Aikitaiji is a fusion art combining Tai Chi, Aikido, Hsing-I, jo and sword weapons forms, Feldenkrais, and Sports Medicine designed to promote whole mind/body health and spiritual growth.

Jack Livingston, Founder of Aikitaiji, has been teaching gifted and talented strategies in public schools for 25 years, and has been studying Tai Chi and Aikido for over 30 years.

Jeannette Rodriguez, Tai Chi Instructor, has been studying Aikitaiji for 6 years and holds the rank of Shodan (1st degree black-belt), is a member of the American Tai Chi Association, has a master's degree in mental health counseling and graduate training in expressive arts therapy.

Why would anyone, repelled by the mere idea of violence, study martial art as a path to health and spiritual peace? Because the more profound your martial chi, the more powerfully you may love and heal. Symmetrically, the more ethical or loving the martial power, the more irresistible its domination.

Martial chi isn't merely a destructive power. It's even more vitally a healing agent, enhancing and motivating your immune system, emanating from you to heal the energy states of your environment and its inhabitants.

The most malignant enemy to your general health as well as your most vital ally resides inside you, and the dark wins by default when you don't train and empower the inner warrior. As an example, a patient who visualizes ferocious or martial images overpowering and routing malignant cells is more successful in managing his illness. The more powerful and hawkish the metaphoric imagery, the better the immune system responds.

A martial artist doesn't conquer outer space as much as he integrates it with the world he discovers inside himself, growing more virtuous as he becomes less fearful. Virtue, exemplified by the golden rule (do unto others because there is no other, there's only unity) is a prerequisite to mastery. Virtue leads to the holographic realization that you are a synergistic multitude of one. A proper martial artist discovers the highest spiritual point of his inner world, identifies with that, and extends it outward as a force that may be identified as healthy love.

Love and martial art seem incompatible, but what are really incompatible are love and fear, because you cannot love someone at the same time that you fear him. Other empathetic emotions may be possible toward one that you fear, but not love. A martial "artist" engages and subdues his fear, and by reducing fear, increases the capacity to love. Saul Krotki defined martial mastery as the ability to handle an opponent in the affectionate manner one would assume towards one's child. This definition of mastery seems to be very similar to the call to love your enemy (opponent) in a manner comparable to the way you love yourself.

A martial artist may have enemies, as most people do, but a high level martial artist probably doesn't fear them because he's confident that he can defend himself against them and he sees how flimsy the border separating him from others is. Logically, therefore (and maybe ironically), a martial artist who doesn't fear his enemy may be in a better position to follow the powerful edict to "love your enemy" than a mere pacifist is.

Tai Chi for beginners is held Wednesday nights (630-730pm) at the Aikitaiji Hombu Dojo, 1464 East 8730 South in Sandy, UT. This class covers Cheng Man Ching's modified short form, push-hands basics, and beginning weapons training. Cost is $20/ month.

Basic Aikitaiji class is held at the Taylorsville Rec Center, Friday nights from 7-845pm. This class covers basic self-defense, kata (forms) practice, and core-strengthening exercises.

Advanced Push Hands, Self-Defense, and Weapons class is by instructor approval only. Contact for details.

See classes page for more info:

http://www.aikitaiji.com/classesslc.htm

Although martial arts are generally associated with self defense, the training can also be used for sport conditioning. Martial artists have the lowest incidence of ACL injury. Our barefoot training improves proprioception and balance, which can in turn improve sport performance.

Aikitaiji martial art training enhances agility and improves reaction time. We teach a mind/body integration technique that helps improve concentration skills while promoting a general feeling of well-being. The fluidity of our movements increases dynamic flexibility. Dynamic flexibility is flexibility in motion. Sports medicine experts believe this to be a more functional form of flexibility training than static stretching. Aikitaiji will also teach you one of the most important skills a sport enthusiast needs to learn. We teach you how to fall, and how to get up from a fall.

Internal martial art describes a spiritual discipline rather than just a physical boxing system, and is characterized by the alternation of yin and yang. Internal form and technique is characterized by a gathering of chi energy followed by an extension or explosion of chi.

