Hi, my name is Linda Eskin. In May of 2009, at age 46, I came to Aikido to improve my horsemanship. It's become about much more than that for me.
I train with Dave Goldberg Sensei at Aikido of San Diego.
Everything I say here is just what I say. Don't believe me. Find out for yourself.
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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
A LITTLE ABOUT ME
Most of the posts here are duplicates of my posts from
my blog on AikiWeb.com, a very active and friendly community of Aikido students and teachers. If you are a member of AikiWeb, and would like to comment, please do so there.
I am a beginning student of Aikido, a martial art that, like horsemanship, takes a lifetime to master. These posts are only my own observations on my own experience. You should not rely on anything I say here. Any inept or incorrect information is my own responsibility, and should not be a reflection on others.
I am grateful to
Dave Goldberg Sensei for being an extraordinary teacher, and for creating an engaged, thinking, and compassionate community of students and teachers at
Aikido of San Diego. If you are in the area, visitors are always welcome to observe classes. If you are a student at another local dojo, keep an eye on
our dojo calendar for upcoming seminars and other events.
Copyright 2009, 2010, 2011, Linda Eskin. Please feel free to share any of my poetry, online, or in print, keeping my name and any other acknowledgments with it. I will almost certainly be happy to let you use anything else I've posted here, with proper attribution, but please ask first.
Contact me via e-mail
Linda Eskin
MORE AIKIDO READING
For us, warriors are not what you think of as warriors. The warrior is not someone who fights, because no one has the right to take another’s life. The warrior, for us, is one who sacrifices himself for the good of others. His task is to take care of the elderly, the defenseless, those who cannot provide for themselves, and above all, the children, the future of humanity.
—
[Yet another quote on the nature of the warrior.]
Sitting Bull
Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux chief and holy man.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
I know not how, but martial men are given to love: I think it is but as they are given to wine; for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures. There is in man’s nature a secret inclincation and motion towards the love of others, which if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable; as it is seen sometime in friars.
—
Sir Francis Bacon
Book One of the Novum Organum
When Master Morihei Ueshiba, or “O-Sensei” (Great Teacher), as his students fondly called him, first began calling his art aikido (in 1942) he had already accumulated years of experience in other Japanese martial arts. By studying and mastering Daito-Ryu jujitsu, sword, staff, and spear, Master Ueshiba rooted aikido in the ancient Bushido tradition. Testing his ideas in actual combat and armed confrontations he established aikido as a potent self-defense form. At the same time he spoke of aikido - The Way of Harmony - in a revolutionary way, a way previously unheard of among the martial traditions. He taught that aikido is a budo of love and that its purpose is to unite the people of the world. He repeatedly told his students that aikido was not to be used to hurt someone, but to provide loving protection for all people. It was as it the Secretary of Defense suddenly announced that the role of the Armed Forces was to provide a safe, loving environment for the entire world. There were, of course, guffaws when the word got out about a “budo of love” and many came to challenge Ueshiba and his new art.
—
Richard Strozzi-Heckler
In Search of the Warrior Spirit - Teaching Awareness Disciplines to the Military
Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.
—
Henry David Thoreau
Have Fun
From the Aikido of San Diego Membership Handbook, by Dave Goldberg Sensei:
Have fun.
Aikido practice should be a joyful experience, and playful most of the time. If you aren’t having fun, you may be treating yourself too seriously. Don’t be in a hurry to master anything. You have the rest of your life to enjoy your training, benefit by it, discover, and grow.
True for Aikido training, and for everything.
Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.
—
Mahatma Gandhi
Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heart-ache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, to discover what is already there.
—
~Henry Miller, Sexus
(via Roos View, on Facebook)
