The Aiki Academy

Take That, You Swine!

By Ralph Pettman

What is the most effective way to teach aikido? What are the main methods used to train students, old and new, and which one has the highest rate of success?

Most of us teach the way we were taught. Few aikido instructors are professional educators, or have done courses specifically dedicated to coaching. If we’ve trained for a while then we usually feel we know what we need to know. We just do what was done to us.

As aikido spreads, and more students become shodan (first degree black belt) and above, more become teachers. There is no formal accreditation organisation to certify teaching qualifications, and to maintain teaching standards, though the Aikikai does have a central register of grade holders at the Honbu. That means maintaining a certain relationship with the Aikikai, however, which many practitioners would rather eschew. So clubs themselves tend to determine local teaching prerequisites, and to spread the art, and junior practitioners teach.

Inside Japan, fourth dan is generally considered the teaching grade. Students don’t usually expect to be taking classes much before then. Even though it can take twenty years or more of hobby training to get to this level of ability and understanding, the relatively large number of students means there is no shortage of teachers. Outside Japan, few teachers are fourth dan standard or above.

Being fourth dan doesn’t automatically make a student a good teacher, though, just as being less than fourth dan doesn’t automatically make a teacher a bad one. While a grading system, properly administered, does token a recognisable measure of personal skill, teaching is something else. It is a skill of its own.

The main teaching prerequisite is enthusiasm. This word comes from the Greek, “en theos”, to be with god, and there is something special about a teacher who is enthusiastic. They light up the dullest dojo with their desire for others to learn (though eager amateurs, as I found out once for myself, can make poor teachers despite being keen.)

Which brings me back to the question posed at the beginning: how should aikido be taught? What can we say, in a general way, about the most effective forms of aikido instruction?

I would like to note initially something the Sufi’s say, namely: “the end does not justify the means, it creates them”. What we want to achieve tends to determine how we try to achieve it.

Those, for example, who see aikido in terms of the mastery of physical technique, like Kisshomaru Uyeshiba (the founder’s son) train in a physical way. They train with a great deal of attention to correct form and technical competence.

This is an approach that appeals to students who like to feel physical feedback from what they do. It appeals to those who like the sense that they are in direct control of all that is taking place.

Those, on the other hand, who see aikido more in terms of the mastery of mental technique, as did Koichi Tohei (one of the most successful of the founder’s students), train in a mental way. They train with a great deal of attention to mental imaging, in a bid to deploy their ki power as effectively as possible.

This is an approach that appeals to students who think in pictures, and like to have a clear image in their mind of what they are meant to achieve. It appeals to those who like using the mind to control the body, and through that, the rest of the world.

Then there are those who see aikido in more spiritual terms. To these people it is not so much a matter of mastery, as of catching the feeling of aiki-movement. This is the approach taken by Yoshinobu Takeda (a leading contemporary aikidoka), who teaches in such a way to encourage a singular sense of open flow.

This is an approach that appeals to students who want to practice aikido as a (highly dynamic) meditation in movement. It appeals to those who want a less structured, more intuitive way to train.

Any measure of effectiveness or success has to take these three dimensions into account. They are all present all the time, but the difference between them means that what is success with regard to one approach may not be deemed so with regard to the others.

To begin with, every student feels clumsy. The physical dimension predominates.

Students can and should, however, be taught the mental and spiritual dimensions from the very first lesson. As they progress, and as their physical responses become more routine, the other dimensions come through naturally, never for a moment having been denied. Eventually the physical and the mental fall away completely, and the spiritual predominates in their stead.

Implicit in the recommendation that all three dimensions be taught all the time is a commitment to a particular teaching philosophy. As it was explained to me, in the aikido coaching courses I attended many years ago, there are two main ways to proceed. One is the brick-by-brick way. The other is the whole-part-whole way.

The brick-by-brick way puts the physical, the mental and the spiritual in a line. Brick-by-brickers say we have to master the physical before we can move on to the mental or the spiritual. We should proceed, they say, using a structured approach, so we can master each dimension before learning the next.

The whole-part-whole way introduces students from the start to all three dimensions. They are then taught to break the art down. They never lose sight, however, of the art in its entirety, or the experience of that entirety. They move constantly between how the art works when everything happens together, and the particular aspects of the art that get highlighted for training purposes.

From my own personal experience, how we train is very much what we get (the end does create the means.) If we train in a physical way, we get a physical end. Which is fine, but the result, I would argue, is aiki-jutsu not aikido.

Since I have always had an interest in the spiritual potential of aikido, it is no accident that I became frustrated, after training for many years in a physical style, and sought another approach. The physical way became more and more limiting the longer I trained in it. For example, as my practice became more advanced, I seemed to become more ego-bound, not less. I argued more about what was correct technique (“You have your little finger up your left nostril for this one.” “No, no! You have your right thumb up your bum”.) This argument was all couched in the language of harmony and non-competition, of course, but these values were only promoted in principle. Little was done to realise them in practice. In reality it was all about having hard, scimitar arms, and thinking “I can throw you, no matter how much you resist”.

