State of Mind

“I…I don’t believe it!”
“That is why you fail.”

When most folks think about the various Star Wars quotes that best describe martial arts training (and there are many), the one that often comes to mind is the classic Yoda line: “Do, or do not. There is no try.” While I can’t even type those words without being overcome with a wave of nostalgia, I must admit that it’s the quote at the top of this entry that I think really strikes at the heart of martial training. It’s the simple truth: we often fail to perform at our best potential not because we can’t do it, but because we don’t believe we can do it.

It’s my opinion that few arts exhibit this fact more than aikido. Often referred to as an “internal” martial art because its effectiveness hinges on understanding and controlling yourself more than your opponent, aikido nonetheless is a relatively simple art from a technique standpoint. When I say this, I do not mean that there aren’t a myriad of techniques that require a great deal of technical proficiency. What I do mean is that the core movements that comprise aikido techniques take little time to understand and not much more time to implement. In fact, I often tell many of my new students that, by the end of class, they will have already understood most of what they need to know to execute whatever technique we’re practicing that evening. What keeps us training day in and day out, year upon many years, is not the complexity of the technique, but rather our own internal quest to find the perfect level of calmness, centeredness, and focus. Our goal is not to throw, but to move so naturally, so effortlessly, that our opponent is not left wondering how they were beaten, but rather why they even bothered to attack in the first place.

Of course, a pursuit of this nature runs counter to what many of us are hard-wired to think and do when we’re in a physical confrontation. Consequently, it’s difficult to believe that, by being relaxed, we can reduce even the most powerful attack to a harmless gesture. And because we don’t believe it, we unconsciously hold back from fully committing the ideas that we want to practice. Hidden away from our conscious minds, we keep a reserve of physical power and resistance “just in case” the ideas we’re studying don’t work. But instead of helping us, this reserve prevents us from studying aikido principles effectively. Just like an athlete will never win a competition she can’t visualize herself winning, we cannot truly do aikido if we don’t believe we can.

A few days ago, we put this idea to the test. On the mat were several students, none of whom had been training for more than a couple of months. The technique was katatori ikkyo, a basic response to someone grabbing your shoulder. Although the technique is not as physically demanding as others, it does rely on strong sense of timing to perform effectively.  During class, we had each nage stand before his or her uke and mentally convince themselves that they not only understood this technique, but that they had mastered it. For a full minute, we focused on how this technique was as natural as breathing, that we had done it for so long that doing it was effortless; resisting the technique was unthinkable. As each nage focused, their partners attacked. The difference was astounding. A level of timing and fluidity suddenly appeared where before was stiffness and stagnation. Of course, there was plenty of room for improvement –and there always will be—but it was fascinating to see just how much our own sense of timing and balance can be influenced by our state of mind.

“Help Each Other!”

At nearly every camp or seminar I have attended, Sensei says these words to us just before calling us to practice a given technique. I’ve heard the words before, but never really stopped to consider if my interpretation of them was correct. After all, I’m supposed to be studying a martial art. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to define helping my partner as attacking with as much focus and intent as possible, to ensure that they really are doing the technique and not just going through the motions. To put it another way: it was always my impression that the best way to help my partner was to attack as realistically as possible.

This year, at Summer Camp, Sensei expanded on this notion of helping each other. “Don’t resist!” he clarified. “Technique is to learn how to lead!” I was a little surprised. Surely, Sensei wasn’t advocating that we not resist our partners technique? The very idea made me concerned. If there was no resistance, how can the nage understand if they’re truly taking someone’s balance? Those of us who study aikido have likely experienced training sessions in which the uke just fell down no matter what you did. It’s very frustrating, because you have no idea if you’re doing the technique correctly or not. Worse yet, if you don’t resist, what makes studying aikido any different from dancing or acting? For the first time, I was really concerned that I was being told to go down a path I did not want to follow.

My concern was great enough that, at my next opportunity, I spoke with one of the most senior students in Kokikai about it.

“Did Sensei really mean for us not to resist?” I asked.

“Absolutely!” was his response.

I grew more concerned. “Then what are we doing? If you don’t resist, I’ll never know if I’m doing the technique right!” 

It was then I realized that several other senior instructors, who were standing nearby, were entering the conversation. The instructor I initially approached answered first:

“Consider a jazz musician. What does a jazz musician do when he’s practicing? He does scales and chord progressions. He practices new songs so he is sure he knows the melodies. But he is well aware that he isn’t performing, and he doesn’t sit there wondering what would happen if a piano player suddenly substituted one chord for another, or if a guitarist suddenly decided to try to steal his solo in a jam session. He practices, understanding how to play and what both he and his instrument are capable of. When he next joins a jam session, he is fully prepared to play whatever song comes up–not because he anticipated every possible combination of notes, but because he has practiced the fundamentals so much, he is able to adapt whenever he needs to.

