Breathing

It's almost a given, noting that breathing is important, not simply breathing but breathing well and at it's best potential. Breathing is not only a core element of Aikido, it's a key to living life to it's fullest. Having struggled with asthma in my youth while remaining unflaggingly determined to run, climb, swim and all the other active things young people do was a challenge.

It wouldn't be until my teenage years, when I became a competitive distance runner, that I would encounter, first yoga, and then Aikido and Judo. For me running was all about pushing envelopes and finishing races by simply refusing to give up, sometimes this resulted in collapsing in a heap as I crossed the finish line, not so gracefully laying on the ground to the side of the race course gasping for air and desperately begging my heart to slow down. Though, within roughly six months of studying Aikido, under the watchful eye of Jane Burghoff, I learned I'd only been haphazardly using all of the lung capacity I had available.

Being aware that, even with somewhat limited breathing do to asthma, I could compensate by really opening up my lungs and allowing my body to breath was a game changer. Something that literally altered how I live my life to this day. I still have some minor seasonal issues and chemical sensitivities but ultimately it only took that six months or so of learning to listen to my body and let it inform what I was doing and what I needed. Once in a very great while I'll go for an inhaler, usually only if I've been around something that aggravates my allergies but my personal experience would suggest that asking your body to do things and then giving it room to do so is at least as valuable as medication and the two combined can move mountains.

With regard to Aikido, one critical difference from yoga is that Aikido teaches breathing in motion. Slow at first but faster over time, Aikidoka retrain their core breathing, often simply returning to how they inhaled and exhaled as children. it isn't the blissfully quiet calm of yoga but then, we don't live in a blissfully quiet and calm world. We can't very well control the world around us, but learning the posture, breathing and body mechanics of Aikido is one way we can carry our practice peacefully into our daily lives and cultivate a personally relevant and lasting inner calm helping us each and every day well outside of any "martial" application.