Zenyo Jiu Jitsu | What Is Zenyo?
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu comes to us through Judo founder Jigoro Kano.
Kano might be the most influential martial artist of all time. He believed in one principle above all others.
The principle of zenyo -- the ultimate goal of martial arts.
"Whatever it is that you do,” Kano said of zenyo, “envision the best purpose for it, and use the energy of your body and mind in the most efficient way to achieve that purpose.”
Zenyo (pronounced zen-u) means “good use” in thinking, learning and doing -- the way of maximum efficiency and minimal effort.
Moshe Feldenkrais was one of the first Judo black belts in Europe. He was a student of Kano who created a unique way to teach zenyo. He called his teachings the “method to improve ability.” Elements of Kano's Judo, Feldenkrais' method and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu are all part of the curriculum at Zenyo Jiu Jitsu Baltimore.
Kano might be the most influential martial artist of all time. He believed in one principle above all others.
The principle of zenyo -- the ultimate goal of martial arts.
"Whatever it is that you do,” Kano said of zenyo, “envision the best purpose for it, and use the energy of your body and mind in the most efficient way to achieve that purpose.”
Zenyo (pronounced zen-u) means “good use” in thinking, learning and doing -- the way of maximum efficiency and minimal effort.
Moshe Feldenkrais was one of the first Judo black belts in Europe. He was a student of Kano who created a unique way to teach zenyo. He called his teachings the “method to improve ability.” Elements of Kano's Judo, Feldenkrais' method and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu are all part of the curriculum at Zenyo Jiu Jitsu Baltimore.
"To understand movement we must feel, not strain,” Feldenkrais wrote in his book Awareness Through Movement. “To learn we need time, attention and discrimination; to discriminate we must sense. This means that in order to learn we must sharpen our powers of sensing, and if we try to do most things by sheer force we shall achieve precisely the opposite of what we need.”
Feldenkrais goes on, "Whatever we can do well does not seem difficult to us. We may even venture to say that movements we find difficult are not carried out correctly.”
Feldenkrais believed the path to greater learning, efficiency and performance begins in the nervous system. Change happens there first, which helps us to improve our habits of thinking and moving.
"The more an individual advances his development the greater will be his ease of action, the ease synonymous with harmonious organization of the senses and the muscles,” Feldenkrais wrote. “When activity is freed of tension and superfluous effort the resulting ease makes for greater sensitivity and better discrimination, which make for still greater ease in action. We will now be able to identify unnecessary effort even in actions that formerly seemed easy to us.”
There is no limit to improvement.
The ultimate zenyo, Feldenkrais said, is "to make the impossible possible, the possible easy, and the easy elegant."
Continue to the next page to learn about The Spirit of Zenyo
Feldenkrais goes on, "Whatever we can do well does not seem difficult to us. We may even venture to say that movements we find difficult are not carried out correctly.”
Feldenkrais believed the path to greater learning, efficiency and performance begins in the nervous system. Change happens there first, which helps us to improve our habits of thinking and moving.
"The more an individual advances his development the greater will be his ease of action, the ease synonymous with harmonious organization of the senses and the muscles,” Feldenkrais wrote. “When activity is freed of tension and superfluous effort the resulting ease makes for greater sensitivity and better discrimination, which make for still greater ease in action. We will now be able to identify unnecessary effort even in actions that formerly seemed easy to us.”
There is no limit to improvement.
The ultimate zenyo, Feldenkrais said, is "to make the impossible possible, the possible easy, and the easy elegant."
Continue to the next page to learn about The Spirit of Zenyo