Mystification

Being impressed, seeing something that makes you go “wow”, being inspired – these are not the same thing as being mystified. Mystified has more of a connotation of being stopped, stupefied, left in a daze. On the other hand, being inspired has more of a connotation of being moved, or moved to take action. Whether the initial “wow” is something that wears off after a short while is telling how an individual assimilated the experience. Furthermore, whether the “wow” wears off isn’t something the individual passively goes through.

We have the capacity to think to ourselves, “Gee, that’s novel, that’s interesting,” or “Hm, I want to be able to do that. I feel I can’t go on doing the exact same thing as before. I can really recognize the weight of this experience, and that it’s my choice to pass it by or not.” We have the capacity to notice and activate our own sense of urgency and meaning, and not completely rely on the external to stimulate us. We are able to look at ourselves and think, “Hm, I’m in the exact same place as I was two years ago. Is this where I want to be?”, “I don’t feel like I’m in the right place. I want to be over there. What’s keeping me here?” etc.

There’s a certain dilemma that we face when we encounter a way to get to where we want to go. We may think that it should get us there instantly or soon or easily. We may think that it may involve some amount of work and time. We may think it may require a certain amount of perseverance, devotion, and acceptance. We face a choice of exercising our judgment and faith when we can’t see a step or two ahead. This includes judgment and faith relative to ourselves e.g.,  “Do I trust my confidence in my ability to see two steps ahead? Or do I have more trust in ‘the program’ and give it some more time, effort, etc. to show me something I can’t see yet?”

Sometimes the object of our judgment and faith is a thing. Sometimes it’s a person. The thing with humans is, we have the ability to mix (and mix up) the two. A real person may symbolize something to us, which would entail our putting meaning and expectation on the person (i.e., “objectification”). And a thing may feel close to us and be active or behave, like a good luck charm that “works” for baseball games or a god that we recall at certain times is with us, watching over us (i.e., “personification”).

The getting mixed up part is a piece of the human condition. Of course we have the capacity to recognize our own unintentional and unwitting tendencies. We even have the capacity to endeavor to master them or be free of them. This endeavor is very closely related to budo, if budo is taken to mean a possible way for self-mastery, or “polishing” the self.

The caveat is, then, if a person does budo with the thinking that he can master or attain the ability without mastering himself. Or perhaps the person aims only to attain the ability to a meager or moderate degree, maybe even up to a hypothetical point where self-mastery is not needed. Or the person desires to exert a meager or moderate degree of effort at polishing himself. All of the above cannot avoid the characteristic of budo which has to do with another human condition, namely that humans are of both mind and body (and further, of action; read: “shin-gi-tai”). If a person wishes to emphasize polishing the self, he cannot avoid that this is done through polishing his skill in budo. Conversely, if he wishes to attain the skill (which is understandably the more comprehensible endeavor initially) he must polish himself in the budo model.

Where does staying in a state of mystification, or being easily mystified, come in? What function does it serve, if it is a persistent state or tendency? What is it being reinforced by? It probably comes down to a misunderstanding that feels good to the individual. If a person ordered a product and didn’t get it or got something else, and they were happy about it, how to explain their happiness? For one thing, we could surmise they didn’t really want the product despite what they were and are telling themselves. And/or if they got something different instead of what they ordered, they must really like it, like it more than the thing they first had in mind, and/or substantially  had their original opinion changed by the packaging/presentation of the new thing.

(All of the above could happen in good or bad ways. A lot of “spiritual” processes aren’t clear from beginning to end to a beginner, and they may re-evaluate and re-formulate some fundamental values and premises on the way. )

If a person didn’t get what they ordered and they didn’t mind about it, what could we presume? Maybe they didn’t have particularly high hopes about it, so it didn’t really matter if it came or not. Maybe they had only a vague idea about it, and so they didn’t have high hopes about it. Maybe they didn’t really need it – they just happened to have surplus time, money, energy, etc. and thought they’d give it a try; but there wasn’t a need to be met. In this case, the way mystification would continue would be if the person kept ordering again and again. In which case, maybe it’s like the lottery to them. Their hopes could be high or low, but they think they’ll get rewarded sooner or later.

If a person got something different instead and they either didn’t mind about it or were happy about it? Maybe the thing they got was like getting a deluxe online magazine subscription with coupon codes instead of a regular paper subscription  – genuinely as good as or better than what they originally wanted. Maybe they got something entirely different but realized they had a different need that would be met, like ordering a magazine subscription but getting a astrology/horoscope/personality test  service. Again, maybe their need wasn’t so urgent that not getting it fulfilled isn’t that bothersome. Maybe the person’s hopes were so low that getting anything at in return is enough. And maybe, if they got something different that was pretty good, it gradually started to feel more than pretty good – this is probably a known phenomenon in business/consumer psychology.

What if a person got something different, but they were satisfied with being given an appealing presentation/packaging? Maybe the presentation was really convincing. Maybe their initial expectations were low or vague, and the presentation was very effectively convincing? So the person has already made a small investment, so being sold something else doesn’t feel exactly the same as being given the presentation to buy that something else from the beginning. (This is also possibly a known business psychology phenomenon).

The “magic bullet” of sales would be getting the consumer to pay for something and be satisfied with getting nothing or little in return. How is this accomplished? The act of paying can become satisfying in itself. This could include the knowing of who is getting paid, the knowing of one’s association to the payee, the knowing of one’s association to other payers. How to distinguish between beneficial practices of devotion and selflessness and parasitic or stagnating arrangements?

In the non-competitive budo model, one component of not going astray is the teacher’s integrity. If the teacher sees that the student isn’t getting the goods, the teacher will in one way or another make it apparent to the student. Some teachers may go one stap further and push the student away or demand that the student get on board. If the teacher sees a student not getting “it”, it’s part of his role to see what the student is getting. This is because it influences the meaning of the teacher’s relationship with that student, how specifically the teacher behaves toward that student, and how these all influence the rest of the group.

Another component in budo is the goal: namely polishing the self i.e., the student’s self-actualization. If the student is being drained or somehow  sustained by the student-teacher or student-group relationship but the student himself is not becoming polished, then the responsible person, the teacher, is obligated to notice. That is, if the student is not benefitting while others are, then things are awry. The teacher grasps that each person is an individual. That is, while the actions (e.g., the practice of kata or social interactive behaviors) may follow patterns, the teacher grasps that the aim is not to perform those actions but for the individual to polish himself. The teacher is the one who has the best understanding of what job the tools are to be used for, and therefore the most potential to recognize when the tools are being misused.

Regarding “misuse of the tools”, this goes back to the integrity of the teacher. The teacher should value his tools as he values himself. That is, it should be notable and perplexing if the people he considers his students use the same tools according to an entirely different sense of value and understanding. It is different if they are not his students – one can’t go in the world being perplexed by every single example of someone not fitting one’s own sense of value and understanding.

Budo students who are choosing to be under a particular teacher are by definition people striving to attain something unique to that teacher. Precisely because it is unique, it is not superficial and easily replicable by others. Because it is not a superficial technique or ability, the student faces the task of knowing more and more about the person doing the technique or ability. Just as mind and body are inseparable, so are mind-body and technique/action. The misunderstanding that can occur is that one can do the exact same behavior as another person but not have any of the same sensibilities, not see the world in the same way. Of course it is possible to find convergent development i.e., find two unrelated people who are behaving/doing technique in similar ways. But the intentional endeavor to learn a behavior from someone else is inevitably endeavoring to grasp what that person is about, what that person is experiencing, what that person pays attention to, what that person values, what that person perceives as reasonable, relaxed, forced, fast, slow, etc. And in addition, by encountering the unavoidable contrast between the self of the teacher and the student’s self, the student faces the task of grasping his own tendencies, his own unmalleable fixed conditions, etc. – he comes to know himself if he truly studies the teacher as a vehicle to mastering himself.

‘What are we doing?’

My ‘thinking out loud’:

Originally, “What is the point” – specifically, what are we in aikido doing if we stick with approaches that are different from traditional jujutsu/bujutsu ways of practice? What’s the point of doing aikido and not aikijujutsu?

Common features of traditional jujutsu practice (and what we might all be neglecting in aikido) that I’ve observed:

• Addressing (ie talking about, being explicit about) the circumstances, being very specific about the circumstances, and emphasizing staying within those circumstances and not claiming to be practicing something effective in all circumstances (ie a ‘”magic bullet”).
• Being specific about the use of the body (eg which parts move and don’t, which parts should be activated, which tension is crucial to avoid, etc.)
• Being specific and concrete about what is going on in the uke’s body. Ie 1) what effect one is having on uke and 2) what uke is doing.

