00;00;00;00 - 00;00;19;20
Unknown
When I survey new students at my. Dojo about why they came to Aikido. The most common answers are. Self-development, discipline. Focus. Managing. Anxiety. Self-Defense. Fitness. They barely even register in these surveys that I do.
00;00;19;22 - 00;00;42;07
Unknown
After 30 years of teaching Aikido. I would say that they're right about what they're looking for. But most of them don't yet know what self-development in Aikido is actually going to require from them. So let's dive in. First of all, I want to start with a story. And the story revolves around one of my long term students.
00;00;42;10 - 00;00;50;22
Unknown
He had been training with me, I think, for about 6 or 7 years at the point of this story.
00;00;50;24 - 00;00;52;04
Unknown
I met his brother
00;00;52;06 - 00;01;08;17
Unknown
and his brother said, oh my gosh, he's changed so much, right? My student got up to go to the restroom. We were in a in a pub, got up to go to the restroom, and his brother said, My God, this stuff has changed him so much. And I was like, oh, sorry. He goes, no, no, for the better.
00;01;08;21 - 00;01;24;08
Unknown
I was like, wow, great. And his brother didn't do Aikido, but his brother credited Aikido with my students progress off the mat and I didn't ask for details,
00;01;24;08 - 00;01;32;08
Unknown
He said it just like that kind of dramatically. You have no idea how much this has helped him. You know, it wasn't just like, oh, this has really helped him.
00;01;32;08 - 00;01;55;19
Unknown
So wow. That's amazing. I had another student who had done karate before aikido, and I found out maybe a year into his his tenure with me that he had not only done karate, but he had been that guy who starts fights in bars,
00;01;55;19 - 00;02;05;16
Unknown
go and pick a fight with somebody, you know. I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh my gosh, him such a sweet guy in my experience of him.
00;02;05;16 - 00;02;10;14
Unknown
And up until he started Aikido, apparently he was doing that.
00;02;10;15 - 00;02;29;22
Unknown
We were sitting in the pub one time. A lot of these stories happened in the pub. But anyway, we're sitting in the pub one time and this guy who used to pop in every couple of months and he did a couple different martial arts. He asked my student who had done karate before and started bar fights.
00;02;29;22 - 00;02;55;18
Unknown
He asked him, hey, you know, you've done some striking arts and now you've done X number of years. I don't know if you got into a fight, which one would you use? And my student said, well, I think the whole point is to get to the point where you're training takes over. You don't have to decide, I'm going to use this one or I'm going to use that one.
00;02;55;21 - 00;02;59;25
Unknown
which I agreed with. He thought a little bit more, and he said, but
00;02;59;25 - 00;03;15;21
Unknown
at this point I've been doing Aikido long enough that maybe the Aikido would take over, and I hope that it would be the Aikido that took over. He said maybe if they punched me I would, I would do.
00;03;15;21 - 00;03;20;12
Unknown
And then he named a technique. Maybe he said, kote gaeshi, I guess.
00;03;20;12 - 00;03;26;19
Unknown
He said, or maybe I'd whip him around. And then when they came flying around, I'd just give him a big kiss and a hug.
00;03;26;20 - 00;03;40;21
Unknown
This was like a major tough guy. This is a guy who used to start bar fights and win. You know, he had quite a reputation. So anyway, I thought that was incredibly interesting. And
00;03;40;23 - 00;03;55;17
Unknown
that when he joined my dojo, it was really quite a community. It was very intense training. This was when I was on State Street in Santa Barbara from 2002 to 2007.
00;03;55;20 - 00;04;17;02
Unknown
It was very intense training, but we would go out together, the whole group, we would go out together at least once a week. Every Thursday we would walk a half a block to the brew pub, and oftentimes we'd go out more than once a week and most people either walked home or wrote a bicycle. So we were we were okay.
