– – – by Kimbal Anderson Sensei
Because I really want to work on this concept of what inner confidence is: and it’s not a usual thing. It’s not victory: it’s self-victory. It’s the internal victory.
I consider what we do to be pretty whole. It covers all bases…but I think in this time, this culture’s very much… American culture right now is… really polarized. And angry. And exhausted at the same time. And confidence is seen as the ability to crush the other. And I always wonder, looking at the political discourse we have now: “so if the other side wins, do they crush us? Is that it? Is that the fruit of their winning, that the country is brutalized by their ability to do whatever they want?”
That’s kind of the impression you get now.
And that is where aiki comes into play.
I think O’Sensei’s thing of – – – well, that’s what people were doing back then. And he went “Uh-huh… this is not going to come to a good end.”
So hopefully, at least here in the dojo, we get to experience other ways of being. And so we can look at what’s going on maybe with not quite so much… monovision. And we won’t get sucked into it. We won’t get sucked into it…