• Is there a desire among aikido practitioners to not have emphasis/thought given to many specific points but rather have one coherent and unified rationale/philosophy?
• Is there a desire among aikido practitioners to have a coherent and unified philosophy because the emphasis is about how to be as a single, unified person (ie a philosophy about how to live)? or because it simply sounds simple/beautiful/convenient/romantic/etc.?
• Re-phrase of above: Do aikido practitioners operate based on a (appealing) view of the practice as something that’s supposed to be more than what happens on the mat?
• Is there a desire (possibly compulsion) among aikido practitioners to use abstract and philosophical frames more than concrete/specific? Or to go to extremes (very shallow or very deep/”jutsu-y”) when using either of these frames (as if one frame explains it all)?
• Is there an open-ness or susceptibility to mystification? (Both among students and teachers catering to such students? and reciprocally, teachers who are inclined to get/have students under such control?) A broader-view re-phrase: does aikido have a self-selecting audience of people wanting mystification, simplicity, etc.?
• Is the tendency to desire mystification a desire for simplicity, convenience, ease, etc.?
• Is the unique emphasis of aikido to be adaptable in the moment (ie not so circumstance specific)?
• (Related to previous thought on people’s desiring unified, coherent philosophy:) Do general/universal principles of how to use the body become apparent gradually through the specific techniques in jujutsu/bujutsu? Eg the head shouldn’t come forward, the elbows shouldn’t end up behind your torso, you should maintain an upright upper body.
  Do these generalize to, e.g., have good posture, don’t force things, develop your sense/sensitivity of awkwardness, ease, etc.?
  And do these then generalize to the kind of person you are/are becoming through practicing?
  Is this an individual question, more than a generalization that can be made about all the people doing a particular art? Isn’t there an influence if generalizing/integrating is explicitly mentioned?
• Is the (ideal) method of transmission in aikido, one in which 1) a developed and skilled senior is in the nage role and transmits to newer people his/her internalized sensibilities, and 2) less time is spent emphasizing specific technical points, one that enhances cultivation of relationship (e.g., paying attention to self-other, developing sensitivity to cues and communication, functioning according to roles, developing within and to other roles), not just between seniors and juniors but among the group in general?
  If so, it would inherently be less efficient technically; but the aim would be different – less technique and more self-awareness, receptivity, responsiveness/connectedness.
• What exactly is this necessity, or ideal, of a skilled senior/mentor/teacher? Someone who models and conveys a further advanced/developed sense (thereby inspiring and nurturing the newer person’s capacity) of being ‘honest’, insightful, fitting/accurate/congruent.
• How is the above realized through the practice of forms? How is form practice that is “alive” and responsive realized? Sensitivity, continual questioning/examining e.g. was this movement reasonable? how much strength did I use? did my position allow me to move in an un-forced way?
• To realize responsive and accurate practice, many reach the conclusion that the uke should intentionally create more variables for nage to deal with and resolve. Or that uke should not be concerned with taking away the variables for nage to deal with.
  One implication of this is that, through the practice of the uke role, one can enforce/normalize forced movement, sloppy/inaccurate movement, lack of connection, lack of sensitivity/self-awareness.
• How to practice the same things as nage but not be nage? How to practice responsiveness, unforced movement, absorption, re-positioning, accuracy, etc.?
  Connection, an emphasis on. Continually receiving and reconciling that which nage gives.
  [Addendum: uke acts with little initiative. Just do the initial attack. When something happens next, continue the possibilities rather than stopping, interrupting, and starting over. Very 'mindless' and in the moment.]
  Responsiveness, unforced movement, etc. is not the opposite of falling down and taking the disadvantaged position. They become the opposite when, more than connection, one emphasizes the technical aspects (eg staying upright, moving at certain angles, successfully executing one’s own action, etc.)
  Could this be the unique characteristic of aikido? (Is the unique emphasis of aikido to be adaptable in the moment (ie not so circumstance specific)?)Why O-sensei changed around the roles of traditional practice in which the more senior student takes the ‘losing’ role? The point of being uke is not to learn exactly how to do what nage is doing but what nage is doing?

Gihou (技法) vs Shinpou (心法)

One of my earliest conversations after moving to Japan started with asking Endo sensei about how the teachers in Japan never seemed to talk. I tried to stab at this topic more than once with him, and one of the times was around my noticing (and being somewhat bothered by) teachers talking only about technical matters, where the teachers in California used to often talk about energy, philosophy, and abstract matters. Apparently what came to Endo sensei’s mind was a distinction between ‘gihou’ (methods relative to technique) and ’shinpou’ (methods related to the heart/mind).

I never reached a conclusive and distinct end to this line of questioning. However, there probably has been a consequence, namely my grasping that these matters were inseparable and didn’t require exclusive attention. And, on a more personal level, if I valued ’shinpou’, then regardless of whether I ever heard the teachers talk about it, it would show up in my practice (eg as criteria, as a factor, etc.). Vice versa, if there was an absence of talk about the technical aspect, then it’s not as if giving attention to the heart/mind absolves me of all the technical requirements of reality. It’s a matter of emphasis.

More recently I’m running into the possibility that it is also a matter of personal choice. I’ve always leaned more toward a heavier emphasis on heart/mind, but compared to most of the people at this end of the spectrum, I value and delve into the technical aspects also. (I guess I tend to be the black sheep relative to any group I might be lumped in with.) In the past few years, and particularly early this year, I’ve been working on mainly the technical aspect. I believe I reached a threshold where it’s clear that there is A LOT of technical matters to study and incorporate if I am to consider myself serious and even close to competent technically. But this path is not my original inclination. What to do?

I could simply abandon or de-emphasize it at some point, but I doubt I will reach such a point that would leave me satisfied with my choice. For the moment, I’m considering what it would imply for me to pursue the technical emphasis and presume that I could work on it all, both the technical and heart/mind aspects. And so I see another reason why I have been possessed in recent months by the questions, “What am I doing? What am I trying to get at via my practice? Why am I doing it? What’s the point?”

If I were to keep with a practice that looks like regular aikido practice, a) it would be spending time on that rather than the skills that would naturally need to be honed if I were to emphasize the technical aspect and b) it would possibly involve spending time and energy on movements that don’t/may not  have that much technical meaning. It would also be more inclusive, more accessible, exercise-oriented, and fun-looking.

If the practice were to be more technical, I think it would be simply practicing something very very similar to Daito-ryu and other traditional jujutsu. Do I want to simply practice Daito-ryu? If I prefer “aikido”, then, knowing what I know now, wouldn’t it be Daito-ryu lite? I.e., a Daito-ryu that’s more fun and less deep?

“What am I trying to get at via my practice? Why am I doing it?” In the back of my mind (but closer to the forefront now that I’m conscious of it) is the idea of my being compulsive – needing “more”, needing to be competent “enough”, “strong enough, skilled enough, knowledgable enough, etc.” Compulsive also relative to letting go – aikido is my “territory” after all. I have little trouble letting go of all the other leads that potentially have depth e.g., Systema, Chinese martial arts, Feldenkreis, etc. So, considering Daito-ryu and other jujutsu, all of the technical depth they offer, depth that seems poignantly relevant to “my” aikido – to choose ignorance seems bitter and unbecoming, right now anyway.

Going the other direction, there are presumbaly many traditions that offer depth relative to matters of the heart/mind. To pursue them and then “just” do aikido as a different manifestation – this also feels like the aikido piece is an add-on.

I wonder if I’m having some kind of loyalty issue – with regards to that which has become my “territory”. It feels like it… こだわり. A “hang-up”, an attachment. To simply seek to enjoy aikido-ish movement/practice feels pollyanna-ish and ignorant. But even that is an attachment I am just now getting over – to look down on those who apparently seek to do aikido on a shallow level (despite stating that they are interested in the depth). To be continued…

A Talk with Dr Harding

The other day I was invited by my wife to attend with her a discussion on peace with Dr. Vincent Harding. She mentioned that he’d worked with Dr Martin Luther King Jr and so I thought, if nothing else, I could see a person who was close to an intense time in history.

Dr. Harding began by saying that he did not see himself as the primary figure for the day’s gathering, but instead it was the participants, including the five or so young people who gave short presentations on how they promoted peace in their lives. He said that he wanted to have a dialogue with the people in attendance. Right from the start, from the way that he talked, I got the distinct feeling that there was no superficiality.

We were broken up into smaller groups of 4-5 and invited to talk for a few minutes on the discussion questions handed out on a piece of paper. Then the groups got back together and members were was invited to put themselves forward and talk to Dr. Harding. It was evident that all of the questions were close to the hearts of the persons asking them. Each answer by Dr. Harding was straight and simple. When I think back on it, if I were to summarize what he said, they were all well-known responses, even cliches, such as be present for others, let yourself feel what you’re feeling, etc. But it was the way he communicated that struck me and I believe made an impact.

My wife told me I looked very intense during the Q&A discussion. I was probably taking in, intensely, how Dr. Harding was present and interacting with the members. I walked away from this gathering with a revitalized notion of how I would like my future dojo to be, how I would like to be as a therapist, and how to be a leader in general.

How to draw out such true and congruent expression from people? That bearing of Dr. Harding is not something that is acquired in a day. Yet there is something to be said of “stepping up” and filling the role of a leader. On a superficial level, a person’s credentials can draw out kept-away parts of people. You may open up to a therapist or Dr. Harding just because you know his credentials and believe in their weight. However, the superficiality can beget superficiality. The questions and expressions drawn out by a superficial reason could be demands for “magic bullets” to problems or complete sympathy. How one in the leader’s role deals with the superficiality can add to one’s bearing, though it might be difficult.

One way to draw out true and congruent expression is to share from oneself true and congruent expression. If one is more true and congruent than not, then the relationships that will arise around oneself will likely be influenced accordingly. The trick (for me anyway) is to not demand that others relate to me as I deem “true and congruent”; it’s easy to be lazy and disinterested if someone doesn’t talk about something I’m interested in. Whether one is coming from a problem-solving perspective or a perspective of empathy, to share questions and insight that are true is crucial. Depth is relevant here. Sharing one’s own true and congruent perspective even (or especially when) it may differ from that of the other person – this can be impactful as it is a way of conveying that one is really seeing, hearing, and understanding the other person. If the other person wanted to know how to comfort others over a loss they’ve suffered, I might be true and congruent by saying I don’t think there’s anything in particular one can do to comfort others, but that it’s more important to do be there for them, stay in the room near them, get them some tea, etc.

