Inryoku Volume 6 Issue 9

I once read that to understand aikido, aikido must be practiced as a lifestyle. I wanted to understand aikido. I still do. And so I set about integrating aikido into my life, so much so that it is difficult for me to explain how I apply aikido to my daily life because aikido is my daily life. There is no separation between training, the dojo, and some other self and life. It is all one. I try to apply the principles of aikido to my relationships, my lingering part-time day job, and the management of my dojo and, in return, the practice of aikido opens the world before me.

Inryoku Volume 6 Issue 8

This month’s issue of Inryoku is another look back at the essays I wrote for my 2004 shodan exam. Last month, I shared my “What is Aikido?” essay. This month, I’ll share my essay about shugyo, the concept of deep mind-body training. 

Inryoku Volume 6 Issue 7

This month’s issue of Inryoku is a throwback to my 2004 shodan essay What is Aikido?

For black belt promotions, the Aikido World Alliance requires written essays. For shodan, there are two topics: What is Aikido? and What is Shugyo? These essays are personal reflections on how aikido has changed, informed, and enriched your life.

I tested for shodan in August 2004. With this anniversary approaching, I took a deep dive into my computer archives, and unearthed this essay. It is timestamped July 23, 2004. Here’s an excerpt:

Studying, practicing, and exercising these basic principles is aikido. It is awareness of our surroundings and the people around us, as well as maintaining the four basic principles that makes aikido unique, and self-defensive.

I hope you will enjoy this trip down memory lane with me.

Inryoku Volume 6 Issue 6

Fill your practice with curiosity and exploration. The kyu/dan requirements tell a story—it’s a narrative, not a checklist. My Medieval literature professor in college began every lecture with the question, “what is this text trying to convince us of?” What are the kyu requirements trying to convince you of? It’s not “I need to know this technique,” but rather, “why do I need to know this technique, and why now?” What is the skill set that this set of techniques is trying to impart at this point in my practice?

Inryoku Volume 6 Issue 5

For this month’s issue of Inryoku, we are thrilled to present on article an the value of mixed-aged practice written by dojo member Jamie O’Hara Zeigler. At AOSB, we offer classes for kids ages 4-5 and 6-12 years, and adults. The adult classes are for ages 13 and older. The current age range in adult classes is 13 to 72.

Over the last 25 years, we’ve seen and experimented with different age breakdowns. While there are some advantages to smaller cohorts, bringing together teenagers and adults with a common pursuit is a unique and valuable experience and, we think, makes for better aikido.

Inryoku Volume 6 Issue 4

“The way people interacted with the door was often reflective of how they interacted with their training partners. Your training partners, exams, kata, demonstrations…these things are all obstacles to be negotiated. They are all doors to pass through. And when you come to a door, do you expect to turn the knob and walk through without resistance? Do you expect the same when doing ikkyo? And when you meet resistance, how do you respond?”

Inryoku Volume 6 Issue 4 (bonus issue)

This bonus issue of Inryoku first appeared in a 2012 issue of the Aikido World Alliance’s newsletter. It’s about the AWA’s 2012 Spring Camp with Eiji Katsurada Sensei from Hombu Dojo in Toyko, Japan. Katsurada Sensei is ranked nanadan and holds the title of shihan (7-degree black belt and “teacher of teachers”). He is a student of Aikido Doshu Moriteru Ueshiba (doshu means leader of the way). Ueshiba Doshu is the grandson of aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba. You cannot get much closer to aikido’s origins than this!

I dug up this article because Katsurada Sensei will be teaching at the AWA’s 2024 Fall Camp! The seminar is October 17-20 at Keishinkan Dojo in Memphis, TN. I hope this article will help inspire and motivate you to attend. Click here for seminar details and registration.

