We had a really cool meditation class last night that I thought really captured the kind of magical but practical topics we cover.

It's a "week 5" at the Boulder Quest Center this week, a bonus time that rolls around when the calendar lines up the right way. Unlike our normal clear 4-week curriculum for each month, week 5 is open to suggestions and explorations, so we often take ideas from students about what they'd like to check out this week.

In meditation class, one of the students asked me how to keep from laughing at inappropriate but high-energy times. We've probably all experienced this - the situation isn't really funny, as such, but there is so much nervous or social energy that it comes out as laughter. The poorly timed laughter can weaken a negotiation position, offend a friend or lover, or scatter a powerful moment of inspiration.

Of course, in general, we want there to be more laughter in the world. Controlling the energies which rise up as laughter is a tactical tool, not a personal policy. We always want to be able to express the joy of laughter.

But what if we needed that control? How would we develop it in order to channel powerful energies-of-the-moment into power, inspiration, or connection?

Here's an exercise you can try at home. Find a very good friend and explain the exercise first so they're not confused by you. You'll sit across from them in a meditation posture and relax, but make eye contact. They'll tell you some brief story about their day, and you'll simply sit relaxed and focused, but with no facial expressions or verbal expressions.

Once you're good at that, let your friend try to make you laugh. They can make funny faces, do silly things, or simply give you their most genuine warm smile. It will be very, very hard for you to resist all of your genetic and social reflexes to respond to a smile from a friend with a relaxed, non-expressive face.

Again, this is just a practice to channel that energy ... there is no suggestion here that you should stop returning smiles as a general habit. You also might be tempted to counter the urge to smile by disconnecting from the other person, or thinking of something dark and unpleasant to bring you back down. Don't. Stay in the moment, enjoy their smile in your heart and mind, but just absorb it without the need to return it.

There's one last trick. When the inner energy starts to become overwhelming, you can imagine it like a burning fire or a star inside of you. Visualize all that intense inner energy radiating out of your body from every pore, in every direction. This is how you reply to their smile or their silliness - a calm, relaxed demeanor, a mind rooted in the moment, and an intense radiant personal energy. Watch for the effect it has on them - they will feel it even if you don't give anything away by face or voice. They may not even realize that they are feeling it, but their behavior will adjust.

And then let it go. Laugh out loud, be silly back at them, shake your hands out, and remember that 90% of the time, laughter is meant to be released into the world. You have explored one more possible tool for personal power and significance in life.

Live well!

A friend came to visit the dojo recently and asked how things were going. I said, "Great! I'm bursting with ideas, inspiration, and enthusiasm! I can't find time to do it all!" She seemed a little shocked, considering the crashing global economy, an endless and bitterly divided presidential election season, and the multi-year global backdrop of terrorism, war, and poverty.

The economy especially is what we are told to worry about most right now. It used to be terrorists, but now it's the economy. I get it - I'm actually very interested in economics and nearly majored in it in college. The economy is clearly contracting at the moment, whether we technically call it a recession or depression or credit crisis.

However, the idea that the economy must expand forever, and that my personal happiness is tied to that perma-expansion, is ridiculous. For one thing, nothing expands forever. Aside from that necessary truth, the economy of the United States is so huge that there is more than enough room for any given person to succeed under any conditions. A global economic contraction means a whole lot of change - change means energy - and energy can be put to good use. To me, it's about recognizing changing conditions and using intelligence to fit in with those conditions.

On top of that, my personal financial happiness is best measured in terms of my money-related power and freedom, not absolute dollars. The way money turns into power and freedom is complex - certainly the amount of money available is a factor, but the value of money (ie. inflation) is another factor. Even more than that, one's positioning to take advantage of opportunities vastly impacts how much money it takes to get certain things done. Consider how much money it takes to "have a good time" on a given afternoon - it really depends on circumstance, company, and attitude. When you remember that the point of acquiring money is happiness via freedom and power, the equation gets enough variables that a contracting global economy is just a backdrop to your personal story.

