Aikido is a certain style of Japanese martial art, more a way of living that anything.
Here are the principles of aikido: pay attention, it is an amazingly sound way to live:
- Extending Your Mind: The extension of ones mind is directly connected to the extension of Ki. A person who extends their mind becomes aware of everything around them and naturally extends Ki. A person who extends Ki, naturally extends their mind.
- Know Your Partner’s Mind: To know your partners mind is to know your partners “intentions”. This can only be achieved with the free extension of Ki.
- Respect Your Partner’s Ki: From a self defense stand point, respecting your partner’s Ki would be to blend with an attack rather than meeting it head on. In daily life you can think of this as respecting someone’s opinion and not dismissing them out of hand. (In evolutionary language, this is cooperation instead of competition, leading to both surviving, instead of both dying.)
- Put Yourself In Your Partner’s Place: In Aikido this can literally mean swapping places with someone. In daily life it is the same. We consider how we would feel if we were the person in a difficult situation. It is more than empathy: empathy is passive, this is active: you move your Self to behind your opponent’s eye balls and look at what you are doing, saying, from over there.
- Perform With Confidence: A person who has no confidence will always hesitate and perform poorly. This is true in Aikido as in daily life. When a person performs with true confidence they are relaxed, focused and fully aware. Confidence is not a feeling; it is an attitude. You have 100% control over your attitude, although you may have to learn to control yourself, and your behavior. Practice of honoring your word as yourself is the key to controlling your attitude.
Ki or Chi is Life Force within you.
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