What I’m about to write is nothing new. Firstly, we as humans, have a moral obligation to avoid conflict and violence, but not assertive, albeit duly respectful, confrontation where it is due. When constructive...
Archive - June 2010
Josh Gold“Katsuyuki Shimamoto Shihan in Canada – Part Two,” by Anna Sanner
[This article is the second of a two part series concerning a recent seminar given by Katsuyuki Shimamoto Sensei in Toronto, Canada. The author, Anna Sanner, gives a detailed presentation of the event, with particular...
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“Bowing – Its Uses and Abuses,” by Nev Sagiba
As we all know, bowing is a Budo tradition. We bow, we practice, we bow and then we go home. The bow is mutual and reciprocated. It is an open show of respect, a salutation akin to a military salute or a handshake, all...
“Katsuyuki Shimamoto Shihan in Canada – Part One,” by Anna Sanner
Who am I, and Why am I Here? My name is Anna, 30 this year. I am German and work as a writer and translator in Japan. I have been training aikido for 5 years and am currently a first kyu. I have kindly been asked by...
VIII. “Aikido as a Contemporary Path for the West,” by Charles A. McCarty
It once could validly be said that “form follows function”. The obvious, the visible and the apparent express essentially all that is meaningful about an activity, item or other tangible. Worship has form...
“The Slow Suicide of Monoculture,” by Nev Sagiba
Acculturation to only one thing cripples you to other possibilities. Change is painful but the pain of change is the best friend a conscious being can have. Parochialism, like cancer, is its own worst enemy and the...
“Can you learn Aikido from a video? Of course not, but…,” by Stanley Pranin
I remember once asking a famous teacher of a classical Japanese martial art if he thought a person could learn his budo by watching a video. His answer was, not surprisingly, “Of course not!” This seemed...
“A Civil Warrior?” by William Terrell
I distinctly remember the first time I worked a full shift at the Sheriff’s Office. I was driving northbound on the interstate enjoying the sensation of being THE MAN. The Poe-lease. The Five-O. I was armed with a 9mm...
“Transmission by Feel,” by Nick Lowry
“Information bound in words is an amazing and efficient means of transmission, but it has the weakness of the circle game at the party…” A student once asked a zen teacher about...