Dr. Harding spoke of allowing ourselves to feel, and not apologize for feeling sad or angry. Instead, let yourself feel it and share with others that you’re feeling it. Some of the group separately shared with Dr. Harding about the frustration they felt regarding their peers’ apathy and inaction. Dr. Harding’s response included the above as well as the implication that one should convey to others what is important to oneself.

He spoke of the three c’s needed for peace-work: courage, creativity, and compassion.

• In summary I believe “courage” is to see oneself truly and wholly, to be as one truly is in relation to others and in relation to situation, which includes taking initiative and action, to strive to respond to others and situations to the best of one’s capacity rather than at one’s lower, easier levels;
• “creativity” is to try different ways of seeing oneself and outside, to see and try different ways of being and interacting with others and situations, to exercise one’s imagination in being and expressing oneself, to exercise one’s imagination and utilize inspiration that one has experienced in becoming a person with greater capacity;
• “compassion” is to accept the prospect/fear/expectation of what one might see and what one actually does see when one observes oneself, to understand that there are parts that one does not want to see and that there are reasons for not wanting to see, and accept those possible reasons, to grasp the limits of what one is and can do, despite the possibility that others may expect differently, to recognize and exercise the capacity to accept the limitations of others whether those are limitations in your view or others’.

Seminar – taking stock 2 (Atari & “Hitting the structure”)

There is another thing that I realize I’ve walked away with from the Aikiweb seminar, evidenced by how frequently it’s been popping into my mind. It is the phrase that George Ledyard used, “hit the (partner’s) structure”. This phrase fits so well that I am tempted to say I prefer it over the expression “tai-atari (体当たり)”, which would be the original term I heard. Perhaps tai-atari would show its usefulness in the connection to “ki-no-atari”, which of course leads to an early point, namely that there is no absolute distinction between body and ki, or body and mind. For now, I had a train of thought run through my mind based on “hitting the structure”.

With variation among schools of aikido, there are place where the partners pause. E.g., after nage does the turn in tenkan/tai-no-henko; the first cut down in ikkyo omote; the first cut down to create kuzushi for kata-dori or katate-dori ikkyo, the cut down after the initial irimi movement in irimi-nage, etc.

What the examination of pauses boils down to is, what possibilities do you have from that position? The scope can be as narrow as, can you and your partner go to the next proper step in the form? It might be wider, such as can you extricate yourself from that position and continue attacking, possibly with the other hand, without opening yourself up to all manner of techniques and attacks? From this general question of possibilities, the examination is no longer restricted to the codified pauses in the forms. It’s anywhere uke’s balance is broken, which direction they fall or stumble, and how they recover. And, possibly the extraneous question, how to still “be uke” in that the interaction between nage and uke is completed with uke falling or being pinned.

What the idea of possibilities has to do with “hitting structure” is that in order to have the possibility of acting on a partner, one must be engaged with them. That is, I might have many possibilities by disengaging, staying away, and making noncommital gestures to engage, but none of them will give me access to the possibilities of interacting with or acting upon my partner.

The more or less codified pauses are points at which uke can check whether they are organized enough to a) hit the nage’s structure with their structure (as opposed to with only their arm) and b) move in accordance with the next step in the form, or more precisely speaking, move such that the next step in the form is fitting (or else the nage can either forcibly continue the form or change to something else that is more fitting).

Offhand there are 4 ways in which the interaction can go.

1. Uke hits nage’s structure with his own structure.
2. Uke hit’s nage’s structure only partially (eg with muscular strength only).
3. Uke hits part or none of nage’s structure (eg only the arm) but with his own structure.
4. Uke hits part or none of nage’s structure and without his own structure.

There’s a fifth way, consisting of uke leaning on nage. I’m presuming that this gives uke the sensation of pushing on nage. Suffice it to say, using one’s body to push and to lean are quite different actions. At the least, leaning creates the potential for falling, and likely makes acting upon uke’s body by nage a completely different action. Utilizing the fall is probably primary and not necessarily easy.

One way that it is not easy (if uke is leaning skillfully, like a good tackle), is that nage must still be moving with his structure, not just any old way. A skillful tackle will fill up the “space” within nage’s body such that nage may be literally backpedalling, or unable to use his body with the feeling of backpedalling.

When one “grows up” in a particular school, they learn where to stop and how. The “how” part might not be examined very deeply, though there might be a sense of accomplishing it better or worse. Another piece that might not be examined is “why”. From what I myself have seen, both students who do and don’t come from schools where these “pauses” are practiced struggle to one degree or another when faced with the examination of “how” and “why”. This examination is probably presented to students familar with pauses as pausing in unfamiliar places and times, with consequences relating to what happens after a pause. These students may at least have the possible advantage of having something to translate to become more flexible or generalized. To students unfamiliar with pauses, the examination is likely more of a struggle. For one thing, if a student is used to continuous movement, they may face the demand of organizing their body only at a few points, such as at the very beginning or very end of contact with nage. If demanded to pause right in the middle of flow, their body organization might be lagging behind, accustomed to the luxury of catching up later in the flow, or jumped ahead, knowing what the next leg of the flow will be like. Or perhaps the student might not even be behind or ahead, but simply doing an approximation, sort of like counting from 1 through 10, “1, 3, 5, 34, 2, 78, 5, 9 9.1, 10″, used to getting by within the loosest of criteria. If a student was suddently corrected that this was not really counting from 1 to 10, they might have some justified response, indicating the criteria that they’ve been using, such as “I counted 10 numbers didn’t I?” or “I started with 1 and ended with 10 didn’t I?” The student who is already used to pausing may be used to counting correctly from 1 to 10, but struggle with the task of struggle with the task of counting from 1 to 20 using whatever numbers they deemed fitting. For both, the examination of pauses may seem nonsensical.

Seminar – taking stock

• “The Animal” – Clark sensei responded to someone who was basically commenting how it “feels like nothing” when you do the technique and your partner falls down. Perhaps the question was, how do you assess and improve the skill if you can’t feel when you succeed? Clark brought up the concept of the “animal” that we feed with the feeling of success or otherwise working away at something (eg wrestling with someone, overpowering someone). Getting better at technique means becoming able to do technique in a way that doesn’t give you that feedback that “feeds the animal”. Conversely, if feeding the animal is your incentive for practicing, then your technical improvement will accordingly stay at a level at which you can still feed the animal. To move on, you have to starve it.
  An immediate thought I had was how the animal can adapt to different “diets”. And, because the animal isn’t being fed by the initial diet, I might be in danger of feeding it without noticing. This is a question of  internal awareness and introspection, one that could be the biggest one I took away from that weekend. It was one of those “Ag!” moments where I realized I didn’t really understand what my teacher was getting at years ago. I’ve already had a couple of “Ag!” occasions where I thought I understood why Endo sensei was so persistent about the idea of feeling oneself and not being captivated by the partner to the point of not noticing or ignoring the partner.
  My “project” now is to notice the animal’s current diet.
• The value of a group to which you belong, or a “kai”.
  Talking with some of the Jiyushinkan people, I could see on one hand how much they were developing as human beings from their practice because they belonged to a coherent, cohesive group. Belonging entails having a set a values, priorities, relationships, reference points – all of which entail having an identity. Paradoxically, being able to have an identity enables a person to question themselves and thereby grow.
  On the other hand, and this is not a piece that is strictly wedded to being in a group, there is the aspect of “other”. That is, belonging to a group influences how you see people outside of the group and how your experience is when you encounter such people. The main, possibly only, danger lies here, in that that development of “other” could go poorly. Precisely because the danger lies here, a person’s way of mitigating that danger is to initiate encounters with it (ie interact with “others”) and continue to be/become the person he/she is trying to become. So, if belonging to a group involves any related danger, it is to minimize exposure to “other” and increase the possibility of a person’s grasp of “self” and “other” to go awry.
• Premises and assumptions.
  Examining the assumptions that I place myself under in my practice is a good way to contemplate why I am practicing, what I think is important, how I prioritize, what I’m trying to get out of it.
  To start from specifics, I think I don’t value reversals as much as I value absorption and efficient use of energy. I probably value continuity more than intentional acceleration/deceleration. I think I value surrendering myself to my partner’s actions more than consciously deciding or knowing what we are doing from moment to moment.
  I probably value demanding, or encouraging, a pre-decided form to happen by making my own openings rather than my partner’s openings apparent. This could have something to do with boundaries, but particularly when I’m dealing with someone I’m not familiar with or with a beginner, I will be more likely to leave the windows of opportunity open, and close them with people I’m more familiar with and of a higher level. Of course the premise is that I think one dimension of an interaction with a partner is awareness of who they are and when something is being artificially, rather than organically, given/taken. I don’t know if this reflects my attitude on social context or my aikido development.
  Why? Why choose these assumptions? For the first assumption, at the risk of providing an evasive answer, I like “neru” practice. I like the idea of striving for unconscious awareness and accepting whatever comes. As mentioned above, with a higher level partner I can “keep a channel open” for my own agenda (eg attacking and putting them down, or reversing) but it’s not an emphasis.
  As for the second assumption, again at the risk of an evasive answer, I think that that is more in accordance with my philosophy of life at this point. It’s likely also how I’ve “starved my animal”, at least in one way.

Progress, and reliance on teachers

A conversation topic that came up recently was around attending seminars and having contact with one’s shihan. (As an aside: the topic brought up the feeling of reactance within me because it felt like it was “drenched” in common sense and was part of the impetus for my writing Common Sense and Reactivity.) In the conversation, it was clear there was a difference in the amount of experience, and consequently the outlook, of myself and the other person. We had quite different views on the role of a teacher in one’s practice, the ways in which one is responsible for and creates one’s practice, and the role of a teacher with whom one does not have frequent contact.

