Aikido and Mind Training

Whenever you go to the gym, you may have set yourself a target or a goal to either build muscles and/or lose weight or simply do regular physical activities for your own well-being and for any other reason(s).

Whichever reason you opted for, your mind has played a part in your decision to do work out mainly to transform your body and make you feel better about yourself.

So, when you go to the gym, your mind influences you with what exercise you are going to do and it does remind you when you should push yourself to do a bit more, or not to quit. Then, much later, your mind may even tempt you to stop or quit at some point (with gym exercise or any other activities as a matter of fact).

Overall, that is what you will be getting with how your mind would work with your committed sporting activities. It will be there to motivate you ie carrying on with what you you would do in the gym i.e. but the work out will remain a physical activity very much but with a fair amount of mental focus to help you achieve your target(s).

For most people, they will begin with a simple mind focus to lose weight and when they see it is far from easy to shed pounds, they will be tempted to quit after trying for a while. When you reach this point, you may have reached substantial reasons as to why you may quit, perhaps the physical activity may be too repetitive and too boring, but I would say that your mind was not focus enough to continue regardless.

In my opinion, you need to be in love with what you do to last for a long while. Overall, for anyone to succeed i.e. practicing without giving up Aikido, one must have a strong desire to learn the Art and to fall in love with it at some point.

If the target is to achieve the black belt, then very often this person will quit Aikido when he/she achieves this target. Because the mindset was set within a set limit. Becoming a Shodan (first degree black belt) is making you a true beginner to discovering Aikido much further and at deeper level.

So, the key for not giving up is how much do you really want it? How driven are you to get there? Are you only focus on one target? If you only hold a limited motivation or a small mind focus, the long-term commitment will not work.

Now I am not negating the gym activity because it does bring lots of good things too but does not explore our mind deep enough compared to what Aikido (and Martial Arts to be fair too) can do.

With Aikido, we openly speak about our mind and we explore it much further.  We end up discovering ourselves and see when our mind and body are on the maximum level. In another word, we explore our limits with our strength and weakness.

But if we practice Aikido like we brush our teeth daily or accept it as a lifetime study, then we will eventually explore this Art much further and much deeper too physically and mentally. We explore what our mindset should be in Aikido during stillness and movement.

At first, our mind will process the same way as I explained with the desire of going to the gym. Your desire and your mind will convince you that this is what I want to do, I want to learn Aikido. It may be because you saw an Aikido demonstration on video or from a live demonstration or that you desire to defend yourself, or feel you want to explore the spiritual side that Aikido may offer or simply want to do a physical activity that isn’t the same as the gym but wish to train with a partner rather than being on your own.

In Aikido, we learn to make our body supple, agile and receptive to deal with an attack for instance. But it offers another practice than the physical aspect: Aikido offers you a ‘gym for the mind’ that is synchronised with our body posture (stillness) and body movement (moving in action).

The more I practice Aikido, the more I realise that I am practicing my mind over my body.

When you do that, you will feel exhausted mentally after a session, because you were deeply focusing your mind with body. I need to point out that the spirit plays an important part too with linking your ‘heart’ or good soul to all you do (during practice and outside practice).

This focus mind I refer takes place thanks to Zanshin (awareness) that get reminded when we start and finish our technique and afterward. So Zanshin is maintained throughout.

The focus mind also extends with mind readiness: being ready with an empty mind, i.e. thinking of nothing but feel you are part of the Now moment, being present, being alive, being ready for what may come – you accept and surrender that life and death can be close but you are ‘victorious’ because you choose the former to be here.

This level of awareness called Zanshin, I used to feel it when I worked as a Door Supervisor in night clubs. My constant awareness watching my own back has made me feel aware of my surrounding more and of the people around me. I felt more tired at the end of my shift and had to keep my Zanshin when walking on the street to get home every night I worked. It was needed to keep me safe and alive. Had I not practiced Aikido, I probably would not have had the same mindset. Aikido teaches you to explore its core principles with our mind and body that we carry these outside the Dojo. To me, Zanshin stayed with me outside the Dojo and helped me tremendously during my career as Door Supervisor and beyond.

The Aikido etiquette we learn in the Dojo also brings right messages to discipline our mind and body. During practice, we learn quickly to be ready promptly and live in the NOW moment.

This can only be done when we discipline our mind avoiding any overthinking. Looking at your feet, correcting the position you are in, repeating a movement during the execution of the technique etc. We think that Aikido is in the physical shapes viewing the feet moving and hands with hips but it is in the mind first before the body. The mind has the ability to be distracted or be totally focused in whatever you do.

