Episode 18: Life Lessons from an Aikido Master with Penny Bernath

With intimacy and great humor Sensei Penny shares with us her passion for respect, service, and love and how she uses energy and movement to hold her high ranking leadership with femininity and kindness in a male-oriented world. Listen to these lessons for life from an aikido master.

Penny Bernath holds positions of respect and responsibility in two very different worlds:

As Sensei, Penny, she is a “Shihan” - Master Aikido teacher - and one of three women in the USAF to be ranked seventh degree black belt. A martial arts practitioner of 48 years, for the past 40 years she has taught and organized the largest annual Aikido seminar in the United States.

As Miss Penny, she is the Director of Education at South Florida PBS and the developer of Kid-Vision Pre-K, providing preschool teachers with online training and tools to teach developmental learning skills so children will be prepared for kindergarten based on national criteria.

“I wasn't very good at it. It's taken me a long time to find Aikido”

In this episode you’ll hear about:

There's only one You
•Use your resources and femininity as a gift to others.
•You are worthy of what you know because you’ve worked very hard to learn it.
•Be polite, respectful and tend to other’s needs.

“Even though I lived in a martial arts world where the men were such men, I wanted to feel both feminine and powerful and not have to give up either one of those characteristics.”

And:

Do what you love.
1.Practice is Key
You only learn when you practice. If you stop practicing, you might lose it.
2.The Path of Harmony
•Keep the circle going: Learn the basics then experience the opportunity to open to the power and energy of the movement that makes it happen.
•Daily Structure: You can have structure but be free within the rules of that structure.
3.Help others feel the best they can feel.
•Be brave. Believe in yourself despite all others.
•Try new things. It’s ok to fall because you are going to get up.
•Play! Everyone likes to play, and everyone likes to smile. Movement is play.

“Power comes from empowering others.”

Plus:

4 Ways to deal with Conflict
Essential Questions: Where is the open space? Where is there no conflict?
1.Irimi: Step in and forward and come face to face with another. Make your point.
2.Tenkan: 180-degree pivot to look in the same direction as another. Put yourself in their place and see why is this happening?
3.Tenshin: Step and pivot to avoid another. Get out of the situation by letting another go by for the time being.
4.Don’t engage: Step away and come back to it later.

“I'm going to be a mommy and love myself”

Until next time, be curious, be inspired and simplify the way…

Penny Bernath
www.floridaaikikai.com
www.kidvisionprek.org