When I myself went “guru seeking”, over some time I found that there was no such thing as a guru, while simultaneously I discovered how interesting and deep the things were that I had presumed I already knew relatively well and were not so deep: namely, basics. I also discovered how many different sources of inspiration and stimulation there were, as opposed to solely my main teacher. While I never achieved the feeling of having found “the one (guru)”, my teacher guided me in some tremendously significant ways, almost always in a very subtle, nondescript manner. Though I wasn’t conscious of it at the time, my teacher was there to relate to me and for me to relate to him, even when it wasn’t explicit. By simply relating and communicating with me, his teaching occurred in such a way that I kept and developed my autonomy, self-motivation, and self-discipline. Despite my receiving such encouragement to stand on my own two feet, I am now revisiting the idea of how much I was relying and leaning on my teacher.

In what ways have I been “leaning” and “letting my guard down”? For one thing, I was able to presume that my teacher was watching me and would give me feedback or guidance from time to time based on what he saw. My presumption was supported by the fact that I did in fact receive such feedback – furthermore, it was always meaningful. Another thing was, when communication happened, verbal or otherwise, I could rely on his fully listening to me and taking me seriously. Conversely, he conveyed to me that I should try to be serious, not lackadaisical, and attentive as well. In other words, it was not only words and information that was shared, but feeling and attitudes also. In relation to nonverbal communication, it could not be clearly concluded what was given and received by each person. So when I had the feeling my teacher was doing a behavior that related to me (e.g., observing me or imitating me), he would be straightforward and honest about it, without necessarily going out of his way to verify it for me. That is, he did not make an effort to hide anything, without necessarily making sure we saw everything. And sometimes, when he felt like it or when we got close enough to what he felt was meaningful, he would communicate to us on the general subject, whether it was directly relevant to our understanding or what he thought was a relevant tangent.

In summary, I could rely on my teacher, if no one else, to see me deeply for what and how I truly was. I could rely on him to communicate to me what he perceived, whether it be a verification, reflection, or critique. I could rely on him to be honest and transparent about himself, and still end up being someone I could aspire to be like myself.

So, then, without a person in my life without these things, am I totally hobbled in some ways? If I rely on these things, am I forced to stop without them? Intellectually, I can see that, despite receiving the benefit of certain valuable things from a teacher, I should not be reliant upon those things in the exact same way for my entire life. At the same time, as human beings everything is not always obvious and simple, and sometimes we need to stop and make an effort to take stock of what is and isn’t. Currently I can tell my heart protests and doesn’t like the prospect of losing a valuable support. But I know in my head that it is already lost and the time is now appropriate for me not to have it – thus it’s more a matter of accepting the reality of my current and next life stage.

The topic of whether a person “needs” to see their shihan every month, every year, etc. and have the same, un-evolving relationship forever is moot. I can only imagine it is troubling for someone who find it difficult to see themselves practicing and teaching along side their teacher someday, with the same knowledge or ability that seemed so grand and unattainable years ago. Another aside: when I was seeing a therapist as part of my own therapy training, I had a clear realization one day that I had internalized his lines of inquiry. I found myself asking myself the same things he often asked, things that I did not notice by myself, initially. By internalizing (maybe the terminology is “introject”), in a way I became independent. On one hand, I didn’t need him to actually ask the questions – I could pose them to myself. On the other hand, they still didn’t feel (initially anyway) like my questions. Until they are mine, perhaps I am relying on him.

Judging

I like analysing people. Now I try not to focus on judging others, guessing what they are like and what they might be thinking about, but I still watch others in the street to observe the way they walk.

Since I can remember, I’ve never really gotten how people seem to use the word “judge”. It seems to carry a negative connotation. “Assess” seems to make some people feel better. I wonder if people’s negative take on “judge” has something to do with perceiving that one is separate with others, that one can observe the world and not be a part of it.

I have a thing with posture. It might have something to do with my bad eyesight. I notice posture/comportment from far away – it enables me to identify people when I can’t see their face. Not only do I notice it in a pure sense, I notice it in a subjective sense i.e., if someone’s posture is really bad or really good, I take notice. I can acknowledge that I’m noticing because it’s good or bad – I don’t mind too much saying so. Perhaps this is when people don’t like the word “judge”. “Who are you to say that person’s posture is good/bad?”

But the bottom line is a significant part of why I notice what I notice is due to my subjective experience of the thing. The above has been about good/bad, possibly beautiful/ugly. What about other dimensions?

For example, at some point in aikido I started to pay attention to whether a person really meant to attack and experience the prescribed technique of the moment with me, or they meant to sort of attack, sort of let me do the technique but more fall down by themselves, sort of attack but be more concerned with blocking my atemi, prevent me from doing what we’d supposedly agreed upon, etc. This is not a simple good vs bad kind of aspect, yet I would say that it has to do with “judgment”.

Subjectively, the degree to which I experienced my attention being drawn to this aspect probably puts me more at the sensitive end of the spectrum. It was something that pushed my buttons. Thus it was about attachment and something I have worked on. However, though I’d like to be free of the attachment, I never thought to give up on becoming a better and better judge of people’s intentions.

As I got more and more accurate, and more and more free of becoming attached/captivated, I became more and more able to see the situation. The current situation as what came before and what’s reasonable (not forced) to happen next. Thus, in aikido techniques, the interaction with the partner could happen earlier, time-wise. However, from my perspective it is happening at the right time. “Early” is only relative to the point in time I perceived our interaction as starting as I would have reported one year ago, ten years ago, etc.

If someone is about to attack me in practice, and I can tell they don’t like me or have some problem with me, I try to see it, see how I am with having perceived that, and accept it all. If I don’t like that I’m feeling my partner is being suspicious of me or scared of me or whatever, I don’t think to stop judging  – stop judging because I might not be right or because judging only introduces information that is possibly useless. Not only is it (to deal with attachment and greater self-awarness) part of my area of interest and motivation to do such a practice as aikido, it is also relevant to the execution of technique on an “aiki” level, territory I think I’ve started to delve into recently.

As a human being, it makes sense to me to take into account how a person’s emotional state is when I am try to see all of how a person is. As a human being who is in the learning process, it makes sense to take advantage of my strengths in the process; if I am more adept at noticing certain details, I should continue, not stop, to refine the noticing of those details so that it serves me in my learning. If I notice something because it makes me feel good or bad, so be it. It is not the assessing, judging, or noticing that is counterproductive but the attachment to and captivation by the same.

faith

Re: Who Sez O’Sensei Was Wise!

Quote:

Still taking about the power of myth, does it or doesn’t place more dependence on someone else, like O’Sensei, to guide my life? Will it help me turn that focus I have off of someone else I think provides me wisdom and guidance to my own inner voice? Is there myths that do that? Or is it the nature myth power to direct us to the dependence on others?

This is a fine question but one I think that is quintessentially American.

How is this question “quintessentially American”? The question reveals a certain thought process. It somehow connects, or possibly even equates, receiving guidance with becoming dependent, and receiving guidance and not listening to one’s inner voice. How does it happen that those connections are made? That contradictions must be reconciled, and paradoxes expected and accepted when it comes to “deeper” things (which are often the same as “simpler” everyday things) – these could be difficult to realize with the thinking that is basis for the above question.

In the West we have very few arts that require “transmission”. Many of those that did don’t exist any more because no one wanted to do that kind of work under a teacher. Still, one can see examples that bear… Look at the relationship between the coach and the elite level athlete. …  A writer may have an editor without whom his talents wouldn’t be sharpened. A recording musician has a sound engineer and producer. … . The fundamental foundation for the transmission of knowledge in the East is the Teacher / Student relationship. “Transmission” go ways beyond mere instruction. It is a heart to heart process. It requires a letting go of ones individual concerns. … In fact a great degree of faith is required in the process. That is why the finding of ones teacher is so important. …  Leaving aside that the process was often subverted or that unscrupulous people simply resorted to outright fraud, the system worked and transmitted a certain kind of spiritual and technical knowledge over thousands of years.

Quote:

This isn’t a science vs. myth thing. I want to show why I am saying what I am. The thing so powerful that came from the revolution of science was that we could independently find wisdom on our own and not dependent on the myths that lead us to looking at others for guidance.

The revolution of science, while great in many ways, caused us to throw out the baby with the bath water from the standpoint of traditional knowledge. I do not think that science has caused us to become independent individuals from a wisdom standpoint. Quite the opposite. From the Western scientific standpoint, if we can’t find a way to measure something with a machine, it doesn’t exist. … . Science has no useful explanation for “enlightenment” or mystic union with God. It would like to think it can explain Love as a biochemical process but I suspect that most individuals find that to be unsatisfactory. … . The world O-Sensei lived in was full of kami, contained inherent wisdom that a person’s mission was to discover. That is the spiritual path in a nutshell… the discovery of ones relationship to the absolute and how one can live with that. Science has no methodology for this. Zen quite explicitly states that the thinking mind cannot even perceive the truth of this.

Scientific method and data may enable us to be more independent (i.e., not require the existence of any other people)  relative to something more scientific in nature. However, it is just “more” or “less” and not  “either/or”.

Even if we took as an example the medical field, we will probably never reach the end of the quest for better diagnostic instruments. We do what we can with our current instrumentation. I.e., the instrument cannot give the doctor 100% of the necessary information such as what is occurring, why it is occurring,  and what should be done. The doctor uses experience and judgment to give the best possible response under the circumstances. This can include what is noteworthy in the first place, hunches about what else to look for, assessment of what is being observed, what course of action will actually be practicable, etc.

