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I was thinking a bit more about the 7th point of the previous post while cutting a couple of shomenuchis in our room: "Do something that makes you feel better". If this is part of a pattern that is associated with negative thinking and with - wrongly - focusing on what we don't want then there should be at least two types of activities that make us feel better.

I spend a lot of my time on thinking who I am, why I am, what is my purpose in this world, why I do things the way I do them. Depending on what my actual thoughts are my aikido trainings are also different. If I'm in a good mood then training goes with ease, if I'm having some negative thoughts then training is more like struggling.

In aikido we are supposed to be relaxed when training. It is much healthier if the muscles are not stiff and the body is flexible. Unfortunately, for some type of people, including me, to achieve relaxation can be very demanding. Sometimes I focus on relaxing so much that, as a result, I lose all my flexibility without noticing in time. If the body is not relaxed, it is much easier for the training partner to throw you (which can be uncomfortable when you are tori and not uke ). More importantly, if our muscles are not relaxed, the possibility of getting injured while a technique is applied on us is more real. As I felt that my muscles were becoming stiffer over months - due to stress not (always :)) related to aikido trainings - I decided to visit a massage therapist. A couple of things I learned are coming in the next paragraphs.

I've just read an atricle in the local Metro newspaper and I feel I need to react to it. As I have recently read a book about nonviolent communication (NVC), so I try to summarise my reaction to the above mentioned article accordingly: when I read the article about a 77 old woman who was able to 'beat' trained paratroopers I felt angry and frustrated because I needed that the role of aikido was properly introduced and acknowledged in the article.

There is a joke saying "The rabbit has a real personality, he sits among weed all day and still he doesn't smoke it". It would be a bit harsh if I said this joke alone made me thinking about martial arts, but it has something to do with it. It is said a great martial artist doesn't use his powers although he could kill others easily.

This post is inspired by the question of one of our users who has watched our instructional video about tegatana.

Find the question below, and also, what I answered. Now I'm attempting to explain my view about tegatana further.

The question:

Mark mentioned a couple of months ago the expression 'topless aikido' and its appearance in web search queries. I started thinking about why people would search for these keywords and what they would expect from the results.

When we go to Hungary to visit friends and family, I usually try to organise our programmes so that I have time to train at my old club at least once. Since starting blogging, this was the first time we went home so I think it's time for me to write about what it was like to train with old aikidoka friends.

As I promised earlier, with my blog posts here I try to follow the posts written in my two other Hungarian blogs. This is the first such post, and I'd like to write here quite often from now on. I'd like to invite you to discuss and think about things inspired by quotes from O'Sensei. I'd also like to share my own thoughts with you to start the discussion.

A couple of days ago I was travelling in the London Tube when it was announced that there was a significant signal failure at Mansion House. Instead of my usual 1h 20min journey, it took me 2.5 hours to get to the university. My main point is what I realised somewhere around Victoria station (see below after the introduction :)).