So what do I do now? How do I currently teach students who present for the first time?

I show them very briefly the three dimensions just described. The physical dimension is easy. I show them a simple technique, any technique, pointing out how variations arise by following the natural ways in which the body works. The mental dimension is harder to demonstrate, because it is more internal. I usually show weight-underside (Tohei’s famous exercise, where the student thinks of his or her head as a balloon, and is lifted from behind, and then thinks of his or her feet as lead boots, and is lifted again), and then I show energy extension (Tohei’s famous “unbendable arm” exercise). The spiritual dimension is the hardest of all to demonstrate. I usually just say that as far as we can tell, the universe is expanding, and if we want to be one with the universe, as aikido says we can be, then we must expand too. This means a sense of deep release. One that is comprehensive, and ultimately cosmic.

Next, I teach ushiro ukemi, so that the student is able to fall comfortably to the rear. Then I teach the student how to lie down on their front and get up again, so they can work comfortably that way too. (Mae ukemi is taught the next time they come. I do this in four stages, starting with full mat contact, and moving to a standing posture in three progressive steps).

Then I proceed to a simple technique, like sumi-otoshi. Here I show not only how to defend, but more importantly, how to attack.

Good attack is fully committed, yet not too hard, and not too soft. In taking the defender’s wrist for sumi-otoshi, for example, the student (acting as an attacker) is asked to extend their attack up through the defender’s arm. This allows the defender to practice keeping his or her weight underside, thereby preventing his or her hand flying upwards, and allowing the defender to keep his or her “beautiful contact” throughout the movement.

The point is the importance of providing an attack that helps rather than hinders. A good attack provides the defender with enough energy to research the feeling of good movement. Not too much, and not too little. As the attacker, the student must feel for what is needed for his or her partner to take the next step for them. This feeling differs for everyone on the mat because of the different skill levels and mind-and-body types there. When the student becomes the defender he or she can expect to receive the same kind of commitment. Learning is then collaborative. It takes place quickly, and on all fronts (physical, mental and spiritual).

Being the attacker is more important than being the defender. As the attacker the student doesn’t have to worry about what to do next. Since this “no worries” mind-set is what being a defender involves, too, being the attacker provides a good chance to practice this feeling.

With each student giving the other good attacks, aikido practice becomes a form of endless research. Because of its collaborative nature, it also becomes a form of harmony training, laying down good habits from the very beginning. This is important since bad habits can never be broken. They can be replaced by better habits, but this takes time.

I usually explain the importance of following an attack, rather than leading it. All attacks should be led from behind, as it were. Leading from in front creates a space, and a time lag, the attacker can use to take command. By following the attack we eliminate this space, and we coordinate our movement regardless of the speed of the attack. We create harmony as a matter of course, rather than as a matter of conscious intention. (Any conscious intention is an opportunity for the brain to take charge. The brain has a million ways of doing this, since it is extremely loath to relinquish control. Most aikido practice is a matter of by-passing the brain to allow the mind-body to do the work.)

After that, there is only the training. Talking about aikido training is no substitute for aikido practice, just as talking about playing the piano is no way to teach piano playing. I learned this the hard way. I once had a class mutiny on me. They got fed up with me telling them what to do all the time, and stopping them from moving. So they voted me out as the teacher. Having lost the plot, I joined the class myself, while someone else did the teaching. I learned that day that there really is only the practice. All the rest is talk.

In a sense, there are as many ways of teaching aikido as there are teachers. As a consequence I always encourage students to try a range of styles of aikido early on, since there seems no point having a student stuck with me when they might enjoy the art better by learning from someone else, and in some other way.

Though in a sense, we can’t teach anybody anything. The best we can do is create opportunities for other people to learn. The better the teacher, the better he or she is at creating such opportunities.

And in the end, how we teach is who we are. I’m an academic, and as you can tell, I tend to teach like one. My own teacher is Japanese, however, and his teaching method is very traditional. There is no introduction to his classes. Beginners just begin. They are expected to follow along as best they can, observing closely what happens, listening carefully to what is said, and copying what is done. If they ask the teacher a question, he returns their attention to the practice. He does not offer any kind of analysis. He trains with everybody, though, and at the end students are expected to take a great deal of ukemi, preferably from him, to help build up their stamina and to catch his feeling for the art (which is sublime).

Aikido is an art. All aikido teachers are artists, whatever school they belong to, whatever style they practice, and however good or bad they might be. As artists they express themselves in their own way, and so they should, since this is how the art changes, and this is how the art grows.

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