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It sometimes seems like people are expected to learn Rei (traditional etiquette) by osmosis. I’d like to explain it a bit.

One of the paradoxes of budo is remaining polite and friendly with your training partners despite executing techniques on them that can be painful.

Rei is one key to maintaining this smooth relationship.

The harmony of the dojo is structured on routinely showing respect and bowing – to the art (as symbolised by O-sensei), the dojo community, the instructor and your training partners.

This kind of respect has nothing to do with personal feelings. Personal respect is something we have little control over. In your heart, you either truly respect someone or you don’t. 

That doesn’t matter.

Show proper etiquette even to people you may not truly respect in that personal sense — not as a reflection on their character, but as a reflection of yours. Most of us are struggling in our own ways to learn this art and improve ourselves. 

An instructor’s mutual bow with  a beginner is a sign that both acknowledge dojo tradition and respect each other’s roles.

A standing bow should be returned with a standing bow, a seated bow with a seated bow. “Hanmi handachi” bowing should generally be avoided.

When bowing to a partner, get close enough to him or her that you can easily hear them speak while maintaining ma’ai. Don’t bow from across the room. Wait to bow until there is no obstruction (such as another student) between you and the partner. Pay attention to the person you’re bowing to. Careless bowing is rude.

Bowing in our dojo has no religious connotations. If you are strictly forbidden to bow in any context except for religious services by your spiritual leaders, ask the dojocho for advice.

Bowing in our dojo has no connotations of subservience or inequality. However, it is normal for a significantly lower ranked student to bow a little sooner and deeper to a significantly higher ranked one.

When to bow:

• Seated, when first stepping on to the tatami, to the Shomen (front of the dojo/portrait of the Founder) as a show of respect to the art and the community 
• Seated in a line, to the Shomen when class starts
• Seated, in a line, to the instructor as he or she greets you when starting the class
• Seated, whenever the instructor demonstrates a technique
• Seated, to your partner as you agree to practice 
• Seated or standing when you complete practice with your partner 
• Seated as a group, to the Shomen (front of the dojo/portrait of the Founder) at the end of class
• Seated, as a group, to the instructor as he or she personally ends the class
• Seated or standing after the class is over to all your partners
• Seated, when leaving the tatami

(It is seldom wrong to bow if it seems appropriate. Seated bows are considered more polite than standing ones.)

We just had a great memorial class for Kawahara-sensei. I wanted to offer a few personal thoughts on the significance of such classes.

In Japanese religion, they believe that the spirits of the departed remain accessible to those left behind. When you have a memorial, they are present, observing and supporting the event. 

Even if you don’t believe in such things, a memorial seminar is an important opportunity to try to understand and honour the tremendous impact that teachers like Kawahara-sensei have had on us.

My relationship with Sensei has continued to evolve, even though he passed away in 2011. I keep thinking about him and coming to new perceptions of what he taught and the way he taught. He is still teaching me. 

His character had a huge impact on me and left a profound and treasured imprint. And I pass this on to my students, usually without mentioning it. They feel Sensei’s influence, even though they never met him, even if they don’t know the source of these techniques and ideas.

Those ideas have flowed through many people – starting with O-sensei, then through Tanaka Bansen-sensei, then through Kawahara-sensei, then through his many direct students and from them to the current generation of aikidoka.

During the memorial, I had a sense that Sensei was present in some way, even if it was in my subconscious, in memory. It was a chance to feel grateful again for what he taught and what he meant to me and so many others.

Visitors: For students from other IAF (Hombu) dojos wishing to participate in our classes, the following mat fee packages are available:

• One day – $20
• Five days — $80
• Ten days — $140

The classes can be taken whenever you wish…

Please let us know in advance that you intend to visit.

Fees are subject to change without notice.

 by Chris Robertson

During the past year, I attended more Aikido practices than I have in the past four to five years combined. This is what I have discovered in the 12-month journey.

Attending practices changed from trying to squeeze practices around my activities to working things around my practices. Missing a practice gave me a sense of loss, of a missed opportunity to learn, to continue maintaining my momentum. I began wishing there were more practices.

Previously, each technique had been a discrete (independent) activity, a thing that could be solved, a location that can be clearly reached, a box that can be ticked on completion. This approach led to frustration, since one didn’t get the technique perfect first time, or the second time, or any number of times later.  

Now I see a technique as a continuum and my ability will evolve and different parts of a technique will often evolve at different rates. There is no end point, no finish line and improvement will come through practice and not by any mental desire for perfection.  I find myself working on different parts of a technique at different times. I’m better at accepting there are days where things just don’t go right, my timing is off, my balance is not quite there….

Uke has been a role I happily took on to aid a nage in practicing. While this is still true, I now see it as practice in its own right, rather than just helping someone else to practice. It is my opportunity to practice and improve my ukemi. It gives me the opportunity to practice timing, ma’ai, breathing, balance, stance etc.

