Author Archives: Jerry Zimmerman

“The great attraction for most students of Aikido is the underlying philosophy behind all the physical training. Essentially, you can’t keep improving in the art unless you consistently work on yourself, shedding ego, preconceptions and built-in reactions. The great mystery and power of the art is that in order to perfect your self-defense against another […]

“Walking all over campus, my visit was delightful, but surprisingly not nostalgic. I was not wishing to go back to those golden days, not wishing to trade places with my old self. I was, however, overwhelmed, awash in a radiant emotion I just couldn’t pin down. What was happening?”—Jerry Zimmerman Squibs & Blurbs By Jerry […]

“No matter what is going on between people, it is always a relationship—nothing happens unless the other person is there with his or her energy. No anger, no harmony, no conflict, no love. No nothing. And if you are simply trying to DO something to someone, you may succeed in precipitating a result, but always a result […]

“Growing up, I was interested in all the normal sorts of things my peers in suburban Pennsylvania were interested in, yet there was one thing that seemed to be mine alone, a love for traditional Japanese culture. I was knocked out by calendars of Japanese gardens, books about ancient wood temples, art prints of old […]

“Michelangelo has created an object, a statue of a man, that through its pose, its surface, its weight and angles, its proportions and material, its magical being, its gorgeousness, opens a glimpse into a loftier world that exists here and now, though we are mostly oblivious to it.”—Jerry Zimmerman Squibs & Blurbs By Jerry Zimmerman […]

“I have tried hard to find that sweet spot where my mind roams less and my soul expands more, and it is a very slippery sweet spot. My Aikido training has been my most constant research lab, providing me with a safe zone for exploring both my inner and outer self. Years of practice attacking […]

“It was the middle of the night, it was snowing, it was bitter cold, and I was in the middle of upstate New York with nothing but farmland around. And I was a couple of hours from my home. I managed to limp to a gas station, where my car promptly went stone dead. I went […]

“Our lives are in constant flux, yet we don’t need to be swallowed up in the buzzing stress. It’s possible to make conscious efforts to keep a strong sense of ourselves, to keep a steady center, to trust that by staying still in the eye of the hurricane we will have the time and the […]

  “What’s happened over these four years? I really thought Harry’s funeral, at this particular funeral home, would be a truly terrible event for me; all but impossible to get through. Unbearable. I look around at the room, and it’s all so familiar. But—I realize: the great extra emotional weight I expected is missing because […]

“Yes, we are definitely afraid of being attacked, particularly when we are new to the training, but there is so much more: fear of someone’s strength, fear of someone’s anger, fear of looking bad, fear of comparison, fear of not being able to keep up, fear of failing in the technique, fear of appearing weak—everyone […]