Why the Week After a Seminar Is the Real Seminar

Every seminar I attend as a student leaves me feeling like my Aikido has changed, or at least that a change has begun if I want to go in that direction. Then I get back to my own dojo, and so many times I feel like a fish out of water in that first regular class.

In the early days, that concerned me. I thought it was a problem. It isn't.

Co-teaching with my sempai

This past July, my sempai from Japan came to Los Angeles for our 30th anniversary. We co-taught the seminar, and as always, it made me think. He explains this that way. He places his front foot a little differently than I do on that technique.

After any seminar, I want to review some of what we did. It's funny, because I always tell my students that their job at the end of a seminar is to . Then I go home and think, what was that really cool one we did?

It's human nature to want to review. But the reason isn't to remember a cool throw. It's to hold onto a new feeling: a new kind of connection, a new quality to a connection, better alignment. That's why I like reviewing after a seminar, and why I encourage people to go to seminars, whether they're mine or someone else's.

Why seminars feel so powerful

At a seminar, you're learning in an optimized environment. There's a high-level teacher and structured instruction, and your nervous system is on alert.

Have you ever gone to a seminar, gotten some advice, come home, and told your sensei, only to hear, "I've been telling you that for three years"? With a teacher you rarely see, or have never met, you're on high alert. Your nervous system is ready to soak up everything.

Demolish before you build

Integrating new ideas and new movements requires breaking down old patterns. Before a new neural pathway can establish itself, you have to get rid of the current one.

So during or right after a seminar, you may feel like you're regressing. Not on a plateau, not progressing, but going backwards. That doesn't necessarily mean your Aikido got worse. It probably means you did a great job at the seminar, and now the old pathways are being demolished.

If you want a new building on a lot where an old, dilapidated building stands, you have to demolish the old one first.

Then you go back to your own dojo. Uke comes running at you fast, and your body goes right back to the old way, because there was pressure and the new pathway wasn't established yet. It takes time.

That's why seminars that challenge you to move in a new way, with a stronger, higher-quality connection with your partners, can be so helpful, even when they leave you confused. You do need some criteria for which seminars to attend. But confusion isn't a reason to stay away.

What's happening the week after

The week after a seminar, your nervous system is comparing the old pattern against the new information and beginning the sometimes slow process of building a new pathway.

If you fight through it and keep using force, you'll probably make that awkward period last longer. If you move from connection and work on improving that connection, you give your body and nervous system the space to build the new way. If you insist on forcing, the new information sits unused. It goes to waste, quite literally.

How to use the post-seminar week on purpose

First, decrease the physical force and loosen up your body. Try things slowly. As you do, pay attention to where the confusion actually lives in your body. Where do you get stuck? Where do you tighten up? Doing it slowly lets you find those clues and work on those moments.

Second, pick just one or two things from the seminar. One or two concepts, whether they were shown across various techniques or in a single technique. Practice them slowly, and stay loose and aligned through the entire technique.

Third, be patient.

The shirt test

Sometimes you go shopping, find a shirt, and love it instantly. Five years later it's worn out and you still don't want to throw it away. Other times you're not sure. You try it on, look in the mirror, and can't tell. You need some time.

New concepts from a seminar are often like the second shirt. So give it at least two or three weeks before you decide whether it's worth continuing to work on. I'm not saying you'll get it in two or three weeks. I'm saying delay your decision.

Don't try something once with a friend after class, decide it makes no sense, and never think about it again. Play with it for two or three weeks. If it still doesn't make sense, isn't fun, or doesn't seem worthwhile, maybe it isn't for you. Or maybe you aren't ready for it yet. Once you've progressed another year or two, it may make sense. So don't write it off forever. Set it aside, and maybe bring it back later.

The real seminar

The week after the seminar is the seminar. What you do with the confusion, the inconsistency, the feeling that something you had is now gone: that's where the learning actually becomes yours. That's where you start to own these concepts and methods.

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