Walks are good for thinking, and making connections on the grand scale. The road construction, while inconvenient, isn’t all bad.
Tonight at aikido we were working on a technique against a punch. We learned the names of the techniques, but I’ve already forgotten them. Anyway, you simply step off the line, and with your front hand lay it on their elbow, nice and relaxed. Then you take a step, drop the arm, and they should fall. Sounds easy enough. But when doing it with an experienced aikido student, it wasn’t working well, and I needed muscle. At times it didn’t work at all. He reminded me to just connect my hand/arm to my center. It was so easy after that it was almost scary! I mean, night and day, and no muscle.
What’s interesting to me is that, our arm is a part of us. We will all agree that our arm is not separate from us. Yet we act as if it is. We make it do things all by itself, or maybe with a few friends (the shoulder, back). And while this has it’s place, it’s certainly not the easiest way to go about doing things. As soon as you link your arm to your center, it is as strong as it needs to be, yet completely relaxed.
In many the same way, this is how we interact with the universe. We are not separate from it, yet we act as if we are. We go about doing things on our own, or with a few friends, using a lot of muscle, and sometimes going nowhere. But the solution is simple. We have the infinite power of the universe at our disposal, and all we have to do is connect with it. Connect with our center, and life becomes much easier and relaxing.
So in a sense, training in aikido is also training my larger spirituality, for as I connect with my physical center, I connect to my spiritual center. The training is one and the same. To unify the body and the mind is to unify the spirit.
As I finished my epiphany moment, the song that was in my head before came more fully in my awareness. “Suddenly I see, why the hell it means so much to me.” (KT Tunstall)
Synchronicity.
