Story

The Star Wars movies have a lot to do with Japan and, through the Force, with aikido. This post is about Star Wars and how it is connected to aikido and Eastern culture.

The reasons for practicing aikido (i.e. following the Way of Aiki) can be very different for various people. I do it for one reason nad perhaps you do it for another.

As Fujita Masatake shihan is the international technical leader of our organisation I naturally started looking for his videos on the Web a couple of years ago, when I was new to aikido and when I'd just attended his seminar in Budapest. By now there have been several Fujita sensei videos on Youtube but there were only a couple of very short ones when I started looking for his recorded moves.

Making sure the dojo is clean and tidy is part of our aikido lives: we may need to put down the mats in an orderly manner before every training, and we need to make sure the mats and the dojo itself are clean so we can train in a clean and nice place.

I have a recurring problem at trainings which is trying too hard. I believe there is a great lesson to learn from this problem so I'm trying ( :) ) to take every opportunity to understand and solve this problem. On Wednesday, Szabi held the training and after finishing we walked towards the station and talked about this issue. He came up with a couple of good analogies to my aikido-based trying-too-hard problem that I found interesting and useful.

When we make a mistake, we should acknowledge it, accept it and learn from it. Philosophy says that we need to accept ourselves as we are, live with the mistakes we make. It’s ok to feel bad about mistakes but they need to be acknowledged and accepted. Where do I get this idea from? See below.

I found a picture the other day which made me laugh. I haven't found many similarly funny martial art photos recently so I thought I should share this one, and I also have a 'riddle' for you.

If you can tell me what is the connection between the picture's martial art and aikido we will send you our soon-to-be-published e-book titled "Quick aid for aikido beginners" before the general publication date.

A couple of years ago I attended a course where we practiced and aimed to improve several useful transferable skills. Among the exercises we did was one which was about going into a room, sitting down and answering questions of several interviewers. One of us who was selected for this exercise had been studying a martial art for a long time (I think he did kyokushin karate) and his performance was better than the others' (people not being interviewed were observers). The course leaders said that people studying martial arts are naturally better at interviews and, generally, in stressfull situations.

Day 6 is special in every Veszprem summer camp. There is no weapons training, there is an extended 2 hour training in the morning and no training in the evening. Instead of the evening training, there is one session after the long training in the morning which is devoted to gradings!