a trial, a trail

Who is aikido for? It is for the individual practitioner who arrives at the practice with fitness goals, life goals, hunger for community, thirst for spirit and discipline. Of course, and, it is in a category of activities that is also for goals that exceed the individual. It is for the group. Yes, this includes the activities we undertake within the dojo that facilitate the practice for others, and, the dojo itself must be seen to exist within a broader community at the intersection of some very important questions.

Specifically, those that concern what it means to be a person and our values around how to treat other people, specifically, within the confines of a conflict.

The conflict is a real or perceived impingement of one’s options for action. If I am hungry and you are keeping me from available food, then we are in conflict.

Of course the psychodynamic—when I was born I needed connection and at some point, or even for some period, that was given in full. Then, it began to be fragmented as we encountered the varying capacity for connection demonstrated by the people who shaped us in our youth. These fragments represent places where there was conflict between our need (for a specific type of care) and our ability to get that need met by the world as we found it. 

So we adapted.

This is also what we seek to encounter on the mat, and in our lives as we move about and into the world.

If/when we are using this thing, the practice, correctly it works to reveal how we are conditioned. Where we bend, where we do not. Where we can move, where we cannot. This is deeply personal. These things are exposed, regardless of how we feel about them—some we like I’m sure, and some we despise. Some we hide, some cannot be hidden.

So this task then of leadership, in this context, in this role? You are there ostensibly to provide guidance on the way. And, all this really means is that you are yourself on the way. You remain in that place of self-examination. Loving parts, cringing at others. You is the teacher, you are the students.

And of course, part of it too, in this role, is wondering what we need. What you are giving, where you are withholding. What to do and where to go next.

There is seeking in this way, endlessly.