Aikido Insights by Goldberg, Sensei: How is Your Teaching Unique?

When most people hear Aikido, the first thing they think of is martial arts. Although Aikido has a foundation in martial arts, it can be much more. Life Purpose Advisor recommends the study and practice of Aikido because it offers the opportunity for personal transformation and, therefore, helps with finding ones life purpose. It is often hard to describe this process to a non-Aikidoist, who may have a life philosophy excluding a physical practice like Aikido.
To offer insights into Aikido, Dave Goldberg, Sensei of Aikido of San Diego, addresses insightful questions related to this transormative martial art. We will be presenting those questions over the next month to promote thought around Aikido and the relationship to Transforming the Body and Practices and Rituals (two of our key modules). Please ask any additional questions on Aikido and its relationship to your personal goals or finding your life purpose in the comment section below. We’ll do our best to answer them.
Goldberg Sensei, began with the following questions:

  • Why did you choose to study aikido as opposed to another martial art? (Click to listen.)
  • How are your previous training experiences in aikido as well as your perspective on aikido unique and how are these reflected in your teaching? (See below.)
  • What aspects of aikido do you think generally foster the most personal growth or the greatest personal evolution and what parts of aikido have influenced your own growth and development?
  • So this question of, “What is aikido?” comes up a lot. How has your understanding of what exactly is aikido changed over the years?

Question: How are your previous training experiences in aikido as well as your perspective on aikido unique and how are these reflected in your teaching?

In this excerpt, Dave Goldberg talks about energetic embodiment and self awareness. (Thank you to Laura Fleisch, History Graduate Student and Uchideshi at Aikido of San Diego who facilitates the discussion.)

[pro-player]http://www.lifepurposeadvisor.com/wp-content/uploads/DG-Aikido-21.m4a[/pro-player]

Read the transcript:
Laura Fleisch: How are your previous training experiences in aikido as well as your perspective on aikido unique and how are these reflected in your teaching?
Dave Goldberg: Well, I don’t know if they’re unique to tell you the truth. I’m sure that my combination of training history is unique much like a lot of people’s. What was the other part of the question?
Laura Fleisch: Both your training experiences and also just your perspective on aikido. How is it unique and how is that reflected in the way you teach at Aikido?
Dave Goldberg: I’m not sure I would characterize my perspective as unique. I know there’s a lot in my perspective that is shared with many other people. Maybe not a lot of the mainstream. I’m a little bit of a purist in some regard and that I truly believe that aikido is a developmental art and that’s the reason we’re in it. I don’t consider it to be something that you do purely for self-defense or to me, it’s not a “jitsu”. It’s not a fighting art.
I don’t think anyone who’s doing aikido is going into any octagons that are caged in or anything and getting involved in a blood bath. It’s not what we do. It’s not jiu-jitsu light or anything like that. It’s aikido. It’s a “do”. It’s a way of seeing yourself more clearly and allowing the art to inform you on where you are in your path.
So if that’s unique, then I think that’s the way in which I’m unique but in my perspective, I guess I am somewhat innovative in how I approach the practice itself. I’m not afraid to try new things. I like a lot of practices that involve energetic embodiment. I’m very interested in the uke-nage relationship and what that offers to the practice in terms of meeting each other in appropriate ways so that both uke and nage can develop equally. I’m not sure what else I can say abut that.
Yes. So I think that people come to Aikido of San Diego. They come to me and people like me because they’re interested in becoming a more effective and more self-aware person. Generally there is a little bit of a warrior spirit there which is why they chose the martial art but it’s not necessarily so. A person without that drive can still be very successful in aikido. That drive is alive and well in me. It’s part of what really drove me through the art and through a lot of my tougher training days, being honest. But it’s not necessarily what inspires me to put my work out there and to walk my talk.

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