Why Japanese Masters Move the Way They Do

I lived and trained in Japan for nearly a decade, and there is still something about the way senior Japanese instructors move that I have never seen fully replicated — not in seminars, not in videos, not even in very advanced Western practitioners. I have thought about this for years, and I want to try to describe what that difference actually is, because I believe it matters for how the rest of us train.

It Is Not About Knowing More Techniques

When people try to explain what set teachers like Yamaguchi Sensei and Takeda Sensei apart, the easy answer is that they simply knew more technique than everyone else. I don't think that's it, or at least it isn't the main part of it. Watching them, and watching my senpai — Seino Sensei, Suzuki Yasu Sensei, Numata Sensei — class after class, year after year, what stood out to me was something underneath the technique: timing, preparedness, structure, looseness, attention, and presence. Those are the qualities I want to talk about here.

They Enter Before You Expect It

One of the clearest things I noticed was timing. These teachers entered earlier than anyone expected — early enough that a fraction of a second sooner would have been too early, but somehow it never was. Their entry often seemed to start before there was any contact at all. I would have the sensation that contact had already happened before it actually had. I don't have a clean way to explain that, and I'm not sure I ever will.

Part of what makes this possible, I think, is that they were never visibly "getting ready." Their minds were already still, so their bodies were already still, and that state of readiness was simply ongoing. It didn't switch on for the technique and switch off afterward. That's part of why the preparation is invisible on video: it isn't an event, it's a continuous condition.

The Time I Froze in Front of Yamaguchi Sensei

I want to tell you about a class I took during what I believe was Yamaguchi Sensei's 70th birthday celebration. People had come from all over the world — Argentina, France, all over. Tissier Sensei and Michelin Sensei were on the mat. My sempai were on the mat. I was somewhere around nidan, and I badly wanted to take ukemi for him.

Yamaguchi Sensei never asked for volunteers. He would simply glance in a direction, and if you caught it, that was your one invitation. If you missed it, someone else jumped up, and it was gone. So I spent the better part of an hour trying to catch his eye.

Eventually, he looked at me. I jumped up and ran toward him. I got within a foot of him — close enough that his wrists were right there — and my hands simply stopped. To this day I couldn't tell you why. He looked briefly confused, then reached out, took my wrists, threw me, and walked on. I was mortified. I had waited an hour for that chance and I blew it.

Looking back, the best explanation I have is that his state of preparedness was so complete that, from where I stood, the technique felt like it was already over before I arrived. That's how convincing this quality is in person. It's very hard to describe on video.

Where Is the Tension?

Another quality I noticed, especially in the shoulders, was looseness — the kind of structural looseness that lets structure do the work most of us are still asking strength to do. Taking ukemi from these teachers, I remember searching for tension in their shoulders and simply not finding it.

I heard a phrase often while I lived in Japan that's hard to translate directly — something close to "don't cut corners" or "don't cheat." Every movement was complete, nothing was skipped — but over years of training, the movements themselves became smaller. Less movement, not more, and less tension, particularly in the shoulders and knees. I suspect part of this, for the knees especially, comes from spending so much time sitting and moving on the floor, which Westerners simply do less of. That daily bend through the knees seems to build a different capacity to absorb shock.

The Body Becomes the Argument

Many of us train primarily with our arms and hands. What I noticed in the high-level Japanese instructors I trained with was different: because their structure and shock absorption were so well developed, their entire body could become the site of the interaction, not just their hands. The whole structure became, so to speak, the argument — not the position of the hands.

Watching Yamaguchi Sensei, on the mat and on video, I noticed that the quality of his technique and the quality of his attention were the same thing. There was no separation between paying attention and doing technique. The structure was loose, but strong, and well formed, and the attention ran through the whole of it.

The Quality of the Arrival

I think this is where Western practitioners, myself included, often miss something. We tend to learn the shape of a technique — step one, step two, step three — without learning the quality of the arrival. Atemi is a good example. In the West, atemi often carries some anger in it, some idea of "I'm going to get you." What I experienced from my training partners in Japan was different: less a threat, more something closer to a reminder.

That quality of arrival — startling, unsettling, but not violent — is not simply a personality trait some people happen to have. It's trainable. It requires the right teacher, consistent training with them, and training partners who support that direction of practice. The gap between understanding this intellectually and actually embodying it is where most of us spend the bulk of our training life. Closing it takes repetitions, and a teacher who is training you specifically in that direction.

Choose Your Teacher With Your Future Aikido in Mind

If there's one practical takeaway here, it's the importance of choosing your teacher deliberately. Think about what you want your Aikido to look like in ten years, then look honestly at the teachers available to you and ask whether their Aikido resembles what you're hoping to grow into. Many of us choose a dojo by convenience — how close it is to home — which is a reasonable practical constraint, but it's worth being honest with yourself about the trade-off. A single seminar, without sustained training afterward, tends to give you a glimpse of something that then fades.

A Practice Prompt

Here is something to carry into your next class: during your next class, notice the moment before physical contact. Are you waiting for the technique to begin — or are your attention, structure, and body already prepared?

Watch the Full Video

I go into all of this in more depth — including the full story of that class with Yamaguchi Sensei — in this week's video, "Why Japanese Masters Move the Way They Do."

If this kind of reflection is useful to you, I send out a free video training every week that goes deeper into these topics. You can join here: Subscribe to the weekly training newsletter.

And if you've been curious about training with me directly, I'll be leading a small group tour through Germany this September, visiting Heidelberg, Bonn, Düsseldorf, and Sehnde. The waitlist for that group will open soon — keep an eye on this space if you'd like to be part of it.