Why We Fail To Develop Aikido

“Train and forget..” Morihei Ueshiba

“Train and forget..” Morihei Ueshiba

Why did he say this?

The learning does not take place during training!! But modern Westerners,  smitten with the pathology of instant gratification, like to imagine they can short cut the processes of nature with hubris and intellect. So we go home imagining “we have learnt a technique.” Or otherwise beating themselves up for having “forgotten.”

You’ve “learned” NOTHING! You have “forgotten” nothing. THE BODY FORGETS NOTHING!! Every atom, jot and tittle of experience is measured, lined up for evaluation and duly processed by forces outside your ken or control. This is so. Take it or leave it and it will not change one atom of fact, except that your own self doubt will harm you. That’s all.

Training is not for “learning,” standing around pontificating, discussing, analysing or in any was avoiding ACTUALLY DOING THE WORK.

Training is for DOing.  That’s why its called buDO, and aikiDO.

That may be somewhat playful, but seriously. The DOjo is for shutting up the chatter and especially the MIND chatter and repeating the basics whilst paying attention. And noticing the variables which naturally arise during moments escalation, mushin or simply good breaths.

No DO is or can be an intellectual only exercise. Sure, you may want to analyse things later, when clarity comes but the traditional public school system and the old churches, wanting to produce slaves, cannon and office fodder by means of calcifying rote, to serve unquestioningly for empires, have ruined our body-mind connection. But not beyond repair.

Budo is for reclaiming the body-mind connection, our living soul and all of ourselves so we can stop being slaves to a system that overworks and underpays us, and start to LIVE with integrity. Integreated. Whole. At-one. Connected again.

But more, so we can stop being slaves to our own complacent, ugly, insipid weaknesses of moral character!

Learning, as in fitness, does not happen during activity which is the yoga of skill in action. Learning, as with physical improvement, happens in between training, when at rest, when our minds are not pestering the natural subliminal processes of absorption, assimilation, pattern acclimatisation, recovery, digestion of the active experience. This occurs especially during sleep when our flawed monkey mind chattering is right out of the way.

Talk about so called “no-mind,” short of a beheading there is no such thing that can achieve this more than deep no REM sleep. When your conscious clutter is out of the way the superconscious mind takes over. Forget about the “sub” conscious, there is no such thing.

For the record, true “mind,” pure mind is that electromagnetic field of connectivity that when whole is fully present and conscious in the moment. Clarity of mind and action. Our natural mediative state that is vastly superior to the unplugged partial focus most deem “normal.”

The super-conscious is that vast array of attributes attuned to the universal vibratory spectrum, that “myth” that enables heartbeat, breath, circulation and the multitude of processes, all done for you and fortuitously without your input. If you had any say you would kill yourself in seconds. And many people, knowing better than God and Nature still attempt to self destruct by way of self neglect and abuse, but unless a seppuku attempt, it generally takes years to generate disease.

That same time frame, using positive and fruitful habits of lifestyle, training, eating, rest, mind calming etc can bear fruit otherwise thought of as “impossible” by those enmeshed and ensnared in the Matrix.

So, give the universe a chance. Let it do what it does best. After training hard, lucidly and fully present, let go and get on with life enjoying your unique journey and allow the progressions of deep inner learning, dimensions you cannot consciously reach, to take place all by itself.

Train then let it go.

Come back tomorrow, without excuses, ideas or premature opinions then train again, and so on. You will progress. You will transform.

Eventually questions will arise. That is the beginning.

The journey of true Aikido then becomes your own discovery.

This too will change and you will find that in reality, you really “forgot” nothing. You cannot forget, because each time you return to activity, it comes back with greater clarity and skill.

There is a condition however: Daily active training! This is the DO, Michi or Way.

Dilettantes will not progress.

The secret of progressive recall and refinement is in the letting go after actively doing activity which makes demands on our skill faculties.