Hello

I hope You are well and having a successful day... here is Your latest Harmony of Mind-Body-Spirit Newsletter from the Aikido Health Centre.

Your Unique Journey continues with 'Removing Ego from Aikido' Learn how to truly attack and defend without ego - see below...

Read on... for our Words of Wisdom, World Community News, and Feature Article. The back issues & unsubscribe links are at the end of the Ezine.

Next month's article is titled 'Ukemi Lessons in Daily Life' Moving Your training from the Aikido mat into Your daily life - Stay Tuned!

Peace and Harmony

Tony

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You could go days without food and hours without water, but you would last only a few minutes without air. On average, each of us breathes over 3,000 gallons of air each day. You must have air to live. However, did you know that breathing polluted air can make you sick?

Air pollution can damage trees, crops, other plants, lakes, and animals. In addition to damaging the natural environment, air pollution also damages buildings, monuments, and statues. It not only reduces how far you can see in national parks and cities, it even interferes with aviation.

In 1970, the American Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and passed the Clean Air Act, giving the federal government authority to clean up air pollution in the country. Since then, EPA and states, tribes, local governments, industry, and environmental groups have worked to establish a variety of programs to reduce air pollution levels across America.

The Clean Air Act has helped change the way many of us work or do business. In some cases, it has even changed the way we live. This guide provides a brief introduction to the programs, philosophies, and policies in the Clean Air Act.

Air Pollution and Your Health

Breathing polluted air can make your eyes and nose burn. It can irritate your throat and make breathing difficult. In fact, pollutants like tiny airborne particles and groundlevel ozone can trigger respiratory problems, especially for people with asthma.

Today, nearly 30 million adults and children in the United States have been diagnosed with asthma. Asthma sufferers can be severely affected by air pollution. Air pollution can also aggravate health problems for the elderly and others with heart or respiratory diseases.

Some toxic chemicals released in the air such as benzene or vinyl chloride are highly toxic and can cause cancer, birth defects, long term injury to the lungs, as well as brain and nerve damage. And in some cases, breathing these chemicals can even cause death.

Other pollutants make their way up into the upper atmosphere, causing a thinning of the protective ozone layer. This has led to changes in the environment and dramatic increases in skin cancers and cataracts (eye damage).

Air Pollution and the Environment

Air pollution isn’t just a threat to our health, it also damages our environment. Toxic air pollutants and the chemicals that form acid rain and ground-level ozone can damage trees, crops, wildlife, lakes and other bodies of water. Those pollutants can also harm fish and other aquatic life.

Air Pollution and the Economy

The health, environmental, and economic impacts of air pollution are significant. Each day, air pollution causes thousands of illnesses leading to lost days at work and school. Air pollution also reduces agricultural crop and commercial forest yields by billions of dollars each year.

This is a martial art of Peace that develops in us an acute awareness of our surrounding environment, the ability to be calm, focused, relaxed and centred. Millions of Aikido practitioners around the World experience the positive benefits of... Aikido - The Way of Harmony

Here we turn the spotlight on how to truly attack and defend without the interference of ego, by putting it aside.

Aikido students and instructors should not compete with each other. Competition comes from the animal drive to be superior to others by beating them. It often feels good when you beat someone else, until you realise that such a feeling is merely one of petty conceit and ego.

In Aikido we train to put the ego aside and rise above our animal mentality. We aim to be better today than we were yesterday, to improve ourselves. We don't train to try and appear better than others by putting other people down. The aim should be to escape our built-in animal instincts (lower self), and become truly human (higher self).

Competition is merely ego returning to animal behaviour, much the way animals behave when fighting over food, but we do it for attention instead. Training and living from your higher self is to cooperate and help other people for mutual benefit and advantage.

People born in the West, tend to be more competitive, and are brought up to believe that winning is good and losing is bad, such as in highly competitive sports that have far too much ego invested in the outcome.

This can be a major hurdle in Aikido training for people who are egotistic and self-centred as they may feel intimidated by senior students with a higher skill level. If people of this nature cannot put their ego aside and begin to train genuinely they will usually drop out of class.

Because of the flowing nature of Aikido, students should not resist the flow of the technique's movement. A beginner in Aikido will be able to advance much faster if they learn how to safely receive the techniques as soon as possible. This involves going with the movement and learning how to protect themselves and fall safely.

