Goals for 2022

Resolutions for the new year historically have been relative to habits: either good ones being formed or bad ones being eliminated. It is traditional to hear at a New Year’s party that someone vows to quit smoking or drinking or eating unhealthy, or start a fitness program, etc. on January 1. My approach has been to commit to a new goal for the duration of the year as much as possible. I do this with the intention of acquiring a new level of proficiency in whatever it is I choose to focus. For instance, one year I decided I would commit to playing my guitar for 10 minutes every day. I didn’t actually keep the practice up every day, but I tried to do it most days. I found that while some days I may not have even picked up the guitar, other days I would play for hours. My abilities improved dramatically by the turn around of the next holiday season! All that was needed seemed the intention of the habit.

The past couple of years have presented so many challenges, that sometimes, just reverting back to simple processes to manifest some semblance of direction in the chaos has become an invaluable tool I employ, especially when my schedule looks empty. These enrichments have filled voids that otherwise would likely be filled with existential dread and despair. Let’s face it…the world doesn’t offer reassurance of your success. That is up to you to carve that path. Maybe you obtain more skills in designing, or with your crafting, or music or wordsmithing…whatever makes your time pass relative to the speed of fun. Perhaps it is an epiphany rather than a habit change that promotes the active processing needed to bolster this “level up” for you. What ever the case, I cannot underscore the quality of human nurturing that accompanies this dedication to yourself.

Once a good friend told me, “You should never lose that which makes you, you.” We were discussing art, as she was studying art at the time. We discussed the importance of always finding the time to do that which makes us uniquely who we are. Over the years I came to apply this concept in all manners of lifestyle creative habits, not just art. Aikido and it’s dedication to process is an obvious leap as well. The goal attainment is different than a colored belt or cool pair of pants to denote rank and status. It interlaces with the Japanese concept of kaizen: continual or ceaseless improvement. Although we use the belts and rank to denote progress, it is really the daily processing that delivers the real goods.

I get teased often about how much I do to make me feel like me. I am a creative spirit, gifted with many talents. I have found many outlets rewarding enough to devote my time and effort: healing arts, music, Aikido, baking, gardening, and now, writing…well…that is this year’s resolution. Cheers to new enrichments, y’all!

Balance

Balance weighs in as a vitally important element in all things we do. As bipedal humans, we stand because of our inherent structure, our biochemical communication systems, and acquired skill. To maintain balance takes constant adjustment, most of which is not readily perceived in mind. In other words, it becomes instinct. Balance can also refer to our capacity to juggle our emotional, physical, and spiritual needs, the maintenance of which I find much trickier than standing upright.

Training in a body art like the martial arts, yoga, dancing or Pilates allows the participant to hone an awareness of one’s own body and improve one’s balance through development and strength of the center core of the body. Balance is often rediscovered in contrast to us really understanding how our bodies do what they do to hold us upright. Meaning, it is more often through recovering from injury that we concentrate on the learning of what our bodies do to maintain balance. Normal development of learning to balance is generally noted in our toddler years. Watching teenagers grow accustomed to their ever changing body size and chemical influx is fascinating, as well. While actively learning how to balance during periods of growth, it wasn’t a logical, cognitive experience like what occurs when you recover from, say, an ankle injury or when you train in a focused body movement art. Intricate and instinctual movements require years of dedicated effort and practice, i.e. the dancer whose movement looks otherworldly and effortless. Building your instincts through regular training supports interoception or the understanding of what it feels like inside your body when you move.

Recovering balance after a serious bout of inactivity is an entirely different beast, as the body needs to receive load information in it’s new format. In other words, post rehabilitation balance work from injury or surgical alteration requires guided cognitive build up as the body recovers. This is how you become acquainted with physical therapy and the recommendations for exercise protocols that specifically retrain you to your new balance (think knee or hip replacement). There is a valuable opportunity to engage your body’s healing capacity with good interoception while you are actively undergoing physical retraining. I have used this information to recover from many an injury to great recovery success. In Aikido, we constantly push our limits of balance. We train our bodies, our minds, and our spirits to bend to the most flexible point before conceding to a fall so our bodies do not break. This concession allows the opportunity for recovery by way of escaping injury. It also contributes to building instinct to note the actual tipping point of the body’s threshold for maintaining balance. Interestingly, we also use this information to calculate how to apply Aikido techniques to off-balance our attackers. It’s a rather engaging feedback loop, and it keeps me in relatively good physical condition.

Learning the skill of falling to recover balance also gives insight to the act of failing as an essential part of succeeding, essentially becoming a better version each time you stand back up. This turned into more of an advertisement for training in Aikido, but really the important thing to note is the skill set is divergent with other physical and functional training tools. It is not limited to training in Aikido to learn and apply these skills in your everyday life. I find that it is a cool format to hone the skill set, but the concepts and functional practice can be applied to your own individual training system, so to speak. Especially noting that so few of our population seek out martial arts training for fitness and functional structure. I spent a bit of time throughout my life trying different systems to match my physical, mental, and spiritual needs, and I consider myself fortunate to have been attracted to Aikido at such a young age. I also acknowledge the cumulative quality of cross referencing different modalities to provide a balanced system I found manageable as I move both figuratively and quite literally through my life. It is what I feel I offer the most to myself and the community I serve and in which I teach.

