THE DECISIVE MOMENT

Aikido teaches commitment and timing. I recall Okamoto sensei telling us “without commitment there is no Aikido” and I have been trying to unpack that ever since. Its simple to articulate, hard to convey and embody. I recently used Diomedes to explain kairos: the harmonious incorporation of committed action in proper time. Then I foundContinue reading “THE DECISIVE MOMENT”

Odysseus

Odysseus did not want to go to war. When the oath he had devised to bind the other kings was called due and the kings of Greece gathered for Troy, he attempted to escape it. He yoked an ox and a donkey to the same plow and drove them in erratic lines across the field,Continue reading “Odysseus”

Troy

Troy is not the beginning of the heroic age. It is the point where the heroic age destroys itself. The Greeks understood this. Their myths do not describe a long golden era stretching indefinitely backward into legend. The heroic age is startlingly brief. From the first monster-slayers to the sack of Troy spans only aContinue reading “Troy”