Relative time

Why is that when you go somewhere you haven't been before it seems to take much longer than to come back from there? Why is it that when you go somewhere for the first time it seems much longer than the second, third, etc. times?

Last week I went to a school to give away a Children's aikido poster. I didn't know the area and it seemed to take at least thirty minutes to get there (I wasn't watching my watch but I looked at my map frequently thinking "is it still so far"?). Today (at the time writing this post at home) I went to that school again because last week it was completely empty (it turned out that they had half term and noone was around). It took me 15 minutes only and I wasn't walking any faster than the previous time.

The same thing happened when we were looking for flats to move into (which happened several times over our four years in London). It's certainly not only me who finds the first walk longer. But why is that?

Are we more alert to make sure we don't miss the destination and, at next time(s), we know the way already so we can think about our own business which makes time pass quickly? Maybe it's the same relativity Einstein described once.

"A man sits with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems shorter than a minute. But tell that same man to sit on a hot stove for a minute, it is longer than any hour. That's relativity."

Relativity - Which one is hotter?

If the above logic is right and I try to apply it to my aikido studies then the idea is that I should never experience this slow-fast passing of time. I'm supposed to be alert at all times, "be present" as others call it. Indeed, I don't really experience time differences between doing a technique first and second but I guess it would be a pretty good exagaration ("lie" as others would call it :)) if I concluded that it's because I'm alert all the time :). That is the aim, to be alert, but sometimes I tend to sink to comfort and stop discovering new technical bits when we are practicing. This happened on Wednesday as well: we had a beginner and I tried to make fun of ryokatadori (grabbing the gi at both shoulders) because she had a t-shirt on and not a gi jacket (uwagi). It wasn't funny at all when Karesz immediately shouted to stop that and start showing the beginner how to do the technique and start focusing on connection with my partners (it was a technique done in groups). I was pretty ashamed of myself and came home disappointed (again, in myself) but I understood and learned the lesson. From time to time, it happens that I go to trainings and let time pass quickly but there's always something that awakes me sooner or later (a grading date, if nothing better) and I realise that I should use my (and others') time to study harder, improve more and don't let time fly away.

Next time if I notice that a training (even if it's only an hour long) is too short I will need to think about what changes I have to make. Even one hour should be enough to get tired of properly practicing, I guess it's not a coincidence that the Hombu classes last an hour, too.

So I still can't properly answer my initial questions but at least I gave a couple of thoughts to relativity theory at an aikido training :). Let me know though if you can answer the above questions.

Are you a slow walker?

In one of the recent trainings I showed tenchinage (heaven-earth throw) in the kids' class. First we started with gyaku hanmi katatedori (left hand grabbing right hand or right grabbing left) and I showed only the chi (earth) part where you just slide a bit sideways and forward and point into the irimi (unstable) point of the attacker who then rolls or sits down the mat smoothly. This looked nice so in the next training I also introduced the ten part where the not-grabbed hand goes to control the attacker's chin and you step forward causing the same effect on the attacker as before (i.e. roll or sit).

However, when we started practicing, one of my young aikidoka speeded up and wanted to throw me quickly. This was the moment I suddenly remembered having read a quote from Abraham Lincoln:

I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.

I will explain the speed of practicing much more when the speed-up next happens (which is totally expected as children have a lot of energy to release which makes the class lively and, for me, more enjoyable). I guess I will talk about speed after playing some tiring aikido-games such as the one where you need to throw your opponent off balance from a hand-shaking position :).

To switch to my own training experience, this quote is a very good one. It is said that speeding up has a certain balancing effect and you can obviously use more of the attacker's energy, but to learn the basics, especially how to do ukemi (fall, breakfall) without risking injury, high speed doesn't look ideal. If you can do a technique slowly you will certainly be able to do it fast when you learn the necessary skills to handle breakfalls.

I recently complained to one of my friends that their aikido demonstration for recruiting new students was too slow. He didn't respond to this comment which made me think about why he chose that particular speed (I was sure it was a deliberate choice). After a while, I understood why the demo was like that. I understood that he just didn't want to decieve prospective newcomers by showing what they won't be able to do at the beginning. Now I think it was fair because people who would have joined their trainings based on an over-exciting, fast (also, populist) demo would have left soon having been disappointed. I guess it's better to attract less people but keep them for longer than to attract a lot of people whose majority will leave the class very soon (which happens in most martial arts, aikido included, unless you get that addiction).

Although they say "You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps" (David Lloyd George), in the beginning of learning something new wouldn't you rather practice jumping over small ditches if it was possible, to gradually prepare for the great jump?

Our club - the very beginning

Apart from the grading and starting of the children's aikido classes, our club had also happened to be exactly two years old on the 27th January 2008 so now I take the opportunity and write about how it started.