“This is what we do when we are on the mat. We are not studying how to fight. We are studying how to lead, how to move with our opponent. Our ki exercises are our scales, and our techniques are our chord progressions. To constantly resist your nage’s technique isn’t helpful; in fact, it’s detrimental because it shifts the nage’s focus to beating you, when he should be focused on how to move correctly.”

Another instructor chimed in. “What do you think would happen to you if you were in a fight? Do you think you would do tsuki kotegaeshi? Yokumenuchi kokyunage? No! You’d move in the most appropriate way possible to defend yourself. You wouldn’t move into a technique, you’d just move. You already know that a real physical confrontation doesn’t conform to the simplicity of a single technique. So when we practice aikido, we need to recognize that we aren’t fighting–we’re studying how to move, how to lead, how to take balance.”

A third instructor made another point. “You and I have trained together on the mat. Each time you were the nage, did I resist?”

“No,” I responded.

“Were you convinced you were taking my balance?”

I had to think for a moment. “Sometimes,” I said. “Sometimes I could tell I had your balance, or I was at least very close. Other times, I could tell I hadn’t taken your balance at all.”

“Exactly,” he said. “I did not resist your technique, but you knew that you hadn’t taken my balance every time. Not resisting doesn’t mean you just go limp. It means you move logically to help your partner understand what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong.”

The first instructor, with whom I started this conversation, spoke up again. “And Sensei never says that we should never offer resistance. Resistance does have a place. It’s just that most people over-use it. Train in a technique for a while, then try it with resistance to see if you’re still able to take balance. On average, maybe 10% of your time should be spent on resisting. The rest should focus on leading, posture, and balance.” With that, Sensei arrived in the room, and the conversation shifted to other topics.

Later on, I heard a story that illustrated these concepts further. It seems that, quite some time ago, there was an instructor who had a little bit of an ego problem. Any time he trained with someone, he resisted their technique, stopping them cold. One training session, he was working with another instructor. No matter what was done, the first instructor would resist. Sensei saw this, and asked the first instructor to attack. Within seconds, Sensei and taken his balance and pounded him into the ground–by doing a completely different technique than was being practiced. Standing over the instructor, Sensei said simply: “It’s so easy to resist when you know what’s happening, isn’t it?” And this couldn’t be more true. When we know what’s going to happen, we can prepare ourselves to resist. Such advance notice is impossible in a real confrontation. I’ve known this, as have many others–but I had never thought about it to this level before.

To say that these ideas represent a fundamental shift in my understanding of aikido training would be an understatement. And yet, these ideas also fit with what I have already been discovering at the dojo. For example, I have often told students that the purpose of practicing a technique is not to throw your partner, but to throw your partner using the specific technique being demonstrated. This concept, I see now, is very much in keeping with the idea of helping each other. If we resist to the point that our partner cannot study the technique, then we hinder their progress. Resistance is a powerful and essential tool, but, like any tool, it has its place and purpose. It’s important we remember that, and learn to use it appropriately.

Context

Some time ago, I wrote a post on natural movement. In that post, I proposed the following definition for the phrase:

A natural movement is a positional attitude that provides the greatest stability and flexibility for a specific context.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a great deal about the last word in that sentence: context. The inspiration for this line of thought came from an unlikely source. One day, as I was flipping threw my new Verizon FIOS television service, I came across a show on the Discovery Channel called Time Warp. This show, like many that I’ve come across on the Discovery Channel, seems to fall well into the “I can’t believe they’re making an entire show out of this one idea” category. The premise is simple:

1. Do something.
2. Film it.
3. Replay it in slow motion.

Really. That’s it. From what I have seen, they’ve done everything from blow up cars to popping water balloons. And people get paid for this. (If this wasn’t a childhood dream of mine, it should have been.) On this particular episode, they had magicians/illusionists Penn and Teller performing sleight of hand tricks: specifically, variations of the shell game, where a series of balls appear and disappear under three cups. The hosts of the show were amazed to find that, even when filmed and replayed in slow motion, it was very difficult to see what the magicians were doing. One of the hosts asked if this was because the hand really was quicker than the eye. It was Penn’s response that I found interesting. In essence, he said that it wasn’t that they were fast. It was that you were watching something for which you had no context. During our everyday lives, we don’t see someone moving a ball between several cups. So we have no frame of reference on which to base what is and is not within the realm of possibility. He implied that, were we in a situation where we saw this trick day after day after day, we’d be more inclined to figure out what was going on and why. Since we don’t, it’s easy to fool us simply because they have a deeper understanding of what’s going on than we do.

