Sorry for the brief hiatus, but the family and I were on vacation last week (and now I am having trouble adjusting to the real world!). And despite all the good business-related books I want to (or should) read, I chose what is for me a true vacation book: The Ultimate Athlete, by George Leonard.

This book was a gift from my brother, who is a sociology professor who has done specific work around the sociology of sports. Originally published in the 1970s, the jacket cover suggests that the book helped create the “participatory sports boom of the 1970s and 1980s."

I’m enjoying the book, particularly its discussion of the martial art of Aikido. Leonard is a fifth-degree blackbelt in Aikido, and talks about it a lot in the book. My own experience with Aikido dates back to international conflict resolution work I did in the 1990s. We were trying to teach conflict resolution skills to people who were in the middle of serious ethnic conflict. We actually brought in Aikido blackbelts to help teach the concepts, because this particular martial art has no attack—it is all defensive.

The goal of Aikido (from a martial arts perspective) is to disarm your attacker while at the same time protecting them. It was a great way to teach, kinesthetically, some of the basic concepts of conflict resolution (understanding the other party’s interests, creating “win-win” solutions, managing your own reactions in conflict situations, etc.). I’m glad this book helped me reconnect to these ideas.