Is Aikido Healthy? - Looking at Aikido and Healing (RL)

So there's an ongoing question whether Aikido is a good aid for developing your health. But that actually stems from a bigger question of whether sports are healthy. And I would like to mention both sides, the positive and the dark side, as I often do in my previous videos. Unfortunately, there might be a bit of a dark side more present here, but we'll do our best to maintain a balance. But to start with, at least in my country, in Lithuania, there's an old saying that sports equals health. And the more I look at it, it's not really true for most sports, especially professional sports. If you're really going for big achievements, most times you're going to have to sacrifice something without minding your body. And if you don't mind your body, you're going to get hurt. And some of those parts actually do apply in my experience, in what I saw and experienced myself with my body in Aikido too. So first of all, I see that there are two... when you're doing anything, but sports, physical activities include that too, there are two dangers. And one of them is fear, and the other one is ambition. So if you're afraid of doing something, you have a hesitation, your body tenses up, and then you can hurt yourself. When you look at Aikido, for example, you do Kemi, you do rolls, and you're afraid, that tension is not going to help you. You're going to do it, and you're going to probably get hurt. And the other one, which is most times more visible, is ambition. It's when you don't listen to your body. So looking at the same example of rolling, when, let's say, Sensei shows jumping over five people and doing a roll, and you feel that you're not ready for it, your body is not ready for it. But then your ambition says, okay, I was training Aikido for this many years, and everybody else is doing, so I have to do it too. And I try to jump over, and probably you're going to get hurt, because the body is not ready for that. And there is a part of you which says that you are not ready, and it's very important to listen to that part. As I say, you do something ambitious, and you don't listen to your intuition, to your body, to your feelings, you get hurt, you're not going to train for one month. But rather, if you don't do it for that one day, you miss that one day, you miss that one training, you can train for the one month. So it's important not to go there. And when we continue to look at ambitions, also there is a part of not minding pain. And that's very, actually that's quite a macho thing, and many men tend to do that. There's a belief that if you accept, if you acknowledge pain, then you're weak. But that's not true, and it's something we need to get rid of. And that applies to Aikido too. So for example, sitting in Seiza, sitting on knees, it's not, especially in our Western culture, we're not used to do that. And for many people, it doesn't feel right, you know, there's a lot of pain. And it's impossible to continue to train yourself sitting on the knees. And actually, that's a good point. That's the light side of the healthy part of Aikido, is that Aikido does develop flexibility, it does develop endurance, it does develop strength in legs when you're sitting in Seiza. But it's important that to get that aspect of health, you need to be conscious when you reach that line of suffering, when you reach that line of where the body through pain tells you, this is not good, you have to stop. Pain basically is the way of body saying, this is not good, change something. So when you're sitting in Seiza and you want to look good in front of everyone, so that's ambition. Everybody else is sitting like that, and you sit there for five minutes, 10 minutes, 15, 20, an hour, and it feels horrible. That means your body is suffering, and it's hurting, it's damaging. And maybe for that day, you will feel the winner, maybe you will feel like you're very good because you were able to suffer through that, but if you do it one time, two times, after 10 years or 20 years, your knees are going to go out, and you're never going to be able to train Aikido in a good way ever again. And that's something I did witness. There's quite a lot of Aikido senior people, instructors, some of them are famous, some of them I personally know, some of them trained for many years, some even not so many years, they had knee injuries. Even myself, I had a knee injury because I wasn't listening to my body in my teenage years when I started training. So when you notice that so many people have those injuries, first of all, it does bring out the question, okay, how does that how does Aikido work through that health aspect, and that there might be a danger, since we walk on the knees, we move so much on the knees, and we're not used to that, and knees are quite fragile in general. But in my experience, if you mind the pain, if you don't overdo it, you can stay healthy if you do it at the right level. As I said, sitting in Seiza can be healthy, can develop the flexibility many people miss in this day, and that's the bright side of Aikido, is the movement, is the coordination that you develop. We're such a big culture of sitting by the computer, sitting at the car, that our body loses its flexibility, and that later causes many problems. So developing that flexibility through sitting in Seiza, through Aikido movement, can be very great, but you have to be conscious of the dosage of which you use. So let's say, you know, you sit for one minute, it starts to get painful, you can maybe go for five more seconds to push that barrier, but then stop, you know, cross your legs, allow yourself to rest. And some dojos won't allow that, and I will refrain from questioning it too much, but do be careful about such an approach. So in general, that ambitious part is dangerous for Aikido, but it's more of a personal responsibility too. It's good in the sense, he says that, but especially since you're watching this, I'm talking to you about this, you're thinking about this, remember that it's your responsibility too to stop, and it's hard. I know that it's hard to stop when everybody else is doing it. If you're very passionate about Aikido, you will want to go on the mat and train even when you're sick. And actually, there's