Zazen and Aiki
by Nick Lowry Do not seek conflict and do not maintain guile. Do not hide or run away from conflict and do not blind yourself. Each transition requires awarness and precision — we tend to want to avoid problems and … Read More
Aikido Koan
by Nick Lowry Simple ink on paper, three figures in a line. Circle. Square. Triangle. Terry Dobson once asked O Sensei to tell him what the circle, square, and triangle meant in aikido.The master told him to figure it out … Read More
Teaching: Dependence and Empowerment
by Nick Lowry I have known teachers who over teach – they are helpful and giving — serve everything up on silver platters but who consequently have built very dependent students. Such are popular teachers; their students will love them … Read More
Shobu and Shiai: Winning and Losing in Ultimate Fights
by Nick Lowry Head to head in a competition-a real “technician” will probably get beat by a real “champion”- and a real champion will probably be able to repeat that amazing feat a few times in a given day–where the … Read More
Pre-Emptive Aiki: No-Touch Throws
by Nick Lowry Sugino sensei once said that if you are seeing aiki for the first time and you can understand what you are seeing, then you are not seeing aiki. It’s interesting seeing the beautiful variety of “no touch … Read More
What is the Best Martial Art?
by Nick Lowry There is no such thing as a superior martial art—only superior artists. It is meaningless to say aikido is better than judo or krav maga is better that aikido or MMA is better than Gracie Jujitsu – … Read More
What is Rank About?
by Nick Lowry As an institutional device we can say that there is no such thing as rank in an absolute term– institutionally Rank is always based on a relative scale – some systems rank players/practitioners against each other – … Read More
Subtle Energy Synchrony – Meditation, Chi-Gung-Budo
by Nick Lowry If you have a lot of pendulums swinging in a room, over a short period of time they all tend to en-train toward synchronicity with the largest one. This works with people’s subtle emotional and energetic qualities … Read More
The Price of Knowing
by Nick Lowry Experiment: Read the following aloud A bird in thethe handis worth two inthe bush Almost everyone reads this as “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Almost no one catches the second “the.” … Read More