It was this explanation of the importance of context that made me think about aikido practice. How often have we seen a demonstration, or felt a technique, and wondered: “How on earth was that done?” I have lost count of the times I have been left dumbfounded, sure that there was some other power at work that took my balance so effortlessly and so quickly. Yet, as anyone who has studied aikido for a few years can tell you, there’s clearly no magic to it all. The human body works in predictable ways, but we don’t always understand the context in which those movements might manifest. We assume certain ideas about how we can and will move in certain situations, when in fact we really have no basis for assuming those ideas are correct. To use the shell game as an analogy: we assume we have complete understanding of how to pick up a ball and place it under a cup, when in reality, we’re totally clueless.

The fact that aikido can be so effective is a result of the context of conflict, and this is an area that few of us spend any significant time. This has advantages and disadvantages. The primary advantage, of course, is that we have a system of self-defense that is highly effective and can be learned by anyone, of any age or ability. But there are two main disadvantages of which we must be aware. First, because aikido does not fit in with our default understanding of how physical conflict works, it may never reach the popularity of other arts, such as Tae Kwon Do or Karate, which often do fit with that understanding. I don’t mean to say that these other arts are not effective; they most certainly are. They just also happen to work within the average person’s instinctive assumptions of how the human body works in physical conflict.

Second, when we do decide to study aikido, if we make the wrong assumptions of how attacks work, we’re deluding ourselves that our techniques are effective.  We’ve seen the results of this in pretend aikido schools where the movements are illogical and only work because the instructor has conditioned his or her students to fall. Or even in individual students who mistakenly assume that their mental understanding of aikido equates to total understanding of its application. Consequently, we must be very careful in what assumptions we make about conflict, and constantly test them. As Sensei often says: “Prove it!”

In the end, I think a core aspect of our training has to be an analysis of context. It is not enough to understand a technique, we must understand the theory behind the technique, and the theory and application of the attack for which the techniqe was designed. This is not always easy; but it does lend itself to a very rich and rewarding path at the end of which is probably what most of us truly desire from our studies: understanding and control of who we are and what we do.

Tradition versus Innovation

An aspect of Kokikai Aikido that I deeply appreciate is its focus on innovation. Sensei emphasized this idea a few months ago at Winter Camp. There, he stressed that “Correct movement means growth.” In fact, from the very moment I stepped onto the mat I had been told that it was our responsibility as students to not only learn techniques, but to understand why these techniques work and to think critically on how we might make these techniques better. To quote Rick Berry Sensei: “The dojo is our lab. Experiment!” It is the fact that Kokikai techniques exist in a constant state of refinement that differentiates it from many other martial arts.

Recently, I’ve wondered just how far one can take this concept of critical thought and innovation, and still remain true to the martial art. Let’s start, for example, with the idea that no technique is truly static. At the very least, techniques are constantly challenged, refined, and questioned. In some cases, this analysis leads to the technique being discarded, or, at least, de-emphasized in daily practice. Shomenuchi ikkyo (irimi) is one such technique. For those unfamiliar with this attack-and-defense combination: shomenuchi is a straight-down strike to the head, simulating a sword strike. Ikkyo is a classic joint lock, identified by having the wrist, elbow and shoulder of the opponent at a diagonal angle towards the ground, with the shoulder being the lowest point of the line. Irimi, in this case, refers to the fact that the nage enters uke’s space, essentially using ikkyo to reverse uke’s direction and pin him to the ground. The issue with this technique is the irimi part. For the technique to work effectively, you must be able to get to your uke’s arm before it gains momentum on the way down–otherwise, there’s just too much force to contend with. Now, imagine that you’re five foot two, and your opponent is 6 foot three. It’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get to your uke’s arm in time! Apparently, Sensei observed this situation, and decided that it was unnecessary to keep practicing this version of the technique. Instead we focus on the tenkan version, which works regardless of your opponent’s height. This is just one example of a technique that has been discarded due to an ever-changing practice environment.

