," I said, as we jostled along a sidewalk blocked by a huge bus queue, “just improve your posture . Stand up straighter." This caught Ben's attention. I think he figured his sister the black belt would demonstrate some primary aikido move or teach him to stick his keys out between his knuckles. Posture? As self defense? But Ben listened. He ...

I recently traveled in Ireland for a couple of weeks. Irish people have an undeserved reputation for drinking a lot. People there do spend a lot of time in pubs, because pubs are social places where everyone gathers to catch up on the news, chat, and hear music. I think I saw more drunk people during two weeks in Japan. During my trip I only saw one person who might have been drunk. But then again, he might have been mentally ill, or both. I was having a cup of tea at an outdoor table. There were two young women sitting at a table near me. A man sat down next to them. He was obviously living a rough life - his face had deep creases, he had some facial ticks and grimaces, and he looked very sorry for himself. He started to harass the two women for money. "Have you got a Euro? I need it to get the bus." They said that they had just run out of cash, in the polite way we do when we don't want to admit that we just don't want to give someone money, whether we th...

I remember one time I was in the locker room at the Y with my friend Jan. We were putting on our aikido gi (uniforms) before class. There was a little girl of about seven in the locker room with her mom, changing after a swimming class. As we put on our black belts and tied them, the girl's eyes lit up with wonder. "You're black belts ?" she asked. "Yes, we are!" said Jan, smiling. I guess no matter how jaded you are, when you can impress a 7-year-old, it feels really good. As the girl and her mom left, Jan looked at me and said quietly, "...and it's not as hard as you might think. All you really have to do is keep showing up." Of course Jan was underplaying the hard work she's done to achieve a high level of mastery. However, she made a great point. There are times when the most important thing to do is to show up. Whether you're writing a book, running a marathon, entering a violin competition, or just trying to get thr...

Weirdly, sometimes when you stop fighting back, It's easier to get what you want In Kokikai Aikido we often say that when practicing, the more you encounter resistance, the more you have to relax. When an attacker feels you resisting, they fight you even harder, hold you even tighter.  Your own resistance acts like brambles clogging a path. They cling and slow you down. To get where you want to go, you have to clear them away.  It takes a big leap of faith to  believe  that we can really defeat an attacker by using  less muscle . We say we believe it, but when the time comes to do it, our brains just seem wired to the idea that tensing our muscles will work. An  aikido technique comes to mind. Called ryote tori kokyunage saio undo, i t starts with the attacker grabbing one arm with both hands. As you can imagine, it's very hard to move your arm when someone is grabbing it with two hands. I'm not tall or particularly athletic. In addition to ...

Last week I attended a class with Kokikai Aikido founder Shuji Maruyama Sensei . I'm still absorbing some of the ideas Sensei gave us to improve our practice. This particular idea sounds like it's specific to aikido technique, but I think it applies to people who don't practice aikido, too. We practice an exercise called zengo undo , where we raise our arms as if to respond to an overhead attack, and then turn 180 degrees and do the same - as if we had attackers both in front and behind. The challenge of the exercise is to remain centered and calm while changing directions very quickly. Sensei's point was that when we turn from one direction to the other, we need to shift our focus 100%. If we are still thinking about what just happened, or anticipating what's about to happen, we have only half of our power. This sounds very simple, but it's difficult to practice in aikido. It's even harder to practice in daily life.