So much for staying active 
I just saw that my last post was from the 30th of January 
Life is good with it’s ups and downs :p started to be nicer to some people and I’ve found that for instance the Aikido practice has improved so that’s nice, but it could also be the sun that has started to shine again and the coming of spring.
Got to go now, need to finish my 3rd assignment.
Sayonara
In the last two weeks I’ve been getting all sorts of things in my face. Include fist (just while practicing Aikido :p), stike shields, pens but more importantly feedback. Not in a regular way like when somebody gives you verbal feedback but my actions, when shed in a different light, where completely different from what I said.
It’s funny to see that when you’re open to look at yourself (and more importantly your actions) in a kind of 3rd person view, how different your actions are in according to what you preach.
This raises the question “Are there more of these kind of actions in which I preach and practice something completely different?”
This will take some time to figure out, and even more to change it but hey you should keep it interesting right
Sincerely,
Abraxay
Today something just hit me. No it was not a car or a ball but “just” a thought. I’ve been trying to get myself to do things like training more at home, trying to read up at Ashla Knights, spending more time at doing things that I feel are more necessary. Over the past half a year I wasn’t able to motivate myself, or just do things and improve myself the way I want to be. Or at least starting down that road.
Suddenly just after the start of the new year I just went for it. I found some methods to make sure I did what I wanted myself to do and started. Now being approximately 23 days further I’ve found that I’m still doing everything I started doing at the start. This made me wonder, why was I able to do this now when in 3 years and multiple attempts I wasn’t. Maybe it was the post at Ashla Knights about the brain needing 21 days to rewire and to make it a routine. But this can’t be the only reason. There must be some other motivation that makes sure I improve by maintaining my workout.
While I’m not completely sure now but I do have some possible motivators. In the last couple of weeks I’ve made some decisions which gave me some ease of mind and made me want to train harder in order to protect that special someone.
Oke so we found my motivator. Well not quit yet since my Aikido training has thought me that if you want to progress fast the best thing to do is taking it easy and just experience it, not forcing it. So forcing to train doesn’t make me progress faster, then why do I feel like I progressed quit a bit? This is the part of which I can’t explain but just feel it is right. It is Love. I think that by expressing my love, at least accepting it, I’ve been able to come to terms with what is now and accept what the situation is right now.
Of course this needs some more time to examen but hey it’s a good start. So the next question is what is this love and how does it connect and grows.
Sincerely,
Abraxay
edit: as Master Thompson kindly addressed the link to the January newsletter.
It was a bit of a busy half a year since I started here. First my internship in which I had the opportunity to develop some sort of guide lines for Serious Games for dementia. Also the training for my 2nd kyu exam, which I passed last sunday . I now have the honor of wearing a hakama, a Japanese sort of long skirt . I’ve been told that I look great in it but it takes a while to get used to. Also the Aikido-Ando board is taking up much of my time, but it ain’t bad since I love to do it.
Furthermore as I told in one of the comments I finally got my iPhone4 with the wordpress app so hopefully I can blog some more in the dead hours while riding the train, bus or the back seat
I also took the liberty to update the book list with some more Aikido books.
So from now on expect more post and I’ll be waiting for your comments!
Sincerely,
Abraxay
Here I will post the books that I’ve read so far. I will update this list every once and a while.
I’m recording these books so I can later see the flow of my interest.
-Shaolin Workout;
-The book of five spheres ;
-Zen;
-Oriental Wisdom;
-A small introduction with Buddhism;
-Spiritual symbols, people and mysteries(1/3);
-Basic book of Chinese Medicine(1/3);
-Japanese Tales(1/3);
-Edda (1/3);
-Ultimate Flexibility;
-Even Monkeys fall from Trees;
-A Life in Aikido;
-Aikido and the Dynamical Sphere (1/3);
-The Art of Peace;
-In the Dojo;
-Aikido Exercises (1/3);
-The Secret Teachings of Aikido (1/5);
-A Life in Aikido;
-The Secret Teachings of Aikido (1/3);
-Shinto, Simple Guides;
-The Secret Teachings of Aikido;
-The Essence of Shinto;
-Freemasons for Dummies;
-The Heart of Aikido;
-A Theory of Fun;
-The Spiritual Teachings of Aikido;
-Aikido, Exercises for Teaching and Training;
-
The last couple of days for some reason I wasn’t feeling 100%, energy wasn’t able to flow the way it used to. I still don’t know the reason for this but I didn’t like the feeling. It felt unnatural.
While I was walking to school to take my last test of this year I thought about how poorly I had studied for the test and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to pass it. This happened because yesterday I wasn’t 100% either. Yesterday I tried doing some physical exercises, some meditation, resting and other things of that kind, to get the energy to flow and get my thoughts straight to study. Nothing helped really and I wasn’t able to focus on the test. So there I was walking to school when suddenly a mother with a child on her arm (the child wasn’t much older than two years old) left her home and walked to her car. The child looked at me and smiled and waved her hands at me. Out of habit I waved back at her, but suddenly it hit me. I saw the unconditional love radiating from her. It reminded me to just love! And as it hit me I started to feel the energy starting to flow again, nature came back to life in front of my eyes.
