Aikido of El Paso

For every aikido technique, remember our core principles:

Step off the line of attack, land in good hanmi.
Take balance, drop or sink disrupting ukes structure.
Blend to redirect, harmonize with ukes body drawing or leading him out.
Control center, our center and ukes center merge and essentially become one.

This is done in every aikido technique.
We join the energy of the attack rather than oppose it.
With practice we can become more dynamic and spontaneous, refining timing and response.

Remember that harmonizing/blending also reflects the quality of calm in the mind.

Breathe and practice.

G. Breeland, 6th dan

whats

“…the old way the masters taught was to demonstrate the techniques rather than to explain them. It was the duty of the student to ‘learn’ from the master. Hiroshi Kato Sensei has told us in the past, “I was not taught by the Founder (of Aikido), I learned from him”. Kato Sensei always understood that it was his job to study carefully what the Founder was doing and to imitate it and incorporate his own understanding of what he saw into his aikido. Speaking in general terms, in our western mindset, we believe that good students come from good teachers.
The eastern mindset is that good students come from dedication and the careful observation of the teacher. The worthy student shows himself to be so by virtue of his dedication to learning the art. The responsibility is on the learner. That being the case then, in the old culture of budo, it was the dedication, intensity, focus and hunger that allowed some of the learners to become the best students…”

Excerpt fr “The Traditional Learning Method of Aikido” posted by JGarcia, 2011
Shudokan School of Aikido

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En un día como hoy, pero hace ya 3 años, hacía su paso a la inmortalidad el inigualable Donovan Waite Shihan.
Parte hombre, parte leyenda; su aporte al Aikido moderno sigue siendo insuperable.
Muchas veces imitado, jamás igualado. Dejó atrás un legado de conocimientos que hoy vive en sus alumnos a través de sus enseñanzas.

Going from the mind to the body to the spirit is a journey.
If these 3 perspectives are embodied and manifested as an integrated whole, we may actually be able to glimpse the essence of aikido.

Note that it is not enough to simply ‘know’, we must also have the compiled experience in order to attain the wisdom of ‘understanding’.
It is the result of going from thinking and doing to actually becoming or ‘being’.
We move from the intellect through the practice to become fluent in the aiki language of movement.
It is not enough to simply know, we must also know the why and the how, so we can empower others in the “how to”.

We move from the head into the hands to find the heart.
From the mind to the body to the spirit.

It is a process.
Work incrementally.
Small progression allows us access to view the bigger picture.
Honor the journey.

G. Breeland, 6th dan