00;04;17;03 - 00;04;19;15
Unknown
And anyway,
00;04;19;17 - 00;04;24;03
Unknown
what the self-development actually means is
00;04;24;08 - 00;04;32;03
Unknown
It's not something that you can tick off your to do list. It's not a skill like, okay, got it. Now
00;04;32;03 - 00;04;48;12
Unknown
it's a quality that develops gradually. And oftentimes these gradual changes just like grow, you know, getting taller, a child getting taller or gaining weight or whatever you don't notice oftentimes while it's happening.
00;04;48;12 - 00;04;53;28
Unknown
And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, whoa, this, this change has already happened.
00;04;54;00 - 00;05;06;17
Unknown
And then you might notice or somebody else might point it out to you. You know, as a kid, you always hear like, oh my gosh, you've grown so much since the last time I saw you. And you're like, well, I don't know. Here I am.
00;05;06;19 - 00;05;25;19
Unknown
They notice. So oftentimes it's the same in Aikido Self-development opportunities or self-development track. And Aikido develops you by putting you in repeated contact with your own resistance.
00;05;25;19 - 00;05;39;15
Unknown
So you're training with this one partner that's always difficult for you. And you catch yourself resisting again and then you train with them next week. You're resisting again. You loosen up, he falls down,
00;05;39;15 - 00;05;48;11
Unknown
and it also puts you in repeated contact with your ego and your physical and your mental limits.
00;05;48;11 - 00;05;50;18
Unknown
I had a student who.
00;05;50;18 - 00;05;54;05
Unknown
After class, the other senior students and I
00;05;54;07 - 00;05;57;17
Unknown
were saying, oh my gosh, did you notice Steve tonight?
00;05;57;20 - 00;06;10;23
Unknown
We said, oh my gosh, something happened. He's on a roll. Suddenly he he got good. And so the next time I saw him, I told him, I said yeah. After Wednesday's class we were saying how great you were doing.
00;06;10;29 - 00;06;32;11
Unknown
He goes, oh my gosh. Are you kidding? He said, I feel like such a dork because those guys are such so athletic. And and they were younger than him by like 10 or 15 years. He goes. And that night especially, he said, I was really going to turn around and go home because I was just feeling like I couldn't do it.
00;06;32;15 - 00;06;52;05
Unknown
And he said, I kept going to the dojo. It was an hour's drive for him, by the way, so it must have been a torturous hour. And he said, I just decided on the way that like, okay, I got to get rid of this noise in my head. I got to keep going. I got to go to the dojo and I'm just I'm a dork.
00;06;52;11 - 00;07;19;10
Unknown
He said I gave myself permission to be a dork that night, but it was his best night. He was flying around with these guys ten, 15 years younger than him. He did great. So it put him in touch with with his ego. Right. And and by the way, I have a weekly aikido training videos newsletter where I go into topics like this even more deeply.
00;07;19;10 - 00;07;34;01
Unknown
So if you're interested in that, it's free. Just look for the link in the description below and click on that. Back to the topic though. The development is real, it really happens whether you notice it or not,
00;07;34;01 - 00;07;43;28
Unknown
and it happens through the art, through the training, not alongside it or independent of it, or because you understand Aikido.
00;07;43;28 - 00;07;50;05
Unknown
And you can't train this week because you're busy and it happens through the art, through the training.
00;07;50;08 - 00;07;51;10
Unknown
Also,
00;07;51;10 - 00;07;56;25
Unknown
what do discipline and focus look like? So as I said, a lot of people,
00;07;56;28 - 00;08;01;16
Unknown
when they fill out this, this survey, when they joined my dojo,
00;08;01;18 - 00;08;24;00
Unknown
A lot of them click on discipline. And also now more and more people are clicking on Focus Discipline in Aikido. Oh my gosh, this is really a tough one actually as a teacher because first of all, I've noticed that the people who say that the main reason that they're doing Aikido is for discipline. Guess what? They are right.
00;08;24;05 - 00;08;46;23
Unknown
They're the ones who don't come to class. They're the ones with the lousy attendance. So I noticed this. After a while. I was like, wait. And so I started comparing different people who stuck around. So I got to see what their attendance would be like and their other behaviors. I started looking up like, wait, what did they check when they took that survey?
