UPKIDO WEBSITE CONTENT
Page 1: Home - "What is Upkido?"
Upkido = Aikido + Upward Spiral
The Practice of Improving What You Touch
Upkido blends the graceful, responsive principles of Aikido with the intentional creation of upward spirals - environments that continuously improve through small, strategic actions.
Like Aikido, Upkido is about working with the forces you encounter rather than against them. But instead of neutralizing attacks, you're redirecting everyday interactions toward positive change. Every conversation, every project, every moment of contact becomes an opportunity to leave things a little better than you found them.
In a world that often equates strength with domination, Upkido offers a different model of power - the strength to improve rather than control, to build rather than break. This is the warrior-gardener path: fierce in your commitment to positive change, gentle in your methods. It's strength that creates safety for others rather than demanding it for yourself.
From Hand Trowel to Transformed Landscapes
This isn't just philosophy - it's proven practice. Paul Krafel transformed California hillsides with nothing but a hand trowel and deep observation, creating upward spirals that turned erosion into restoration. On a massive scale, the Loess Plateau project in China turned a Belgium-sized wasteland back into green, thriving land using similar principles.
The magic lies not in grand gestures, but in understanding leverage points and working with natural systems toward regeneration.
The Dojo of Daily Life
Upkido treats the world as a dojo - a place to practice "the way." Like any martial art, it requires:
- Presence: Deep awareness of what's actually happening
- Technique: Specific skills for different situations and scales
- Community: Learning with others who share the practice
- Progression: Growing from micro-improvements to systems transformation
Ready to begin? Every touch is an opportunity to practice. Real strength serves life.
Page 2: The Framework - "Scales of Practice"
Working at the Right Scale
Upkido operates across four natural scales, each requiring different skills and offering different impacts:
Micro: Moments & Interactions
Seconds to minutes
The foundation of all practice. A genuine smile, picking up litter, offering your full attention, letting someone merge in traffic. These moments require no permission and almost no risk, but build your sensitivity and create immediate positive ripples.
Practice focus: Presence, authentic kindness, reading micro-cues Start here: Notice three small opportunities each day
Meso: Relationships & Local Systems
Days to months
Improving workflows with colleagues, enhancing family dynamics, organizing community projects. This scale requires dialog skills and understanding of social patterns.
Practice focus: Patient listening, collaborative problem-solving, sustainable solutions Key skill: Knowing when you're the right person to help vs. when to step back
Macro: Communities & Institutions
Months to years
Neighborhood initiatives, organizational culture change, policy advocacy. Requires coalition building, systems thinking, and long-term perspective.
Practice focus: Building alliances, understanding power dynamics, strategic patience Watch for: Burnout, unintended consequences, ego inflation
Meta: Cultural & Philosophical
Years to generations
Shifting cultural narratives, modeling new ways of being, creating art or ideas that change consciousness. This is about being the change so clearly that others can't help but notice.
Practice focus: Living your values consistently, planting seeds you may never see bloom Ultimate skill: Faith in slow change, comfort with invisible impact
Navigation Principles
- Start where you can feel the energy clearly - work at scales where you can sense what's needed and respond appropriately
- Each scale requires different permissions - micro needs none, macro needs explicit invitation
- The scales feed each other - micro-kindness builds trust for meso-work, which creates platform for macro-change
- Your gifts suggest your optimal scales - some people are natural micro-practitioners, others are systems changers
Page 3: Core Practices - "The Art of Improvement"
The Four Pillars of Upkido
1. Improvement Intuition
Before you can improve what you touch, you must develop sensitivity to what actually needs improving - and what doesn't.
Practices:
- The Pause: Before acting, take a breath and scan. What's the energy here? What's actually needed?
- Systems Sensing: Look for what's working well before diagnosing problems. What gives this system life?
- Permission Checking: Does this situation welcome your particular kind of improvement? Are you the right person at the right time?
2. Aikido Inquiry
True to aikido principles, we blend with situations rather than forcing change. This requires curiosity over diagnosis.
Practices:
- Appreciative Questions: "What's working well here that we want to keep?" Start with strengths.
- Energy Reading: "What does this situation want to become?" Listen to the system's own wisdom.
