Aikido

"Even the most powerful human being has a limited sphere of strength. Draw him outside of that sphere and into your own, and his strength will dissipate." - Ueshiba Morihei

"There are no contests in the Art of Peace. A true warrior is invincible because he or she contests with nothing. Defeat means to defeat the mind of contention that we harbor within." - Ueshiba Morihei

"Randori practise is something that is done to give life to the real power of those techniques that were learned through kata. That is to say, randori provides the power to complete a painted dragon by filling in the eyes." - Tomiki Kenji

"Budo mind and budo heart (kokoro) is budo mind and budo heart no matter where you're born. It doesn't matter whether you're male or female, race, color, etc. What matters is how determined you are to learn, which teacher you are learning from, and the peer group you practice with." - Miyake Tsunako

"Fast is slow, and slow is fast." - Karl Geis

By moving slowly, you don't trigger the subconscious alert system, which is keyed to sudden movement. In effect, you "fly under the radar" and are not perceived as a threat. Also, the muscles that go fast are the same as those that engage strength. So, you cannot be relaxed and fluid if you try to outrace your opponent.
[Eureka:]"The slower I go, the easier it is to match speeds." - Stephen Eaton.

"Aikido is not about winning; it's about surviving." - Henry Copeland

"Competitions are about winning. As soon as we try to win, we start to violate aikido principles. Winning causes us to try to exert our own will and force on the situation instead of responding to the situation. We begin to believe we can control what is going to happen next and that is a fatal flaw. Also, if we try to win, we may stay in the situation longer than we need to, and then it's just a matter of time before something on our end fails. Winning is about defeating an opponent; surviving is about making it out alive and reasonably intact. It's a totally different mindset." - Michael Denton

"You only like the techniques you're afraid of." - Henry Copeland

When you fear a technique, you make it magical in your own mind, and give it power over you. If you have a favorite technique, that you believe is unstoppable, it is because of your own fear of that technique, and you overlook its inherent weaknesses, both in applying it and escaping from it.
[Corollary:] "You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you." - Eric Hoffer

"There is a secret. But it is so simple as to be unbelievable. Its nature insists that you believe, that you have faith; otherwise you will fail. The secret is simply this: you must relax body and mind totally. You must be prepared to accept defeat repeatedly and for a long period; you must 'invest in loss' - otherwise you will never succeed.

"I succeeded to my present state because I pushed pride aside and believed my master's words. I relaxed my body and stilled my mind so that only ch'i, flowing at the command of my mind, remained. Initially, this brought many bruises and defeats. In fact, in some matches I was pushed so hard that I lost consciouness. But I persisted. I followed my teacher by listening to and heeding my ch'i. Gradually my technique improved. Then, and then only, did my responses sharpen so that neutralizing and countering were the work of a moment. My students either do not believe in this path, or, if they do, they do not pursue it eagerly enough." - Professor Cheng Man-Ch'ing, quoted by Robert W. Smith (1967)

"You have to give up control to get control." - Karl Geis

Jodo

Seek out the center (suigetsu) with a stick. - Jodo proverb

In the heart of the jo is an arrow. - Jodo proverb

If you have good kihon, you can do good kata, if not, you cannot. - Yamaguchi Mitsuri

There can only be one honte no kamae. - Karl Geis

Judo

"At the moment the body loses balance and the center of gravity is lost, all action is made impossible, for all our forceful actions are possible only in a stabilized posture. Therefore, if a contestant unbalances the opponent's posture at the instant the latter is about to start an attack, he can make it ineffectual and thus defend himself. Again, the ultimate result of breaking balance is to throw the opponent and hold him, and, thus getting him under control, to make the state of unbalance pemanent and conclusive. In short, breaking balance, throwing and holding form the technical system of Judo." - Tomiki Kenji

"Kuzushi is causing uke to make any action that he did not plan to make" - Moose

"This may be as great as a step or series of steps or as subtle as the raising of an eyebrow. It is the involuntary nature of the action that makes it kuzushi." - Nick Lowry

"Donn [Draeger] was a fifth dan in Tomiki Aikido. I once saw a video of him, and it was among the very best aikido I have ever seen--there was no moment where he did not have three points of body contact with his partner (this is the essence of effective grappling). This single viewing changed the way I have done, not only aikido, but every body-to-body martial art I have practiced." - Ellis Amdur, from "How To Do Justice To Memory", on koryubooks.com

"No use fooling myself any longer since contest training only leaves me with injuries that never heal. My speed is gone, mainly due to painful joints when I move. I think I told you that I have some arthritis trouble, knees, wrists, elbows. It just plain hurts to move fast." (Feb. 12, 1961)

"Judo is not the best at any age; more and more I see it as a method of self-destruction, at least as it is done today. I'm tempted to do an article on judo called "The Great Crippler." (Oct. 21, 1971)

"I'm about out of judo. As I look on my multitude of injuries, I see them all stemming from my association with judo. I don't want to batter myself any more. I must be getting old - but not soft in the head. I have better things to do now." (Nov. 4, 1972)

- Donn Draeger, letters to Robert Smith (www.realfighting.com). For more of those letters from Draeger to Smith, plus articles by Gunji Koizumi, E.J. Harrison, and Trevor Leggett, see ejmas.com.

General

"A reputation for a thousand years may depend upon the conduct of a single moment" - Ernest Bramah

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

"The most serious idleness is being busy with things that don't matter." - Unknown

"You cannot change the wind, but you can adjust your sails." - Unknown

"Don't worry, nothing's going to be alright anyway." - Karl Geis