Aikido and Hypnosis

May 02, 2012

Aikido is een Japanse vechtkunst en betekent zoveel als 'The path to harmony of energy'. Ai betekent harmonie, Ki betekent energie en Do betekent weg. Het is volgens mij de enige vechtkunst die geen wedstrijdelement bevat omdat de filosofie het niet toestaat om verliezers te kennen. Zelf beoefen ik het al een tijd en ik zie veel overeenkomsten met hypnose.

Aikido and the path to mastery

To become a master of the principles of Aikido , you must go through a learning process that takes years. To get your body and mind in harmony and achieve enlightenment you go through a number of stages.

In the beginning, the "I no pain, you no pain" philosophy will not work. You have to work yourself through the structure, and especially in the beginning, the moves are not very easy to do. Almost every other martial art is a little easier to learn than Aikido, especially since it is purely a defense art only.

There are a number of steps you work through in your first steps to mastery. It is the path of budo, the path to enlightenment.

The beginning

The first year is very difficult. You can compare it to dancing and you have to be able to do the steps before you can really dance. That is not necessarily very fun to do for most and for those who want immediate results and to become a fighting machine, this is not the right sport.

It works in grades and the first exam consists of the three basic techniques that keep coming back. If you pass that you have 6th Kyu and move on. After 5th Kyu the second part of the road starts and you have to be able to do more techniques. At 3rd Kyu you get a Hakama, a kind of black skirt that you wear over your suit.

After 1st Kyu you move up to black belt. That is after a lot of training about after 5 years. When you reach black belt you have Shodan, which means as much as "first step. You have then just started on the path to mastery. From then on you learn to let go of the structure more and more and it all becomes more compact and with more Ki.

Below you can see a video of the founder what you can achieve when you are a master. You can see he is also wearing a white hakama. He has achieved enlightenment in Aikido (the only one...) and is already 83 there. It may seem fake, but after what I have seen in demonstrations with other Japanese, I know it is not. Marvel at yourself....

Hypnosis and the path to mastery

To become a master of hypnosis, you also tread that path. The first few years with much training you reach a level where you subconsciously master the structure and principles automatically. You could say you have your Shodan then in hypnosis. And that is only first Dan and you also reach that after about 5 years.

Then it just begins and every 2-3 years you get a Dan added. You could say you are master when you are 5th-6th Dan. So after about 10 years after that. Then you can say you are a master of hypnosis and in the Netherlands there are very few who have achieved that status.

What is important is that you do get good training that gets you off to a good start right away, which is why many people choose the total program. Of course you are not yet a "black belt" after that, but you are 3rd Kyu and that is already above average. You can do it and you can help people with it.

If you would like to take up Aikido there is also space at my place in Krommenie in the Budo Club and it is very low-threshold. Just get in touch if you want to.

According to Margriet Sitskoorn, author of the booklet "The Malleable Brain," after 10,000 hours of study you have achieved mastery and can compete at the top. Just count how many years you will need for that ;-) With hypnosis you can reach your goals faster and achieve mastery a little faster. When you combine the power of hypnosis with physical training, wonderful things happen....