00;08;46;25 - 00;08;54;17
Unknown
And the ones with the bad attendance were conscious of the fact that they need discipline.
00;08;54;17 - 00;09;06;08
Unknown
So that's really interesting as a teacher, because how do I give them discipline if they're not showing up? And so what I was doing for a while was sending them a text, hey. See you tomorrow night.
00;09;06;08 - 00;09;09;07
Unknown
And they would text back. I'm not sure.
00;09;09;08 - 00;09;31;22
Unknown
Really busy this and that, you know, and I'd say, okay, well, you know, there are some things waiting for you at the dojo, like discipline of focus, all these benefits waiting for you. See you there. I still haven't cracked the code on how to get people to come to the dojo, to be disciplined enough to get to the dojo when they say like, I need discipline.
00;09;31;24 - 00;09;50;09
Unknown
So if you've got any ideas on that, leave a comment in the comment section. So anyway, discipline. It's not willpower. It's the practice of returning to what you know when what you're doing isn't working. So
00;09;50;10 - 00;09;56;02
Unknown
the person that I'm talking about, for example, or the people that I'm talking about who don't show up.
00;09;56;02 - 00;10;13;02
Unknown
The marked something on the survey that they want discipline. And then they started doing Aikido because they thought it would give them discipline. So obviously something's not working and they want to to make it work. So
00;10;13;04 - 00;10;22;04
Unknown
how to practice moving to something new that's uncomfortable rather than returning to what you're comfortable with.
00;10;22;08 - 00;10;48;20
Unknown
That doesn't work. That's that's the big question. So and the discipline people, since the attendance drops off very quickly or it's never very good to begin with. It's not so exciting for them. So they usually quit in like 2 to 6 months. So that's another thing. Then if they're not there then it's impossible to to help them with discipline.
00;10;48;20 - 00;10;49;24
Unknown
Focus.
00;10;49;24 - 00;11;01;19
Unknown
Focus is not just more concentration, it's the absence of unnecessary interference. Have you heard this about business, for example, productivity noise to to signal,
00;11;01;19 - 00;11;18;10
Unknown
noise to signal, you've got to get rid of the noise and just focus on signal. So you train towards less not more so that you can increase your focus, increase the power of your focus.
00;11;18;12 - 00;11;31;19
Unknown
Anxiety, the people who come to manage their anxiety. It doesn't disappear just because you're doing Aikido, but it becomes workable, manageable. It's so interesting.
00;11;31;19 - 00;11;59;07
Unknown
So the way that I teach is I like to take my students out of their comfort zone in the class and then come back to the comfort zone, and then out of the comfort zone and then back into I'm not a formula teacher. Put your right foot here and then put your left foot there, and then do this, and then spin around and raise your arm and maybe first month or so of someone's training, maybe a tiny bit.
00;11;59;11 - 00;12;00;02
Unknown
But
00;12;00;03 - 00;12;12;14
Unknown
I like to give them some basics, and then I like to stretch them out of those basics, you know, so a classical theme and then a variation of it and then back to the classical and then a variation and a classical
00;12;12;14 - 00;12;16;18
Unknown
I think that this helps people.
00;12;16;19 - 00;12;29;25
Unknown
Indirectly. I think it helps them to learn how to manage anxiety. Because what it does, it takes them out of this black and white world where this is correct. And so that must be incorrect.
00;12;29;26 - 00;12;34;05
Unknown
And it brings them into this gray, these gray areas.
00;12;34;05 - 00;12;41;28
Unknown
Where, yeah, this is this is correct. Oh, and it's also incorrect. And oh, you just did something incorrect. But it's also correct.
00;12;41;28 - 00;12;45;28
Unknown
And just saying that sounds really wrong.
00;12;45;28 - 00;12;56;12
Unknown
But if it works, if if your partner falls down and they're not faking it, then in a sense, yeah, it it is correct. Even if you're doing the incorrect thing.
