BizDo Seminar Series
A 5-part seminar series to help you and your business excel
What is BizDo?
BizDo is the path to achieve the highest level of business success through cultivating the mindset and spirit of "Gyoku Shin".
Gyoku Shin is the spirit of the leader who can guide their business to achieve the highest level of mutual prosperity and respond smoothly and calmly to any challenge or problem.
About Biz道
Why Martial Arts and Business?
There are two critically important elements related to business success.
The first is building a deep understanding your own and your business’s capabilities so that you will be able to make the right decisions and execute them smoothly according to the situation. The second is to be able to communicate or relate well with others (both other people and other companies).
The most successful executives excel at both of these and you can also learn these two important skills through martial arts practice and techniques.
In the ever-changing competitive world of business, it is difficult to overcome various problems and difficulties and succeed unless you are able to adapt well to people (customers, employees, partner companies) as well as the situation around you. It’s easy to talk about solving the constant challenges of business, but really doing this is much harder. This is because everything that we interact with (whether it is an individual, company, or situation) is different and is always changing.
Martial arts techniques teach us how to flexibly adapt to various opponents and situations, make judgments, and deal with problems. Furthermore, the philosophy and methods that we can learn from martial arts techniques are derived from hand-to-hand combat techniques, which means that they are perfectly suited for the ever changing, highly competitive business world. Over the more than 1,000 years of use in historical battles, those that learned how to successfully put these into action not only survived, but thrived.
This seminar will help all attendees to experience this connection between the philosophy and techniques of the Japanese martial arts and business success. Because we are able to physically experience these techniques, they are easier to remember than just through words or lectures. This approach is called Movement Based Learning (M B L) and it is the method we use to teach the core concepts within each of these five seminars.
These BizDo seminars were created to help you find a new path to business success.
What Top Executives Say about Biz道
"I had a great conversation yesterday about leadership and turning challenges into learnings and gratitude. It brought me back to the #aikido workshop I did in Japan a few weeks back with the inspiring Yoshie Sugai .
Aikido taught me to make good use of my energy, to meet force with grace, to turn conflict into #harmony, and to subtly shift the trajectory of an attack instead of opposing it head-on. We practiced an exercise where we had to shift the energy of an attacker with an #appreciation bow. We continued with another practice where we had to balance out two bodies’ opposing forces to lift each other - such a powerful metaphor!
In another exercise we got to use “swords” but instead of fixating on the attacking weapon, we learned to focus on the #whitespaces - those gaps in between, that guided our #innerenergy. Each hit was a lesson, spotlighting our weak points but also offering opportunities for #learning and #gratitude.
Sensei’s emphasis was not on the acquisition of a #skill in isolation, but rather the journey towards bettering our #character and making us aware of our potential to promote understanding among people rather than conflict.
Mastery of Aikido? That's a product of consistent #practice. Something else I am learning is that practice is the way we cultivate #presence, #awareness, #acceptance and the understanding of the lifelong learning journey we are on. Always Uchi-deshi.
— Vanina Farber
IMD Dean of Executive MBA, elea Chair for Social Innovation,
Professor of Social and Financial Innovation
This way of thinking that Yoshie-sensei teaches has become the foundation of my professional mindset and attitude towards work. In my team, every decision I make and every action I take is always aiming at constantly improving myself, but at the same time at supporting my teammates in their own improvement: nobody is left behind, we all grow together. This is what makes our team such a great one in our company! And trust me, the results and performance are right there to prove it!
Daniel Cuellar, Mitsubishi Fuso
About the Instructor
Yoshie Sugai
Shihan (Master Teacher)
Born in 1969. Yoshie Sugai is the main teacher (Shihan) of Chiseikan and an 8th degree black belt (Shihan-dai) in Nenshinryu Budo. She has been studying Aikido in Japan and abroad since 1996. She met the Kinefuchi Shihan in 2003 and established the Aikido Club at the International University of Minami Uonuma City. Yoshie-sensei practiced for 10 years in all four dojos where Kinefuchi-sensei taught, and helped create the style of Iyonumaryu Aikido. In 2013, she opened the Iyonumaryu Aikido Kyoto Dojo. In addition to managing two dojos, Yoshie-sensei has created unique workshops and training programs for top executives at large companies that teach how to apply martial arts philosophy to business strategy and everyday life.
In the fall of 2020, Iyonuma Ryu Aikido was renamed Nenshinryu Budo, and in the spring of 2021, the Chiseikan dojo was established in Shimogyo Ward, Kyoto City.
Organizers and Attendees have been from the following organizations:
