Experiment: Doing Taimyo Kata Meditation in the aisle at Walmart

Brad LarsonFeatured Posts, Shintaido4 Comments

There’s a moving meditation developed in Shintaido a decade (or two) ago called “Taimyo Kata”.  It involves a ten to fifteen minute sequence of relaxed and deliberate steps, reaching motions, and, my favorite, a section where you hold your hands together over your head and slowly bring them down across your face and chest.  In my mind, it’s as if … Read More

Chasing the Butterfly with my Bo Staff

Brad LarsonShintaidoLeave a Comment

chasing butterfly sketch

Chasing a butterfly with my bo staff — the sudden almost random movements of the butterfly make me quickly change my body in response. Hikari (soft energetic play) with a butterfly. (Don’t worry, I’m not attacking butterflies, I’m playing with them).

Cutting the Sky at Midnight

Brad LarsonNature, ShintaidoLeave a Comment

Amazing things can happen when you go outside at midnight with a stick. Chalkstone river bluffs, a meteor, a deer appears and stomps its hoof at me, an animal that sounds like a flute, and I keep waving the stick around cutting the sky.

Secret Blackberries

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After a session running around with the boh, at the point where I feel tired and free, I walk over to the blackberries I found at the end of running eiko (cutting the sky). I pick three of them and eat each one as if it’s the last blackberry ever. A lot of energy from a blackberry.  

Shintaido Demo at the Japan Festival, West Hartford, CT

Brad LarsonFeatured Posts, Shintaido, VideoLeave a Comment

A pleasure to participate in the Japan Festival this weekend with longtime friends and Shintaido practitioners. The video shows a some of our movements, and ways we use them to connect with others and with nature — central themes in Shintaido. It was my first time wearing the hakama, the multi-pleated pants worn by instructor-level practitioners — grateful for help from instructors … Read More