You may be surprised to know that the Verbal Aikido approach is a worldwide movement that has existed for a very long time, in some form or another. Since I first touched on it myself in 2009 I quickly realized the presence of a collective consciousness that had brought it into existence. Indeed, as with many […]
When we attack ourselves…
We’re often harder on ourselves that we are with others, but is it possible to interrupt our internal criticism, and maybe even to transform it into a more beneficial internal communication? So you can’t find your keys, and you hear that harsh voice saying: “It’s unbelievable how dumb you can be!” Someone compliments you and yet you hear that […]
What’s in a belt?
It’s pretty much a given that for certain among you, the concept of a Green Belt was something new. And if it did seem strange in some way, you won’t be surprised to know that I have received many ‘questions’ about this notion of belts in relation to aikido. Here would be a typical exchange: “Green […]
Step out of the win/lose dilemma
There’s more than one reason you won’t find Aikido at the Olympic Games, but essentially an activity that produces no winner is an unlikely choice if you’re expecting an exciting climax. It’s quite easy to understand why most people believe that having a winner inevitably implies the existence of a loser, after all, it’s what […]
Verbal Aikido and Nonviolent Communication…
I often get asked “What’s the difference between NVC and Verbal Aikido?” Well the short answer is that it’s like the difference between a hammer and a screw-driver: they’re both tools that do similar things but in different ways. From my own experience with both of these communication tools, there have been times where I’ve […]
Creating personal victories
A few years ago I got a boardgame for my son. The game involves moving your counter around a board in search of the objects depicted on the cards dealt to you. But when it came to explaining the rules to my son and a friend of his, I decided to make up some house rules […]
If you’re not right… are you wrong? (Open attitude)
I was chatting with a colleague recently who was telling me about his wife who “loves to be right”. I remember wondering “Well, who loves to be wrong?” Indeed everybody needs to feel right about certain things in order to construct a life with any degree of stability, but in instances of conflict transformation, holding […]
Grow into reconciliation
Warning: New words (neologisms) were used during the creation of this post! Did you ever get interested in the origins of words? If we take re-concile it clearly seems to refer to the repetition of something (the prefix ‘re‘) or doing something again. So what then would ‘concile’ mean? It’s origin ‘concilium’ in latin is an assembly or […]
Stepping on to the Verbal Mat – 1. Let’s warm up!
Why do you warm-up and stretch before an activity? Your answer to this question for a physical endeavour will be remarkably similar to that of the reasons why we practice verbal stretching in Verbal Aikido: elasticity, flexibility and injury prevention. Well, the Verbal Aikido workshop in Geneva last Saturday saw the 2014 VAP (Verbal Aikido for Peace) […]
“Davies”: A Daily Verbal Aikido Intention Exercise
How often are you actually aware of your intention? When you make a ‘to-do’ list or put something in your diary, you envisage a desired result for your actions, but the rest of the time, are you on automatic pilot or just reacting impulsively to whatever comes your way? In the Verbal Aikido workshops we […]