Wheels in Wheels

Coincidences are often interesting. They are statistically likely in most cases yet still appear to be evidence of deeper things. This one somewhat struck me in that manner. I came home from Aikido practice and then sent an email to my teacher regarding some dojo business. After sending the email I decide to surf on over to Kottke.org to see what was new today. One of the articles was titled "Mike Leigh's Collaborators." He is a filmmaker and the article was about how he works with actors. What caught my eye was the mention of the concepts of "relaxed concentration" and "deliberate practice." My first thought was that these links were going down a zen or buddhist path. However, the links on the relaxed concentration page covered so much more. It was mostly about sports but also about thinking in general.

With just the concept in mind I thought that this was a type of thing that I could incorporate into my Aikido. I then scroll down to the article called "A post by Jonah Lehrer about Thinking" which discusses how thinking about a putt helps a novice golfer but hurts an expert golfer. The idea is that experts had to think in a more holistic manner about what they were doing - rather than concentrating on the position of their wrist they needed to focus on "descriptive adjectives like smooth or balanced." Once again, I think, how could this help my Aikido. The next part of the post recommends the book "Mastery" by George Leonard. I click that link to see how it is described on Amazon and find that George Leonard is also the author of "Way of Aikido, The: Life Lessons from an American Sensei: Life Lessons from an American Sensei."

Not a giant coincidence but it completely fits in with what I was thinking about and takes me down a circular path. So, is it a message from the universe about taking my Aikido practice to a higher level and fighting to help keep my dojo in operation? Or is it damn clever marketing from Google and Amazon watching what I like, watching what I seem to be interested in, and then constructing a series of links that leads me to feel like I really must purchase a book that I have never heard of? There is some good paranoid potential in that line of thought. I wonder how the internet is affecting the sufferers of delusions....what the? Clicking over to "The Mask of Sanity" I don't know why...

I really have to turn off 1-click ordering.