Sep
7
The Top 5 Things Aikido Teaches about Happiness
Aikido Picnic
“Yochan, Otsukaresan” Jason, good job today. Said Sensei.
“Arigato Gozaimashita.” I sais, and bowed in thanks. I was surprised to see how happy I felt, and I am reminded of how special a role Aikido has played in my life.1.
1. Commune: Unlike Chinese Taiji or Wushu, which can be performed alone, the forms in Aikido require the presence of another person. Not having another person to practice with is like trying to dance without a partner. Indeed Aikido is like dancing – it’s possible to know a person intimately from the way he attacks or defends. Since I started five years ago, I have gotten to know my teachers well from the way we practice together. My Aikido teachers and a few of the students are the people with whom I have had the longest regular relationship, apart from my parents. Happiness is forging long-lasting relationships.
2. The Essential is Invisible: We are all there to learn the Art. Aikido is primary. I don’t even know what most of my fellow students do for a job. We get to know our personalities well, but when we talk, we hardly talk about work. There’s something liberating about Aikido – it is a wholly-contained society, mostly free of politics and economics. Happiness is communing with people, unadorned or unhindered by all the other things that we install into our identity: our job, who we know, or our economic status. Progress in the Art is an objective measure.
3. Ritual Reboot: The changing room has the aroma of the human body being made to work: the familiar smell of soap mingled with the sweat. We change into our uniforms, bow entering the dojo, and practice. No matter how stressed I may have felt at work, I would feel relaxed after practice. If my thoughts were disturbed, the distraction would come out in technique. It’s almost like a moving meditation done with a partner. It’s different from dance – in salsa or other social dances, the music is loud and something to focus on. In Aikido, as much as possible, the challenge is to be fully aware in one’s body, not focused on any thought, or on a rogue fist that is actually meant to throw you off balance into the next move. Happiness is having rituals to keep us happy.
4. Most of Practice is Just Showing Up: When I first started learning Aikido, I did not think about how long I might study it. It was something that was intrinsically fun to do. Gradually, I am understanding more and more, as my skill-level improves. These same techniques, I applied to learning to read and write Japanese by myself – every day, I would learn five Kanji. Once I settled into a rhythm, I started dreaming about Kanji, and it felt odd to miss a day. I applied the same discipline to learning how to capture the attention of an audience of 200 people – twice a month, I have practiced speaking with like-minded people at Toastmasters. Once I settled into a rhythm, it felt empty not to go see my Toastmasters friends. And I think about the wisdom of my former boss at Intel, who each week would make us speak about the week gone by and the week coming up, in three minutes. As a new hire, I was terrified. It was hard to speak coherently in three minutes about something that I had spent hours working on. But once I settled into the rhythm of doing it, I would spend time preparing my three-minute statement, and was proud of it. Happiness is the continuous pursuit of a worthy goal through small steps that are enjoyable, and developing a rhythm that will carry you through even on days that your motivation is low.
5. Learn by Falling: One has to learn how to fall, in order to learn more advanced technique. So much of learning is by feeling how a move is executed against you, and it is impossible to learn in this way until one has learned to fall without injury. Thus one doesn’t learn how to dish it out until he learns how to take it. Trying to resist a fall actually increases the risk of injury. Yet falling is not giving up – it’s maneuvering in such a way to reduce the force of impact or distribute it over a wider area, and to position oneself in such a way that it will be easier to get up.
