Aikido - the organizational context

There are endless discussions about what Aikido is, what it’s origin is, how effective it is, and so on. In a dojo these questions are somewhat relevant too, because they determine what is taught and how it is taught.

The broad range of people that run dojo’s and teach create a wealth of opportunities for students to study and learn. Which is a good thing.

But the discussions about the questions remain. One challenge is that there is no single source to go to for answers. The founder isn’t there to answer the question, and the conditions today are completely different from the time he lived in. So we all have our private opinions, and we need to respect those.

In our dojo the opinion taught is more or less the following.

1. Aikido is what is taught and described by Hombu, and mainly by Doshu and his son.
2. Hombu has a wide range of senior instructors that all teach differently, but as they represent Hombu we accept it to display the breadth of Aikido.
3. If we observe the many teachers over decades we see just as many differences, so again we accept that.
4. We study to find the principles in the techniques. We try to avoid being judgmental about what we observe.
5. There is a body of techniques that are trained as being basic. Their execution is described quite precisely. We look at this as a foundation for the learning process, not as a limit on what Aikido is.
6. We recognize that the techniques have their foundation in other martial arts. So we see Aikido as a development or evolution.
7. We recognize that the harmonious aspects of Aikido arise later in its development. We recognize the statements by the founder that the purpose of Aikido is to add to peace through training. Train a lot, train with others, develop sensitivity to who your partners are and what they need. Build a positive world view on that.
8. We recognize that Aikido is taught in different manners. Some teachers stress the practical value and they have highly respected Aikidoka as their example. Other teachers stress being soft, modest, avoiding harm to others. They have teachers as examples that are just as respected.
9. We study soft and harmonious, but with efficiency and effectiveness in mind. We do not train warriors, we train people to cooperate and respect each other.

These ideas are rooted in many different experiences. As a teacher I find myself expressing to students where these ideas came from. For example: once Endo Sensei asked students at a seminar ‘did you come to hurt your partner?’. Of course people replied they weren’t. His next question was ‘then why are you trying so hard to do so?’. Years later a Krav Maga instructor came to our dojo to demonstrate his techniques. He knew about Aikido and apologized for the hardness of his techniques. But what we observed were many techniques we teach and study, just doused in a destructive interpretation.

We live in an era of online information. We can observe quickly what other martial arts and combat sports do. Looking at BJJ I believe that Aikido does not have an answer to their beautiful, smooth techniques. They follow principles of Aikido: be smooth, go with the flow, don’t waste energy going against the force. But to my opinion Aikido would not ‘win’ against their techniques. Looking at MMA I believe that in terms of strength, endurance and aggression they are exceptional. But the amount of aggression needed in the fights makes for repeated demonstration of what it leads to: still trying to destroy an athlete when he is already out cold. I do not want to train that attitude, nor the techniques involved.

Which brings me to the paradigm in our dojo: train to be a better person. Every day you spend in the dojo like that is worthwhile.

I started to practice Aikido in 1985. Quite early I was asked by my teacher to support him in his contributions to the development of Aikido at a national and international level: in Dutch Aikikai and in the European Aikido Federation. My first visit to the IAF general assembly must have been around 1990 when we visited Taiwan. At this time I was asked to become assistant general secretary, a position I held until 2016.

Around the year 2000 I have 15 years of Aikido and 12 years of Aikido management behind me. I had observed closely how national and international associations worked. I had started a dojo in 1995 at the request of a local gym that wanted to introduce Aikido. After 5 years I had some experience with running a dojo. I started that dojo together with my partner and we ran and instructed together. This cooperation was very pleasant and fruitful.

At that time our national federation went through some fundamental changes. Fujita Sensei and Kanetsuka Sensei had been the main instructors, but they had terminated their roles as technical supervisor and technical director. As a consequence the association had separated into three different groups: dojo’s following Kanetsuka Sensei, dojo’s following Fujita Sensei and those that remained in the original association.

As a consequence of this separation we were left with the question if we needed to find a replacement for a technical director or if a different solution was feasible. We were lucky to get the support from Peter Goldsbury, who was chairman of the IAF at the time. Over a period of time we came to the conclusion that finding a resident technical director or ‘person in charge’ would not be the best solution in the long run. The discussion in the association culminated in another separation: a group that wanted to continue with Peter Goldsbury and a group that wanted to move forward without a person in charge or a technical director.

During a visit to Japan we were talking about how we could move forward without a technical director. One of our presumptions was that we would have to find a way to share the knowledge we had acquired about Aikido over time as the alternative for depending on a single person to provide that knowledge. During the flight back from Tokyo we decided to start a dojo based on cooperation.

When returning home we found a location in Amsterdam, and with 5 friends we started the dojo in 2001. In Amsterdam it is easy and relatively cheap to rent a gymnasium from the municipality. We started with 2 classes a week and no students. To make the cooperation work, we agreed on the formula that each of us would teach for one month, and that all the others would attend those classes. This worked well for about a year. One of the teachers decided that he was more interested in his training of sword and resigned, one teacher decided that he didn’t get the satisfaction he needed from teaching. We continued the dojo with 3 instructors.

The dojo didn’t suffer a lot from their departure. With 3 instructors we managed to grow the dojo steadily and we shared the responsibilities of teaching and managing the dojo. All three of us were also involved in the management of the association, so our work in the dojo was very much aligned with our efforts in the association. But while the dojo ran well, the association was a different matter.

In retrospect I have to admit that the concept of cooperation didn’t work as well in the association as it did in the dojo. While the teachers agreed on the idea that there would be no person in charge, it was a different matter to find another way of working together. Organizing events such as a summer school and a spring course worked relatively well. Agreeing of holding gradings together and conducting them together also worked well. But finding more common grounds turned out to be more challenging. For one part, teachers were far more focused on the challenges in their dojo’s than on the new challenges of moving the association forward. Trying to achieve improvements in the training program or the grading curriculum proved to be far more challenging than expected. Involving new people in the management of the association turned out to have it’s own dynamic.

Those challenges will be the core of another post.

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.