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When the Mat Became the Way: Small Discoveries from Aikido, Zen, Running, and Life
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jun 1 2026
Pages: 112
Weight: 0.35
Height: 0.23 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
BOOK DESCRIPTION
In 1994, a business card fell out of a book in a Long Island bookstore. It led to a dojo. The dojo led to a mat. The mat led to everything else.
When the Mat Became the Way is the memoir of a life shaped by practice - Aikido, Zen, running, and the quiet discipline of beginning again. Born in Poland and transplanted to Brooklyn Ryszard Kobylinski spent decades moving through dojos, cities, jobs, and distances, carrying what the mat had taught him into every new room he entered.
This is not a book about mastering Aikido. It is a book about what happens when a practice enters a life so deeply that it becomes impossible to separate the two. It is about falling and standing. About the difference between knowing a technique and having it inside the body. About running a first marathon dedicated to a dying teacher. About a 100K through a freezing forest under a full moon. About a bow that traveled from a Nassau County dojo all the way into a California Zen hall, and was recognized there by a monk who had never seen it before.
Written with honesty, humor, and the unhurried attention of someone who spent years learning how to fall, When the Mat Became the Way speaks to anyone who has ever found that a physical practice changed not just their body but the way they move through the world.
For Aikido practitioners. For runners. For Zen students. For wanderers. For anyone still close to the gate, still learning, still needing to bow.
Life is amazing when you blend to it.
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