Aikido'Ka

Grass Valley's Family Martial Arts School -- Focus, Fitness & Fun

General

Love Mondays?

If you don’t love Mondays, then you’re doing it wrong!

Think about it. If you love what you do, then you’re going to be thrilled to get back to it. So if you’re not loving Mondays (or whatever day your workweek starts on), then you’re not doing what you love.

Stop doing that unloved stuff ASAP and start doing what you love.

But, you say that you don’t have a choice. You have to go to school because you’re a kid. Or you can’t get a job you like, so you have a job (or 2 or 3) that you hate. You have to make a living, after all.

True.

And so what?

You do have a choice.

If you’re a kid, you can embrace school and do your very best. Engage with those things that are difficult. Dig into those things which seem boring on the surface. School is your springboard to doing anything in life that you want. In other words, school teaches you where knowledge is and how to get knowledge.

Knowledge is power – the power to do whatever you want in life.

If you’re an adult working at a job you don’t like, consider what you actually want to do. Don’t be shy. Admit to yourself what you’d really like to spend your life doing. Now start working towards doing that thing. Before you know it, you’ll be doing that loved thing and having a great time.

I know this is simplistic. But some things aren’t complicated. This is one. Just do what you love.

When I was younger, I wanted to be a musician. So I practiced like crazy and became a professional trumpet player. As much as I loved it, I couldn’t make a decent living. So, I went on to another dream I’d always had. I’d always wanted to be a lawyer.

I went to law school and became a lawyer.

When I was a musician, I met a young woman and fell in love. I wanted to spend forever with her. Almost 29 years later, we’re still married.

I started aikido when I was around 17 years old and stopped training after a few years. I didn’t have time to train in the evening, because I was pursuing working as a musician. But I always wanted to go back and earn my black belt.

When my son, Alex, was young, he started training in aikido, and I went back to it. I earned that black belt I always wanted. I love aikido and wanted to spend more time training and being with aikidoists.

I opened my own dojo and get to spend time with wonderful people doing aikido.

I’ve been doing what I love for pretty much my entire adult life. It’s a really good way to live. I highly recommend it to you. Please start. Now.

Congratulations to the Winners of the Aikido’Ka Contest

In addition to having a contest for folks who weren’t yet members of the dojo, we also just completed a contest for dojo members.

Congratulations to the winners!

1st Prize: Jeff Peterson
2nd Prize: Jeff Haut
3rd Prize: Asia Currie

Here’s what they won:

First Prize: 1 month unlimited free training (aikido & kettlebells), Kingfisher bokken, Kingfisher tanto, free trip with Frank Sensei to an upcoming seminar (or free attendance at an upcoming seminar at the dojo — winner’s choice), custom Aikido’Ka T-Shirt, Aikido’Ka backpack, aikido book and DVD.

Second Prize: 1 month free unlimited training (aikido & kettlebells), Kingfisher tanto, custom Aikido’Ka T-Shirt, Aikido’Ka backpack, aikido book and DVD.

Third Prize: 1 month free kettlebells training, custom Aikido’Ka T-Shirt, Aikido’Ka backpack, aikido book and DVD.

Jeff with his new bokken
Jeff with his New Kingfisher Bokken

 

This was really fun. We will be doing this again!

Winners of the Aikido’Ka at the Fair Contest

And the winners of our Contest at the Fair are:

1st Prize: Melissa Brokenshire
2nd Prize: Tonjia Maya
3rd Prize: Heather McCormack
4th Prize: Mary Thompson

Here’s what they won:

1st Prize: 6 Months Aikido and Kettlebells training (both twice a week), uniform, Aikido’Ka t-shirt and Aikido’Ka backpack (up to approx. value of $945)

2nd Prize: 3 Months Aikido and Kettlebells training (both twice a week), uniform, Aikido’Ka t-shirt and Aikido’Ka backpack

3rd Prize: 3 months Kettlebells Training

4th Prize: Aikido’Ka T-shirt and Aikido’Ka backpack

Congratulations, everyone!

Cooperative Practice

Often I am asked by people to talk about aikido tournaments.  They are genuinely shocked when I tell them that aikido has no competitions.  I explain that our training is cooperative.

Aikido uses cooperation (not competition) in all of its training.  For example, consider how we train together.  Most training in aikido is done with a partner.  After the instructor demonstrates a particular defensive technique from a particular attack, the students partner-up and practice the attack and defense.

The person who attacks is called “uke”.  The person who performs the aikido technique is called “nage”.  Uke’s responsibility is to attack in such a way that nage can perform the technique perfectly.  Likewise, nage’s responsibility is to perform the technique in such a way that uke can receive it perfectly.

From this understanding of the uke-nage relationship, you quickly can figure out why aikido has no competitions.  Aikidoka are not trying to beat one another in practice.  We are cooperating.  Aikido training builds and nurtures trust among its practitioners.  We learn as nage to blend with a very vigorous attack so that uke can receive our powerful technique safely.  Learning to be trustworthy in this way changes our lives in deeply profound ways.

Rather than learning to impose our competitive will on our partners, we free ourselves to learn how to blend with all sorts of challenging situations.  Indeed, by training vigorously and not insisting on personal victory, aikido practitioners achieve mutual victory.