My primary spiritual practice is Aikido
Tuesday night Ken taught with Garry and Tip and myself. I believe this was the first time we had just a yundasha class, just by-happenstance, but one of the best Aikido classes I have been priveleged to attend in a while. After warm-ups, Ken had us spend some time with a very strong uke in the tenkan exercise. I worked with Ken on this exercise and it was so illuminating in my own techinque. We all know the tricks and so our Aiki had to be present to move and interact with uke. Ken is very powerful and strong, so my Aiki needed martial and physical intent to break his balance and complete the movement with my body.
Since Ken first returned from his Tai Chi Week-long Seminar, his emphysis on the nine-staff metaphor, of generating power building from the earth through the feet visualizing your body connecting the various parts of the body to the forward hand. We spent some time working on pushing uke with this technique and I could feel the power transfer through to my final push to throw uke.
This upcoming weekend, I'm being formally welcomed into the Colorado Springs Friends Meeting here with a potluck (formality and Quakers in the same sentence is somewhat incongruent). While thinking about this public acceptance and acknowledgement by the Friends here in the Springs is special and important, I realized that Aikido is really my primary spiritual practice and has been for some time but is easily accommodated by being a Quaker within the local and national Friends organizations. It is a false dichotomy to think that a person has to follow a disjoint life when it comes to religion and spirituality, that one choice fulfills every need. That may be the case for many, but for me, practicing Aikido and being a Quaker is harmonious and complementary both sets of values and community are important and valuable.
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