Experience and judgment come partly from exposure to others, both good and bad. With no exposure to others (e.g., mentors), one’s judgment will certainly develop differently than with exposure. Is this “dependence” on others, to develop better judgment, wisdom, etc. from outside influences? Are there fields in which an individual’s development is unconnected from others and one is completely independent?

As stated above, it is precisely because instruments/methods are better and better able to tell me what they are (and aren’t, if one includes instruction manuals and information from other people) measuring, it is more apparent to the individual what the instrument/method cannot do. At such a point the individual make his/her own assessment, hypotheses, judgment, etc., which are inevitably the product of the individual’s measurements plus prior experiences. Therefore, for instance, I can know that I am at and angle of x-degrees relative to my target, but there is “something more”, such as distance, speed, muscular tension, intention, potential responses, responses to responses, etc., that I factor in to achieve my goal – that I recognize the existence of that “something more” at all, and that I can identify and see the significance of that “something more” are subsequent stages.

The search for the Teacher is one that entails a leap of faith. The teacher is, by definition, someone who knows what you do not, perceives what you can’t, can do what seems impossible for you. The fact that there are so few real Teachers of true mastership has caused a major disruption in the spiritual world. Look at Aikido… it has been the blind leading the blind. … The vast majority of American martial artists have Zero experience with any teachers who truly function at what in the East would be considered mastery. So we decide “Hell, we all put our pants on the same way” and decide, in true democratic fashion that no one is higher than ourselves. When it comes to a clash between what we want and what our teacher demands we quit and find a teacher who lets us be “ourselves”. And that’s fine for someone but I have never seen anyone who got to a really high level of mastery that way. It is not the function of the teacher to let you be yourself.

Quote:

I follow him because I think his skill was great and I want to be like him.

Actually, I don’t want to be like O-Sensei. … . But I want to know, at least to some extent what the Founder knew. I think much of that knowledge is Universal and transferable across culture. … . My job as a teacher of Aikido in the West is to take my understanding as far as it can go but also to pass it down to another generation. …  I have to find a way to create a genuine American context for this knowledge that preserves its depth but is also understandable and of value to American practitioners. …  What is inherent in the Aikido of the Founder that can help us be better people, make or world better, help us lead better lives? It is the job of the non-Japanese teacher of the art to find this out. I can’t get that from O-Sensei or Saotome Sensei or Ikeda Sensei. I can get help from friends who are also engaged in this process themselves. But without the myth to inspire, without teachers to stand as examples of what mastery REALLY is, the individual simply relies on his own judgment, his own perception, his own experience. That generally results in someone who is very good at being the same person they’ve always been but perhaps more attached to it.

Another, practical, consideration when examining what an “independent” person with nothing but scientific method would be is lifespan. Perhaps a machine can spend forever honing its results, but for a human it wouldn’t work. And would a machine be able to come up with experiments to do? This is precisely where inspiration and consideration of possibilities becomes relevant. We are all in danger of being satisfied with familiarity. The danger is with respect to complacency and attachment. Inspiration is, “I don’t know where it will take me but I’m going to try it.” Perhaps even, “I’m not exactly sure what ‘it’ is but I’m going to try ‘it’”.

Quote:

Here again, I don’t question. It doesn’t occur to me that there might be someone better then him. Maybe that is, because of myth. Which didn’t occur to me until you wrote about myth, that helps.

We should question, all the time… But we also have to take on faith that there are simply things we don’t have a clue about right now. For many years I had no idea whatever what my own teacher was doing. I think I had gotten to the point at which I had conceded that I would never be as good as he is.But then I met some other teachers who functioned at that same very high level. They had ways of teaching things that were totally different from my own teacher and suddenly I started to understand what my own teacher was doing. Then, they showed me that there were things far beyond what I had even been shooting for. I am far better than I ever thought I’d be now and yet I feel like a complete beginner. There is stuff out there that I had no clue even existed. There are folks out there who make the myths real. I don’t give anything up in this process. I don’t lose my sense of myself… but what that sense is is constantly shifting.

Quote:

It is that process of not questioning that I relate to as impulse buying of what and why we are not independent but rather dependent. Does myth lead us to impulse buy or away from that?

We are not independent. We are totally dependent… on our teachers, on each other, on our environment… In fact it is not so much that we are dependent but that we are totally connected. Everything is connected. Virtually all of our problems as individuals and as members of the collective come from our ignorance of this fact and continued attempts to act as if it weren’t true. The Founder saw Aikido as a practice that would lead us to a better understanding of this fundamental connection. Since we do not inherently understand this connection, the myth inspires us to go beyond our own limitations. The “myth” is how the reality of the great teacher lives on after his death to continue to teach and inspire.

“Lives on” is relevant because we are connected through space and time. I may not see my teacher for long periods of time. I may never have met someone who is inspiring. How can they affect me then?

It is interesting that the confusion between “being connected/affected” and “being at the mercy of” arises so often, both intellectually and physically.

Interview with Philippe Gouttard

Interview with Philippe Gouttard

… Christian Tissier, who was just back from Japan, came to give a course in Saint-Étienne. There I said to myself “this is what we have to do”. What is funny about it is that the other members of our group did not like what they saw at all. There I realised that perception is really a question of moment. If Mr Tissier had come 10 day before or after, maybe it might have been me who had said “that’s crap” and the others “that’s great!”. Anyway, I was in a good state of mind to receive his teaching and I realised that it was exactly what I wanted to do.

G.E.: Nowadays you speak Japanese fluently. Did this change your understanding of what the Japanese teachers were doing?

P.G.: When I finally understood, I was a bit disappointed by the fact that they spoke very much like we do. I thought they would use poetic words with a lot of metaphors but in fact, not at all. They talked exactly like us “raise your arm, lower your hips, you are a bunch of morons!” (laughs). When I first came to Japan, I was convinced that the masters lived in tree tops, that they did not eat, did not have sex and so on. When I saw that every now and then, they fancied a drink or two, I was really disappointed. I realised that these guys who were virtuosos in aikido were in every other aspect very much like us. They were Japanese men living according to the customs of their own country.

G.E.: Was there a Japanese instructor who had a particular influence upon you?

P.G.: A gentleman like Seigo Yamaguchi helped me a lot because he was a nonconformist and that is exactly what I am trying to do on the mat. He was not in the Aikikai standards. For example, it was forbidden to smoke in the Aikikai but he smoked there, he used to do exactly the class he wanted and sometimes, he wouldn’t even turn up at all! For me, he brought freedom to a peak. This guy that I found ugly was suddenly magnificent when he stepped on the mat. Gradually, as I met teachers and improved in my practice, I came to realise that I wouldn’t mind dying in the arms of somebody like Mr Tissier or Mr Yamaguchi.

G.E.: Does your knowledge in osteopathy help you to teach aikido?

P.G.: All this allowed me to ask myself: instead of thinking of hurting, control and twist wrists, couldn’t we say “we are going to build the body”? Of course in the beginning, we build our own, we become very strong but what is the point if it is only to destroy the other guy? I tried to formulate things a little differently. He is attacking me because he has run out of any other way of expressing himself. I will therefore put him in such a situation of motion and pleasure that I will take any desire to aggress from him; not the will of being powerful, decided or strong; just the urge for destruction.

My own experience with the teachers I like, and furthermore the teachers who blew my mind at one point or another, the experience was disconcerting and unfamiliar, but felt light, open, and pleasurable. Currently I’ve reached a place where I can viably explore how to let the partner’s function actually happen and accordingly how I can help them to “dissolve” in that open way. That open way is something that is not simply overpowering or oppressing the partner (although attachment to one specific way or another isn’t constructive). In an odd way, the partner often seems to expect to experience some degree of fighting or resistance when he/she attacks. By letting the partner succeed, they don’t encounter the fighting experience, and at least something different can arise.

G.E.: This idea of construction is a crucial part of you teaching isn’t it?

P.G.: When we twist a wrist, we don’t only act on the wrist but on the whole articulation and the muscular chain down to the point of balance. This is why we have very few acute injuries in aikido but many more chronically debilitating pains. The body gets used to taking the abuse until the day it makes you say “that’s it, I can’t take it any longer”. Then we start wondering why it went wrong since we’d been so careful all these years and never got injured. It is now that we must be careful and practice intelligently. We should not change the techniques but change the minds instead. We must avoid at all cost incidents due to awkwardness or lack of attention. Also, we must get rid of the notion of wanting to do well and focus on wanting to do better. It is when we expect to do well all the time that we end up with frustration. We have to leave ourselves room for improvement, allow ourselves to make mistakes.

What I really want to get away from is the idea of perfection. We should obviously tend towards perfection but certainly not let ourselves be put down by mistakes. As soon as we are afraid to make mistakes, we don’t do half of what we are capable of and we make excuses for ourselves. Right know we are talking to each other, we try to speak properly but at some point, we are going to make language mistakes. If somebody passes by at that moment, he is going to say “Look at this moron, he can’t even speak properly”. The thing is we don’t care about it! I much prefer to things according to the way I feel than using perfect but empty sentences. Afterwards, we can always fix things if they have not been expressed properly or understood right instead of always having to be careful. Let’s face it, this is only aikido, it is not like if we were in politics trying to reunify a country. It is exactly like when people want to take pictures. I don’t mind people taking pictures when I am in an awkward position. People who appreciate me will figure out that it was at that particular time of the motion whereas others don’t like me will always find something anyway. By far I prefer things to be natural. See, when a politician screws up, I don’t mind it as long as he recognised his mistake.

