Today's Schedule:

7:45-8:45am Iaido

9:00-10:00am Children's Class

10:15-11:15am Aikido

Next weekend: Clean-up!

Many thanks to Michael Hatfield for the beautiful carpet which we will use for our Welcome Party & Book Signing. Michael has donated the carpet to the dojo permanently.

Also, many thanks to Brett Rushworth for the morning glories for the dojo fence.

July 9 - Lotus Festival!

Seminar on July 15-16! Don't forget!

Join our Yahoo group for Sensei's Daily Message and current dojo information and discussions.

See The Whole Art:

Today, we like to specialize and see things only as they serve our purpose. It is common to hear about martial arts being divided into many different catagories of martial arts "for health," or martial arts "for exercise," or "for philsophy," or for sports, entertainment, to become a movie actor, or to become rich and famous and on and on. . . . . Of course, this is a sign of the times and how most people perceive martial arts and I think that everyone can see this purpose obviously. However, I must say that it is the incorrect view of martial arts, as much as all of us can be accused of doing it.

It is not true martial arts to only pick and choose the parts we like which will serve our purpose. Using martial arts for "seflish" reasons as a "tool" for our own personal advancement is not the true view of martial arts. We must absorb ourselves into the entire art in order to understand it. Why? Because martial arts is Do, or the Way. The Way cannot be used in such a trivial or personal way but it is up to us to throw ourselves into our practice 100% in order to perceive it. Today, we do not know what is this 100%. We are only 20% here, and 5% there and we give this 11% or that 43% and on and on. . . . This is how we fracture our lives and divide our spirit so that we can never see anything as 100%. In such a divided world we create for ourselves, we ourselves become divided and partial.

In the Way and in the pursuit of the Way as in Aikido, it is to become a 100% person with a 100% spirit. This is a fundamental theme in all practice and discipline.