- Collaborative Wondering: "I'm noticing X - what's your experience?" Create thinking partnership, not consultant relationship.
3. Minimum Effective Intervention
Like using just enough force in aikido to redirect energy, use just enough improvement to create positive momentum.
Practices:
- The Smallest Possible Step: What's the tiniest change that would make a meaningful difference?
- Work with the Grain: Find where the system already wants to improve and amplify that.
- Leave Room for Others: Your improvement should invite others to add their own touches, not complete the job.
4. Warrior-Stewardship
You're a temporary custodian of whatever you encounter, but this isn't passive caretaking - it's active protection and cultivation. True warriors serve life itself.
Practices:
- Strength in Service: Ask "How can my capabilities serve what wants to emerge here?"
- Protective Presence: Create safety for others through your own groundedness and skill
- Future Guardian Thinking: How will this serve the people who come after?
- Ecosystem Awareness: How does this improvement affect the larger web of relationships?
- Sustainable Power: Are you building strength that regenerates rather than depletes?
The Trust Foundation
Upkido improvement without trust can become intrusion or manipulation. Our practice rests on principles that build and maintain trust while creating positive change:
Assume Good Faith - Start from believing others want things to work well too. This changes how you approach every improvement opportunity.
Be Undefended, Not Defenseless - Stay open to feedback and course-correction while maintaining your boundaries and values. Strength that doesn't need to prove itself.
Nothing About Us Without Us - Include the people affected by changes in designing those changes. True improvement is collaborative, not imposed.
Make the Right Thing Easy to Do - Design improvements that work with human nature, not against it. Remove friction from positive choices.
Choose Abundance - Approach situations believing there's enough good to go around. Scarcity thinking kills upward spirals.
These aren't just nice ideas - they're practical tools that make your improvement efforts more effective and sustainable. When people trust your intentions and methods, they become allies in creating positive change rather than obstacles to overcome.
Daily Practices
Morning Intention: "What will I touch today, and how can I leave it better while building trust?"
Evening Reflection: "What did I improve? What did I learn about improvement itself? How did I build or maintain trust?"
Weekly Review: "What patterns am I noticing in my improvement opportunities? Where is my energy most effective? Where am I being trusted to help?"
Page 4: Learning Together - "The Upkido Dojo"
Community as Practice Ground
Like aikido, Upkido is best learned with others. We need practice partners, senior practitioners to learn from, and junior practitioners to teach. The dojo model creates a learning ecosystem where everyone improves together.
Strength and Service
True martial artists know that real strength serves life. In Upkido, your power develops not through dominance but through your ability to sense what's needed and respond skillfully while building trust with everyone you encounter.
This builds a different kind of confidence - based not on what you can control or defeat, but on what you can help flourish. It's the warrior-gardener path: fierce in your commitment to positive change, gentle and trustworthy in your methods.
Whether you're a parent creating safety for your children, a colleague improving team dynamics, or a citizen working for community resilience, you're practicing warrior-stewardship - using your strength to protect and cultivate what matters most.
The strongest people are often the gentlest - not because they're weak, but because they're secure enough in their power to use it in service of something larger than themselves. This approach naturally creates what many people are longing for: a way to be powerful that makes others feel safer, not more threatened. It's strength that builds trust rather than demanding submission.
Finding Your Practice Partners
Local Opportunities:
- Volunteer organizations (they're natural Upkido training grounds)
- Workplace improvement initiatives
- Neighborhood projects
- Community gardens or maker spaces
Online Community:
- Share experiences and learn from others practicing Upkido
- Monthly challenges and reflection sessions
- Resource sharing and technique development
Levels of Practice
White Belt: Awareness Building
- Focus on micro-scale improvements
- Develop improvement intuition
- Learn to pause before acting
- Practice appreciative inquiry and trust-building
Yellow Belt: Relationship Skills
- Meso-scale practice with family, friends, colleagues
- Conflict as improvement opportunity
- Understanding social dynamics and permissions
- "Nothing About Us Without Us" in daily practice
Orange Belt: Systems Thinking
- Macro-scale engagement with communities and organizations
- Coalition building and strategic patience
- Balancing multiple stakeholder needs
- Moving upstream to find effective leverage points
Green Belt: Teaching and Mentoring
- Helping others develop their Upkido practice
- Creating spaces for collective improvement
- Modeling advanced principles
- Building trust across differences
Brown Belt: Cultural Innovation
- Meta-scale work shifting paradigms and creating new possibilities
- Deep integration of Upkido principles into life and work
- Inspiring others through example rather than instruction
- Nurturing commons and abundance thinking
Black Belt: Mastery as Service
- Effortless integration of improvement into all interactions
- Creating environments where others naturally want to practice
- Understanding that mastery means always being a student
- Embodying trust so clearly that others feel safe to grow
Dojo Guidelines
Everyone teaches, everyone learns: Your current challenge is someone else's teaching opportunity, and your hard-won wisdom helps someone just starting.