In 2005, thanks to a friend, it turned out that there are more than one aikidoka in London who used to train at the same organisation in Hungary. It was time we met and continue what we had started before and train together. The first time we met with Karesz (aka. Karol, Charlie san, Sensei :)) was very similar to the current, regular after-training events: we went for a beer. We discussed (among many other things :)) that we should find a club and train together. So we started looking for a good club. He looked where he lived and I looked where I could. However, finding a good club wasn't very easy and quick process, given that our financial situation caused some restrictions in terms of travelling distances and training fees as well.

So in the beginning we decided to train on our own where no fees needed to be paid: in the park. With Szabi's arrival, there were four of us so that made two pairs which was almost perfect for us. Karesz, Szabi, Heni (my wife) and me went to the Bishops park near Putney bridge and trained in several weekends of the autumn of 2005, obviously, when the weather allowed us to. There were several people in the park looking at us rolling and flying. We didn't wear our gi on the grass so that's why it was only 'several' people staring. As winter came, the park had become more and more muddy and wet so we had to stop these outdoor trainings.

In the meantime, we visited several clubs. Since we trained in Aikikai style which is the traditional aikido style currently overseen by the founder's grandson, Ueshiba Moriteru, we wanted to find an aikikai aikido club. There weren't a lot of them, and we had also seen several 'aikido' trainings which weren't really resembling to what we had seen and learned from our 3-4th dan masters previously. Maybe these training were just too different and they weren't what we needed but we always thanked them for letting us watch the training (I sometimes participated as well) but then did not return. We also found a good training in Maida Vale led by a 6th dan master. We even attended trainings for roughly a month but for some reason neither Karesz nor me felt that it was the training we want to settle in. Although a bit different, they were technically very good, but I felt something wasn't right with the atmosphere. It might have been just me, someone who wasn't ready to accept a training which was not exactly the same as the trainings I was used to (my former master had even warned me about this) but at the end, we just simply stayed away.

Our trainings, however, had to continue because having skipped 2 years and having tasted trainings again I wanted to continue my aikido studies and Karesz and Szabi didn't want to lose their (aikido) shape :). We decided to look for a place where we can rent a large room and mats for an hour and train as we could. We had a 1st dan and 1st kyu in our group so to keep up our levels it was fine. Karesz was the person who found a place to train. It was in the Open door community center in Southfields (the aikido listed in their website is something very different). It was there where we first trained as a 'club' on 27th January 2006. There were three of us plus a friend as spectator.

The first aikido training in Southfields. Note the smiles :).

Not much later, other friends and friends of friends joined and started their aikido studies. After a couple of months, we moved to the Holistic Fitness studio in Wimbledon and have been training there ever since but I'll write about that when it will be two years since starting trainings there.

After the first Kids Aikido class in Wimbledon

Finally I slept well last night. I think everything went well during my first kids training and both children and watching parents seemed to enjoy the class. Obviously, there's a lot I can improve and there's a lot more we can practice in future trainings as the kids learn more and more basic movements and techniques. I forgot to say and do a couple of things but I didn't expect that everything should go exactly the way I planned, I needed to practice being flexible and spontaneous in 10% of the time.


Someone said after class that I was too serious and hardly ever smiled. I will definitely work on this because it's a good point and I know I tend to concentrate too hard sometimes. An aikidoka has to be relaxed, that was one of the reasons I started aikido for, I needed to build confidence, had to be more relaxed and, obviously, I needed a good exercise. I hope to improve these skills in children I train, too.


There were six young aikidoka in my class and I want to say thank you to all of them because they worked hard and focused surprisingly well during that one our yesterday. I also want to thank the parents who brought their children and some of them supported us by staying there and watching the class. I really liked one of the fathers who laughed every time the kids did something cute and funny. It was a positive support towards me as well.


We practiced a couple of breathing exercises, the famous rowing exercise, played balancing games, learned hidari and migi hanmi positions, mae ukemi and ikkyo omote. This week we will step forward and extend our knowledge.


The above photos were taken by our "regular photographer" with the verbal approval of parents. If you are a parent of one of the children and want to see all the other pictures as well, please contact me.

ps.: Yesterday I learned that there are actually people who read this blog :). Parents mentioned reading it and newcomers in the adult class also said they had read a couple of posts. Thank you all, I'll keep writing and sharing my aikido thoughts! On Wednesday I'll post an entry about Heroes' Hiro Nakamura ;).

Kids aikido classes starting

I'm going to start aikido classes for children on Sunday, 27th January (4:30pm). Kids between 7-12 will be in my group and I'm looking forward to seeing and teaching them. I haven't really posted about this intention of mine in this blog yet because I've just been preparing almost silently and we tried to finalise the date we could start these classes.

