Yoshinkan Aikido Dojo in Indianapolis, Indiana

Today begins a new epoch in my life. Today, for the first time in about twenty-five years I don’t have an Aikido class to plan for, to think about and to teach.

There have been absences I have had from class during those years, the occasional vacation, or sick day or some extenuating circumstance to take care of, but for the first time in about 1,250 weeks – there is no Saturday Aikido class.

But I can’t kick the habit, I guess. There are more lessons out there to consider; more ways to think about how Aikido works in our lives; more need for practice!

So that is the theme of what I’ll write about today – this is my way of still having a Saturday class.

As in many of my classes I’ll end it with, “Does anyone else have anything to contribute?”. I hope some of you will; I hope that this can be the way many of us have to share their thoughts and understandings – or questions.

Aikido is not a doctrine – there are no correct answers. Aikido gains meaning from many people thinking about their experiences and sharing their ideas. That’s true from something as basic as ways to do techniques to matters as sophisticated as how to apply Aikido’s lesson to the entirety of our lives.

So ….. let’s think about the concept of needing to practice regularly.

I began my study of Aikido in April of 1973. Evelyn Sensei began just a few months later. Our teacher, Takashi Kushida, had arrived in the United States just two or three months before I met him and began my journey.

In the 38 years since I began Evelyn and I have had the privilege of training with many of the best Yoshinkan Aikido instructors in the world. We have practiced with all of the finest Japanese born sensei that have lived in or taught in N. America: Takashi Kushida, Yukio Utada, Masatoshi Morita, Takeshi Kimeda, Tsutomu Chida, Yasuhisa Shioda (the current Soke of the Yoshinkan) and even Gozo Shioda, the founder of the Yoshinkan. We have also trained with who we think are the best Western-born Yoshinkan instructors that have lived in or come to the U.S. such as: Jerome Helton, Gilbert James, Robert Hackett, Jim and Sue Jeanette, Jacques Payet, Robert Mustard, Fred Haynes and David Rubens among the most noteworthy.

And what has our own experience and those of the persons I’ve mentioned above taught us about practice?

It’s probably best summed up in the words of Kushida Sensei – “Keep Doing”.

Aikido is a “path” or a “way”. It is not a fixed set of techniques. It is not something you ever master – it is a way of living you pursue and try to embody.

Aikido is a concept – consequently, it is without boundaries. It is experienced by each person that studies it in a different, but equally valid, way. It constantly morphs from one set of understandings about how it “should” be done to another. Contemplating Aikido invites constant personal reappraisal and change.

I have been a teacher for all of my adult life. I’ve taught at the university level, in the K-12 arena and within business and industry. I’ve been teaching Aikido for thirty-five years last month (Sept.). All of the subjects I have taught, from Psychology to Statistics to High School English have required students to receive instruction and practice what they learned.

What differentiates Aikido from those other subjects is that you can take a final exam in Psychology and earn a credit. The credit that’s earned in Aikido is that which comes from continuing to practice.

Last week I taught my last Saturday lesson at our 65^th Street dojo. It was on being flexible and responsive to the actions and responses of an attacker. Attackers aren’t like “partners”. They’re not trying to make a “perfect movement” with you. Attackers want to hurt you and they aren’t stupid – in error, for certain, but not stupid.

The challenge in Aikido is not to fight with an attacker. Unfortunately, that’s not the way we’re hard wired – so we need to practice and practice responding to changes in an attacker’s movements. But more than the need for responding to movements is the need to have a mindset that doesn’t freeze up when under assault. Such a mindset has to be practiced and practiced. To have the mindset, there needs to be a conceptual understanding of aggression and violence and how it effects your brain and other parts of your body. Practice there, too.

To develop the concepts requires a willingness to set aside your internal belief that you know everything that is important to know and to enter into an ongoing role of student – which takes practice because we all develop a sense of security over being in control of our environment – which means knowing everything that’s important to know about ….. probably everything. So opening up to being a student is threatening …… which takes us back to the need for technique – and practice, and concepts – and practice ….. and – well, more practice!

Moreover, Aikido is about practicing things that actually effect our life – and we live in a world filled with other people. So Aikido, like sex, is best practiced with a partner.

We’re interrupting our weekly Saturday class sessions for awhile. We don’t know for how long. We still have weekday classes though.

But we can’t stop practicing! We can’t cease studying, thinking, learning. We can’t stop being partners.

I’ll try to make regular postings here. I’ll try to address matters that I think are important for us to think about even though we’ll have fewer classes each week to be together on the mat. I’ll send out an email when I’ve posted something new.

I hope discussions can occur to help us study even more. I hope you’ll participate by reading and even writing.

Does anyone else have anything to contribute?