Techniques are not the only area where Kokikai applies this “critical thinking” mentality. Our use of Japanese terminology, for example, is vastly reduced compared to other aikido styles. On the few occasions I have trained with non-Kokikai aikidostudents, I’ve found myself staring blankly when they call out a technique. Once I see the technique, I know exactly what we’re doing, but the terminology gap can be quite wide. Why? I know of no official answer, but I can easily imagine Sensei deciding that excessive Japanese terminology is unnecessary for an art that is supposed to be available to anyone, from any culture.

With a pattern of constant self-analysis, it becomes very easy to start questioning everything. For example:

• Why do we wear the hakama? It’s a relatively old style of attire, isn’t it? I can understand wearing a gi–the jacket is ideal for protecting your shoulders, arms, and chest during practice. And I’ve often said (to those who study no-gi mixed martial arts: when I go train at the gym, I don’t wear street clothes, I wear workout clothes. Why should the dojo be different?) But most justifications I come up with for the hakama (it forces you learn how to use your feet more efficiently, it gives extra focus to your center) strikes me more as elaborate rationalizations along the lines of “We wear one because that’s just what we do.”
• We’ve known that some techniques, such as tsuki kotegaeshi, can be very difficult to do against more modern punches, where the attacker rechambers his fist quickly. Given that, why even worry about such a technique, except in the context of weapon disarmament? It seems that there are far more techniques that we could study that have more practical applications today.

Of course, critical thinking does not mean discarding everything that doesn’t make sense. One could argue that we wear the hakama because there is no reason not to wear one, and we could say that we study techniques like tsuki kotegaeshi because it hasn’t yet been sufficiently proven that such a defense has become completely impractical. And, I suppose, that when in doubt we should err on the side of keeping something in, rather than tossing something out. But I do wonder at times if there’s a limit to the usefulness of critical analysis; if, at some point, the balance in the tug of war between tradition and innovation does sometimes favor tradition, and for good reason. I’d just like to get a better sense of what those reasons are.

An Open Letter to Strip-Mall Martial Arts Clubs

Dear Owner:

Before I begin, I want to first say that I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on a number of things. For example, I’m more than happy to assume that you are, in fact, a skilled practitioner of some sort of martial art. I may not know what that martial art is–and you might have just made it up yourself. But I’m okay with assuming that you put in some considerable time learning what you now know. I’m also willing to assume that you’re genuinely interested in improving the lives of other people through martial arts training. I don’t even have a problem with the fact that this interest may run parallel to your interest in making money–a dojo is a business, after all. You have bills to pay just as anyone else does. I’m not even going to give you a hard time about some of your fees–when I built my dojo, I looked at retail locations. I know how expensive they are, so I would expect your prices to reflect that reality. In short, I want you to know that I’m not looking down on you. I respect you, and I appreciate the situation you’re in.

So if I can respect you, how about you showing some respect for yourself? Or, if you can’t do that, how about your students?

When you throw a big neon sign over your door, what are you saying about yourself? The sign itself might be okay–but when it’s bright green and uses a font that makes all the letters look like lightning? What’s all that about? You might as well stick an inflatable gorilla outside your door. Are you a martial artist, or a used car salesman?

When I go online to look at your web site, can you PLEASE at least state what style of martial art you study? Don’t tell me, or your potential students, that you teach a “blend of karate, tae kwon do, kung-fu, aikido” and so on. That sort of laundry list of martial arts just gives the impression that you really have nothing to teach–you’re just throwing a bunch of names out there and hope something sticks with your potential customer.

And speaking of customers–is that what they are? I know that you’re likely to scoff at me here, but I don’t have customers. Our dojo has students. We have members. And I count myself as one of them. Yes, we frequently have people who come to the dojo who assume they are paying me (as chief instructor) for a service. But even these folks quickly realize that we are, at our very core, a club. We are not a blackbelt factory, where anyone gets a blackbelt because they’ve paid for it. We are a dojo–where anyone can get a blackbelt because they put in the time and the effort to EARN it.

Let’s talk some more about payments. As I said before, I respect that your rates may be high in order to pay for your highly-visible location. But why don’t you tell us your fees up front? Why do you only tell me what your latest beginner’s special is? I’ve learned the hard way that when you don’t see the fees of a martial arts club, it’s for one very simple reason: the fees are high. In some cases, VERY high. So what you’re trying to do is hook people in, and then hit them with the fees. I remember a parent telling me that one of their kids was asked to test for a new rank. The fee? $500! There was the test fee, the new uniform fee, the new board fee, and so on. If you’re not comfortable with the fees you’re charging, then maybe you’re charging too much..

