One of the most important ways in which Aikido is transmitted is in dojo’s. I can’t even guess how many dojo’s there are by now. Each dojo represents one or more people that were so commited to practice that they started one. And at the foundation of the explorations of what you need to run a successful dojo lies the respect for the effort that is involved.
But effort alone is not enough. There are mundane issues such as renting and cleaning a dojo, there are more sophisticated questions such as how to decorate a dojo. Some people have built dojo’s that would easily blend in with the Japanese environment, but virtually every dojo will have a portrait of the founder and a stand for weapons.
Once you have found a location and opened the dojo, you need students. You have to choose what type of dojo you wish to be, how you will teach, where you will focus on. Here the first distinctions that matter to me start to appear. How you market Aikido is one challenge. How you express your vision to potential students will influence the type of students you attract. But it is also the first indication of what type of teacher you will be.
When the dojo has some students and you start teaching, the real challenges begin. How much does the teacher know about teaching and learning, will eventually determine how Aikido is transmitted. There are so many variables here. If the teacher wishes to teach more technical, this will impact his student, if he focuses on the philosophy of Aikido, that will influence his students.
But teaching is more that such focus. Understanding how your students learn, should play an important role in how you teach. But this differs per student, and it differs in each phase of his or her development.
There are other factors that will impact the learning process. Like every other physical skill, conditioning plays an important role in the learning process. If the dojo has daily classes and students participate daily the outcome will be different than if the dojo is opened for one or two days a week and students show up only once of twice a week.
The longer the dojo is open, the more the long term effects of the conditions and choices will become visible. For example, a teacher with a focus on a high skill level may end up with a small group of seniors that have a high level as well, but it may become increasingly difficult to find new beginners because the difference in level appears to great to new students.
Another example of what can happen, is when working towards shodan with students. Teachers will strive for a high level, demand more hours and focus in the years approaching the grading. Once the student has passed his test, he needs to find new motivation to practice.
Once you start to pay attention to these processes as a teacher running a dojo, the number of challenges increases. Many teachers will have to adapt to the realization that things change. The question then becomes: how do I change.
An underlying process is that most of the initial choices a teacher makes, are founded in his own experiences as a student. What you found appealing you focus on, what you disliked yourself, you try to improve on. My own teacher would put a lot of (negative) pressure on students to improve their motivation, but I disliked that a lot. So when I started, I wanted to become a teacher that used other means of motivating his students. But he also focused on building a sense of belonging to a group, and this I found highly relevant. It’s still part of my focus as a teacher.
The examples you have had, determine who you are. But for most Aikidoka there are more than one examples. In the past the number of Shihan was small, they were Japanese and the teachers in dojo’s were their direct students. The teachers went to seminars to study themselves, and brought their students. So the next generation of teachers were mainly primed with their experiences with a Shihan at seminars. But todays generation of dojo’s has many instructors that have never been committed to a Shihan, and the number of non-Japanese Shihan is growing every year. This has introduced a lot of differentiation in how Aikido is instructed.
An interesting observation is that there is still a strong commitment to practice Aikido as developed by O’Sensei and spread throughout the world by the Ueshiba family. The first Doshu must to credited for starting this effort, and the current Doshu has the respect and loyalty of the Aikido community. It will be interesting to observe how the development of new dojo’s, new teacher and students influences that relationship.
That connection can be maintained in three of four main ways. The Dan-grades are one: everybody want their Aikikai grades. Visiting Hombu is another way, but only a few members of our community can spend months or years in Hombu. The third way is by establishing a continuous relationship with a Hombu Shihan. The fourth is by incidentally inviting a Hombu Shihan or visiting their seminars.
One observation is that Hombu gives very little input on how to teach. There is only technical input. Both the current Doshu and his son have published video’s on how techniques should basically be executed. And my observation of Doshu and his son is that they do this in an excellent manner. But on all the other aspects of teaching neither Doshu nor the Hombu Shihan seem to express an opinion.
Therefore the source of teaching skills will be diffuse and international in the future. This is interesting because many teachers will refer to the Japanese way of teaching or learning in their dojo. Whether the claims we make are actually true will be increasingly difficult to prove.
The claims we make are open to debate anyway. For example, if you study the use of the term Shihan, you will be surprised. There is an interview with Yamada Sensei in which he explains that the terms was an expression of respect within a personal relationship, and that it was not a title he would use for himself. If you look at the Hombu regulations, there are now conditions, but it is clearly stated that the title comes with no special powers. Yet the title has been adopted by the community and today many teachers see it as the next step once they have reached 6th dan. And it is highly questionable that a next generation of Aikidoka will find the source of this title.
Once your dojo has been open for a decade or so, your first students will be shodan. From that point on you need to find other ways of inspiring them. Many new dojo’s spring into existence because the students seek new motivation, and teaching could offer that. A number of these separations are amicable, but an equal number spring from tensions between teacher and student.
At this level the issue has become cooperation. As the number of dojo’s grows but the number of senior Japanese instructors doesn’t, the knowledge base for instructors becomes the shared experience. We can no longer ask our Japanese instructors what O’Sensei said, the even the current Hombu Shihan have no direct experience with him any more. There aren’t a lot of resident Shihan left, most of them have passed away and for current students they are only names. This connection to the source of Aikido is dwindling, and the main claim that a teacher can make to the teachings of O’Sensei today is through the internet. The reality is, we have to come to term with the fact that the knowledge is embedded in the community and only by sharing can we try to maintain as much as possible.
For this introduction to this blog, I think I have made my point. The dojo is the focal point in the process of maintaining Aikido as a martial art. But the challenges that a dojo faces are broad, and many aspects we may not even be aware of. In the coming episodes I will try to share my insights and hopefully build a small part of a knowledge base for teachers.
