Dojo-cho’s Column 3 — It Is All My Own Doing

From the time I began aikido until now, I have attended seminars almost every month without fail. Most seminars are held in Seoul, so going up from Jeju every month is not exactly easy.

Aikido is a very easy martial art, at least if you look only at the number of techniques and how they are done. There are only a few of them, and the movements are not very complicated. And yet, going every month and learning the same things every month, I simply could not understand why I did not get it and why I could not do it as I had been taught. Standing in front of teachers who showed me again and again, I felt utterly foolish for not understanding something so easy.

So aikido is also a very difficult martial art. Those few techniques and their simple movements just will not budge a partner who resists. Yet the teachers move and control people with the greatest ease. I was the only one who could not do it.

When I was younger and went to learn from my teachers, the senior students did not seem very glad to see me. They had come to learn too, and having to practice with a beginner like me probably did not satisfy them. Even when I asked, they seemed to avoid me in subtle ways, and once I sensed that, I felt intimidated and my pride was hurt.

Looking back now, though, I have come to see that practice is far easier between people who both understand the technique. A beginner does not know the technique precisely, so they often do not understand what the senior is trying to do and just stand there blankly. On top of that, in aikido you must not hurt your partner, so the senior cannot twist a beginner’s arm with full force. Controlling them by causing pain makes both people uncomfortable, and trying not to cause pain leaves the senior helpless with the skill they have. Stuck either way, seniors naturally come to avoid beginners, and that hurts the beginners. It is a vicious circle that wounds both sides.

This circle began to break for me after I was awarded third dan. My techniques started to work on beginners without hurting them, and little by little I began to understand how beginners feel. Ah, so that is why no one comes to you when your skill falls short. It was not because I could not twist their arms or could not control them. It was all my own doing.

Once that misunderstanding cleared, approaching senior students was no longer hard. Once I knew that even if a senior hurt me a little, it was not what they meant, I threw myself into training more actively. Looking back, even that misunderstanding was a stepping stone for my growth and fuel for burning more fiercely.

You beginners reading this book will also feel that kind of distance from senior students at times. It is a stage everyone passes through once. Understand that it passes, like adolescence, and make it a chance to grow one step further.