Most importantly I’ve come to appreciate the need to improve the simple/basic/fundamental things such as tenkan, soto tenkan, mai, timing, stance, centre, breathing, relaxation and such. If you can’t get these correct, no amount of speed or technique will help your Aikido. I’ve found myself often doing techniques more slowly at times trying to get a sense of the changing stance, changing body and hand position, rather than trying to speed them up. 

Has there been an amazing change in my Aikido? No, no more than you would expect from an increased training schedule. The biggest change I feel is how I approach Aikido. Aikido has become a journey and not a destination. Continually work on the basic things and the other things will come more easily.  

One thing that has not changed is my thankfulness for my instructors and the other students for their perseverance and patience. 

“Am I too old to do Aikido?” I get this question from time to time, sometimes from people in their 40s!

It depends… Your chronological age is not the deciding factor.

Your health is. If you are aware of health conditions that may be worsened by or interfere with the training, you need to have two discussions: getting permission from your doctor to train; and with us, to discuss how practice might affect you.

If your health is good, Aikido is non-competitive and you can progress at your own pace. 

Aikido can help you stay in good shape, physically and mentally and learn some survival skills including self-defence. Every year, seniors are injured by bad falls. One major benefit of Aikido practice is learning to fall safely.

The dojo is a community and offers the opportunity to make friends and socialise with interesting, like-minded people. Every age group contributes in its own way to the spirit in the dojo. We respect our older members for their  calmness, discipline and perspective. 

The best thing is to take a free trial class and see whether Aikido is right for you.

Many older people have activities that they intended to try but never had time for.

This reminds me of the story of the doctor who asked a senior patient if he had any regrets about things he had left undone. The patient replied that he had always wanted to play the violin. “So, take violin lessons,” said the doctor. “Are you kidding?” said the patient. “In two years, I’ll be 70 years old.” The doctor replied, “So, how old will you be in two years if you don’t take violin lessons?”

Somebody once asked me whether I would be his Aikido “coach.” He saw Aikido as just another collection of mechanical techniques that could be added on to whatever it was he thought he already knew.

Aikido goes far beyond technique.

Of course, we have forms such as the sankyo wrist lock that we teach in very specific ways, that we require to be effective and that our students must perform correctly in tests. But even in Aikido, there are dozens of ways of doing sankyo. Many teachers that I respect deeply do it somewhat differently than I do. 

I have heard that O-sensei seldom performed techniques exactly the same way twice — always adapting to his ukes on the fly and teaching his students what he felt they needed to know, rather than by rote. He disapproved of kata-style training and spirituality was core to his Aikido.

Aikido is about community and self-development. There is something deeper behind Aikido technique, physically and psychologically. If all you learn from Aikido is how to twist somebody’s wrist painfully, I don’t think you are putting your time to good use. Strong Aikido technique reflects having learned something deeper.

Every martial art has its target students. For most people who commit to Aikido, self defence is just one circle on the Venn diagram.

I don’t have the slightest intention of denigrating any other martial path. They each have their value and purpose. I have practised Jiu-jitsu, Taekwondo and Karate personally and respect them all, been strengthened by them all and deeply admired my sensei. But mostly they are following different paths from Aikido – sometimes focusing on self-defence, sometimes sports, sometimes culture. They attract students aligned with their goals. 

Aikido is constant self-refinement, lifelong training to be a better, stronger person.

Aikido is not a way to learn joint locks. Joint locks are a way to learn Aikido.

Today is the memorial day for Ueshiba Morihei-sensei (1883-1969), the founder of Aikido.

As a callow teenage jiu jitsu student reading the pages of Black Belt magazine in 1969, I vividly remember coming across the notice of 0-sensei’s death and the impact of his photograph. I knew nothing about Aikido and the picture surprised me – he didn’t look like any of my martial arts heroes. He was elderly, dressed in clothing that seemed exotic to me, with a piercing gaze. 

He looked  like a wizard.

A lot of people talk about O-sensei, but few of them have first-hand knowledge. Even the shihan who were my mentors talked little about him, even though they had been taught by him directly.

I think that sometimes we hear a lot of nonsense about O-sensei and his ideas from people who never met him.

Biographies, even the detailed ones, seldom do justice to their subjects. I think that to really understand O-sensei, you had to be in his presence, feel his hands on you. Kawahara-sensei once told me that taking ukemi for O-sensei was unique – feeling that inexplicable and irresistible power.

Aikido is going to be the starting point of any biography of O-sensei. But there was much more to him – he was an agrarian, a profoundly spiritual man, a calligrapher, a scholar of ancient texts, a father, a poet, a participant in some very tumultuous history. All these things fed into his Aikido.

I think that trying to grasp the breadth of O-sensei is key to understanding Aikido. 

He made a massive imprint on Tanaka Bansen-sensei, who then left his imprint on Kawahara-sensei, who passed it on to his students, including to me. I hope that what I am passing on to my students includes some of the breadth of O-sensei, not just the details of technique. Aikido isn’t just a strong nikkyo. It’s a lifestyle and ethos.

