Cardiff Ki Aikido
Insights
Explore the principles of Ki Aikido through Ki meditation, the Rules of Body, the Rules of Mind and an understanding of Ki. Discover how these practices can help develop relaxation, awareness, balance and a calmer, more focused approach to everyday life.
Ki Meditation
This form of meditation helps you stay calm and centered, less disturbed by events in daily life.
Rules of Mind
A calm mind notices everything like reflections on still water. It is your relationship with reality.
What is Ki?
The infinite gathering of infinitetly small particles. Governing matter, it is also the source of life.
Ki Meditation
The calm, focused attitude developed through meditation can continue into everyday life, bringing greater clarity and awareness.
By releasing tension and unifying mind and body through the four principles, we learn to focus on the present — like tuning a radio to achieve clear reception.
Aikido practice helps us apply this awareness in real time, responding to others with greater calm and control. In daily life, this can help us react less automatically and act more mindfully.
Step 1 Expansion
A state of being that allows you to ‘hold’ i.e. to ’embrace’, the way you would hold something delicate or precious, like a baby. Related to the first rules of coordinating Mind and Body, and of performing Aikido techniques, we mentally extend Ki, including everything in all directions. Reaching out to acknowledge/greet it all.
Step 2 Concentration
A state of being that allows you to ‘let go’.
This aspect of meditation enables you to notice yourself as the observer, with gut feelings originating from the One Point. ‘Letting go’ is to humbly accept all that the Universe is, without judgement, to welcome with metaphorical open arms, a gesture that you have already used to embrace it.
This aspect causes you to notice yourself internally (your breath, your bodily sensations, your own thoughts. You are such an integral part of the universe that you are not only being yourself, your are being the universe.
Ki Breathing helps one reconcile the relationship between inner and outer space, to known they are one space, and you are intrinsically involved in everything.
This is the first essential insight from meditation.
Step 3 Harmony
This is to reconcile Expansion and Concentration. It requires complete relaxation and being fully awake/alert with a calm mind.
Step 4 Creation
Experiencing the constant creation of the universe is hard to really notice, because we want to identify and label every experience as it happens. We are in a sense hard-wired to do this, but words cannot do it justice!
To notice the constant creation of events unfolding, we would be in a state of awe, completely unable to grasp the profoundness and enormity of it all.
Step 5 Movement
Everything is changing, constantly.
On the human scale evidence of movement is revealed by our senses and externally this movement is obvious. Internally, the energy of infinitely small particles can be appreciated on a superficial level as heat, as temperature, and as thoughts.
Without movement there would be no chemical reactions, no light and sound. You would not be thinking now. If you existed at all, you could only know absolute stillness and silence, without any perception of time passing.
Rules of Mind
These are two of the four rules of coordinating mind and body.
Think of (keep) your one point …. thereby extend ki.
Established the continuity of simultaneously sensing outwardly and inwardly.
You can’t have expansion without a source, and you cannot have contraction without a point the contraction is happening towards.
Things I noticed
I can think of my one point easily without extending ki, but this just thinking of it in an abstract way,
like checking that it feels the same as I remember it did before.
If I subject myself to that point, and everything else around me, I can ‘project my presence’.
If I make myself the subject of my centre …
I am where my one point is.
If I move, everything around me moves, like in an immersive computer game.
Obeying rules of body leads to conforming to the Rules of Mind
The Light Posture rule – I notice my body adjusts ‘bolt upright’ … with weight underside
The Relax Completely rule – I feel relaxed enough that I can confidently make my presence felt physically.
What is Ki Meditation
Ki is the essence of everything. You know ki by what you are experiencing here and now. The Universe is an ever changing interaction of natural phenomena and living entities.
Man’s Ki is too often discordant with Nature. Consciously experiencing ki enhances your sense of well being and fosters deeper relationships with people and Nature. Even what may be done positively, with good intentions, may be based upon ill-informed appreciation and respect for the complexities of inter-dependencies in ecological systems.
Practicing Ki Aikido helps one notice the effects of our actions. When practicing the principles with a partner the effects are noticed immediately.
In our daily lives however, we usually need time to relect on the effect our action have on others and Nature. The experience gained from practicing Aikido affords us more calmness to notice and contemplate these effects.
A calmer mind will also helps us relinquish the superficial materialistic ways that previously motivated us.
Find Cardiff Ki Aikido
Join us at the Community Hall, Heath Citizens Association, 175 Heath Park Ave, King George V Dr E, Cardiff, and discover the benefits of Shin Shin Aikido in a welcoming and supportive environment.
Beginners and experienced practitioners are all welcome.
Find your nearest class and take your first step into Aikido — your first session is free.