Life update

[ironphoenix]

So, what have I been up to?

Work is interesting lately: we have a stability problem in a design, and it's a tough nut to crack: after three solid weeks of five people working on it, we're beginning to see glimpses of the underlying cause, but we haven't solved it yet. Working on this stacks with my project management work, so I'm a busy raven these days. soul_diaspora is still working there on contract, so it's good to see her during the days occasionally. Having today off, I figured it would be a good time for an update!

The social life has been pretty good, between various games (including last night's poker game with assorted cow-orkers) and various get-togethers and chats with good and close friends. (More on that in a later post, perhaps.)

Aikido is a long, slow business. A more senior student asked me recently how my aikido is coming along and I answered, "I don't know; I come, I practice, I come, I practice."¹ I'm really not the person to judge how good my own technique is. Subjectively, I feel much as I have for quite some time: I can do the movements, but there is so much to work on in the subtleties that I can almost never get it all right at once. There's always something that my mind, which is watching as I practice, points out as being out of alignment, or disconnected, or unbalanced, or lacking focus, or, or, or...

This weekend is pretty open right now; I'll likely be up for some social things; I might even host games on Monday if there's interest.

---

1: The more senior student laughed and said that she should do that more, so I guess I'm doing at least that much right.

Comments

[zenten.livejournal.com]

If you managed to have already figured out Akido then it would be a rather simple and dull martial art.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

In many arts, it depends a great deal on how it's taught. A friend of mine got quite bored of a number of other arts for this reason... he had pretty much learned what they had to teach.

Not a problem at our dojo... we have at least three very subtle practitioners as head and senior instructors.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suppose if your teacher has nothing left to teach you that's a problem, although one with the teacher :)

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

Well, he's certainly not finding that with aikido, last I heard, and he's made nidan!

[nightstriker.livejournal.com]

I can bet that you must have done well on the poker....I mean Cows can't be that good at it right?

:P:P

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

You'd think so... and usually I do. Last night, however, shall henceforth be known as The Night Of Bad Beats. Bad cards are bad, but good cards when someone else gets better ones are much worse.

[gabriel-le.livejournal.com]

was is in the last week of July when I last went to visit your place, on a Wednesday evening?

I'm just trying to get my memory calendar straight...

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

Ummm... ebbeh... ask soul_diaspora. I have a crappy memory for details like that.

I would, however, like to see you again soon... it has been far too long.

[gabriel-le.livejournal.com]

I'm at home - call if you like, =)

[squireofmichael.livejournal.com]

Re: Aikido

You've seen "The Last Samurai," yes? (if not, I suggest it - it's one of my favorites)

One of the best pieces of martial arts advice I've ever received came from that movie:


Nobutada: "Please forgive - too many mind."

Nathan Algren: "Too many mind?

Nobutada: "Hai. Mind the sword, mind the people watching, mind the enemy. Too many mind. [pause] No mind."


Stop thinking. Just do. The more you do, the more you'll become in touch with the flow of the energy, and moreover, where it wants to go. Leave the thinking and correcting to your instructors - that's why they're there. The more you're in your head, the less you're interacting with the art.

So much of the subtlety of an energy-based art like Aikido, or Hapkido (its Korean equivalent), and even more-so Tai Chi, comes from the idea that you need to let the energy do the work for you. For instance, Master Kang, who teaches us Hapkido along with Tae Kwon Do, once threw me six feet (2 meters for you Canucks) during a demonstration. I weighed 250 lbs at the time. Master Kang is 5'4", and weighs 120 pounds soaking wet - maybe.

As an Aikido practitioner, I'm sure you're only all too familiar with the idea of redirection of energy. But that energy doesn't redirect if you think about how you should be redirecting it. It redirects simply if you do redirect it.

I don't mean to criticize. I apologize if I'm coming off negative, and even moreso if I come off as arrogant (who am I to presume to teach?). I just love martial arts, and I love a good discussion about it, which is all I'm striving for with my post, I promise.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

I agree, but I think you misunderstood my post. The mind is watching, not driving; except when deliberately slowing a movement down for analysis, the mind shouldn't be leading the movement. It should, however, be observing and directing the action from above. The general is not doing his duty if he takes a rifle and jumps into the trench; neither is he doing it if he sits in his tent and drinks whisky during the battle!

My perspective is: Think, but don't let thinking stop you. Let thinking happen, and let movement happen. No mind and universal mind are the same mind.

[squireofmichael.livejournal.com]

I apologize - I wrote my comment on very little sleep and a mind clouded by being sick. You're right that I misunderstood your post. I hope you can forgive my ham-fistedness.


Not sure I agree - or maybe I'm just misunderstanding again - with the idea that no mind and universal mind are the same. Perhaps you could expound?

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

No problem!

The mind that's open to everything focuses on nothing; it isn't here or there, but is like the Tao (perhaps it even becomes the Tao!). Enzan-no-mitsuke, "looking at the distant mountains," is a manifestation of this, in my experience. Perhaps the term fudoshin, "unfettered mind," expresses this best.