One of the reasons I started this blog in September was that I wanted to organise my thoughts and also, gather some basic information (folding your gi, tying your belt, bowing, etc.) that I can later use and, possibly, refer to in my kids classes. The blog has turned into a bit more personal direction since, I think, but I hope it's going to be helpful for young people who want to understand aikido more, too.

The class will definitely be very different from the 18-20 year old students' I teach at the university (for computer science :D).

We have discussed with Karesz and Steve a lot which age groups I should teach. Finally, the decision to have a single class for 7-12 olds has been reached for various reasons: 1. as aikido can be practiced by people of very different strength levels, size and age, there wasn't any point in dividing the group into two age groups like in kickboxing; 2. children below 7, though, might have too different attention levels from, say, 11-12 year olds so that's how the lower age limit has been decided; 3. 12-13 year olds should be able to join the adult classes depending on how strong and mature they are (just like the age until they have to use a booster seat in cars, as the Dragons learned last Friday).

I have been reading various articles about kids aikido classes for a relatively long time, that is why I have the Aikido kids link in my links section from the starting day of this blog. I've also become a member of the related group at Google to learn from others' experiences. Obviously, knowledge about teaching acquired by reading articles and forums is rarely the best thing to do (though you can still learn a lot by it), so I visited the Lil' Dragons' classes (children aged 4-8) and the Kids Zone (9-13) classes run at Holistic, where I also happen to train in the adults' aikido class. Those kids do kickboxing but I still learned a lot by watching, participating and showing them some aikido techniques because Steve has kindly asked me to do so (after I arrived to just observe these classes :)). Needless to say, personal experience has completely changed the syllabus and approach I initially planned. I'm sure I will change these things many times as I gain more and more experience but that's how development is made.

If you remember the post with a lot of pictures where I was in charge of the adult class, it wasn't because I was the best in the team but because I wanted to practice teaching the most. I've asked Karesz Sensei to give me a class every month so I can prepare for my own classes (and he can train as well :)). He was generous in December giving me more than what I had asked for. He obviously wants me to run a good class because he will be the one examining the kids when it comes to their grading and he wants to see some quality aikidoka.

I will have an assistant to demonstrate techniques as well. Armand who brings us nice food sometimes...khm...:) ...is training with us in the adult class and young enough to remember how kids think will join me, for which I'm grateful.

Everything points to my new class and now I'm having problems sleeping because I'm so excited about teaching these kids and planning their first aikido trainings.

I'll definitely write another post after the first class to tell my experiences.

Finally, my favourite kids aikido video with its even better background music :):

Three levels of learning - Shu Ha Ri

I've been working on my PhD for almost 4 years now and I have to say I feel half of this time was wasted. I should have already finished at least a year ago. I had the technical skills, I had the knowledge into research methods but I just couldn't get ahead in my work. I kept thinking about why things were not working, how should I 'fix' myself. Someone said that a PhD is not a real PhD unless you waste at least one year going nowhere. Needles to say, this didn't really make me feel much better.

Now I think I'm getting towards understanding why things happened the way they did. I identified many reasons, but now there is only one I'd like to write about: simply talking, I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready mentally to enter the next level. I got stuck in a level and couldn't advance. I was running in circles which they referred to as 'viscious'.

I've recently read about the concept of Shu Ha Ri which made me understand what happened and that it wasn't just me who goes through various stages of learning. Shu, Ha and Ri are three levels of learning and it's relatively easy to get stuck at the lower levels. Shu is the first which is followed by Ha and Ri. Shu is the basic level of learning, the Ha is built on Shu and Ri is built on Shu and Ha. It is also described as three contenctric circles Shu being in the middle and Ha and Ri being the outer circles.

Shu is the first level (often translated as "to protect" or "to obey"). At this level, you blindly follow what your teacher/book/instructor/master tells you. You do not need to understand why the things you learn work, just do whatever you are told. In life, this is when you are a child and you do, feel and think like your parents. You just copy. In the learning process of becoming a good professional, you follow everything your teacher or book says, for example, copy the program code from the book, use it because it works and try to understand how it works. In Aikido, this is when you do what your sensei tells you. You don't question his knowledge, you don't really understand why and how kotegaeshi works, you simply embrace the knowledge and skills your instructor offers you. Most of us are at this level as aikidoka. According to Chiba sensei, you are at this level for at least three to five years of training, or san (3rd) dan (which usually takes more than 3-5 years to achieve ;)).