Practice consent: Ask permission before improving things that belong to others. Create invitations, not obligations.
Celebrate small wins: Acknowledge micro-improvements as seriously as macro-transformations. They're all part of the same practice.
Hold space for failure: Not every improvement attempt works. That's data, not defeat.
Trust is participatory: We all contribute to creating the safety that allows for authentic improvement.
Page 5: Resources & Getting Started - "Your Upkido Journey"
Foundational Inspirations
Ecological Wisdom:
- Paul Krafel's Hand Trowel Work: Small actions, deep observation, working with natural systems
- Loess Plateau Restoration: Proof that upward spirals can transform vast landscapes (documentary)
Systems Thinking:
- Donella Meadows' Leverage Points: Understanding where to intervene in systems for maximum positive impact
- Design from Trust Principles: Building trustworthy improvement practices (explore the full framework)
Martial Arts Philosophy:
- Aikido's Blending Principle: Using incoming energy rather than fighting it
- Zanshin (Continuing Awareness): Staying present to how your actions land
Starting Your Practice
Week 1: Micro-Scale Awareness + Trust Building
- Set intention each morning: "What will I touch today, and how can I build trust while improving it?"
- Practice three small improvements daily, always with permission
- Evening reflection: "What did I leave better? How did I build trust?"
Week 2: Inquiry Development
- Before improving anything, ask: "What's already working here?"
- Practice one appreciative question daily
- Notice when you want to "fix" vs. when you want to "tend"
- Practice "Assume Good Faith" - look for positive intentions in others
Week 3: Permission and Boundaries
- Ask before improving things that belong to others
- Practice saying no to improvement opportunities that drain you
- Distinguish between your role and others'
- Experiment with "Nothing About Us Without Us"
Week 4: Scale Navigation and Community
- Identify which scales feel most natural to you
- Practice moving between scales mindfully
- Connect with one potential practice partner
- Share your learning with someone else
Essential Questions for Practitioners
Before Acting:
- What's the energy here? What does this situation want?
- Am I the right person to help with this?
- How can I build trust while creating positive change?
- What's the smallest intervention that could create positive momentum?
During Practice:
- Am I working with the grain or against it?
- How is my energy being received?
- Am I including the right people in this improvement?
- What am I learning about improvement itself?
After Action:
- What ripples did this create?
- How did trust levels change?
- What would I do differently next time?
- How did this serve the larger web of relationships?
Resources for Deepening Practice
Core Reading:
- "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows
- "The Art of Peace" by Morihei Ueshiba (founder of Aikido)
- "Emergent Strategy" by adrienne maree brown
- Design from Trust Principles - The philosophical foundation
Practices to Explore:
- Appreciative Inquiry
- Theory U
- Permaculture Design
- Restorative Justice
- Nonviolent Communication
Connected Communities:
- Transition Towns movement
- Aikido dojos (for the physical practice)
- Social innovation networks
- Regenerative business communities
Join the Practice
Upkido is an experiment in collective improvement guided by principles that build rather than erode trust. We're still figuring out what practices work best, which techniques are most effective, and how to create sustainable upward spirals at every scale.
Ready to join? Contact us to connect with other practitioners and help evolve this practice.
Already practicing? Share your experiences, challenges, and discoveries. The dojo grows stronger when we learn together, and trust deepens through shared vulnerability and growth.
Remember: The goal isn't perfection - it's direction. Every small improvement you make with integrity and care teaches you something about the art of positive change and trustworthy strength.