Finally, trust your skills. If you have to put that your school is a part of some major organization and, when I look up that organization, I find that its SOLE PURPOSE is to create martial arts schools, I admit that I have some concern. Are you a dojo? Or a franchise? I’m afraid you must be the latter if you need some major organization to start your school. And if that organization is your ONLY martial arts experience, then I’m afraid all my previous statements about respecting your abilities go out the window. You are not a martial arts instructor, my friend. You are a charlatan, plain and simple.. Stop now before you delude your students into thinking they are learning something of value.

In the end, it’s your call. You know as well as I do that most parents and most people don’t know what a martial art is. They see a place that claims to teach a martial art of some sort, and they walk in trusting us that we know what we’re doing. In a way, we’re similar to auto mechanics. Most people don’t know how their cars work, so when they go to get them fixed or upgraded, they trust that the mechanic is doing their job. If that mechanic decides to pad the bill, or claim they know how to do work when they don’t, well, their customer won’t know until it’s probably too late. You know as well as I do that the people who walk through your door are, more often than not, going to take you at your word. Don’t you think you owe it to them to know what you’re talking about?

Thanks for your time.

The Bright Line

There are a number of preconceptions that many of us have when we first foray into the world of martial arts:

“This training will make me invincible!”
“I am very athletic; I should pick this up easily.”
“I am very intelligent; I should pick this up easily.”
“Any art other than the one I am studying is junk!”

There are more, of course, but you get the idea. If we are lucky, these preconceptions are dispelled quietly, gently, and quickly. If we are unlucky, we are forced to deal with these notions harshly, abruptly, and after they have had time to linger for far too long in our psyche.

I bring this up because, recently, I have had to reckon with a preconception I’ve held for quite some time. Fortunately, this is a notion that I already knew was false; still, I had yet to fully acknowledge it as an untruth. The preconception? Very simple:

“A martial artist, due to the nature of his training, adheres to a high moral and ethical code.”

Those more seasoned than I are likely laughing at this point. After all, nowhere was it ever written that a martial artist held to a higher sense of moral authority. The notion is a romantic one at best, one that stems from a misguided understanding of the codes of honor to which the ideal warrior was supposed to exemplify. We neglect to understand that code of honor does not require one to be of strong moral character; a code of honor simply is an agreed upon set of protocols to ensure that, when two warriors fought it out, they could justify their actions by pointing to the other and indignantly crying out: “He offended my honor! I must have satisfaction.” (In truth, I bet most duels were fought because at least one of the combatants wanted to beat up the other, and wanted to be sure he faced no legal consequences as a result.) To put it simply: you can have a code of honor, and still be an amoral jerk.

There was no event or experience that made me finally face this preconception. Instead, it was more like a series of small revelations that I eventually noticed. The experience is much like how one could drive from work to home, always taking the same route, and suddenly realize a store along the way that had always been there, but you hadn’t paid much attention to. (Ask my wife–I do this all the time!) When I first started thinking about it, I was a little dismayed. It seems wrong to me, somehow, that an experienced martial artist should allow themselves to behave in an unethical or base manner. How does martial arts training differ from brawling, if not for ethics?

As I’ve thought more, I have come to what, for me, works as the truth. Yes, there is nothing inherent in martial arts training that forces you to be ethical. I, for example, have often been considered a nice guy, a morally reliable guy. But this facet of my personality stems from sources other than my martial arts training. My training did not make me a better person, per se. Instead, it has given me the ability to stand behind my convictions. To draw a bright line between what I find acceptable, and what I find unpalatable.

I remember a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago. The subject was something political, and the people with whom I was talking were wrestling with the fact that the issue was not black and white, but deeply mired in shades of gray. As I listened, however, I found that it was relatively easy to listen to my own moral and ethical code. Because of my training, I could clearly make a decision that made sense to me, and do so knowing that my perspective did not resolve things perfectly, yet also knowing that I could face the consequences of my point-of-view with confidence.

It is my opinion, now, that as martial artists we must cultivate this ability to draw a line between what we find acceptable and what we do not–WITHOUT attempting to instill a point of view on anyone. (It is for this reason I discourage certain topics from being discussed at the dojo.) We must be willing and able to stand up and protect our mental well-being just as we would protect our physical well-being. And as martial arts instructors, we should strive to help our students stand up for themselves–to figure out where they stand and be unafraid, even if that means you disagree with them.

After all, how many of us really train for some sense of physical security, and how many of us train for mental and emotional security?

