In this enlightening conversation, Ginny Breeland Sensei, a 6th degree black belt with over 40 years of Aikido experience, shares her insights on the transformative power of this Japanese martial art. As a petite woman standing at just 5 feet tall, Ginny’s journey in Aikido offers a unique perspective on overcoming physical limitations and finding one’s inner strength.
So today’s episode is about a long love of minewhich is martial arts. I had my first brush with martial arts after watching a lot of, Bruce Lee movies back in the eighties with a martial arts named Bondo, an offshoot of Taekwondo. And then after a long break, I came through dance to the martial art Capoeira, which had the.
and aesthetics and elements of dance and trickery And then later on, I did a little bit of Muay Thai for some time, which
is primarily taking a lot of jabs and hits to the body and frankly quite a violent sport which is a big part of the mixed martial arts culture. And then now that I’m in my 40s I was brought a few years ago to the martial art of Aikido.
which is first and foremost an inner martial art.
and one of the things that brings me joy to come to Aikido is that in my martial arts journey, I knew that I was always seeking something but I didn’t know what that was until I reached Aikido.
Aikido is first and foremost an inner martial art. that essence is placed at the forefront. That’s where you begin the journey.
So we dive into all of this and more in this episode. And for this episode, I have the joy of having with me one of my dear teachers, Ginny Breeland Sensei is a 40 year practitioner of Aikido. She’s a six degree black belt. . First and foremost, as a small woman at 100 pounds and 5 feet tall, I have seen her having students who are 240 pounds and 6 feet 4 inches
And really that demonstrates the necessity through which she developed her skill to be able to handle that amount of weight and strength and bigger bodies. , so for, especially for any martial artist, but in particular for women, there are some tremendous insights as to what is the applicability of martial art for a woman and what defines, success in a martial art.
especially we live in the culture of mixed martial art, which has violence and competitiveness.
And nothing good really comes out of that. Although that there is beauty and tremendous value in there as well. So Aikido is about harmonizing forces without seeing opponents, without going out to destroy someone or to be destroyed by someone.
Aikido has deep spiritual themes and the founder O’Sensei was living in a very violent time.
During the Second World War in Japan and was a very competitive man in his youth, also a practitioner of Japanese Shinto which in the West would be equivalent to animism and shamanism. And at one point in his, later years, he had this revelation where we, we connected the various forms of Aikido to sounds, consonants and vowels, which I love, which is the common denominator in tantra and yoga and Kabbalah and many, many traditions on the planet, including Native American traditions.And also we talk about other deep martial art terms in Aikido such as Zanshin, Mushin, remaining mind, no mind, the principle of magnetizing your opponent, towards you. And not just that, but we actually shot some demos to make you feel viscerally, uh, not just through the conversation, but through actually seeing and feeling the depth of this martial art.
So I invite you to join in this conversation and please, uh, share with your friends and, let us know how we’re doing at Potential Paradigms. Thank you.
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