How aikido helps me at work
Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead.
—- Morihei Ueshiba
I started studying aikido about 12 years ago, shortly after I moved to San Francisco. I had no idea how much I would enjoy it, or how much it would change my life.
I didn’t know what it was when I first started, but the translation I like the best is “Path of Life Harmony.”
To call aikido a soft, defensive, Japanese martial art is an oversimplification based on mechanics. It’s extremely difficult to describe in words, since it’s an energetic art form, a philosophy, and a spiritual practice, as well as a practical one.
Experiencing it is the best way to understand what it is, and as with yoga, understanding can take years.
It teaches and requires an open mind, a settled heart, a wide vision, and a calm grounding.
Perhaps most importantly, it teaches connection. While yoga is a path to connecting with the self, aikido is a path to connecting with other people, which both requires and deepens one’s connection with the self.
There are no contests in the Art of Peace. A true warrior is invincible because he or she contests with nothing. Defeat means to defeat the mind of contention that we harbor within. — Morihei Ueshiba
Unlike offensive martial arts, in aikido we always view the attacker as misguided, and seek to defuse the conflict without injuring them, if possible.
So the first thing we learn is to try to see the other person’s perspective.
This is done before trying to use any ‘martial’ techniques. We look where the other person is looking, literally, and we try to feel where their energy is directed.
This is the most important piece. Every partner is different. But if this part is done correctly, the conflict ends before it begins.
We also have to remember that sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. One of the most important skills we have to learn in aikido, as in life, is to get out of our own way.
A mind to serve for the peace of all human beings in the world is needed in Aikido, and not the mind of one who wishes to be strong or who practices only to fell an opponent.
—- Morihei Ueshiba
If the person continues trying to attack us, we seek to change the direction of their energy.
The power of aikido is exactly proportional to the energy the opponent brings into the conflict, which is why it works for small people, like myself. It doesn’t depend on muscular strength. It depends on timing and listening, where we’re listening with all our senses.
If I made this sound a bit mystical, it is.
If I made this sound easy, it’s not.
The aspects of aikido that are the hardest to learn are the most deceptively simple, and require sensitivity and resilience that can take years to develop. They’re also the most widely applicable off the mat.
Here are the top three concepts I try to apply every day as an engineer and manager.
- Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something. —- Morihei Ueshiba
“Fail fast” is a common adage in engineering and scientific research, meaning: if something isn’t going to work, it’s better to find that out sooner than later. It’s essential to get comfortable with failure when we learn anything new, and in research, we’re always learning something new.
With that mindset, then, as leaders it’s our job to make everyone feel safe enough to fail, and share those failures, so we can all learn from them.
Off the mat, talking about our failures, and demonstrating that we feel safe being vulnerable, can help build trust with everyone we meet.
In aikido, we fall down all the time. Most of the time, falling on the mat is safer than trying to resist being thrown, or pinned. This may seem counterintuitive, but if you fall safely, you can always get back up.
Failing fast in engineering is similar, since it’s less costly to fail sooner, before you’ve invested a lot of time, money, and effort in building something that isn’t going to work.
- Simplicity is the most powerful.
At the beginning of learning anything new, we all try too hard. We think too much, we’re stiff and resistant, we overcomplicate everything, and we try to muscle our way through.
As we gain experience through practice and failure, we learn to strip out all the unnecessary effort, and become more efficient in our actions.
Complicated solutions aren’t necessarily better or worse than simple ones. But the most elegant, simplest things can be deceptively hard to get right.
It’s true for writing, and code, and martial arts, and business impact.
- Always go back to Beginner’s Mind
Shoshin is a concept from Zen Buddhism meaning beginner’s mind. It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner would. —- Wikipedia
I always try to maintain a beginner’s mind. I ask questions. I question my own assumptions. And I try to encourage the same from everyone on my team. In order for us all to continue to learn, we have to support each other on the journey.