Some of these above points are very much along the lines of what I’ve been hearing Endo sensei say. The reconciliation of striving to do something better with letting go (of achieving “better”) is, in a general sense, also about reconciling how to follow one’s wishes and desires (i.e., what one’s ego is telling one to do) and how to achieve freedom, actualization, and happiness. Too often we get sidetracked in strategizing and dissecting.

G.E.: During seminars you indeed show little concern towards the form but pay a lot of attention to the essence of a technique.

P.G.: That is right. In fact I try to give as much freedom as possible to my students, they are always right but all in a different way. We become better by changing of partner, vision, teacher, place etc. Of course we do the same technique over and over again but the point is to understand why it works in some places, not in others. Everybody has the solution within themselves but the difficulty is to take enough time to think it over. A teacher can only give his own solution which is one amongst many others.

To relate this to aikido, shihonage is the same everywhere but sometimes, we see a practitioner doing it and we think that it is rubbish. He is probably not rubbish but he has motions, postures and attitudes that irritate us. It only means that we are not good enough yet to accept that the others might do things differently. Instead of saying that the other guy is crap, we should say that we did not train enough to understand him properly. As a consequence, we will go see somebody else and later, we should go back to see him.

This is speaking to the idea of developing one’s eye. Developing one’s eye is not only about discerning more detail, but about freeing oneself from “the specks of dirt on the lenses” – those workings that can be no one’s but our own which make us overlook some things while over-fixating on others. To develop one’s eye in seeing a baseball thrown by a pitcher is one thing, but to develop one’s eye in seeing another human being in the context of proceeding through life is a whole other ball of wax.

This is basically what I try to do in Japan. Before, I rarely went to practice with the teachers that I did not like. Nowadays, I always go there.

G.E.: Why is that?

P.G.: Precisely to check if I really don’t like them or if I just was not mature enough to understand.

G.E.: Isn’t this degree of liberty unsettling for your students?

P.G: I offer the technique to my students, from that, they do whatever they want with it. Of course I am sad when my students leave me but I would be even more upset if they were staying with me so as not to sadden. In that case, they would be considering me as an old man. If a student of mine tells me “Philippe, for the next year, I won’t be coming to train with you because I want to train with this other guy.”, I won’t mind at all. The thing that would really hurt me is if we did not keep contact. The fact that during his life, a student might want to study with another teacher is perfectly normal; it does not strike me since I did it myself. We will meet each other again, that is aikido, paths that divert and meet each other all the time. The times when we meet each other have to be very strong and precious moments so we don’t feel guilty to have parted from each other. As a teacher, if you give intelligence and practice you also give freedom. Freedom is priceless.

Of course we can’t be free at the beginning; we only can trust our teacher. We go to a dojo, usually randomly and we are told that there is nothing better. With practice, we realize however that the best in us is very similar to the best in somebody elsewhere. That is why I think that grades do not have a technical value but a value as a representation of experience and formation.

Faith (in one’s teacher) – it pops up again.

Take the example of Tokyo or Paris; it is quite normal to have 30-40 people on the mat in a dojo. Now, if a teacher has 10 persons on his mat in Galway, Cork or Tipperary, it is as intense as in Paris. Is aikido better in Paris than in Tipperary? I don’t know. What I do know is that in Paris, people can train 6 times a week, 3 times a day whereas a practitioner in Tipperary might consider himself lucky if he has the possibility to do it twice a week. Now both have the same value because even if the shodan in Paris and Tipperary does not represent the same experience, it rewards the same level of personal investment. Personally, I ask of students and teachers that they train hard, without thinking of whether in Tipperary or Paris it is good or not. Us students, we always feel guilty because we think: “I don’t train in Paris and I have never been to Japan so of course, I can’t understand” but once we finally have been to Paris or Tokyo, we often feel empty unless we meet a teacher or a student who enriched us with knowledge that we could not have grasped at home.

Aikido is accessible to everybody but not everybody can access all of aikido.

G.E.: So we don’t practice the founder’s aikido?

P.G.: … aikido has to evolve in function of our needs.

Nowadays, people who come to see us are well behaved and well educated, they are self disciplined. We must tend towards suffering less during the practice, be less frustrated, less jealous. If we get hit, we must accept it, lose a bit of our self esteem; a bit of the 7th dan that goes away. For example, I try to make people practice in a situation where they don’t have the control anymore. I push the students to do techniques beyond reflection in order to make the body “go for it”. Afterwards, we might say “shit, I shouldn’t have done that” but if we leave the intelligent spirit time to anticipate, we won’t go for it anymore because we know we are going to die.

It is probably greatly, vastly, horrifically, tremendously overlooked how much most students protect themselves from ever having to experience all that which aikido practice could expose them to.

Students must trust their teacher but the teacher must also be tolerant of the reactions of his students. It is always a reciprocal thing, a teacher must always accept when a student of his goes to train with somebody else but the student also has to remember that if he is able to make anything out of what the other teacher is saying, it is because of the knowledge he got from the first one.

G.E.: Is the social aspect important for you?

P.G.: It is very important outside the mat. We can talk, cry, hug all night but the following morning, we must be back on the mat at 9 a.m. and go for it! This is a dictatorship, no feelings, no religion, no politics. Gender is non-existent, a girl on the mat is just a smaller partner and I will make her suffer as much as a bloke so she understands that we all deserve to work as hard. However, I believe that we do more aikido than we think at night when we share a good meal and a good beverage. After that, on the Sunday morning, the big bad guy of the previous day is not as nasty as we thought, he is even rather like us but we just did not understand each other the day before.

G.E.: You always work to the limit of physical exhaustion and pain…

P.G: In aikido, we must reach the limit beyond which we should not go. When we practice, if I go beyond the limits of a partner, I abused him but if I don’t reach theses limits, I cheated him. We must always go forward and when we can’t go forward anymore, we just have to choose another forward.

G.E.: Any last word to finish?

P.G.: Give strength to others. If we are strong it is to help others, not to crush them.

Moving Forward in Discussions

This week of 2/15/09 on NPR (search online for “Holder’s ‘Cowards’ Comments Examined“(?)), there was a distinct part of the exchange in which the two people were discussing one of their speeches or essays. One person was critical, saying that he perceived that the writing’s focus on negative aspects of race-related discussions today was negating to all of the progress that has been made in the past few decades, that the focus ignored how different and positive it is for youth today compared to youth of thirty years ago. The author of the writing returned that he fully understood all of the progress that had been made as mentioned by the first person, but that that was not the topic of his writing – what was the topic were things that needed to be faced next. So the first person felt that, by its omission, it was being negated and overlooked. But here we have the author himself telling us he wasn’t doing that. Furthermore, we are given a description of his perspective and background which lend credibility – credibility that we are hearing the truth.

(Admittedly taking his side, here,) how is he supposed to compose a speech/essay that is concise and to the point, without digressing on a related but different tangent only to placate people with certain preconceptions and preoccupations? If we say that his essay has as a primary objective to reach everyone, including those who need placating, perhaps he in fact does need to spend some time on the digression. After all, his composition doesn’t come into this world into a vacuum, but into various contexts, which includes various audiences and respective interpretations. Perhaps, at the very least, a digression expressing what the goal of the composition is and what it consciously avoids would be valuable. On the other hand, we could say it’s the onus of the audience to deal with their own preoccupations and preconceptions. If they take in a composition (or read a book, see a movie, hear something from someone, etc.) and receive something that the creator never intended, shouldn’t they question how much was due to their own “junk”? In fact, isn’t the individual who is making the mis/re-interpretation the best person to have insight of what is happening to lead him to such an interpretation at all? And finally, since this is about communication, the format is relevant. If it is a conversation between two people, the speaker has the opportunity to get a sense of how the listener is receiving the words, and accordingly tweak what is being said. If it is an essay that has been completed, then the author does not have such an opportunity. The author’s skill in “pre-reading” the potential audiences’ reception may become apparent. Also, the audience may need to give the author the benefit of the doubt about what the author is striving to convey, precisely because they do not have the opportunity to hear the author’s clarifications.

In discussions about practitioners of aikido of different aspirations, the “moving forward” often becomes derailed by similar divergences of views and interpretations [1][2]. The people who have the knee jerk reactions of the defensive sort when they hear someone calling them or implying that they are “hobbyists”, evidently associate the idea of doing something as a hobby with doing something with little worth, little meaning, little benefit, little beauty, etc. Even if we consider something most people can probably grasp as a hobby, such as building birdhouses, tending a garden, or restoring old cars – for all of these things we can probably see the person doing it not as a professional yet investing much time, effort, energy, and money, attaining pleasure, peace, meaning, etc. and even bringing joy and benefit to others. How is it that “it’s a hobby” becomes “just a hobby”? Can the person hearing “just” acknowledge that that is what their mind is inclined to attach? Also, can such a person come up with an alternative word that is somehow more placating or satisfying? Would it help to assign a different word to those who are obviously more serious/invested? “Amateur”? “Apprentice”?

Without acknowledging and accounting for the objective of statements, conversations, terminology, and for the perspectives and formats of communication, then the discussions can’t move forward. And moving forward is inevitably going to include encountering some unsavory topics. In the case of race, it could include the topic of how to practically address differently different people’s socioeconomic positions as it related to their history. In the case of aikido, it could be about topics such as how teachers should be expected to treat different students differently, and what kind of discriminating treatment students should expect and tolerate. Recognizing that our discussion isn’t moving forward, assessing why it is so, and settling on some basic common ground are essential pieces of a complicated discussion. Without these pieces, it could be like talking about traveling together to the other side of the planet but not agreeing whether to start eastward or westward; like agreeing to travel some place relaxing or exciting but not agreeing where that is and even presuming the other person is thinking the same thing as oneself; like planning a trip somewhere with someone, with one person intending to stay for a few days and another for months, and packing the car accordingly.