Resilience

According to my trusty Roget’s Thesaurus, resilience is the ability to recover quickly from depression or discouragement; or flexibility. Acknowledging this trait is usually stress induced, I regard it as an essential tool for one’s sense of homeostasis or balance. When given certain stresses beyond the normal capacity of tolerance, the choice to break, or bend and recover, is rooted in this concept. Let’s explore what it could mean to have an opportunity to practice developing resilience without exposing oneself to extreme traumas constantly. It can be applied in a literal and physical manifestation as I have found through my training in Aikido, but it can also be applied more figuratively like an emotional or psychological exhibition of “handling trauma with grace.”

I recently indulged in the reality series on the History Channel called Forged In Fire, where competitors are challenged to produce a functional blade in an extremely hot environment under a significant time crunch. When steel that has been heat treated reveals it's threshold. It will either weld together and harden, or it will expose deficiencies in the process making it susceptible to a myriad of structural fails. The strength of the final blade is determined by the resilience of both the steel and the blade-smith. A different example from the natural world is bamboo. I have often used bamboo as an example when teaching Aikido for understanding the principle of resilience with regard to agility. It is extremely flexible and strong, and it doesn’t break under the stress when bent because of this inherent flexibility.

Let me explain.

In traditional Aikido practice, we assume roles of the attacker ‘uke’ and the attacked ‘nage’. The attacker’s (uke’s) role is to sincerely offer an opportunity in the form of an attack (grab or strike), so that the attacked (nage) can employ a set combined movements (techniques). It is indeed a cooperative art. We contrive situations over and over again to practice each role with one another with the mutual goal of helping one another get better at each part. One requires as much attention to the role of uke as to the catalog of techniques used by nage. I know this doesn’t sound very martial, but once both partners (as we call them, not opponents) have studied these movements and principles to the point of instinct, anybody can attain any level of fitness or martial intensity.

To explain further, let’s first look what is involved in a physical conflict that is resolved through the interaction of uke and nage: Uke has a defined role to commit to an attack of some sort (with or without a weapon) with the intention of making solid contact to inflict physical harm to nage. Nage responds with opening movements to access and embody the techniques and principles of Aikido. As a technique unfolds, uke is expected to blend with the movements and receive the outcome of the technique. At this point, uke has the choice to be resilient and follow the flow of the technique, or resist and risk injury to oneself. As uke recognizes the path of least resistance is to indeed concede to the movement created by nage, uke can absorb the technique and commit to some act of recovery through a fall or submission. And then we do it over and over again, without much trauma and with the intent of the improvement of both people involved. One of the very first things a student is taught in Aikido is how to fall safely to the ground and return to a standing or upright position as soon as possible. As a longtime practitioner of Aikido and body work professional, I have found this particular skill set is transcendent of Aikido and is applicable in maintaining functional mobility through later stages of life. Think about being able to clip your own toenails and get up off the ground when you are in your 80’s…

Functional applications of these skills have become my focus as I approach my 26th year doing bodywork and my 28th year of studying Aikido. Through cross-referencing the concepts of body work and movement and recently incorporating Yin yoga teacher training to my repertoire, I recognize resilience as a common thread in all these modalities. The gentler applications of stress or, say, the “traumas” I choose to train my mind, body, and spirit open me to the opportunity for instinct to apply the same principles in other non-physical situations. I hope to share this experience through my service with massage and bodywork as well as through teaching Aikido and other spiritual movement arts for many years to come.

In Yoga, we say Namaste…in Aikido we say Onegaeshimasu!

Thoughts on Self Care

Maybe it’s a massage, facial and a mani/pedi combo that sets the theme of self care in your mind. Perhaps you are creative, but find your life routine won’t afford you the opportunity to really create, much less be inspired. Many of us have hobbies or talents that unfortunately get shelved as we get older, raising our families, running our businesses, volunteering, advocating for the rights of others….whatever the case. In addition to a regular routine of exercise, visiting your favorite massage therapist and hair stylist, I want to offer that self care also take on the form of something for which you have a passion and should strive to nurture just as routinely, even if you aren’t planning to go public with your goods.

Try to find small outlets to keep the flow going even at a trickle, even if it means creating things that fail. For instance, I like to bake. Most of my treats come out tasting pretty yummy, BUT…I need so much more practice to make everything look as good as it tastes! I apply the same concept to my attempts to make music, even if it means sitting down for only 10 minutes each day. Sometimes I have to make do singing in the car or shower just to keep what I consider a vital essence within me flowing. Anytime I garden I feel more nurtured. Anyone that knows me well, knows that I have varying successes at that venture. Sometimes, I just wander my yard or another garden finding subjects to photograph. Whatever the medium, it sparks my vitality to embark in the creative.

I would also recommend regular check ins with those you value. I made the fortunate decision to reach out and video chat with a favorite uncle just weeks before his sudden passing last month. Noting that I would have preferred to visit him outright…it’s still Covid, y’all. I do feel a great fortune that I had a ‘last chance’ to talk before losing him. Still, connection matters, and now more than ever we need to maintain a regular routine of checking in with one another. Feel free to reach out to me if you need a laser treatment or even just a catch up conversation. I am a good listener and have some empirical knowledge on actual physical self care.