Softness involves using “internal energy” or chi as opposed to hard muscular force. This is also the basis of the fabulous health benefits of practicing soft martial art.

A soft strike is rooted in the feet and springs from the ligaments and tendons like a pliable live willow branch. A hard strike uses tense, rigid muscular force like the power delivered by a club or a bat.

Most importantly, soft is what you meet an attack with in order to neutralize it and hard is the symmetrical balance applied to the vacated place. Many push- hands students misunderstand the concept of softness, and become offended if you push them. The idea they've missed is that soft is what you meet hard with when neutralizing an attack, not what you push with when you counter an attack. Push is yang, yielding is yin.

Aikitaiji is an internal martial art. Aikitaiji training uses a balanced-approach that teaches the student to blend and yeild to an attacker, and to assert power when and where it is needed.

Aikitaiji is a blend of two martial arts: aikido and tai chi. The Japanese martial art called aikido was developed by Morihei Ueshiba, who referred to it as "the art of love" and "the art of peace." Disciples of Ueshiba often refer to him as "O Sensei." Aikido differs from other martial art forms in that its focus is on using your opponent's energy against them, as opposed to punching and kicking. The spherical, total body movements revolve around a stable center of gravity. The word "aikido" can be translated as "The Way of Harmony of the Spirit," or "The Way of Unity with the Fundamental Force of the Universe."

After O Sensei's death in 1969, some of his students carried out his work. The dynamic nature of aikido made it subject to differing interpretations of the Sensei's original martial arts form. As a result, we now see many different styles of aikido.

The older aikido techniques were developed before World War II. They bear a closer resemblance to jujutsu, the martial arts form O Sensei practiced before he developed aikido. Aiki-Budo is similar to jujutsu. Yoseikan blends judo and karate. Yoshinkan is a robust technique which is taught to the Japanese police.

Of the modern schools of aikido, Shin-Shin Toitsu deserves special mention. This is probably one of the softest of all of the aikido styles. Shin-Shin Toitsu aikido training focuses on the concept of Ki, and how it can be used your daily life to create a unity of body mind and spirit. Sensei Jack's earliest influence and training was in Shin-Shin Toitsu. Aikitaiji combines the body mind elements of the aikido and tai chi with a practical combat style that can be used for self defense.

The philosophy of the martial aspects of tai chi can be summed up by this poem found in a Chinese Shaolin temple:

I would rather maim than kill

Hurt than maim

Intimidate than hurt

Avoid than intimidate

For this reason, most tai chi instructors prefer that their students first master the defensive or neutralizing skills prior to learning any of the offensive maneuvers.

In fact, some traditional tai chi teachers require their students to go through two phases of development before learning to use tai chi as a martial arts form. The first phase involves the improvement of health. Tai Chi masters believe that an unhealthy person will be unable to achieve the relaxed meditative state that is needed for efficient martial expression. Therefore, in the primary learning stages of Tai Chi, the student concentrates on relieving the physical effects of chronic stress on their body and mind.

Once a significant amount of stress is reduced, the student will find it easier to focus on the meditative aspects of tai chi. It is this meditative state that enables the student to practice harmonious movements with his or her partner. Meditation puts the mind in an alpha state. Alpha states have been associated with enhanced intuition, and intuition plays a paramount role in martial tai chi.

The meditative state also allows the practitioner to keep their mind focused in the present. Extraneous thoughts are cleared from the mind, and the student can concentrate on the purpose of the specific forms, push hands, and techniques. Once a clear understanding of the form's purpose is achieved, it becomes easier to apply your intent.

Aikitaiji, though, is a unitive art rather than sequential. The philosophy of Aikitaiji is that the meditative, health and martial aspects of tai chi, aikido, and other forms proceed together through our integrated curriculum. Offense cannot be divorced from defense and defense cannot be separated from health, as yin cannot be separated from yang. In Aikitaiji, all aspects are coordinated from the beginning.