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Monday 5pm - 9:30pm Tuesday 5pm - 9:30pm Wednesday 5pm - 9:30pm Thursday 5pm - 9:30pm Friday 5pm - 9:30pm Saturday 10am - 1pm Sunday 6pm - 8:30pm

Mushinkan Kokyo

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Mushinkan Kokyo

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Shared Practice. Shared Discovery. Mushinkan Kokyo is a Chicago dojo offering Aikido, Youth Aikido, and Meishi-ha Mugairyu Iaihyodo.

A place to learn together, meet challenges, and discover what practice reveals over time.

10/08/2026

Thursday Thoughts from the tatami.

“Overcoming yourself is sometimes like deceiving yourself, for martial arts training requires great discipline.” — Aikido for Life

The mind can be an astonishingly persuasive attorney.

The moment training becomes difficult, it arrives with evidence, witnesses, several impressive charts, and a closing argument explaining why we have unquestionably reached our absolute limit.

Sometimes, of course, it is correct. Bodies have limits. Injuries are real. Exhaustion deserves respect. Wisdom is not demonstrated by charging through every warning light simply because perseverance sounds noble.

But sometimes…

We are merely uncomfortable.

And discomfort has a remarkable talent for dressing itself as impossibility.

Perhaps this is the “deception” the passage points toward. Not pretending that limits do not exist, but refusing to accept every declaration of I cannot as established fact. We answer it with one more attempt. One more repetition. One more moment of remaining present when some impatient part of us has already packed its bags.

Training gradually teaches us the difference between the boundary that should be respected and the one quietly waiting to be crossed.

Know yourself well enough to recognize both.

Then have the discipline to honor one and the courage to challenge the other.

Artist Hiroaki Takahashi (Shotei)
Title: Returning Woman in an Autumn Evening
Date: 1936

10/01/2026

Thursday Thoughts from the tatami.

“Devising ways not to let your mind stay in one place depends entirely on training. Not letting your mind stay anywhere is the goal and of vital importance. If you don’t put it anywhere, it will be everywhere.” — The Sword and the Mind

We are usually told to concentrate.

Pick something. Focus on it. Stay there.

Budō, naturally, eventually makes matters more complicated.

Watch the hands too intently and you lose the feet. Fixate on the weapon and you may forget the person holding it. Become preoccupied with executing your technique and the encounter may have changed completely while your mind was busy filling out the paperwork.

The problem is not attention. It is attachment.

An unfixed mind does not mean a wandering one, bouncing merrily from thought to thought like a squirrel discovering espresso. It means awareness that can settle anywhere without becoming trapped there.

This, the passage reminds us, is not achieved by simply deciding to be magnificently perceptive. It is trained. Again and again, we notice where the mind has stopped, release it, and return to the whole.

Eventually attention becomes less like a spotlight and more like daylight.

Nothing held.
Nothing excluded.

Put the mind nowhere, and suddenly it has room to be everywhere.

Title: Futatsu Hall, Nikko
Artist: Kawase Hasui
Date: 1929

09/24/2026

Thursday Thoughts from the tatami.

“Theory [narai] is not to be taught lightly; it is to be passed on a little at a time to those who have achieved merit in practice, in order to help them understand the principles [of the art]. Theory, even if not taught, will develop spontaneously with the accumulation of correct training.”
— Legacies of the Sword

We humans are terribly fond of explanations.

Give us five minutes of instruction and we would quite happily spend the next forty discussing the profound implications of the thing we have practiced twice.

The old traditions had another idea:

Practice first.

Not because theory is unimportant, but because some explanations are useless until experience has prepared somewhere for them to land.

A principle explained too early may remain merely an interesting sentence. After hundreds of repetitions, however, the same words can suddenly illuminate something the body has been quietly discovering all along.

That is perhaps the more intriguing part of this passage: theory need not always arrive from the outside. Correct practice begins generating understanding of its own. The student notices relationships, recognizes patterns, and discovers why something must be done as it is.

Then the teacher’s explanation does not manufacture understanding.

It gives a name to something already beginning to awaken.

Practice until the question appears.
Then the answer has somewhere to live.

Title: Evening Bell at Mil Temple
Artist: Tsuchiya Koitsu (1870-1949)
Date: 1940

09/17/2026

Thursday Thoughts from the tatami.

“Technique and principle are indivisible, like a body and its shadow; but one should emphasize the polishing of technique. The reason for this is that principle will manifest itself spontaneously in response to progress in technical training.”
— Legacies of the Sword

There is a temptation in budō to go hunting for the deeper principle.

We find something profound, then immediately want to put it on display: Here is my center. Observe my connection. Kindly notice how extraordinarily relaxed I am.

At which point relaxation usually packs a small bag and leaves.

But the image of the body and its shadow suggests something subtler. The body does not try to cast a shadow. It does not periodically glance downward to make certain the shadow is behaving properly. The body moves, and the shadow follows because the two cannot be separated.

So it is with technique and principle.

Polish the technique sincerely, and principle begins to inhabit the movement. Balance, timing, distance, connection, intention: these need not be pasted onto technique or held up for inspection. With sufficient practice, they simply become how the technique exists.

Perhaps that is why the instruction is not to polish the principle.

Polish the technique.

Do not chase the shadow.
Refine the body that casts it.

Title: Moonlit Sea
Artist: Shoda Koho
Date: 1930

09/10/2026

Thursday Thoughts from the tatami.

“The way of the sword:
Toil at technique!
Spontaneously be apart from technique.
In this all the more is there technique.”

— Legacies of the Sword

First, we learn technique.

Where does the foot go? What are the hands doing? Was that supposed to happen? Why has everyone else finished already?

