Benefits in Daily Life

I think it’s important to highlight the benefits of what we do, so much so that I’m putting this section before everything else! The four principles of Ki Aikido offer practical benefits that extend far beyond the dojo:

• Improved Focus and Presence: Keeping one point enhances concentration, helping you remain present during work, conversations, or personal challenges.

• Stress Reduction: Relaxing completely alleviates physical and mental tension, fostering calmness and resilience in stressful situations.

• Enhanced Decision-Making: Maintaining weight underside promotes balance and clarity, enabling thoughtful, grounded, natural decisions.

• Strengthened Relationships: Extending Ki cultivates genuine connection with others, improving empathy, communication, and collaboration.

• Adaptability and Flow: The integration of all four principles helps you respond fluidly to life’s changes, aligning your actions with the natural rhythm of events.

By practicing these principles, we bring harmony to every facet of our lives, embodying the oneness of mind and body in everything we do.

• Benefits in Daily Life

• Keep One Point

• Relax Completely

• Keep Weight Underside

• Extend Ki

• Integrating the Principles

• Upcoming Events

The Interconnected Nature of the Four Principles

Over the past four weeks, we've delved deeply into Ki Aikido's foundational principles: Keep One Point, Relax Completely, Keep Weight Underside, and Extend Ki. Each principle offers unique insights into our practice, but they are not separate. Rather, they are interconnected pathways leading us toward a singular, profound experience of oneness—a harmonious state where mind/heart and body align seamlessly with the universal flow of energy.

Keep One Point

One Point is at the core of our Ki Aikido practice, the starting point.

• Physical Centering: Keeping one point stabilizes our posture and balance. This centering allows for more effective and fluid techniques, as our actions originate from a stable foundation.

• Mental Focus: It requires consistent awareness and concentration, training the mind to remain present and undistracted, enhancing our ability to respond with clarity.

• Emotional Grounding: Serving as an emotional anchor, it helps us navigate stress or anxiety, maintaining calmness amidst chaos fostering resiliency.

• Integration with Other Principles: It's the cornerstone upon which the other principles build, facilitating relaxation, natural movement, and ki extension.

  Relax Completely

Relax Completely

Relaxation in Aikido transcends mere physical release; it's a comprehensive letting go on all levels.

• Physical Relaxation: Muscular tension hinders movement and reduces sensitivity. By relaxing completely, we allow our muscles to function at their best, improving reaction time and fluidity. This state enables us to feel and adapt to our partner's movements more effectively.

• Mental and Emotional Ease: Mental tension manifests physically. Worry, stress, and overthinking create rigidity. Relaxing the mind allows for a more spontaneous and authentic response in practice.

• Ki Flow: Ki flows best through a relaxed body and mind. Tension acts as a barrier, impeding this flow. Complete relaxation allows Ki to circulate freely, vitalizing our movements and presence.

• Connection to One Point: Relaxation is facilitated by keeping one point. When centered, it's easier to release tension, as we trust in our stable foundation. Conversely, relaxation deepens our connection to the one point, creating a positive feedback loop.

Keep Weight Underside

This principle emphasizes moving naturally and with ease

• Natural Movement: By allowing our weight to settle naturally, we enable our bodies to move with ease and efficiency. This natural settling enhances balance and coordination, making our movements more harmonious and less forced.

• Energy Flow: Keeping weight underside is about more than physical weight; it's about using our movements in a way that aligns with gravity, facilitating a seamless flow of motion. This practice supports a sense of ease and continuity in our actions.

• Complementing Relaxation: A relaxed body naturally allows weight to settle downward. When we release unnecessary tension, our movements become more natural and fluid. Thus, keeping weight underside enhances the benefits of relaxation, allowing for smoother transitions.

• Enhancing Techniques: Techniques performed with weight underside are executed more naturally and effectively. By aligning with the natural flow of energy, we can perform movements with less effort and greater effectiveness, utilizing the body's inherent mechanics.

Extend Ki

Extending Ki is the natural expression of harmony and energy.

• Connection with Others: By extending Ki, we establish a non-physical connection with our partner. This connection allows for better synchronization and responsiveness to their movements and intentions.

• Mind-Body Unity: Extending Ki requires the integration of mind and body. Our intentions and actions align, resulting in movements that are both purposeful and effortless.

• Culmination of Principles: Extending Ki is facilitated by keeping one point, relaxing completely, and keeping weight underside. It is the natural expression when these foundational elements are in harmony.

Integrating the Principles

Understanding how these four principles interrelate enhances our practice, moving us closer to the experience of oneness. Each principle reinforces the others, creating a harmonious cycle. Our activity becomes unified and seamless when we apply all the principles together. We move naturally, without unnecessary effort or strain, the essence of Ki Aikido.

Remember, the practice is not just about what we do on the mat. It’s not even mostly about that. Our true practice lies in how we carry these principles into every aspect of our daily lives, fostering unity within ourselves, within our communities, and our connection with the universe

This allows us to adapt fluidly to changing circumstances, much like the universe adapts and flows. Our connection to the universal Ki is reinforced, enhancing our ability to respond appropriately to any situation with ease and composure. By focusing on all the principles collectively, we avoid the pitfalls of fixating on a single method, which can lead to imbalance and fragmentation in our practice.

We can take a sequential approach and begin with Keeping One Point, where we establish our center both physically and mentally. This focused awareness enables us to Relax Completely, releasing unnecessary tension and allowing our body and mind to settle into a state of ease. With relaxation achieved, we naturally Keep Weight Underside, permitting our movements to flow effortlessly and naturally as we align with gravity and our inherent bodily mechanics. From this stable, relaxed foundation, we can Extend Ki effectively, projecting our energy outward in a harmonious and unforced manner.

Or, we can start with any of the principles, and move on to any other one depending on the situation. We might be at dinner with friends and notice that we have tension in our shoulders and they are moving up towards our ears, so we remember to Relax Completely and Keep Weight Underside. Then we find ourselves better able to Extend Ki and engage with our dinner guests and feeling more centered through that connection (Keep One Point).

Or, in an instant, we can remember that mind and body are one (心身一如 shinshin ichinyo) and experience all four principles manifest immediately.

Upcoming Events

January 10 - 12, 2025 EKF New Year’s Seminar “Shugyo Tassai Kigan Shiki”
Northern Virginia Ki Aikido in Merrifield, Virginia
Details coming soon.

July 24 - 27, 2025 International Ki Conference taught by Kaicho Shinichi Tohei Sensei
Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina
https://internationalkiconference2025.com/

I look forward to seeing you on the mat (and in daily life) soon!