Aikido Mind, Spirit and Body

Aikido 

Mind, Spirit and Body

When people hear about martial art, it will cross on their mind about power, strength and the most important is how to defeat your enemy as fast as you can do. But aikido is very different, it is  not about how much power do you have and how strength  you are. When you stand at the side of river you can see the water flow, have you ever think why the water keep flowing, no one pump or push the water, but it flows very smooth and gently and no one can stop it. That illustration is just very simple sentence to explain about nature in this life.

The word of aikido means the way of harmony, it is only a few words but it has very  deeply philosophy inside that sentence. The founder of aikido practiced a several martial arts before he discovered aikido, many basic movement of aikido created from traditional japanese sword technique called katana. Aikido movement concept always blend with your partner energy, blend with your partner movement, so you and your partner become harmony.  Aikido technique like water in the river always flowing , never stop and very difficult to be stopped.

Power from your muscle, many martial arts depend on the muscle to defeat your enemy, make your hand strong as stone, kick with your feet fast like horse, in the simple words make your body hard like steel. In aikido we don’t build our muscle and make our  body like steel. Don’t think about  your muscle and how strong you are when  practice aikido, make yourself like water in the river never stop flow and can’t be stopped.

One day when I practiced with aikido shihan he told me about mind, spirit and body. You can’t separate them, they are in one unity can not be separated. You have three of them since you were born, you can not leave one of them or choose to throw away one. They are in you.

Keep your mind and your heart open that will make you easy to learn and practice aikido.  Leave your emotion far away and respect your partner, so your partner will be happy to help you practice. Don’t ever think you are better than any body else just focus on practice and if your partner need your help, you need to help them like they do for you. Always make your heart like open door and don’t bring your ego, because if you do that you will not ready to practice.

Spirit from yourself, this is one more think you should have  when you practice, be like warrior. When the warrior  must fight, they fight with their spirit and never give up till the fight finish or died. I’m not  saying you must fight everytime, what I’m going to do is giving  the simplest explanation about the warrior spirit, never give up to learn even for the difficult one.

The last thing is your body, when the mind and the spirit joint together your body will complete it, because your body is being controlled by your mind and your spirit., your body move what your mind and your spirit tells.

Last words, every  time when you practice always bring the empty cup, so you can always fill the empty cup with the new tea. Don’t bring the cup with the tea already inside because you can not fill it more. Like the cup let your mind, spirit and your  body empty  so every time you practice you will accept and learn not only the technique but also the philosophy.  


Heriady, June 3th, 2015