Inryoku Volume 6 Issue 3

Flexibility and fitness are sometimes overlooked aspects of a standard one-hour aikido class. There’s only so much that can be covered in an hour, so we tend to give preference to technique practice. After all, you can easily stretch in your living room, but you can’t always practice at home with your partner or roommate (especially if they don't train.) Aikido has homework, and part of the homework is cultivating flexibility and fitness beyond what’s achievable in class. 

Inryoku Volume 6 Issue 2

Dojo etiquette is being helpful, treating others as you wish to be treated, and practicing safely. It is putting the needs of the dojo and the community ahead of your personal needs. It is an attitude and lifestyle worthy of worry, preservation, and transmission. Without etiquette there’s no “mystique” to the dojo—it’s just another fitness class. Etiquette is the most practical skill we cultivate in the dojo. It is the one that we can use daily, and in all our interactions. O’sensei said that aikido is medicine for a sick world, and our world is certainly diseased with vulgarity and incivility.

Inryoku Volume 6 Issue 1

This year marks my 25th year of aikido. During that time there have been no significant breaks or gaps in my practice. I’ve continued training through all sorts of life events like getting divorced and remarried, having a son, injuries, surgeries (including an emergency root canal), pandemics, natural catastrophes, new friendships, career changes, betrayals, and the invasion of social media. Taken altogether, it begs one simple question: Why?

In January 2023, I posted a newsletter about the importance of attending aikido seminars. In fact, I think seminars are so important that I decided to re-share that article this month. And not just because I haven’t written anything new. It’s also because of the timing. The 2024 seminar announcements are starting to roll out, meaning it is time for you to decide which seminars you’ll attend, choose among hotels, AirBnBs, planes, trains, and automobiles, and submit vacation requests. It’s time to plan your 2024 seminar calendar! But why? Why should you attend one or more seminars in 2024? Keep reading to find out.

Aikido is a perishable skill. Without practice, we lose the nuances of timing, spacing, and leverage that make our techniques work even as we retain the muscle memory. No matter how fast or powerful your technique, if you start it too soon or too late, or too close or too far away from your partner, it won’t really work.

In a routine aikido class, students pair off and assume the roles of nage and uke. The nage is commonly described as the defender—the one executing an aikido technique. Uke is commonly referred to as the attacker—the one striking or grabbing and falling in response to nage’s technique. But why does uke fall? When you are uke, are you thinking about why you’re falling?

Artificial intelligence wrote this newsletter. Well, not exactly. It inspired this newsletter. The article written by SquareSpace’s new AI app is at the end of the page. It’s not a bad article, but also not very readable. It doesn’t sound like me, although it says all the right things about aikido in the age of AI. And if you don’t know me or if you are unfamiliar with my writing, you might not realize that a robot wrote it.

The dojo is a place that brings likeminded individuals together. Perhaps traditionally and ideally, a dojo is single-purpose space used only for aikido classes, independent training, and meditation. And between training sessions, it sits pristinely and idly awaiting the next session.

I’ve been thinking about America’s loneliness epidemic, and the dojo’s capacity for creating and providing community. The dojo creates community in two ways: sometimes people seeking aikido find community among the other practitioners and sometimes people seeking community find aikido.

When I started aikido at the age of 45, I had never been inside a dojo except as a parent. Falling terrified me. Conflict—especially physical—was best avoided. And I would go out of my way to feel safe, which meant practicing people like me. Three months later, I look forward to falls, and I prefer practicing with everyone across the gender spectrum, regardless of age and rank. 

Many people I meet are surprised (and possibly disappointed) upon discovering that aikido is aggressive and that aikido has attacking techniques. But it makes sense: how can we practice any type of self-defense technique without an attacker?

Two often repeated ideas in the dojo are that “rank doesn’t matter” and that “I just want to train.” The former is usually pronounced by people with an advanced rank, and the latter by students without rank. Although both sentiments have value, both obscure what is important to everybody’s practice: testing. 

One way to break the routine and avoid the complacency trap is to attend seminars. Seminars offer opportunities to train in a new environment and with new people.