More should be said about "positioning to take advantage of opportunities", and our ninja tradition is precisely the distillation of this wisdom. If you're intrigued by how a ninja perspective of life creates more awareness of positioning, which translates into tremendous leverage in all circumstances, then you're getting a taste of potential of our lineage. We need it now more than ever to live brightly in what most would call dark times.

I just wanted to share that we've got a number of exciting things going on here at the dojo. Our new graduation nights will be a blast and we've got several new ideas to roll out in the next few months. We're also going to put together a lot more videos on our webpage so you can see just how great this experience is - I've got plans for class snippets, featured students, and highlights from testing and seminars. There is so much we can do with this new website design.

I've also got a couple of things happening outside the dojo that inspire me in the dojo - the truth is, nothing is unrelated to my To-Shin practice. A partner and I are launching a bold new venture to redefine the Internet - I'll share more about that in a few months. We also got our first snowboarding in for the season at Loveland last weekend - nothing like flying down snow to remind me of the grace that good taijutsu allows.

I hope you've all received your evite to our graduation this Friday (Halloween). If you haven't received it, it's either in your spam or we don't have your correct email. For more on BQC's Halloween festivities, please check out Jenn Zuko Bough's awesome blog, Daily Cross-Swords. http://bonzuko.blogspot.com/2008/10/week-5.html

~Mary Aitoshi

Labels: Boulder Halloween Graduation, Jenn Zuko Boughn

This Halloween marks Boulder Quest's first Friday night graduation. I've been so gratified to hear all the excitment building around these Friday night tests. Plans are in the works to make graduations even more fun with Belly Dance and Stage Combat demos, group meditations, and demos from selected students. We are also adding a potluck and an opportunity for groups of students to self-organize to take advantage of the different options at Uptown (especially 4580 Restaurant whose bar and restauant are great places to gather)!

For Halloween, you are invited to come to graduation in costume. Look in your inbox for an evite so you can sign up for our Halloween Potluck or come early to help me decorate the dojo! We'll also have a costume contest and bobbing for apples.

Every month, we'll have something new at Graduation and we need you to bring your friends and family to help make the dojo the Place to Be!

~Mary Aitoshi

Labels: Bobbing for Apples, Boulder, Costume, Halloween, Place to Be, Quest

Festival 2008 was a blast! I always look forward to the awesome teaching and the chance to hang out with old friends but this year felt special. I've been thinking about it--trying to figure out what made this Festival so different from previous years. Was I more comfortable with myself? (Probably). Was I more skilled? (Thankfully). Was I happier than last year? (I hope so). Did I have more reasons to need to connect? (Sadly).

So even though I can't point to a single reason why this Festival is the best one yet, I have decided that Festival will be my personal New Year event. Rather than assess the year and making resolutions that I forget by February, I'll use Festival as my barometer for gauging mental & physical health plus evaluating my ability to bring my goals to fruition.

Where was I last year...the dojo only had 70 students, now we are at 125. I plan to double our school in the next 6 months and I'm excited about our positioning in the community. Last year, I was still in shock from the death of my father, which happened less than a month previously. Last year, I was trying to get the bare bones of my new kata and now I'm starting to have better mind/body coordination. Next year, we'll have 300+ students and I'll be looking to refine the kata lessons and make them my own. Maybe I should also arrange voice lessons...

~Mary Aitoshi

Boulder Quest students have returned from Fall Festival! We were a somewhat smaller group this year - just Mary Aitoshi, Thomas Luce, Robert Burrow, and myself. Thomas and I discussed on the plane ride back how a person might not realize the value of Festival if they are in their first few years of training, but how he has come to recognize the critical role the experience plays in inspiration, motivation, and our sense of the global To-Shin community. I agree. Ask him about his Festival story when you get a chance... here's mine.