Technology

As a resident of the Northwest (and Seattle, Washington in particular) it is very difficult not to become immersed in technology. Start working in high-tech, as I have, and you quickly find it impossible not to check out the latest innovations in Web applications and other tools. And with new sites coming online almost daily, keeping up with them can become nearly a full-time hobby! Given all this, it’s no wonder that, when I made the plunge into opening a Kokikai dojo, I began looking at how I could leverage technology to make running and maintaining the dojo as easy as possible. Now that the dojo has been running for a couple of years (meaning that I know that these tools are working at least reasonably well), I thought I’d take a moment to list what technologies our dojo has used successfully.

Important Caveat: I’m going to list several tools here; but just because I use them doesn’t mean I endorse them over other, competing products. The Internet is full of competing applications that reside in the same space; I highly encourage anyone and everyone to research a variety of tools before implementing one.

Billing and Payments

The number one capability I wanted to have when I started Aikido Kokikai South Everett was the ability to process credit and debit cards. My reason for doing this was completely selfish: I hardly ever have cash in my pocket, and having a check around is almost unheard of. I wanted to make sure that, when students and parents of students came to the dojo, they could easily sign-up for classes or pay for their current month’s membership by using the payment method of their choice. Regrettably, normal credit card processing systems (like those found at your average retail store) are pretty expensive.

Fortunately, the dojo found a great solution with online payment system–in our case, PayPal. While PayPal certainly has its faults (the fact that some people quite simply don’t trust them is one), using PayPal has made it very easy for the dojo process a credit cards whenever we need to. Plus, we can move a lot of payments online, which makes things even easier. PayPal does charge for each transaction you make–but then again, so do any other credit card processing systems.

PayPal offered us another very significant advantage, although it is one that was not terribly easy to implement: recurring memberships. Now, allow me to be clear: our dojo has a long-standing policy against contracts. My philosophy is simple: if you don’t want to be on the mat, then I don’t want you to be on the mat! I have heard, first-hand, too many stories about kids who were dragged crying to  their martial arts classes (I’ll refrain from naming the style but I’m sure many of you can guess). The child no longer wanted to study that martial art–but the parent had paid a contract, and thus the child had to go or the money would be wasted. Contracts, plain and simple, aren’t necessary.

With that said, I did find it important that we have some program through which a student’s dues are paid automatically. There are a few reasons why this is a good idea. First, students love it. Once students realize that they can cancel their membership at any time, they quickly appreciate the fact that their dues payments aren’t brought up again unless there’s a problem or a change in their membership status. Second, it makes administrative tasks much easier for the dojo. 90 to 95% of all student dues are paid automatically on a specific date. This makes planning the monthly budget for the dojo much easier. Third, while students can cancel whenever they want, they have to actively cancel. Without this program, a student could cancel their membership by simply not showing up. In my opinion, joining a dojo is an active event; consequently, so should leaving a dojo. All it takes is a moment or two on PayPal to end a membership–they don’t even have to talk to me directly. (The few people that do leave, however, do tend to talk to me about it–a fact I appreciate. You can see my post on leaving a dojo if you’d like to learn more.)

The primary challenge surrounding using PayPal is that, to really use it effectively and correctly, you need to have some Web development skills. I won’t go into the details here, but I will say that I was, am, and continue to be deeply appreciative of one of my senior students, who generously has used his coding knowledge to the benefit of the dojo.

Communication

Another key area in which we use technology is in communicating with dojo members. Here, we have three tools that we use regularly: ConstantContact, Twitter, and Meebo.

ConstantContact is an e-mail marketing company that makes it very easy to manage e-mail lists and send out newsletters and other information to people. The interface is fairly easy to use, which is important. One of the features of the application is the ability to create multiple e-mail lists. We have so far ended up with two lists: one that contains a list of just about everyone who has visited or currently trains at the dojo. We use this very sparingly, to give information on major schedule changes and class offerings. The other list is for current students. We use this list far more often to talk about news and events, congratulate people on testing, and so on. The nice thing about ConstantContact is that they automate management of the list. I’m very wary of spam, so I was happy to see that they make it very easy for someone to remove themselves from the list. So far, the use of this application has been very well received by everyone.

