Samuel Johnson, “Idleness never can secure tranquillity.”
One hidden secret of martial arts training is that movement creates change. One way that movement creates change is based upon something called borrowed discipline. If we don’t naturally have the skills, fortitude, or discipline to create change, then we can borrow what we need from our martial arts training. Every day in class, we learn all these different things while we are just practicing the techniques. On the surface, we are learning how to negotiate ourselves physically. A person strikes at us and we answer with a block, punch, or redirection. On a more deeper level, we are also learning things like perseverance, dedication, courage, and the value of hard work just to name a few. We then use them or, in a sense, borrow them from our training and use them to create better lives for ourselves. For instance, let’s say we want to build up the courage to ask someone out on a date or ask our boss for a raise. To build up the courage, every class we single out the biggest or most difficult people that we are afraid to train with. Every time we do this, it builds fortitude and courage. We then borrow the courage to conquer that fear that we learned by taking on people bigger and stronger and then use it to ask for what we want. The rationale is that scared is the same scared and courage is the same courage. The same thinking can be applied to all the things in our lives that we want to change but don’t have the skills to do so. In this way, the martial art training and its movements transform us. Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman said, “Use the body to shift the mind.” Huberman likens movement to a mechanical system which spreads the chemicals that are released in our brains when we move, and those chemicals or hormones enable us to change our minds and our moods. In Aikido, we are trying to achieve something similar in our movement which is called ki no nagare (氣の流れ) or “the flow of ki.” When our ki is flowing, we are healthy or genki (元氣). When our ki is not flowing, we are “unhealthy” or byouki (病氣). The flow of ki is an actual thing but it is also a metaphor. By moving our bodies, we have the potential to move our ki which in turn shifts our minds and enables us to create change. If you want to change something, change it first in the dojo. Then borrow that discipline and make changes in your regular life. Understanding this, the best martial artists know that movement creates change.
Today’s goal: If you want to change something about yourself, move your body to move your mind.
Watch Andrew Huberman discuss movement