So when you execute bowing, if your mind is clear and empty, the physical gesture of your bowing will reflect your mindset. In another word, the bowing is much deeper than physical motion of bowing. The same applies with all Aikido techniques.

Because Aikido has lots of spiral and circular movements, these actions will affect our mind too for the positive. It was understood that we develop sensitivity towards our partner and our surrounding but this sensitivity happens with your mind, which was affected by the body shape or the movement you were involved as Tori and Uke.

I suppose this is where we can say that Aikido is magic in a sense, because the physical techniques have somehow a deep effect on us, an effect on our mind that will make us better human beings gradually, more compassionate towards another…

To be 100% focus, we must empty our mind and be present in the Now moment so that we are fully receptive to what is happening. When we do this and feel the technique with emptiness, our body becomes a lot more receptive, not our brain. In another word, our body or the skin is our second ‘brain’. The body takes over and will react according to what is happening, so we do not intellectually think from our main brain.

This takes a long while though to understand and it may seem strange for any novice what I just wrote, but when one practices regularly over a period of time, he/she will eventually understand how the second brain works.

There is a deeper level with Zanshin, which is to maintain the awareness for both Tori and Uke and more so with Uke when he/she is receiving the technique from a Nage technique or a pinning technique. Our mind must remain vigilant when we get up and feel our connection with our partner with zanshin and correct Mai (distance).

When we get stuck with a technique, we also need to teach our mind to avoid resistance or avoid listening to our ego ie tempting us to exert more strength to ‘make the technique work’. So focusing on developing the right mindset, is also a good thing to make us more humble.

The blending part with Iwama Aikido known as Awase is a fair challenge to novice and intermediate practitioners as it takes a lot of discipline to move in at the right time, not too early or not too late, just at the point when Uke is fully committed to an attack, we blend in. So in effect, there is no action and reaction or attack and block concept. Aikido offers something deeper with the blending we bring balance at the same time with Uke so our mutual attacks brings Tori into Uke’s centre line in one move (avoiding block and attack which would equals to 2 moves).

In fairness, the Awase study also requires a specific state of mind: one must achieve complete emptiness so that your mind and body is fully receptive to what may happen next and be present in the Now moment. Very difficult to do and requires lots of mental concentration feeling ready to move in at any time but only when Uke has initiated…

Then there is a question of maintaining Uke’s balance under control from start to finish but avoiding being only focused to our partner – our mind must be focused much further than our partner so you need to be ready to handle any other potential or additional threats, in our training we focus being alone surrounded with multiple attackers with all Taijutsu techniques and Bukiwaza too. The Bukiwaza truly opens our eyes with being surrounded against multiple attackers and we carry this principle with us when we practice Taijutsu but we do so with a focus mind.

If we pick Tai No Henko technique with a partner holding our hand, it is actually not a technique designed to be ‘one on one’, ie focusing on subduing our partner who is holding our hand. In doing so, our mind would only be focused towards our partner, which is not getting you ready against multiple attackers.

Tai No Henko is actually a technique designed to show you its principle of being surrounded. We focus our mind that the threat is not with our partner holding us but with what may happen behind us that we cannot see. So when we focus on turning the opposite direction or same side as our partner, we widen our awareness to a full 360 degrees and the fact that you were focusing on something else than your partner holding your hand, you would overcome Uke’s grip more easily and without much struggle if good body posture is applied with good Kokyu, correct footwork and turning with hips.

When we discover this different mindset, we put our trust in our techniques and adopt our mind to relate to the technique. So, Aikido cannot be just a mere physical movement replicating the technique with no mind focused with the technique.

The technique becomes alive and sharp when body, mind and spirit are involved, which makes Aikido powerful. We want our mind to be empty, our body to be relax, our spirit to be connected with our heart making 3 ingredients to create a big impact with the techniques they are not enough on their own.

To perform strong Aikido, we deploy these 3 ingredients and add Aiki principles that Aikido has ‘in its sleeves’.

Then we are entering in a whole new level where we are continuously discovering new things with techniques we thought we knew. There is a constant discovery or a constant improvement that appears to be non-stop. Aikido has its way to reveal much more to us when we have the right mindset and experience. That is the secret that Aikido unveils when you are ready technically and with the right mindset.

In truth, the more we practice, the more we always feel the need to learn when new things are understood or revealed. Often these discoveries are in the small details but making huge differences with our Aikido.  

All of these may be revealed to you if you have the right mindset and spirit ie being a good person with humility. Let go of your own ego and adopt the right mindsets and Aikido will reveal to you step by step for good…