Learning, “Sunao” (again)

Re: Got pwned by boxer =-(

I’ve been getting a kick out of reading George Ledyard’s recent posts on Aikiweb partly because he bothers to post what I feel it’s too much trouble to partly because he manages to express what I will become very tangential about, and partly because he hasn’t posted in some time.

One thing I’m revisiting is “stupid” questions. A lot of questions virtually all of us have at one point or another are likely good and valid questions that simply arise too early relative to our current level of understanding. The correct or fitting answer to the questions would be incomprehensible and unsatisfying to the person asking. Thus the fitting answer wouldn’t necessarily be to the question, as if it were in a vacuum, but to the person asking the question. However it’s easy to confuse the two – at least it is for me.

I think it is incredibly arrogant for our current generation to assume that knowledge that has been handed down in various arts for hundreds of years is now suddenly outdated and irrelevant and that we know better.

The assumptions and the corresponding questions above are coming out of a certain perspective or understanding. It’s not that the questions are arrogant. It’s more that, because the questions are valid, the person asking presumes that the perspective from which the question originated is valid also. That is, the perspective/understanding is overlooked, and this is what is arrogant. The arrogance manifests in reality when an individual moves on to the next step of, “So, based on my understanding and the resulting question, how to change my current approach so that it answers the question? That is, I believe my understanding, that the current approach isn’t cutting it, is accurate. All those other people, I don’t think they’ve asked this important question; or, if they have, they went through the same process I’m going through now in order to answer it, which is to change my current approach.”

Some people recognize this and “humbly” go back and work on their understanding eternally. “Questions are bad. Just keep practicing.” As a rigid approach, or tool, this is bad. The questions might be useful and productive if kept in mind while one’s understanding develops. But the motivation to keep, or keep wondering about, the question is valuable.

(Likely when one has an image of “arrogance” and “humble”, they are more of the emotional, or charged type, such as “snobby”, “condescending”, or “quiet”, “self-derecating”. For both of these qualities I am considering the overcertainty/overconfidence in one’s apprehension, not the affect, so to speak. )

It takes some individual innovation, which is definitely catalyzed by exposure to and inspiration from high level practitioners, to come to see a way of doing the same thing but in a different way. Outwardly it is mostly the same, but something is mysteriously different. The shallow, or possibly arrogant, way is to only imitate the outward appearance. But the key to depth is to continue to wonder what is happening inwardly that results in this thing we can see outwardly. Not just see, but feel. Thus, working with receptively a high level person is crucial. By following their trajectory, so to speak, but inevitably being on another trajectory as another being and therefore facing the issue of knowing and accepting my own trajectory, it’s possible to surpass them or go in such a way that the comparison becomes moot.

3) None of the ones I know advocate training in a “fully resistive” training environment. The folks who believe that kata training is dead and lifeless don’t understand kata training. If it is dead, lifeless, done by rote it isn’t proper kata training. Traditionally, the senior person always took the losing role in paired forms. Why? Because it was his job to ASSIST his junior partner in developing his understanding of the movements and principles at work in the kata. It was his job to control the interaction in a way that his partner was forced to access the proper skills. It was not his job to shut him down or to fight with him.

As my level becomes better able to shut a person down, I’m better able to regulate controlling the interaction. If the other person’s learning experience is a part of my agenda, then my aim is to require them “to access the proper skills”, which specifically means requiring them to do the particular movement form, or manifestation of particular principles or dynamics, which includes making it nonsensical to do other forms or principles. At one part of the spectrum, I might make attempts to do other forms/principles impossibly difficult. At another I might leave it possible but awkward; this would be based on the expectation that the other person have some inclination for inquiry, noticing for him/herself that it feels awkward and seek a less awkward way.

6) Aikido is the study of connection. The term “aiki” is best thought of as “joining”. It is the combination of the physical and mental in a way that allows on to move an opponent’s mind so that he moves himself. This requires complete relaxation both physical and mental. It requires letting go of our attachments so that we can step right into the path of a sword cut without fear.

The endeavor to become able to step into the path of a cut is to acquire a skill, which inevitably has mental and physical components. This is probably where one can make the presumption that the mental, and by extension “spiritual”, aspects of the endeavor are self-evident. However, people don’t naturally have a tendency to perceive, savor, and embrace their experience, instead repressing and perceiving just enough to get by. Surely the reasons for this are a whole discussion topic in themselves. Endeavoring to not repress but instead consciously incorporate the mental aspect of acquiring and honing the skill is central.

If you wish to reprogram the body and the mind to fundamentally trust that relaxing and accepting an attack is the response that can make one safe you must provide a safe environment in which to do so. Traditional paired kata training provided a structure within which the practitioners could take things right to the edge in relative safety.

Providing safety and security for others is a theme that relates to a lot of conflict in human history. Virtually always we have a rationale for seeking more security for ourselves, taking priority over giving it to others. It starts to feel like giving it to others takes it away from ourselves. Maybe be human beings inherently have a tendency to feel that there is never enough security. In order for me to trust my practice partners enough to give me space to drop my defenses, I would need not only their word or their intention but I’d need them to follow through consistently. Those with the ability to follow through are probably those who are skilled. People who are skilled are not necessarily inclined to give others space to drop their defenses. So an invaluable asset for me as a newer student is a senior who is able and also actually following through in giving me some coherent, rational, and meaningful space to practice relaxation and exercising specific behaviors and mental patterns.

But one thing is certain, as far as I am concerned… you will not learn these very sophisticated skills training in a competitive manner. Aiki is about developing physical and mental sensitivity. It requires that you shut up the internal dialogue so you can listen to the partner / opponent. If you are tense you are feeling you not the other. That’s true both in the body and in the mind.

…If your practice develops your understanding of how the Mind and Body are unified and that on a fundamental level your are simply not separate from those around you, regardless of whether they see themselves as your friend or enemy, then the art “works”.

If your training merely results in your ability to throw or lock an opponent who doesn’t wish you to do so, then the art hasn’t “worked”, not in the way that the Founder intended anyway.

Wise mistakes

Short quote from “In the Beginning was the Command Line” by Neal Stephenson:

Sometimes their lack of a broad education makes them over-apt to go off on intellectual wild goose chases…

It resonated with me for some reason, as I re-read this essay after some years. The most obvious reason it resonated was because I agreed with it (or I found it agreed with me, or it was agreeable to me, etc.). However there is one very obvious part of it that was different from what I’d been thinking. It was different but still fit. Where I had been thinking “wisdom”, he writes “a broad education”.

My conception of wisdom is some sense of efficiency related to achieving comfort, avoiding trouble, finding peace of mind, accomplishing one’s goals. Experience is one component for sure. Another is receptivity and openness. Yet another is constructive self-doubt and ego. One finds oneself making fewer mistakes, taking into account one’s weaknesses, wasting less time as one becomes wiser. How one oneself experiences this could be a combination of gut feeling as well as some insight (eg knowing why one is apprehending a situation as one does, why one is behaving as one does).

One presumption I may have been making was to consider wisdom outside of the context of education level, so that it would apply to someone with folk or street smarts.

What comes to mind now are people who succumb to mystification of one kind or another and spend a lot of time pursuing that myth, look at things from within that myth, while simultaneously viewing themselves as knowing and inquiring “enough” or even more than average.

Three contexts in which this is apparent are aikido, psychology, and international/multicultural being.

In aikido, one may have a teacher who is truly skilled or just impressive or convincing. That is, the teacher doesn’t act as a catalyst, directly or not, for the student to venture out from their comfort zone and experience things “outside”. “Outside” could be practice in a certain manner in the same place with the same people. It could also mean in unfamiliar places, or with unfamiliar premises, emphases, frameworks, beliefs, and values. Despite staying within comfort and familiarity, one can certainly find things to work on and challenges, to all of which one can say, “I’m doing my best!” But a) how to tell if those things and challenges are in fact worthwhile or going to lead you to what you wish to arrive at, and b) how to tell if the way you’ve been going about it thus far has covered all the possibilities. The most powerful limitation of possibility is not knowing you are limited. If you’ve gone to the ends of the earth according to the map you’ve been living by, then of course why would it occur to you to venture further or look out elsewhere? How could you possibly see the map differently when it already makes sense? It tells you the edge of the earth looks like so, you go there and see that it does, the map tells you that there are stars and moons out there and here’s how to get to them isn’t that challenging, and you find that yes, it is challenging isn’t it? That is, here are the techniques, here is what’s important to consider when doing them, here’s how to do them well or better, yes it’s challenging, off you go now, practice practice practice!

If I originally see things in terms of angles and off-balancing directions, what process might I go through when I practice aikido with folks who are more concerned with energy and flow? I might be able to conceptualize whether they’re doing the same thing I’m doing at all. I may also be able to see how it can be so. Based on the broader education of these two paradigms, when I encounter an aikido that has as its premise partners’ reactions to openings for strikes that aren’t necessarily taken by the other partner, then I may more quickly see what they’re trying to accomplish with what they do, how they do it, and further down the line how it relates to what I was doing originally.

Psychology… That one’s way to big and many – I’ll leave it alone.

Culture. That one is close to psychology but again it comes back to how to see oneself, recognize the lens through which one sees and experiences. How can you know your own culture to any conscious level without seeing how other cultures are. I’m sure many people living abroad would say something along the lines of, “The longer I live away from the US, the better I come to know this culture, the more and more I know in my bones I am an American”. It’s really difficult to know that one doesn’t know without contrasting experiences. The questions precipitated by contact with other cultures (”Why do they eat like that? Why do they show respect like this? Why do they not care about time like us? Don’t they want privacy like you and me? etc.”) will make it much easier to organize and make into bite-size chunks the things one subsequently notices, sort of at least, about one’s own culture. So there’s the experience and exposure. And the education probably does a great deal as far as training one to verbalize, ask certain questions, follow certain lines of inquire, and possibly even have tools to see the tools with.

