Each day when I enter the dojo, I pass beneath Sensei Barry’s tree. It towers over the building now, and this year it bloomed spectacularly. Because I helped to plant and nurture the tree, and because it almost didn’t survive that first year, seeing our tree abundant with yellow blossoms fills me with gratitude. Cultivate a World You Want to Live In It is a useful sentiment, the idea that one should plant trees under whose shade one does not expect to sit. It reminds us to build for the future, and to strive without expecting an immediate return. However, each time I pass beneath the tree we p ..read more

When children begin their Aikido practice, they are excited to earn their first belt. We always tell them the same thing, “To earn your white belt, go home this week and do something extra to help out around the house. Something you do not already do.” Most of the belts they will earn in Aikido are awarded for skill mastery. They will need to practice for weeks, months, and sometimes years (for advanced levels) to learn achieve these milestones. However, their technical proficiency is only half of the value of Aikido. The other half is the development of character. Kids Do Chores as Part of Ai ..read more

In This Moment, A Great Battle is Being Fought. At stake is human dignity and sovereignty, and responsibility – to oneself and to one another. It is easy to descend into wrath, disgust, or apathy – anything to alleviate the discomfort of these events. And in doing so, you would lose ground in this battle. Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash The battle is not new; it is ancient. Having grown up in a time of plenty, where burning cities are not the norm, I’m afraid many of us have neglected to train for it. I do my best to share only those thoughts that will help you in your journey, so I will sum ..read more

How to Win Without Fighting O Sensei tells us Masagatsu Agatsu (正勝吾勝,) “True victory is victory over oneself.” This principle has helped me to understand my internal struggles – the way I scold myself when I have difficulty with a technique, the anxiety that leads to unnecessary strain and poor positioning, the productive procrastination of making a huge list of tasks knowing I cannot complete them all… I’ve taken for granted that there will always be a struggle – that self-victory as described by Ueshiba would require heroic effort. Effort I may not be ready to undertake. Aikido Has No Oppone ..read more

Focus, Intention, and the Value in the Pause. “Breathe in,” Sensei said as he raised his sword to the sky, aligning it with his midline as if it were a lightning rod. “Imagine drawing energy down this line, to concentrate it here,” the sword sunk into a ready position, held at the hara, the physical center of the body. “Hold your breath.” I did as directed, closing my throat to prevent the air escaping. The breath did not want to be held. It strained against my upper chest, begging for release. Internally I squirmed, waiting for Sensei to move, to give the signal to release the energy I was st ..read more

There is another way. Recently, I was introducing Aikido to a student who came to try out the Kids Aikido class. While practicing our basic tai no henko, he looked at me and asked, “and then do you break their arm?” He was not joking, nor did he show any hint of malice. It’s not that he wanted to see an arm broken, it just seemed to him the logical next step in that situation. The boy is not unusual in this. Another student trying Aikido for the first time last week, this one an adult, saw an opportunity to punch for the face during a similar exercise. Instinctually she felt the urge to strike ..read more

Last week a longtime friend and supporter of our dojo, Celia Nachlas, passed away. Mother to Miriam Lippe and grandmother to Larissa and Hannah Lippe, Celia has contributed much to the wide family of people who knew her. I appreciate the time she spent here. “I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it incredibly.” — Achaan Chah Subato I first read those words sometime after my Sensei had passed away. It was a passage he’d enjoyed; something which held meaning as he faced an illness from which he might not recover. Something he wanted to be read when he had passed. I am a fixer, a pro ..read more

More than any other chore, I enjoy dusting and sweeping. It’s simple, relaxing, powered only by my body and a simple hand tool. No spraying or scrubbing, no loud noises. That doesn’t mean I do it more often. Dusting never seems as urgent as dishes, or laundry, so I tend to neglect it. This week I traveled to Virginia to be an uchideshi, a student living in the dojo to work and to train. For my personal responsibility, I chose to maintain spaces that required more dusting and sweeping than the other spaces. I believed the meditative quality of the work would be good for me after intensive tra ..read more

Darkness has risen in the world. Maybe it was always present. Most likely, you have some sense of what I’m talking about. That’s good, because I’m not going to explain it. It is likely we would diverge on the specifics, and peering into the abyss is not the purpose of this piece. Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche I’m Writing About Hope. This is the vision that greeted me as I entered the dojo one morning, not long ago. The tree is two ye ..read more

The post Zimron Sensei at Traditional Aikido Sarasota FL 1-2-17 first appeared on Traditional Aikido of Sarasota ..read more