Biran Online - A Tradition of Philosophies

I had been training in Aikido for about five years when I met someone who was destined to be a dear friend. He was a white man with long beard wearing a white turban and tunic. A yoga teacher. And through our discussions over shrink-wrapping tapes and CDs in the early 1990s at a Vancouver recording studio, he convinced me that yoga would improve my Aikido training.

Considering I was in my 20s, trained about five hours a week and had a skewed attitude of my abilities as a martial artist, I was skeptical. What could a tradition of meditation and stretching do to improve my skills as an Aikido practitioner?

However, after attending my first yoga class, instead of feeling light, air-like and philosophical like some other participants, I was energized and invigorated. So I went to another. Deep controlled breathing, holding postures for several minutes or moving, swiftly to stimulate the flow of prana (life force energy - KI). Every time I went to yoga I not only felt healthier, more alive and self-confident, but likely was taking my first complete breaths in my life.

My Aikido training became less frantic. I was no longer out of breath after 10 minutes of iriminage. And the litmus test: during my black-belt test I kept my breathing under control and remained steady even when I felt my nerves and muscles strained to force my way through the exam.

Since then, I have studied and become a yoga teacher myself. The students who come to the yoga classes who breathe and move with conscious breath are surprised to learn that I also practice a martial art. Most ask, "How can you do that and yoga, aren't they diametrically opposed?" (One of the "restraints" of yoga tradition is ahimsa - nonviolence).

Through my continued training in both Aikido and yoga, I discovered that like many traditions, if you look deep enough the philosophies are based in the same principles.

Yoga is the practice of self-realization. Through the discipline of the body and mind - using certain disciplines (including but not exclusively: postures, breath control and meditation) that develop your self-awareness and deepen your understanding of your connection to the world around you - one relates (yokes) the finite with the infinite. Kisshomaru Ueshiba wrote in The Spirit of Aikido that O-Sensei's goal "is...the unification of the fundamental creative principle, ki, permeating the universe, and the individual ki, inseparable from breath-power, of each person. Through constant training of mind and body, the individual ki harmonized with the universal ki and this unity appears in the dynamic, flowing movement of ki-power which is free and fluid, indestructible and invincible."

So though our practice in our physical world may look different, the basis of the teachings seems to me to align well. In yoga we are taught to stretch our limits but not to cause pain or push beyond pain - not causing violence to our self. We learn how to live in our bodies in the moment and to experience our sensations as they relate to our inner world - not being distracted by the draw of our outer world. We create an inner environment of stillness where we explore emotion without needing that emotion to overtake or control our personality. This is an individual and personal practice.

In Aikido, in our interaction with another, we experience our bodies moving to that threshold of pain - then we meet it and then tap out with the agreement with our partner that they do not cause harm to our body. We can explore our frustration, tension in the body, disappointment, possible loss of control of emotion (anger etc) - yet we learn to experience this without allowing it to over take our personality. We are aware of the activity around us but not distracted by it.

In both traditions we train daily, if possible, to meet our challenges that are ultimately our own and most times are generated from within. They both offer us tools to move beyond our own self-absorbed nature and into a place of harmony of spirit. Aikido and yoga call to the individual for a lifetime of commitment of body mind and spirit. My Aikido training would not be as "relaxed" without my yoga practice and I know that I would not experience yoga with the fullness and vigor without Aikido.

Both traditions have the ability for us to grow, change and meet our world with grace and discernment. My only disappointment is life is not long enough to master either, let alone both! Another obstacle to overcome!