Most people know about twitter at this point. It’s a new addition to our communication toolset. I was a bit wary of using it at first–I use Facebook for personal communications and I doubted that I’d be interesting in maintaining yet another social network. However, for the dojo, twitter is helpful. They provide their own badges, which are bits of HTML or Flash that we embedded on your site. These badges then let folks see my current twitter status. (I created a Twitter account just for official dojo communications for this purpose.) I’m hopeful that Twitter will become a great way of letting people know of immediate upcoming events or sudden changes in schedules. (The latter became a big issue this past winter, when snow closed the dojo for a few days!) You can see the Twitter widget on the dojo’s Web site. I’ll point out a major downside to Twitter: it’s notoriously unreliable. So sometimes the updates come through…and sometimes they don’t. If there’s a better alternative to Twitter, let me know!

A final communication tool that we use is Meebo. Meebo is an online chat client that links with a variety of instant messaging platforms such as Windows Live. One of the main benefits to Meebo is that they offer what they call Meebo widgets. Like the Twitter badge, we embeded the widget onto our Web site. Folks who visit that page then have the option of chatting with me (provided I’m online and logged in, of course!). They don’t even have to log into their own chat client–instead, they just show up as a Meebo guest. Not many people have used the widget in the past, but those few times have been great, because I can talk to potential or current students on-the-fly.

There are more basic technologies that we use as well. Our Web site, for example, is custom-coded so that it’s easy to maintain and update. I have lost track of how many people have complimented us on our Web site, but the main reason they do is simple: we do our best to provide as much information about the dojo as we can, without over-burdening people with too much text. And I’m actually quite careful about adding new technologies to our toolbox–essentially, I only add something if it makes it easier to accomplish an existing task, like e-mailing students or processing payments. Most importantly, all of these tools, were implemented ourselves, without paying a consultant or other organization a monthly fee or similar. Sure, web site hosting, PayPal, and ConstantContact all have fees associated with their services, but they’re minimal–a few dollars a month, at most. That’s a far cry from many of the so-called “Web services” offers I get in my inbox! Technology shouldn’t be expensive–it should be useful.

Community

Winter camp was just a few weeks ago and I still find that I’m processing much of the information that I learned while I was there. As tips on techniques, strategies, and movements still percolate through my head, there is one idea that Sensei emphasized over and over again: community.

Now, what role does community have in martial arts? Certainly the current trend in martial arts seems to be “combat effectiveness at all costs.” (As a side note, I find the notion of combat effectiveness more than a little ludicrous. From what little I know about such things, fighting is a dirty, dirty business, and the rules change when you think your life is in danger. I would almost equate the idea of combat effectiveness as on a par with the idea of ki: we can throw the term around all we want, but what does it really mean? But I digress.) If combat is the sole viewpoint through which we look at our martial training, then community seems to be very low on the priority list. Kokikai, however, does not have this viewpoint. Instead, we try to look at the larger picture. How does our training affect our dojo, our friends, our family? How does it affect society at large?

At camp, Sensei did not attempt to answer all of these questions. In fact, he rarely answers the questions he poses–more often, he simply wants us to think of the answers ourselves. But in one case, Sensei seemed to be very clear: one benefit of community is that it gives us the opportunity to challenge ourselves on a grander scale, from a larger pool of people. This is something that I think is easy to understand. In our own dojos, it is very easy to become comfortable. We see many of the same people time and again on the mat–over time, we get accustomed to how they move and respond. As a result, we become quite adept at reading our training partners. This can quickly lead to the illusion that we’re making greater progress than we actually are. But because a kokikai dojo is part of a larger community, we have the opportunity to train with more than just people at our dojo. By participating in camps, seminars, and the like, we can see how much progress we’ve really made in our training.

The opportunities for community to really advance our training is of critical importance to instructors and dojo leaders. My own dojo, for example, sits just north of Seattle. There are, at present, only a couple of other Kokikai dojos nearby–something that makes us very different from the dojos on the east coast! It would be very easy for me to get wrapped up in a world of my own, even if my students do their best to challenge me when they can. (They often succee, by the way.) By going to camps and seminars, however, I get the opportunity to put my perceptions in check. For instance, I remember an experience at last year’s Fall Camp: I was in a group working on a technique in randori. For one reason or another, the technique wasn’t working right with me, and I was frustrated. As I stepped back to the edge of the circle, a senior instructor looked at me and said:

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: ‘But this works for me in MY dojo!’ Am I right?”

“Yes,” I replied.

The instructor smiled. “And THAT’S why we come to camp!”

And he was right. My ego was getting in the way of my education–when I stopped thinking about how I should throw, and focused on how I was actually throwing, I had the opportunity to improve. Only through a community of people is such progress possible.