Though I never met him, I know I owe him a debt. Today is the day we thank him.

I sometimes get asked whether Aikido works.

My usual reply is, “What do you expect it to do?”

The frequent response: “Work in a fight.”

The next questions are “OK, who are you fighting? Multiple attackers, or somebody with a gun or other weapon, or somebody who really knows what he’s doing?”

“How hard are you going to practice? Are you going to show up once a week and take it easy, or are you going to commit?” 

It isn’t so much a question of whether Aikido works, but whether your Aikido works.

If you believe you’re going to be attacked sometime soon, don’t start Aikido. It takes too long to learn. Notify the police, try some kind of brutal and direct combat training, carry pepper spray or some other legal weapon and stay out of dark alleys.

 But if you train consistently, you will gain survival skills.

• Awareness
• A calm attitude
• Strength, reflexes and resilience
• Understanding of timing, distance, unbalancing and footwork 
• Ukemi
• Experience with multiple partner and weapon attacks and 
• Effective, fundamental technique 

These all may help to get you out of a jam, if worst comes to worst.

If the only focus of your training is fighting, you’re missing the whole point of Aikido. Aikido is a Budo – a life discipline, with the goal of making you a stronger, healthier and more grounded person — not just able to toss people around on the street.

I think of Aikido as a katana — something deadly — but to be prized, maintained and trained with for your own growth. 

But if it’s not sharp and strong, it’s not a katana.

For such a foundational practice of Aikido, I think that many students, even more advanced ones, don’t fully grasp the spirit of ukemi.

I practised other martial arts besides Aikido. For them, ukemi was what happened to you when you were defeated. It didn’t really matter how you did it, apart from trying to minimise the damage to your body.

One of my favourite quotes from Kawahara-sensei was that “Your technique will never be better than your ukemi.” Ukemi is at the very heart of Aikido practice, the ying to the yang.

A few points:

• Ukemi is a continuum. It begins with uke’s intention to attack, a correct and sincere attack, the resulting body relationship and the final movement leading to a fall or a pin. Each part is crucial.

• Ukemi is a vital aspect of learning. Without good partners, you won’t progress. This is particularly so because many Aikido techniques are complex. If your uke is resisting or uncooperative, you are not getting a chance to experience the technique. It’s not uke’s job to make you “prove” that the technique works, but to partner with you in learning it.

• Ukemi is for safety. I have seen bad injuries result from bad ukemi. Protect yourself with correct ukemi.

• Don’t be stupid. Grabbing nage’s wrist with an ironlike, vise grip and stiff arm is just asking for injuries. It’s not a smart attack in any context, inside or outside the dojo.

• Be responsive. With wrist attacks, hold the wrist firmly but in a relaxed way, so you can react. Your arm should be as flexible as a rope and your grip as soft and connected as a knot. As you become more experienced, this kind of grip will enable you to “read” nage, to feel what’s coming in terms of timing and movement. This is self-preservation 101, a basic self-defence skill.

• Ukemi is active, not passive. Uke is not the victim of practice but a participant in it. Uke should follow actively, not limply or stubbornly. Don’t be lazy, wishy-washy or stiff. Uke should stay glued to nage, continually trying to maintain a surviving position, moving naturally according to Aikido principles, blending with nage.

• Advanced students may run through various possibilities for kaeshi waza mentally as they follow a technique — WITHOUT executing them, to give nage a chance to practice.

• A good uke adds energy and enthusiasm to the practice. Even a hard, committed attack becomes joyful for both parties.

Ukemi is not something that happens to you. You are not a tackling dummy. You spend half your time in Aikido taking ukemi. Don’t waste it.

There’s a big difference between knowing what you’re doing and doing what you’re doing. That sounds cryptic, but bear with me.

In the first, you have an intellectual image of the steps involved in performing whatever the activity is – tenkan, for example. 

In the second, through hundreds if not thousands of repetitions, the understanding transcends your conscious mind and settles into your body.

The only way you can learn to swing a bokken is by relentlessly swinging a bokken with presence of mind, not by intellectually thinking about how to swing a bokken.

Once you have grasped a movement, you no longer need to think about it. You simply know the feeling. It becomes as natural as scratching your nose. When you improve, it’s by fine-tuning the feeling, not the algorithm.

“At some point, self-consciously ‘understanding’ why you do what you do just slows you down and interrupts flow, resulting in worse decisions,” to quote educator Barbara Oakley.

Think about teaching a beginner to ride a bicycle. You can talk yourself blue in the face — “Hold the handlebars like this, sit like that with your weight just so, keep constant pressure on the pedals, shift your balance when you turn etc.” But until that person actually climbs on the seat, starts to roll, maybe falls down once or twice and finally gets the feeling of riding a bicycle in his or her bones, no real progress will be made.

As an Aikido instructor, it can be easy to slip into the “explaining” mode instead of emphasizing practice, where the learning actually happens. This is one of the reasons that students talking during class is such a negative… the wrong part of the brain is engaged.