I had the archtypical Zen satori moment on the first technique of the trip. Celebrating An-Shu Hayes' kanreki 60th year, and starting my own 11th year of training in To-Shin Do, I was relaxed but excited to stand among my peers and seniors at the Friday afternoon black belt training. While describing our protector lineage, and how we might embody a protector's movement from day one in our training, Mr. Hayes reached out with a standard cross-punch in the air.

I reached out with my own right cross-punch, but as I did so, I somehow became aware of my center in a new way. I felt myself float forward freely and effortlessly, perfectly balanced over my hips, and all at once I was reminded of snowboarding, falling, swimming, and flying. I felt a deeper grace than I had experienced before, and I felt the joy of those unusual sports memories of perfected balance and grace -- those memories that motivate me to continue snowboarding in hopes of feeling that again for just a few seconds.

I also felt radically disoriented because of the excellent balance, unable to tell up from down, left from right, or how much power I was generating. The sense of effortless flight-like movement was so complete that I couldn't feel myself pushing or straining in even the slightest way, which meant I couldn't tell where I was in my usual way. I felt like a cross-punch was doing me, rather than me doing a cross-punch. I noticed a sense of fear somewhere in that loss of control, and I smiled as endured the fear because I knew that I was among friends and that I couldn't be harmed in this simple movement that I had repeated tens of thousands of times.

I then realized, still in that fraction of a second, that every activity, adventure, sport and freedom I pursue is an attempt to capture that feeling of perfected accomplishment... and yet every fear I harbor and every error I commit is a manifestation of that desire to find myself in the world by bumping up against the world and resisting it a little bit. The resistance is reassuring - the pushback lets me know where I am, and so, even though I desire effortless freedom and power at one level, it terrifies me.

And I knew right then and there that I could learn to let that go, and just be effortless freedom and power, some day.

My whole life and personality distilled down into realization and inspiration, in a so-called ordinary cross punch after 11 years of punching and so many more exotic techniques. Shikin Haramitsu Daikomyo! I laughed out loud because it was such a Zen fairy tale, but it was absolutely true, and I carried that insight with me through the rest of the Festival. I had my value for that trip right there in the first 30 seconds on the mat, and there was so much more over the minutes, hours, and days to come.

May your training be auspicious, and may you find what you are seeking!

Kevin Keitoshi

I'm at the dojo, preparing for my first call with my Biz Coach. I'd been thinking in the past few months that a coach might be able to help me organize my thoughts to take the dojo to its next level. But...I wasn't really sure I was ready to make the financial investment. Every decision I make these days goes through the filter, "How many students will this bring me?" I wasn't sure and so I put that desire to a back-burner. Then I heard about my award and included in my package was 1 year of coaching!

Our industry has lots of conferences and I was thinking about going to one recently. My teacher, Stephen K. Hayes, was one of the featured speakers so I knew there would be valuable content. I was distressed, however, by the lack of professionalism in the sponsoring organization. When I heard that my friend would be visiting during the dates of the seminar, I put that on the back burner and decided to look for other opportunities to connect with businesses owners like myself. Then I heard about my award and it included a travel stipend to Charlotte for a conference and conference tuition for the Charlotte and the Fort Lauderdale events!

We don't have a bulk store here in Boulder and I was trying to decide if it was worth driving to Louisville for Sam's Club or Costco. The rising cost of gas and the slight membership fee made me question if was the best use of my time and money. And then I heard about my award and it included a business membership to Sam's Club. I activated the membership yesterday and bought a new video camera and saved $100 on my selected model!

As part of our martial tradition, there is a mind tradition: a collection of secrets and teachings about accessing your full potential. One of these secrets is the power of manifestation. When I saw the email announcing that the Sam's Club applications were available, I jumped on it. When I ran into technical difficulties, I called the Count Me In offices (twice actually). I was inspired by the process of completing the application, and I won! Thank you to Count Me In and Sam's Club for creating this opportunity for my manifestation.

Mary Aitoshi

Labels: Count Me In, entrepreneur, manifestation, martial arts, mind science, To-Shin Do