TY - JOUR A1 - Gordon, Michael A. T1 - Introduction: Practice as Transformative Wholeness T2 - Aikido as Transformative and Embodied Pedagogy. Teacher as Healer, Cham (Palgrave Macmillan) 2019, pp. 3-56. [eBook ISBN 978-3-030-23953-4] [doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23953-4] N2 - In this chapter, the author introduces his autobiographical near-death experience of a motorcycle accident as the basis for examining his life and the self-study that forms this book, within a gestalt or whole. Touching on the figure-ground-contact approach of Gestalt Therapy, the author puts this self-study within the context of a lifetime of involvement in the Japanese art of Ki Aikido. In Aikido, one learns to coordinate their mind, body, and life energy (Japanese: ki) to better attune and move in synchronization with the world around them. The ethos of Aikido reflects the broader virtue ethics of traditional Japanese arts – >do<, >michi<, or >way< – and how this approach to education aims for spiritual self-cultivation in daily life, rather than mere acquisition of technical or intellectual knowledge. Through Aikido, Japanese calligraphy or shodo (which the author took up as a comparative/adjunct >way< for his study), and beyond into increased skillful awareness in motorcycling and educational praxis, this chapter draws on Yasuo Yuasa’s theory of ki as ‘teleological intentionality.’ By taking a ‘path’ approach to learning through this >ki awareness< one thus develops and enhances their embodied presence into what Yuasa calls >transpersonal synchronization.< Y1 - 2019 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-Fromm/frontdoor/index/index/docId/37434 ER -