So we practice. Again and again, attending to every troublesome detail until technique becomes familiar.

Then comes the considerably more difficult lesson:

Stop doing the technique.

Not abandon it. Not improvise around the bits we never quite learned. And certainly not declare ourselves “beyond form” because remembering where the left foot goes has become inconvenient.

We practice technique so thoroughly that eventually we must learn to leave no trace of it. The deliberate becomes natural. The instructions fall silent. What once required conscious effort simply appears when needed.

And therein lies the wonderful paradox: to become free of technique is itself a technique.

The form has not disappeared because it was discarded. It has disappeared because it was absorbed. What looks spontaneous carries countless repetitions quietly within it.

This is as much Zen as Budō: learn the form completely, then learn not to cling to it.

Toil at technique.
Learn to forget technique.
Then discover what all that forgetting remembers.

Title: Rain at Omiya
Artist: Kawase Hasui
Date: 1930

09/03/2026

Thursday Thoughts from the tatami.

“In general, our behavior is controlled by two things: what we want and what we fear. What is it that uke wants to do? Align with that. And consider what it is you fear (and why you are standing so far away).” — Aikido Exercises for Teaching and Training

Desire pulls. Fear pushes. Between the two, we can spend an impressive amount of life being herded around without noticing who has the reins.

Aikido makes the arrangement wonderfully difficult to hide.

Uke wants something. Instead of arguing with that intention, we meet it, join it, and discover where it naturally leads. Meanwhile, our own fear may be whispering, “Perhaps we could practice harmony from over here… several feet away.”

But distance does not always create safety, and resistance does not always create control.

Budō asks us to become curious about both sides of the encounter: What are they seeking? What am I avoiding? Once those become clear, possibility opens.

Meet what comes.
Examine what retreats.
Somewhere between the two, there is practice.

Title: Bingo Province: Abuto, Kannon Temple
Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige
Date: 1853

08/27/2026

Thursday Thoughts from the tatami.

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master, that is all.” — Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Humpty Dumpty, it seems, would have been an exhausting training partner.

Words are useful creatures. We name techniques, describe principles, debate meanings, and occasionally become so enchanted with terminology that we mistake the label for the thing itself.

Budō is less easily persuaded.

Call yourself relaxed while your shoulders are attempting to become earrings, and the body remains unconvinced. Explain that you are centered while wobbling magnificently across the mat, and gravity declines to enter the debate.

This is one of practice’s quieter gifts: reality does not care what we call it. Words can point toward understanding, but they cannot manufacture it. Eventually the body, the partner, and the moment reveal what is actually there.

Name things carefully.
Question what you think they mean.
Then let practice have the final word.

Title: Bon Odori
Artist: Takahashi Shotei (1871-1945)
Date: 1928

08/25/2026

Plan your first visit! https://www.mushinkankokyo.org

08/20/2026

Thursday Thoughts from the tatami.

“Life is diverse. Each life group and each member within the group has its own indispensable function; all share different responsibilities. Selfishness is not allowed in the highly developed feedback system of communication. It is a most elegant system of checks and balances.”
— Aikido and the Harmony of Nature

Nature, it seems, figured out teamwork long before we invented meetings about teamwork.

Nothing exists entirely for itself. Roots feed leaves. Leaves feed roots. Bees wander about conducting important floral business. Even the mushroom quietly handles matters nobody else particularly wants on their résumé.

Budō reflects the same truth. On the mat, uke and nage have different responsibilities, but neither role exists without the other. One receives, one leads; both listen, adjust, protect, and learn. Remove that exchange and technique becomes little more than choreography performed at someone rather than practice shared with someone.

Harmony does not require sameness. Quite the opposite. It asks that differences become useful to one another.

Know your role.
Respect theirs.
Then discover what becomes possible together.

Title: Kyushu Hakozaki Hachimangu Shrine
Artist: Tsuchiya Koitsu (1870 - 1949)
Date: 1938

08/14/2026

Thursday Thoughts from the tatami.

“You must never neglect effort, you must quickly direct your gaze at the goal and investigate thoroughly, both ‘coming’ and ‘going.’ This means that you must never be careless or negligent in your efforts and you must always come back to yourself.” — The Samurai: The Philosophy of Victory

Effort has a peculiar habit of wandering when nobody is watching.

We begin with purpose, gaze fixed firmly ahead, and then somewhere along the road attention discovers a butterfly, the mind starts composing tomorrow’s problems, and suddenly we are very diligently going nowhere.

Budō asks for something more demanding than simply trying hard. We must observe the whole movement: where we are going, what brought us here, and what our actions are producing along the way. Effort without awareness can become mere busyness, and busyness is remarkably talented at dressing itself as progress.

The instruction to “come back to yourself” may be the most important part. Return to posture. Return to breath. Return to intention. Notice when you have drifted, correct the course, and continue. No drama required. The ego may request a formal inquiry, but it can file the paperwork later.

Keep the goal in sight.
Examine the path in both directions.
And whenever you wander, return.

Title: Mount Fuji from Lake Yamanaka (Yamanaka no ko)
Artist: Takahashi Hiroaki (Shötei)
Date: 1936

Address

1802 W Berteau Avenue Ste 109
Chicago, IL
60613

Opening Hours

Monday	5pm - 9:30pm
Tuesday	5pm - 9:30pm
Wednesday	5pm - 9:30pm
Thursday	5pm - 9:30pm
Friday	5pm - 9:30pm
Saturday	10am - 1pm
Sunday	6pm - 8:30pm

Telephone

+13123806164

Website

http://www.mushinkankokyo.org/

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