Why Your Good Habits Stall You Between Shodan and Nidan

Shodan is the first time that Aikido starts to feel possible. Nidan is the first time you realize how much further there is to go, and why what got you to shodan won't get you to nidan.

Nidan came pretty quickly after shodan for me. I was training a lot at that time, and my reaction wasn't pride. It was: what did I do for this? I have never really felt any rank I've been given, but that was the most pronounced. I did not feel nidan.

That feeling got me into trouble. I decided to train really seriously, which for me at the time meant hard-core slamming into people, something I was already doing. I upped my game, and my back went out anyway. Fixing it took two or three years.

Looking back, and now as a teacher, I think what was happening is that progress between shodan and nidan is hard to see from the inside. So let me describe what it looks like from the outside.

What I look for at shodan, and at nidan

At shodan, I need to see that a student has been practicing their skills, the way a musician practices scales and arpeggios. There has to be a technical foundation I can see.

At nidan, I want them to be more comfortable with those foundational elements, and I want to see the refinement starting.

For those who don't know, shodan translates roughly to "beginner level." You spend three to five years, I would guess, just to earn the rank of beginner. I love that. It means you understand the vocabulary of Aikido: the verbal vocabulary, of course, but more importantly the physical vocabulary.

In my opinion, it doesn't qualify you to go out and start your own dojo. Sometimes that's a necessity. If you move to a new city and there's no dojo there, your choices are to quit or start your own club. But it isn't what shodan is for.

Receiving instruction versus telling yourself what to do

Shodan is really about receiving instruction. Your teacher says do this, and you do that. You have the self-awareness to make sure your body can actually do it, and the receptiveness to take your teacher's suggestions: now do this, then this, and this. If you can execute all of that, at some point you get shodan.

Nidan is the beginning of being able to tell yourself what you need to do. You assess a situation and decide: this is a bit of an exception. They're not punching exactly like this, they're punching a little like that, so maybe I should go over here instead of over there.

In a way, nidan is the beginning of adulthood. A small child gets told: the stove is hot, don't touch it. At some point the child has to look around, be aware of things, evaluate, and take the appropriate action. That's what's happening between shodan and nidan. You're starting to become an Aikido grown-up.

The practitioners who navigate this gap best start asking, right away, what they can't yet see in their own practice. What am I not seeing? What am I not feeling yet? They look under every rock and into every crevice.

Why your good habits have to go

By the time you reach shodan, you've built some good habits. That's what the scales and arpeggios were for. You've also picked up some bad habits, and of course we always want to get rid of those.

But now you're going to be asked to get rid of the good habits too. In my experience, that is a lifelong pursuit, and I think it's harder than getting rid of the bad ones.

We love habits because we can count on them. But habits, good or bad, can trip us up. When an attack comes that's different from the choreography you're used to, you need reflexes that can take you a different way, one that's appropriate to what's actually happening. That only comes from enough training with enough variety.

So between shodan and nidan, you have to stop practicing for the sake of performing a technique, and start practicing to relate to your partner. That's what leads you to understand the technique not only in your head, but in your stomach, in your intuition.

Something to try in every class

Sometimes this happens by accident. You're training, and suddenly you're working outside the framework you're used to. That's fine. But you can also do it deliberately.

In every class, identify one thing that worked where you don't know why it worked. The next time you come to class, bring that question with you. Or bring it to me at a seminar.

The gap between shodan and nidan isn't in the body. It's in how you train: specifically, whether you've started training yourself, or whether you're still waiting for someone else to do it. It's up to you. You are no longer an Aikido baby. You're not even an Aikido child anymore.

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