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HEALING THROUGH MARTIAL ARTS

The stream of life led me to Tokyo for studying martial arts. Never I had studied martial arts before. I went to Tokyo, by chance. So I came across a very powerful martial Art called “Shintaido”.

This martial art is not well known, but I assure you it is very effective.

Today the goal of martial arts is not that of fighting, but of forming the person. The martial arts in which I have experience include Shintaido and Aikido. I practiced Shintaido in Tokyo and Aikido in my town when I came back from Tokyo. The former opened my heart, the latter opened my mind. Why are these two martial arts so effective? Because they are Holistic disciplines. According to the holistic conception, mind and body are linked. So the body affects the mind and vice versa. If you have a stiff body, you cannot have a quiet mind. Vice versa: if your mind is distracted, suffering, tense, your body will also be tense. When I was studying holistic disciplines and Thai massage in Thailand, I met an English man who aimed to make in England a massage center for healing mental diseases, through massage.

The exercises of Shintaido help to open your heart and your whole body. Many exercises are performed letting out a big shout and through this shout you let go out all your negative energy. Through the shout you get new energy. Also in Western tradition there is something like that. In the Iliad, Homer tells about the invincible Achilles who before moving against his enemy used to utter a shout so powerful that his enemies fled on hearing it.

Through Shintaido, I learned that what most matters in our life is the energy which each one owns. If you have inner energy you can cope with whatever situation in your life. Your posture affects your mind, your thought, your way of living. Getting used to have an upright posture with open chest, is very important for opening your mind and your heart.

Once I was member of an esoteric association and also of a Catholic movement called neocatecumenale. In both meetings we were told to not cross our legs, because crossing our legs we assume a closing position and also our mind is affected and the energy cannot circulate well. Also if we look at the traditional meditation position, we’ll see that legs are very wide open, the spine is upright. So for the circulation of inner energy and the opening of the mind. In daily life, if you look at a shy person, you will see that he or she tends to have stooping shoulders. The bold and strong person assume an upright position with open chest. His mind affects his body and vice versa. So the physical activity, for having healthy and strong body is very important for our mind and our spiritual quest as well. Romans used to say: “mens sana in corpore sano” which translated means “ healthy body in healthy mind”.
Also Aikido is a very important martial art. Attending to Aikido I learned some important teachings which I apply also in my life:
1)There are some exercises in Aikido, you cannot perform if you look at the opponent. “ Don’t look at your opponent! Otherwise he will eat your soul!” Our teacher used to say. I apply this teaching to my life. Whenever I have to act, to perform an action, to live my life, I don’t look at the other people’s opinion, what they might think or how they can judge me, neither I look at my opponents. I act without looking at the others, but I follow my heart, my mind.
2)There are exercises in Aikido where you have to act in the right moment, timely. If you act too late or too early, your opponent will win. This happens also in our daily life, sometimes we are too early or to late in our action. So we waste the opportunities of job, relationships, love and so on. Being timely, neither to early nor to late, with the appointments of the life is what I learned through Aikido.

My tagline is: fight for yourself and for others
I am Ettore Grillo from Enna, located in the center of Sicily, where I live. My website is www.ettoregrillo.com My blog is http://grilloaegauthorblogs.com
The book I have written is “Travels of the Mind”. It is available at http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/TravelsOfTheMind.html
Ettore Grillo, author of “Travels of the Mind”