Lia Suzuki’s Virtual Dojo

In my first Aikido class in Japan back in 1987, I noticed something in the first five minutes that had nothing to do with technique: the senior students were warming up their attention, not just their bodies, and...

I've been doing Aikido for about forty-five years, and I've never trained another martial art, so I'm not going to compare it to anything else. What I can tell you is what Aikido has asked of me, and it turns out to...

When I survey new students about why they came to Aikido, the most common answers are self-development, discipline, focus, managing anxiety, self-defense, and fitness. After thirty years of teaching, I'd say they're...

In forty-five years of Aikido, I've walked into hundreds of dojos around the world, and you can tell a great deal about how people train before anyone sets foot on the mat. I remember being invited to teach at one...

I've been teaching Aikido for over thirty years, and I've watched hundreds of students hit the same wall at roughly the same point in their training. I had one student, second kyu or first kyu at the time, who...

I was sitting in a coffee shop in Japan with Yamaguchi Sensei and a small group of his students, right after training. I was maybe shodan or nidan at most, and this wasn't even my main teacher, but I was blown away by...

Every serious practitioner has had this experience: you come home from a seminar confused, your technique feels worse than when you left, and you can't fully explain what you spent three days doing. I had a student...

There's a specific moment in Aikido training that doesn't happen on schedule and can't be forced: you stop trying to make the technique work, and it works. I still remember one throw from when I was maybe fourth kyu,...

Ikkyo is usually the first technique students learn, which is exactly why almost everyone assumes it's the simplest. After 45 years of practicing, teaching, and taking ukemi for it from partners at every level, I can...

When you become one of the senior students on the mat, training doesn't get easier, it gets harder to improve, and most people don't notice until they're already coasting.  In this episode, I talk about what actually...

In this episode, Lia Suzuki breaks down what actually separates the dan grades in Aikido — and it isn't more complicated technique. Prompted by watching a student's presence shift almost overnight, Lia unpacks the...

If you've ever watched a senior student train and thought, "That doesn't look anything like what I'm doing," you're right.  In this episode, I explore why beginners learn techniques while advanced students study...