About this item
Highlights
- "This book is a warmhearted handshake, a graceful and practical invitation to enter and blend with the ahhh of the world.
- About the Author: GEORGE LEONARD was a writer, editor, and educator, who introduced Leonard Energy Training (LET), a practice for centering the mind, body, and spirit, to more than 50,000 people in the United States and abroad.
- 224 Pages
- Sports + Recreation, Martial Arts & Self-Defense
Description
About the Book
A fifth-degree black belt in the revolutionary martial art of aikido applies ancient techniques, physical and spiritual, to the battles we wage every day in both our public and private lives.Book Synopsis
"This book is a warmhearted handshake, a graceful and practical invitation to enter and blend with the ahhh of the world. It is as natural and wise an introduction to the spirit of the martial arts as you can find on paper."--Jack Kornfield, bestselling author of A Path with Heart
In his bestselling Mastery, renowned spiritual and martial arts teacher George Leonard taught hundreds of thousands of people how to use Zen philosophy to reach mastery in any field. Now, he brings together his extraordinary knowledge and experience into a book that translates the principles of aikido directly into our everyday lives.
From the Back Cover
In The Way of Aikido: Life Lessons from an American Sensei, renowned spiritual and martial arts teacher George Leonard brings together his extraordinary knowledge and experience in a book that translates the principles of aikido directly into our everyday lives.In its essence, aikido is more philosophy and meditation than a technique or a series of purely physical maneuvers. Leonard shares with readers the secrets of this remarkable Eastern philosophy, which is the basis for the most radical and demanding of all martial arts. Through mind-body exercises inspired by aikido yet designed for non-aikidoists, he demonstrates the fundamental understanding behind aikido and shows how it can be applied to our daily existence to help set us on the path to composure, self-sufficiency, and spiritual centeredness.
Combining illuminating personal anecdotes with practical advice, this award-winning author describes the ways in which aikido can help turn life's unanticipated blows into gifts and transform discord into harmony, anxiety and pain into vital energy. Exhilarating, enlightening, and filled with unique wisdom, The Way of Aikido is an inspiring lesson in balance, confidence, and power.
Review Quotes
"George Leonard is a remarkable man who embodies what he teaches: an amazing curiosity, a passionate intelligence, and the rare combination of someone who has both a broad vision and the focus mastery of details. An extraordinary book, uniting the mystical and practical, the one and the many, with new possibilities that capture the imagination. It is compassion in action."--Dean Ornish, M.D., bestselling author of Love & Survival and Dr. Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease "Leonard lays out the spiritual benefits gained by practicing the Japanese art of Aikido, which he describes as protecting both the defender and the attacker. And he presents these benefits in a way that anyone can incorporate into their lives to achieve spiritual equilibrium... Leonard breathes new life into concepts as familiar as chop-socky film clichés... Leonard urges his readers, martial artists and otherwise, to apply the principles of blending and centeredness to everyday life. Simple experiments demonstrate the power a change in mental focus can provide."--Gregory Harris, BookPage "Blending colorful anecdotes with thoughtful philosophizing, Leonard has created the essential guide to this unique martial art... a philosophical gem."--Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality & Practice "This book is a warmhearted handshake, a graceful and practical invitation to enter and blend with the ahhh of the world. It is as natural and wise an introduction to the spirit of the martial arts as you can find on paper."--Jack Kornfield, bestselling author of A Path with Heart "A classic statement of aikido's philosophy and its translation to everyday activities. This book will take its place among the great and lasting works about the marital arts in relation to life. "The Way of Aikido does no less than open the door to the universe and invite you through to become one with it, to become balanced, powerful, energetic, alert, and present."--Susan Trott, author of The Holy Man and Crane Spreads Wings "A classic statement of aikido's philosophy and its translation to everyday activities. This book will take its place among the great and lasting works about the martial arts in relation to life."--Michael Murphy, author of Golf in the Kingdom and The Future of the Body "A lively and intimate account of the way in which a martial art became a path of life."--Sam Keen, author of Fire in the Belly and Hymns to an Unknown God
About the Author
GEORGE LEONARD was a writer, editor, and educator, who introduced Leonard Energy Training (LET), a practice for centering the mind, body, and spirit, to more than 50,000 people in the United States and abroad. He was the author of a number of books on human possibilities and social change, as well as President Emeritus of the Esalen Institute, President of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and President of ITP International. He died in 2010.