05 January 2015

The dream of the two dojo

When I woke up that morning and realized I'd had the same dream for the third time, I knew this was a deeper life issue.

The dream, entitled "The Two Dojo*" in my dream journal, starts out at a very traditional Japanese aikido school. The decor is spartan, and the only colors are black and white (like the white uniforms and black hakamas of the students). The teacher is painfully strict, and everyone is deadly serious. They practice with stony sober expressions on their faces. Later in the dream I find another school, where the environment is as colorful as a rainbow, and everyone is laughing and having a great time while they train. I instantly feel this is where I'd rather train.

Initially, this recurring dream affected where I chose to train and how I taught aikido classes at my own school. But, as with all "big dreams", there were multiple levels of meaning within it.

Now, almost a quarter of a century later, I realize this dream heralded the path I would follow later in my life once I had conceived of the unique self-development mode I've dubbed Dream Warrior Training. The essential principle behind DWT is that martial training**, dreamwork, and the discipline of journaling (writing for the purpose of exploring the mind), have potent powers for transforming the individual who practices them in combination. My mission is to lead workshops that enable people to benefit from the insights this combined activity can deliver. It is nearly impossible to spend time doing these three disciplines together -- even if only for a day or two -- without coming to some new, life-enhancing realizations.

This is the colorful dojo where everyone laughs and trains joyfully, even though the subject matter is of vital importance.

Whether or not you wish to, some day, participate in this mode of training, the purpose of this blog is to share with you my own insights gained from a life informed by the daily pursuit of these three treasures. If you are interested in dreams, in the wisdom that can be found within our bodies, or in the power to be discovered in using the written word (or any combination of the three), the postings to come in this blog will be just the sort of thing you're looking for.

And though I will engage in a certain amount of curating -- that is: linking and commenting on things I find on the internet -- my well-established blogging habit consists of telling stories relating to my own experience. I know that my own taste in blogs runs to the writers who generate original material, not those who just echo the rest of the cyber noise. I suspect you, astute reader, have similar tastes. If you have a feed reader, perhaps you should subscribe now, to follow this story from the beginning.

Welcome to The Dream Warrior, where insights are inevitable, and laughing is encouraged.  

*A dojo is a place where a spiritual discipline (in Japanese "do", like the Chinese "dao") is practiced.

**specifically the motions and breathing practices that awaken consciousness and enhance one's energies, which I call "martial yoga"


2 comments:

Robotologist said...

Happy to read your words again!

Theo Huffman said...

And... who might you be, Robotologist???