a bright side here too, which is interesting to notice, that for example, what I experienced with yoga and Aikido, is that if you're sick, but you're going towards healthiness, going to Aikido, moving a lot, you sweat a lot, you roll a lot, the body moves itself through, and you can actually cure your flu through that. But if you're just starting to get the flu, and you need that energy, training won't be good. Again, you have to be conscious and responsible for what you do, and when you do it, and how you do it, and how much you do it. And one more interesting point to look at, from what I noticed through my years of Aikido training, I said knee problems and hip problems are common in Aikido, so you have to be careful about those parts. Back problems, it's interesting, I haven't heard, I don't remember anyone in Aikido telling me about back problems, and when I think about that, that might be a good healthy part of Aikido too, because a straight back is very important in Aikido. And many people, you know, even when they lean down to take something, they don't know the proper way to do it, that you have to keep your back straight. But in Aikido, you learn that, even when you bend your knees, you go down, you sit up, you stand up, you keep your back straight, so that's healthy. And many senior Aikido people, they have very nice back, straight backs, so that I haven't investigated personally, but when you look at it, you can notice that maybe that's actually a strong point of the healthy part of Aikido, which is there too. As you train, always be conscious of the limits, so that's something I stress to myself, to my students, I want to share with you. Last part though, interesting to notice, you know, when we speak about health, we do forget that health is, we oftentimes forget that health is not just physical health. And here I feel, and here I feel Aikido can be, can be very powerful in the inner health. So actually, first of all, there's a mix between body and mind, where Aikido can actually, it's a more rare way of training Aikido, so I can't talk too much about that, I don't feel the ability to talk about that too much, but there is a way I can share to train Aikido, which is actually a healing way. You can do movement while you're training, you can do movements, you can move in such a way which feels good for the body, and then actually those movements can be healing. But it's a more of a subtle, it's a more difficult part to catch, but you can actually be conscious about that too. There's also some free movement exercises, there's many things possible, but it's not just present in all Aikido trainings, all dojos. But coming to the inner side, the spiritual side, we do forget that actually even a lot of our body illnesses also come from the mind. I heard this saying more than once that in modern days, a huge number, maybe 70 or 80 percent of the body illnesses are actually connected to the mind. When the mind is conflicted, the digestion starts to go bad, because it's so connected to the mind. When the digestion goes bad, the rest of the body goes bad, the energy level goes bad. When you're in stress, the body is tense. When it's tense, it's more prone to become injured, more stiff. So the mind is, the healthiness of the mind is very important also for the body and for your own general feeling. And Aikido, if trained properly, can really help you develop that inner healthiness, which will later develop the healthiness of the body too. In Aikido, in many dojos, in many different training ways, it makes sense to be flexible, to receive. So when you're training falling in a way which feels good, in a way where you fall and you stand up and you don't get hurt, you're supple, when somebody does a technique on you, you're able to receive. That also develops that ability to receive life, to receive different situations, to adapt to them, to make a mistake and to stand up, to not take it as the worst thing in life. Also in Aikido, it's encouraged to train with the mentality of no enemy. So you do train on a level where you don't compete with each other, but you support each other, you help each other and you develop a vision where you don't see even potential attackers as enemies, but rather as people who we can wake up to, we can help them. When you learn that approach, when you start to discover that approach of no enemy, there's a lot of stress which goes down. When you start to look less at winning and losing, which is also a conscious part of Aikido, musugatsu, agatsu, true victory is victory over yourself, where you don't compete, there's no competition, there's no tournaments. When you start to lose that drive for proving yourself, for winning, that takes such a huge part of stress away from your life. When you start to learn to live in a way where you don't compete, where you don't try to win, where you accept failure, where you receive different situations, you adapt, you stay subtle, all that can give your mind a chance to be at such an ease where your body loosens up too, and your mind doesn't disturb the body from functioning. You start to feel emotionally good, which is very important. So basically Aikido, if trained properly, can be an emotionally healing practice, and psychologically healing practice, which later influences obviously the body too. So that healthiness part of Aikido should not be ignored. If you train not only Aikido techniques, if you don't rely on ambition or fear, but rather you train the right attitude, you listen to your body, you respect it, and you develop yourself gradually, it can be a very powerful healing exercise, not only for yourself, but also for others too. If you don't see the other person as an enemy, if you accept him as the way he is, if you support him, that can heal so much in his life. So to sum it up, if you take all those points, Aikido can be a very powerful healing practice, if trained properly. So just training it might not be enough. So ask yourself how you train it, be conscious about what you allow yourself, and what you frame from. Are you listening to your body? Are you being conscious about what you are developing? And if you are, Aikido can be a very strong influence for your life, and can help you maintain healthiness for many years to come.