The Power of Discomfort with Andrew Benioff

How does that help you in your daily life? Because I think when I was practicing there, it was a balance between forms, but also like meditation and getting your head in a good place.

There was a lot of, a lot of respect in everything that you do in it.

And I really, really enjoyed it much more so than just like going to the gym.

But yeah.

How has it helped you? I guess you've been doing it for 30 plus years.

45.

I started in 1982.

So whatever that is.

The way I practice is directly from my experience of when I lived in Japan full time.

We have family over there.

So we go every year.

Not that I consider myself even a little bit or have an allusion to me being Japanese.

I am not.

Like I said before, we don't have any competition.

There aren't any trophies.

There are no colored belts that you get.

The way I teach and the way I practice, we don't do any of that.

So in Western society in general, we're always going towards a goal.

What's our goal? And what prize do we get at the end of that if we get the goal? If I build a company and I make a bunch of money, that'll be my prize.

And then I can go live a... a certain lifestyle that I want to live, or you get satisfaction from doing that.

We don't have a goal in practicing Aikido.

The goal is just literally practice every day, which is not very satisfactory for a lot of people because they're like, wait, I don't get anything for...

Nope, you don't get anything.

And so really, it's the do in Aikido and also in karate do, they say usually, karate do, is michi.

In Japanese, it's pronounced michi, which means

How does that help you in your daily life? Because I think when I was practicing there, it was a balance between forms, but also like meditation and getting your head in a good place.

There was a lot of, a lot of respect in everything that you do in it.

And I really, really enjoyed it much more so than just like going to the gym.

But yeah.

How has it helped you? I guess you've been doing it for 30 plus years.

45.

I started in 1982.

So whatever that is.

The way I practice is directly from my experience of when I lived in Japan full time.

We have family over there.

So we go every year.

Not that I consider myself even a little bit or have an allusion to me being Japanese.

I am not.

Like I said before, we don't have any competition.

There aren't any trophies.

There are no colored belts that you get.

The way I teach and the way I practice, we don't do any of that.

So in Western society in general, we're always going towards a goal.

What's our goal? And what prize do we get at the end of that if we get the goal? If I build a company and I make a bunch of money, that'll be my prize.

And then I can go live a... a certain lifestyle that I want to live, or you get satisfaction from doing that.

We don't have a goal in practicing Aikido.

The goal is just literally practice every day, which is not very satisfactory for a lot of people because they're like, wait, I don't get anything for...

Nope, you don't get anything.

And so really, it's the do in Aikido and also in karate do, they say usually, karate do, is michi.

In Japanese, it's pronounced michi, which means