Article by Sugano sensei

Link to Sugano sensei article

What Is Aikido And What Does Training Mean To Us

Progress

When it comes to progress, I think we may have to ask how progress relates to aikido. In a sense consciousness to achieve or to progress is the essence of sports. In the world of sports, one is considered to have achieved his or her goal when that person becomes a champion.

However, aikido exists outside such a frame of progress. There is no clear attainment point in aikido no matter how many years one practices. In other martial arts, the results of practice are clear by the number of people one threw in a lesson. Aikido has no such clear results. One must meet the demands of self learning. It can be hard to continue aikido unless one has a desire to constantly learn.

I believe such a desire entails exercising a capacity to revisit and evolve. For example, at first, one may have the desire to be strong. What form this desire takes depends on the current state of the individual. At first, it may entail learning the technical curriculum, grasping the philosophy and its implications, and knowing to some extent the history of the art. By learning the technical curriculum, one faces certain demands. Then one’s goal may evolve to focus on the patience, self-awareness, humility, and perseverance to realize the precision of the technical curriculum. Next, by encountering all the complications and confounding situations that prevent precision that don’t necessarily lie inside oneself, one may focus on one’s relation, attitude, apprehension, and reactions with respect to other people. If one desires to be among other people in a way that one would define as “strong”, then one would face the realization of being weak or lacking in various contexts. One’s weakness in the various contexts could not be overcome the way it would, apparently, as in the context of an aikido practice where one may do so in the physical dimension. Revisiting and re-forming one’s goals is closely related to constantly learning.

The teaching method, too, is an important subject. In the case of sports, there are matches, so there is a clear result. Since one’s progress is apparent, the teaching method has always been studied and evaluated. Meanwhile, in aikido, the basic teaching method whereby students repeat the throws and techniques shown by their teacher and then repeats them has not changed from old days too much. It is important that the teacher tries to make the training meaningful for the students, and it should be done with an intention to help the students develop their ability. No development or the progress will be made only by showing one’s strength and preeminence.

The teacher’s purview is only the development of aikido ability. It isn’t to counsel you to become a better husband or type up reports faster at work. Thus, despite every student coming in with their individual histories and current issues which they may somehow relate to their aikido practice, the aikido teacher doesn’t directly meddle with any of it. Thus it can only be the student’s responsibility to improve or otherwise affect their life outside of their aikido practice. Of course to some extent the teacher could have a part in inspiring the student to connect their aikido practice with life off the mat.

Progress also depends on how the students would like to practice. One might simply enjoy training as recreation. For those people who would like to train seriously, it will be more interesting and helpful for the development of their abilities if they have the right kind of teaching and opportunities.

In Belgium, I teach classes called “inner school” in response to the solicitation of students’ desire to learn further. I initially limited the classes to only 40 students with black belts.  I call it a school program, rather than a seminar. It takes place in a training camp form. There also was a request in the Netherlands, so I started the school over there, too. Even though there are only few of these schools, there are people who wish to attend programs like this with great interest. I believe that more places and more opportunities should be given to such people.

Levels of Understanding

In aikido, one learns by experiencing through the body. This alone would only result into physical experience, even after 10 years of practice. If one continues practicing for many years, of course, the body becomes strong. However, the level of understanding can still be doubtful.

Everything is learned physically as a result of experience, but to display what has been learned, some verbal expression and other methods become necessary. Hence, one should find opportunities and try to learn various things outside of aikido.

Osensei realized it in the Omoto religion. I don’t think one could fully understand the discipline of aikido without something like that. Learning by the physical experiences certainly is important, but I think it is also important to experience something new besides aikido to stimulate one’s thought and brain.

It is necessary to study basics things without being disturbed by one’s own mood and the feelings. The lesson method of aikido is left to the decision of each instructor, and this is a good thing about aikido. If strictly codified, the independence which is the merit of aikido is lost. Of course, balance is important, but I think it is better that one has a good level of skills, specifically posture, the sense of maai, directionality, the principle of the sword line, gaze and so on. It is often seen in enbu (martial art performance) that people just stand straight before a partner waiting for the attack. This is because there is no awareness of the sword line at all. Osensei frequently talked about gravitation training. Gravitation training is for learning how to lead and go together with the partner’s movement. One can learn this using katatetori.

Such basics can be learned through body movements. In other words, the principle of aikido skills will be understood through the apprehension of body movements. Small details of each technique are different, depending on the individuals, but there is always a sense of maai and directionality in any technique. Therefore, as long as there is an understanding of the principle of the skills, it can be applied to all movements. That understanding is indispensable to progress to a further stage.

Teaching

Some very similar points from very different sources.

Link to jackwada.blogspot.com

One of the most important things about teaching is to have a background in training. Teaching is a form of training, but there are things one must be very clear about. One thing you always watch is whether someone in the class teaches or trains. If you are working with someone newer, do you teach or train? One thing one can do is to summon the instructor over, and let the instructor convey the information. Training is not just working up a sweat and getting a workout. It is a process of relating to the person and yourself, ie connecting, through the art. It is a real art to be able to teach someone new through movement and the body. A lot of instruction can be way too verbal. This is especially difficult when the person you are working with is new and feels that he/she must understand something in order to move. Movement, feeling, awareness are parts of learning that must be introduced from the very onset of your working with someone new(er). If you stop and over verbalize, you may create a pattern in them that they will always stop and analyze and never move or feel. Tojima sensei was probably the most verbal of the teachers in Shingu, but he always related what he said to a process of feeling. The other teachers tended to move so fast that you couldn’t think, which is good, but maybe the concept being practiced might not be clear. The challenge is to get the concept, which maybe a form as well as possibly flow, center, or energy, through the body.The sad fact is that most people would rather do a form, whether that form is rigid, seemingly flowing, or moving, or static, than to feel and be aware. Real training is to feel what is going on, not to cover it up with flash or knowledge or glitz. And real training has nothing to do with something that is dangerous or effective. Real training is to touch the core of your own being and through that make a real connection to your partner. Training that is too extreme, and that can mean anything from being too mental, verbal, locked into a particular approach or style, too rigid, too soft and flowing, tends to be shallow. A purely mental approach will fail. But so will a purely physical approach. If someone has it, and I mean a level of the balance between mind/body, you can feel it. I remember my early days in Shingu it was obvious to me that Anno, Tojima, and Yanase senseis had something the rest of the people training didn’t. And it was more than technique. In fact Anno sensei’s shihonage was very different from Tojima sensei’s, with Yanase sensei’s being even different from the other two. It was something you could feel on the mat, but also something you could feel outside the dojo. These were people you trusted and respected, not just because they had a high number after their name or were addressed as sensei.So training has a lot to do with forging and actualizing a deeper sense of who we are. We cannot teach that which we are separate from at the level of being. Constantly reflecting, absorbing, transforming are what aikido is about. We constantly run into the ego(the shallow mind-based “I”)and must constantly re-direct it into the larger design of things. It is a process instead of a destination.

Link to Yamada sensei interview

Are there things you see in daily practice that prevent students from progressing?
There are people who practice in a way that prevents them from making progress, no matter how many years they practice. They do not care that they are making such basic mistakes as not standing in hanmi or making movements slovenly and negligently, even after becoming black belts. It is acceptable that beginners make mistakes or cannot move properly. However, progress can not be expected if one is doing techniques negligently while thinking one is actually doing them properly. There is the proper stance for each technique. It is essential to get it right. However, many people, for some reason, focus too much on the upper body and then the footwork becomes negligent. Because the partner still falls in aikido, they tend to think they are doing the technique correctly. I detest it when I watch such a performance at examinations.
The techniques should be performed clearly and convincingly so that they work on the person’s partner. Otherwise, practice becomes meaningless. Position and balance should be kept properly. In order to do that, the footwork must be firm. Only then will the technique work within the flow and the balance kept after the
throw, making the overall movement beautiful.

What can teachers do to help the student avoid these mistakes?
Sometimes there also is a problem on the teaching side. There are some teachers who stop the movement of their students and try to teach them small details. The students do not progress if taught this way. It is just fine to leave the discovery process up to the students. So long as the key points are clearly taught, it is not necessary to tell them small details. For example, in case of teaching a blind person how to get from point A to point B, the blind person first needs to be guided to be able to go to point B on their own. On the way, the person may bump into something or may fall down. Moreover, the person also may not be able to walk at the desired pace. In this way, the person gets to be able to follow the passage to the final destination in their own time. The small details can be learned later. If stopped frequently and told, “It is dangerous here, so be careful,” each and every time, the person won’t be able to learn the way to the
destination. Similarly, if stopped and taught small details from the beginning, the practice cannot be fun.

Is there anything else you would like to say about a student’s practice attitude?
One more thing I would like to emphasize is to have a positive attitude toward practice. One does not advance having a doubt about aikido. Progressing by solving questions is one method for sure; however that approach is for people who have already learned a considerable amount of aikido. It is a waste of time if one is thinking, “Will this ikkyo work for real?” while practicing. I believe aikido practice should be done positively and seriously. I do not mean austerely because it is important to enjoy practice. I hope people will practice aikido passionately with joy. Aikido is very profound. I wish people would not be satisfied with their present levels or state – even if they are advanced to some extent – but that they aim for an even higher and happier practice.