Sensei’s remarks on community really struck home for me on a very personal level. A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to really evaluate just how important Kokikai was to me. Many of you know this story, so I won’t repeat it. I will say, that the choice laid before me was clear: do I remain a part of a community? Or do I separate and go in a different direction? The decision was easy to make for a number of reasons, but there was one that continued to surface in my mind: that Kokikai was about more than any one person or dojo, it was about a community of people dedicated to understanding Kokikai movement. To leave this community was, in essence, to remove one of the best teaching tools I had at my disposal. It is a very valuable tool indeed, and one that is very difficult to replace.

I hope that all of us who participate in Kokikai dojos remember that one of our greatest assets is our community. It is through each other that we learn, grow, and make progress. Even if you can never attend a camp (though I hope you can!) or a seminar, remember that you are part of a group that, by its very nature, is there to help you achieve your best understanding of Kokikai Aikido. You may not see it, but it is there nonetheless, and its value cannot be overstated.

Parameters

Effective training is all about parameters. Guidelines. All right, all right… rules.

Rick Berry, a Kokikai Aikido instructor that I deeply respect, once told me that the dojo is a laboratory. You’re there not just to train, but to experiment, test, and prove certain ideas and techniques. But just like your high school chemistry class, a given experiment has to have rules. You would never (no matter how much you want to) take two chemicals and throw them together haphazardly. The result might be harmless… but it also might be explosive. This is common sense. Also, without having some sort of underlying methodology behind your experiments, you’ll have no real confidence that your results were because your hypotheses were correct, or if it was just random chance.

These same ideas also apply to aikido practice. Often, on the mat, we have to limit what we can and can’t do. When we study tsuki kotegaeshi, for example, we do not simply start flailing widely at each other. In fact, it is called tsuki kotegaeshi for a reason. The attack is a straight punch (either to the face or the gut–this is usually specified at the time of practice). The response is kotegaeshi. In other words, calling out “tsuki kotegaeshi” as the technique to practice shorthand for saying: “Practice Kotegaeshi against a straight punch.”

The preceding paragraph might seem like I’m overstating the obvious, but it’s important to remember because those of us who are truly dedicated to studying our art are very likely to try to push the boundaries when we practice. This can manifest itself by stiffening up after the punch (in “preparation” for kotegaeshi), or by deliberately going limp after the punch so that you can regain your center. Neither response is necessarily wrong in a freestyle or combat situation; however, it is wrong in one very real sense: it prevents the nage from studying kotegaeshi. By stiffening up, for example, the uke might prevent the kotegaeshi, but leaves themselves open to a counterstrike or another technique. An uke who over-relaxes after a punch has basically bailed out on the attack. In either situation, is very likely that kotegaeshi is no longer the best response. In fact, it may be impossible!

The problem is that the task at hand was not to figure out how throw someone by any means necessary–it was to practice kotegaeshi. By changing the parameters too much, the uke has negated the point of the practice. They may have done so with no ill-intentions, but they have done so nonetheless.

It would be easy, at this point, to assume that the correct role of the uke is to allow the nage to apply kotegaeshi no matter what. But this goes too far in the other direction. An opponent’s balance is rarely given to you–it must be earned. Ideally it is earned effortlessly, natuarlly–but it is earned nonetheless. If you allow your partner to think kotegaeshi works no matter what, then you are doing them a disservice. Worse, you might be giving them the false impression that they know how to apply the technique when in fact they do not. And should they find out their mistake when they most need to defend themselves…the consequences could be dire, indeed.

The answer then is to pay attention to the parameters, but work within them. To realize that, as ukes, we must challenge our partners with the best techniques at our disposal, but do so recognizing that if we push it too far, we invalidate the need for kotegaeshi, or any other technique that you are practicing. This requires that we pay attention to our partner–noting their rank, experience level, and capability, and strive to provide them the best challenge possible, while still providing them the opportunity to practice correctly.

As you can imagine, this makes the art of ukemi truly an all-encompassing effort. But the benefits–for both yourself and for those you train with–are beyond measure and, in fact, are what make the pursuit of aikido so very worthwhile.

The Reason for My Absence…

I recognize that I’ve been remiss in updating this blog lately. I assure you–I plan on fixing that as soon! Those of you who are at the dojo know the reason why, but for those who read this blog remotely, I am very pleased to introduce the latest addition to my family: Max Karl Shevitz.

Max Karl Shevitz

For those of you interested in statistics: Max was born on December 25th, weighing 5 pounds 13 ounces, and measured 19.5 inches long. For the full story of his birth, feel free to check out my wife’s blog: shevitzcircus.blogspot.com.

We’ll return to musings on aikido practice shortly!