I owe many thanks to that little girl, and for those who ware wondering how I did on the test, well I haven’t got the results yet but I think I did great
Abraxay
Well all of you know the Jedi from the Star Wars movies, right? We all remember the Jedi as warrior monks waving around with there lightsabers and using the Force to let things fly all around the chamber.
And although I like the Star Wars movies a lot, this isn’t realistic, is it? First of all we don’t have the technology to create lightsabers. And secondly from my point of view letting things fly around the chamber with only your mind as far as I know hasn’t been achieved as well. But what the Jedi from the movies teach us is to look for ourselves to find something that we (you) believe is right.
This brings me to explain what I believe is the Jedi way. For me the Jedi way is to be able to search for the truth. But what is it this truth. Well I believe there is a common truth that is the same for everybody. But how is it possible that everybody is so different and why does everybody tell you that he/she knows the truth and the are so very different from each other? Well everybody interprets this truth differently, at least if you spend enough time searching for it, since nothing comes without a price. It’s the same a seeing a ball in a room. For everybody this ball is the same, it is round, it is red. But to many different people it means different things. One person might use the ball to play football, while another might use it to play basketball or volleyball. I think that’s because everybody interprets it different it they express it differently. Although it might seem different it’s essence, the round-red-ball, is still the same.
By (re)searching these different people I think you are able to discover the truth, since the essence is the same. I think that when you’re teaching you shouldn’t tell people how to do something, it’s better to show them why it works. Just like math, when you’re doing math you don’t just do the formula, instead you know how the formula works and use it to dissolve the problem.
So in order to find the truth we must (re)search different religions and philosophies. They teach us the essence.
You might ask now you know this, but why do call yourself Jedi then? Well, first of all the Jedi from the movies and books provided a basis from which I started discovering spirituality. Second they inspire me to train harder. Third I made many friends and learned a great many things from others who call (or called) themselves Jedi, most of there views where the same as mine.
On last thing, depending on the person I’m talking to I might say that I’m following the Jeroendo (Jeroen is my name and do means “the way” in Japanese. So it basically says The Way of Jeroen, or in other words my way), this is because the term Jedi is almost always “confused” with the Jedi in the movies. People think that I’m just role-playing or something which isn’t the case. This is the same for “The Force”. I might call it Kami (Japanese for Spirit, Divine or God) or just Life Force Energy. The Force generally sounds fantasy and results in people not taking me serious.
This is my view on being Jedi. If you have any questions regarding my view, feel free to ask away!
Sincerely,
Abraxay
Now that you know something about me it’s time to explain to you why I started this blog.
Well the main reason for starting blogging was to gather up my thoughts that occur to me throughout the day, in this way I can write them down a and make them more solid.
The second reason is because in this way I get to share my thoughts with the world and more importantly get some feedback from you. Also I would like to get your point of view about the subject. So I would like to invite you all to start commenting on the subjects!
The third reason is to make some sort of thought journal so I can see for instance in about a year what I was thinking a year ago and see the progress I’ve made
You might find that the subjects are kind of diverse. One day I might be talking about what it means to be a Jedi while the other day it might be about something in the news which got my attention. The next day it might be about walking and getting forward. I get my inspiration for the subjects from everything around me, this changes from time to time throughout the day and so will the subjects.
Now that you know my reasons for starting to blog, I can start by explaining to you why I call myself a Jedi and what it means to me.
See you next time,
Abraxay
Well, I would like to welcome you to my new blog!
First let me introduce myself.
I’m Abraxay I live in the Netherlands, I’m 20 years old and I’ve been a member of the Ashla Knights communitie for over three years. I first enrolled in the old academy where I became a Padawan. After the site went down I kept (re)searching religions, etc. (more on this shortly) after the site came back on I immediately enrolled in the new academy. After reading in the academy and on the forum for a few days I got distracted and wasn’t as active on the forum as I would have liked to be. Now I have made a second start, and are currently busy with catching up on all the topics and posts.
Well that is my Ashla history. Well for the “real world” I’m a student attending a University College (I believe that’s what it’s called in the US), I attend the Human Care Technology course. Which is very diverse. It basically teaches us to translate demands of a client/patient/doctor/etc. to technical demands with which a technician can make for instance an aidto help the client/patient. Let’s say a doctor want’s an aid to help the patient walk better, a technician can’t do anything with that information. He only knows how to build stuff. It’s my job to translate those demands into actual technical demands with which the technician is able to make for instance a special type of walking stick. When I finish this course I’d like to get a job which involves Serious Gaming. Serious Games are games that are designed to help or improve a patient/client/user with for instance rehabilitation. I think that through games that are enjoyable people are easier to persuade to get active, you could also make a game that is designed as a sort of work-out in which is linked with some kind of tv series. It’s still a young branch and not widely used but I hope to make a difference in that!
As for other hobbies. I practice Aikido in which I held a 3th kyu rank. My teachers are Edo and Anne Slui (there teacher is Donovan Waite Shihan, his teacher is Yoshimitsu Yamada Shihan and his teacher was O’Sensei Morihei Ueshiba himself!). I’ve been training in Aikido for about years now in that time I’ve started to help the Aikido Organisation. I’m a member of the board. I also just recently I started learning the guitar and I always enjoy a good computer game or two.
I hope you will enjoy this blog!
See you next time,
Abraxay