People ask me all the time what actually separates the different dan grades in Aikido. The honest answer is that technique alone doesn't explain it — and most people asking the question are already sensing that something else is going on. That explained it — but it also confirmed what I look for ...

If you've ever watched a senior student train and thought, "that doesn't look anything like what I'm doing," you're right — and the difference isn't just skill level. It's a fundamentally different relationship with the training itself. In this week's video, I share a story about a sandan student...

Have you ever watched a senior instructor move and felt like something was different, but couldn't quite say what? I've felt that for years. I spent nearly a decade living and training in Japan, and there's a quality to how the senior instructors there move that I've never seen fully replicated a...

One of the most common mistakes beginners make in Aikido is simply trying too hard. Not trying too hard to attend class. Not trying too hard to improve. But trying so hard in the technique itself that the body becomes tense and the partner gets overpowered. In this week’s video, I talk about a fe...