Making it Look Right

A few years ago, I was attending a Ki-Aikido seminar in Lawrence, KS, taught by Christopher Curtis Sensei—the chief instructor of the Hawaii Ki Federation. Curtis Sensei is an excellent mentor. He is a superb model of mind-body unification, he is keenly observant, and he is skilled at exposing a students edge. At this particular seminar, Curtis Sensei exposed a very raw edge of mine that was affecting my training, my teaching, and my daily life.

Curtis Sensei had brought me up in front of the group to demonstrate the Ki-Aikido technique he had been teaching. I did my best, which I thought was decent though far from perfect. I waited for Curtis Sensei's corrections and was looking forward to his guidance on how I could improve. He turned to the group and asked, “What did you think?” No one said anything, but their body language spoke volumes. Nearly everyone was shifting back and forth and looking up with quizzical, skeptical, slightly strained expressions. They seemed to all be saying, “There is something off, but I can't quite put my finger on it.”

Curtis Sensei easily read their silent communication. “I know why your all having trouble,” he said in his warm, baritone voice, “it's because Jon is so good... at making it look right.” Then Curtis Sensei looked over at me with a big smile on his face and said, “with one hand he giveth, and with the other he taketh away.” We all laughed. But Curtis Sensei was giving me an important lesson in that moment—one that has continued to deepen for me in the years since.

I am good at making it look right. In fact, I have given a lot of attention over the years to making things look right. After all, my students learn by watching me—I need to show them what the techniques we do are supposed to look like. What Curtis Sensei was showing me in that moment, however, was how much I had gotten caught up in outward appearance. I knew there was something wrong with my technique, but rather than diving in and looking for the source of the problem myself, I focused on the outer form—trying to make it look right.

Over the years, I have looked at where else in my life I get caught up in the outer form at the expense of substance. Not surprisingly, it showed up all over. It showed up in my writing, in my teaching, in my relationships, in how I looked after my house and my car. But the big eye opener came for me as I started to ask why. Why was I so driven to make things look right? The answer was obvious, if unpleasant. I was more concerned with getting credit and praise than with actually producing results.

I make things look right so that people will notice. So that I will be praised. Because that is how I will get acceptance and love. And I am very good at it. And it does not work.

A few months after the seminar with Curtis Sensei, I went out on a date with a wonderful woman named Meredith. I was quite enamored with Meredith and unconsciously fell into the habit of showing off for her. I wanted to earn her attention. This was, not surprisingly, a huge turn off. After a few dates, she told me she wasn't interested in pursuing a deeper relationship and wanted to keep our friendship casual. Fortunately, Curtis Sensei's teaching was still fresh in my mind and I was able to see what I was doing. I realized that Meredith had already offered her time and attention to me freely. I was saw that I was disrespecting the gift of her time by continuing to vie for her attention. I saw that I was—as Curtis Sensei put it to me so bluntly—being vapid. I shared all this with her, apologized for being a show-off and for trying to earn her attention and praise, and thanked her for sharing her time with me so generously. A year later we were married.

This November, Curtis Sensei is coming back to Lawrence to teach again. I am looking forward to the seminar, and looking forward to having a new edge exposed in my training.

Relaxation: A Key to Optimal Performance Part 1

In a few weeks, I will be giving a TED talk at the Carleton College TEDx conference. I'll be talking about relaxation as a key to optimal performance. Most of us understand that relaxation is important. Chronic stress can seriously hamper our performance and our health. We realize that it is important to relax between periods of peek effort.

Teaching how to relax without collapsing.

What I will discuss, however, is that relaxation is a key to optimal performance during peak efforts. To fully appreciate this, we need to understand the principle of relaxation that I have been taught by my Aikido mentors over the past 18 years. In this post, I will discuss what I mean by relaxation. In a future post, I will share simple techniques for relaxing and how you can apply those techniques in your day to day life.

We are Stronger When We Relax

When we are relaxed and calm, we are able to perform to the best of our ability. Our efforts naturally produce movement, momentum, and results. When we are tense and anxious our performance suffers. Our efforts are absorbed by friction and dissipated as heat. We are often left feeling thwarted or ineffective.

Try this simple exercise: Spread your fingers apart as wide as possible and make your whole hand and forearm as tense as you can. Make it really tight. Now shake your tense hand back and forth as fast as you can. Not very fast is it? Now, relax your hand and forearm completely. Again, shake your hand back and forth as fast as you can. You should be able to shake it much faster.

Click here to Tweet this:

"When we are tense, our effort is absorbed as friction. When we are relaxed, our efforts produce momentum." @JonathanPoppele

Being able to move our body quickly is a key to performance in elite athletics and in martial arts. Being able to move our mind quickly is a key to performance in every area of life. Relaxing allows us to be quick and responsive, open the door to optimal performance. In stressful situations, however, we may feel that if we relax we will loose our "edge." To move beyond this, we need to understand the difference between relaxation and collapse.

Relaxation is Different than Collapse

When I run beginning Aikido classes, I always ask the new students what comes to mind when they hear the phrase "relax completely." What comes to mind when you hear that phrase? Most people get an image of collapsing on a sofa or lounging in a hammock--half asleep. This is not the kind of relaxation I mean here. In Ki-Aikido, we refer to this condition as collapse. In this state, we cannot perform at a peak level. Our body, and likely our mind as well, are unprepared for action.

Using the wooden sword to practice relaxed attention.

The condition of relaxation that we study in Ki-Aikido is a condition of relaxed attention in which we do exactly what is needed--with no wasted effort. We recognize this condition of vibrant calmness in top athletes, or virtuoso musicians. Even in high pressure situations, these individuals display a deep level of relaxation that allows them to perform to the best of their ability.

Actually, the condition of collapse gets in the way of true relaxation. When we collapse, we have a looseness and floppiness about us. When things around us move or change, we are jarred and jolted. The condition of collapse also dulls our awareness and makes it less likely that we will feel changes taking place around us. Since we live in a world that is constantly moving and changing, collapsing ultimately lead to tension and stress--especially if we are out to develop ourselves or broaden our reach in the world.

In an upcoming post, I will examine how we can learn to relax--not just when we are on vacation, but in any situation. The techniques do take practice, but they can be applied anywhere and under any circumstances to help you perform to the best of your ability. Stay tuned!

Resources

Want to learn more from my Ki-Aikido mentors about relaxation? Here are a few links to check out:

• Dr. David Shaner, my teacher, Chief Instructor of the Eastern Ki Federation, and author of Seven Arts of Change: Leading Business Transformation that Lasts, discusses the application of "The Art of Relaxation" to business change initiatives. [watch the video]
• Shinichi Tohei Sensei, President of the International Ki-Aikido Society, writes about the true meaning of "Calming the Mind." [read the blog]
• Christopher Curtis Sensei, Chief Instructor of the Hawaiian Ki Federation, hosts a discussion on the principle of relaxation in Ki-Aikido training. [download the transcript of the mp3 audio].