00;12;56;15 - 00;13;18;12
Unknown
For example, when I give a test, I always tell my students when we're gearing up for tests, the biggest mistake you can make is to freeze. So if I ask for, you know kotegaeshi, and somebody testing for their fourth kyu test, they instead of kotegaeshi they do shihonage and they do it and they know like no this is not what she asked for.
00;13;18;12 - 00;13;21;12
Unknown
But what is kotegaeshi. You know,
00;13;21;15 - 00;13;31;09
Unknown
if they continue moving, even if it's a different technique or the wrong technique, it's not the wrong technique because they're moving. If they freeze,
00;13;31;09 - 00;13;37;28
Unknown
I tell them to watch out for that. I tell them to try not to not to freeze. And you know,
00;13;37;28 - 00;13;46;29
Unknown
another thing that causes anxiety sometimes within Aikido is going to seminars, going to another dojo just for a visit or going to a seminar.
00;13;46;29 - 00;14;10;26
Unknown
This is another way to really learn how to manage anxiety, because again, you're taking yourself out of your comfort zone. I've said this in numerous videos now when you go to a seminar, you're almost always going to be a little bit uncomfortable, at least at first. If it's a new seminar, you've never been to that dojo, never been to that group seminar.
00;14;10;29 - 00;14;21;24
Unknown
Going to be a little bit scary. Little bit intimidating. Great. So you take yourself out of your comfort zone. And so it's sort of like
00;14;21;24 - 00;14;25;26
Unknown
practicing anxiety management or cultivating calm.
00;14;25;29 - 00;14;36;20
Unknown
Right. So you don't have to pressure yourself that I shouldn't be anxious. I shouldn't have anxiety in my life. Really? Whoa. I think we all do.
00;14;36;23 - 00;15;01;08
Unknown
But how to manage it? Speaking of seminars, by the way, I'll be in Düsseldorf, Germany this week and then the weekend, September 25th through 27th. I'll be in Sehnde Germany. And then the first weekend of October I'll be in Livingston, Montana. So if you'd like to join me for any of those, just look for the link in the description below.
00;15;01;08 - 00;15;15;00
Unknown
Click that and I'll let you know all the details. Back to this topic though. The art keeps demanding the same qualities at a deeper level the art of Aikido.
00;15;15;00 - 00;15;20;10
Unknown
It just continues to to demand more and more of us if we keep up our training.
00;15;20;10 - 00;15;25;15
Unknown
And so in a way, it never gets easy. But this should be good news.
00;15;25;15 - 00;15;48;00
Unknown
I know it sounds scary, especially if if somebody hasn't started Aikido yet. Like what? It never gets easy in a way, correct? It never gets easy because it keeps asking you to go to a deeper level and a deeper level and a deeper level. So there's no point where discipline or self-awareness is finished. Okay, now I'm done with discipline.
00;15;48;01 - 00;15;52;27
Unknown
Now I'm done with focus. No, it's ongoing, isn't it?
00;15;52;28 - 00;16;12;08
Unknown
So it can still be difficult, but it's the payoffs are going to be great. It'll help you so much off the mat, and the improvements transfer into daily life in ways that are difficult to explain until you've experienced them.
00;16;12;08 - 00;16;21;16
Unknown
So the students who stay the longest at my dojo are usually developing something they didn't know they needed when they first walked in.
00;16;21;17 - 00;16;25;10
Unknown
A lot of times, the boxes that they check.
00;16;25;10 - 00;16;37;06
Unknown
They're aware of those things that they hope Aikido will bring them, but then they get those and something that they had no idea that they were missing or wanting.
00;16;37;06 - 00;16;49;10
Unknown
In conclusion, the people who come saying I want to develop myself are usually right. They just don't know yet how specific, demanding, and ongoing that development is going to be.
00;16;49;11 - 00;17;10;22
Unknown
So Aikido doesn't tell you that on the way in. It shows you once you're already training. Thanks so much for joining me. I hope to see you at one of my upcoming seminars again. If you're interested in joining me, find the link in the description below. Click that and you'll get all the details. Thanks for joining me. See you again soon.
00;17;10;22 - 00;17;11;14
Unknown
Bye bye.