The egocentric, competitively natured person often wishes to achieve their little ego-victories by preventing their partner from throwing them. When a Teacher or senior student sees this happening they will attempt to explain why the technique must not be resisted. For in a real combat or self-defence situation, if someone resists then the movement flows into another technique. Or if the movement has been completely resisted we "relax" the attacker, by distracting them with a strike to a nerve centre.

During my many years as a student and instructor, I met many people who always had to resist and compete. That type of person often enjoys hurting other people, and many students try to avoid training with them.

If the Instructor is good, they will attempt to change this ego viewpoint through a variety of means. If unsuccessful they will then encourage the unwilling student to leave the Dojo (for the benefit of all). Of course I have met Instructors who turn a blind eye to the situation, regarding it as part of the learning process for everyone... this is unacceptable.

When pressure is put on people with too much ego and a resistant attitude, they tend to drop out of class fairly quickly. Many people are resistant to techniques in a more subtle way, and this is still the ego coming through from the subconscious mind.

Gradually after plenty of practise and experience in the art of Aikido it is possible to almost remove ego completely. This is an enlightening experience where training becomes easier, relaxed and more enjoyable.

Through continuous, regular training we learn to create positive new Habits. We are then more interested in the training experience of our fellow students, always trying to help improve each others skills. This takes our training to a higher level, where we can develop fast, as there are no rocks and boulders of resistance on the path to self-discovery.

In this way we learn to self-analyse and change our own bad habits and adopt better ways of doing things. This is one of the major ways to separate animals from human beings. Bad habits can be broken and replaced with good habits, through focused practise. If we can solve the ego problem in an intelligent way we will become happier people.

When we first come to Aikido we learn a whole new way of doing things. We kneel and bow at the beginning and end of class to remind ourselves that the aim is to respect all of life and remove ego. We must be empty-minded with no expectations of how it will go.

We should aim to reduce verbal communication and learn with our body so that techniques can flow naturally from within ourselves. We have to teach our bodies new ways of moving and learn to extend Ki energy instead of relying solely on muscular strength.

We also learn new ways of learning by watching and listening with focus and intent so that not only do we see the techniques being demonstrated, but also feel how to do them within ourselves.

Aikido is as infinite as the vastness of space and as in-depth as the studies of human behaviour and interpersonal relationships. It includes ways for us to become better people and the potential for making the world a better place.

There is a big difference in knowing the path and actually walking it...

We know pain is a way to cause growth and learning in Aikido. It also directly encourages us to move away from it, but can also cause ego resistance.

If we can learn to accept the pain and move instantly away from it then it is very brief, and useful for learning. If we do not adjust to pain immediately it causes resistance in us... ego then shows its ugly head.

So out of suffering comes relief and answers, but the learning process can slow down, as we can get used to experiencing pain as a certain buzz of discomfort. This will slow us right down on our path, so try to avoid it.

Complaining about our circumstances is just an ego outlet that feeds the majority of people. You may catch yourself doing it and even attempting to justify it when you do.

Fear and ego can create jealousy, hate, inferiority complex, worry, etc. Just as love is the cure, fear is what entangles us. Love is acceptance of ourselves first and foremost, so we can reach out and love others.

How can we love others if we inwardly dislike or even hate ourselves. The root problem is fear which drags us down, as mentioned, and the solution is love. So, we must continue to watch ourselves, but not judge, so we can reflect on the choices we make in life and Aikido.

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In the coming weeks... 'Aikido Ukemi - Giving and Receiving Energy' We turn the spotlight on the essential ingredients for You to become a successful Uke - a receiver of energy and technique.

Subjects include... The Role of Aikido Uke, The Role of Aikido Nage, Removing Ego from Your Aikido Training, Ukemi Lessons in Daily Life, Aikido Harmony and Balance, Summary of Ukemi - Giving and Receiving.

Coming soon... The Ultimate Aikido Success Blueprint' We will be focusing on the BEST ways for You to fast-track your Aikido skills towards self-mastery. You will learn how to achieve Your peak performance levels. Positive and Negative Energy, Tune in to Ki Universal Energy,

Peace & Harmony

Tony Wilden - Aikido Instructor/Healer
Aikido Health Centre
Harmony Ezine & Ebooks
Arun Aikido Club 1992-2007
www.aikido-health.com/index

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Tony Wilden is an Aikido Instructor and qualified in several Healing Arts.
He has a deep interest in spiritual matters, optimum health, environmental issues, and the creation of harmony between people and nature. Tony is on a path to wisdom, freedom and power and shares his insights on aikido, health, universal principles, ancient knowledge and master strategies.