Ha is the second level ("detach", "digress") where you begin begin to understand how and why something works and you begin to experiment with the limits of knowledge and skills you get from your teacher. I think this is the level of adolescence. You accept whatever your parents tell you but feel that there can be something more, something else that might be a bit closer to your personality. You are not exactly them, you can think on your own, too. In programming, you begin modifying the code from the book, add some code bits, change some parts, compare the efficiency of various algorithms that return the same output (e.g. sorting algorithms). In aikido, this might be when the techniques your master showed you are all clear, they work but you can experiment a bit to learn on your own and find small movements in techniques that work better than others.
I think there is risk for us here to get off the Path. In our running world people want everything immediately. We want to be masters very quickly and start experimenting with various techniques although we are not even close to understanding any of them. One example comes to my mind from when we were only 6th kyu. We thought we knew how to roll. Going to the beach with more senior students between two trainings in a summer camp, I still remember the place clearly, someone with 1st or 2nd kyu (they were almost gods to us) told us that even with their 1st or 2nd kyu they were far from knowing how to roll properly. That was a shocking sentence for me. It made me realize that I was still at the very beginning of my aikido Path though I had no idea what was yet to come, how long the Path was (I still don't have any idea). Then, I learned where my 'place' was, and there are still occasions that teach me that I'm still at level one (Shu). But at least I'm a bit closer to the Ha level :).

The third level is a level of dreams, freedom (Ri - "leave", "separate"). You don't need the instructions of your teacher any more, you are an adult, and as adult, responsible person. You are responsible for yourself, possibly for your own family, career, students, etc. You don't care how and why a small program works, you just do it and it will work naturally. I can't even imagine what this level is like for an aikidoka but probably this is the level (from 6th dan, according to Chiba sensei) when you don't care what technique you are doing, you just flow in the air, connect with the universe, you don't even need to see the circles in the movement, you understand, see and control the whole Martial Matrix around you.
I'll let you know when I will be able to (day)dream about this stage. I guess it's still a long way ahead. Until that, I keep running the techniqes in my head (when not in training) and notice that I can't even imagine a relaxed circular movement and find that my muscles are contracting in concentration and desperation to create a vision of relaxed me.

Fortunately, I think I'm close to breaking free in at least one field, my professional studies. I don't ask anymore for my supervisors' own idea about what my next reseach step should be because it's me who knows that (though small, specific) area the best. I know what's best for my research and professional me and although it might be different from my supervisors' ideas, they are happy to see that I (can) do what I want. Now I understand that a PhD is not a piece of scientific work but a state of mind.

The next step is to further expand on my own, maybe start something else from the Shu stage. My main goal is to get to the Ri level in every aspect of my life. Maybe that would be a stage some very wise men and women call enlightment?

Question of the month

Starting from now, I'm planning to post a question I'm struggling to answer every month. I hope I'll be able to answer them in a reasonable time and post the answer but I also highly appreciate if you could post the answer yourself or thoughts about it in the comments.

The question (or problem) for this month:

When you practice you should keep your centre of gravity as low as possible to stay stable. If you want to keep your upright posture as well, you should try to stretch yourself upwards. How can you synchronise these two intentions? Are they contradictory? Are they unrelated and I just don't see this?

I'd like to read what you think about this.

Sunday training photos

Thanks to our loyal I-don't-train-but-I-like-supporting-you-by-watching amateur photographer friend Tamas (I hope the description is accurate enough :)), we have a lot of photos taken last Sunday. They were pre-filtered by Chris and further filtered by me, now we have only 133 left to show :D. There are also others in the pictures, so the collection is a result of real team work :).

Like it or not, I'm the most frequently photographed person in this picture set thanks to the facts that 1. Karesz "Charlie san" sensei was away and made me in charge of the class, 2. we did some breathing and streching exercises at the beginning of the class, 3. I didn't really filter out many pictures about me :).

Enjoy the slideshow and in case I don't post anything here before Christmas I wish you a Merry Christmas and a nice Christmas meal, too :)!

Posture

This is just another week when I read something, think about it, observe it and write a post about it. This time I read an article about the correct posture in modern life and aikido.

The main idea I understood was that the skeleton but especially the muscles of humans are not evolved for sitting in chairs and in front of computer screens. Our ancestors had to walk a lot, lift heavy objects and they needed the optimal body structure for this as well as a proper use of this structure. A very interesting point in the article is that knees and leg muscles (e.g. the quadriceps) of modern mankind are much weeker than those of our fathers, grandfathers, etc. We don't need to sit on the floor any more because we have chairs and tables. We don't need to lift heavy objects as often because we have forklifts :). Since we don't need to exploit our muscles and bones to achieve highest efficiency, unfortunately, we tend to use them in a far from optimal manner. Just think about how you pick up something from the floor. You will probably bend and use your muscles in your back to lift that thing. Bending becomes our default motion to 'go down' to reach something positioned low and since our body is not designed for this our back, and life at an older age, will suffer its consequences. Just to experiment, I counted how many times a day I bent instead of squatting, but I stopped counting after 40...

I think the Japanese are luckier in this sense because they still actively sit in seiza and it might be easier for them not to overuse their waists.

The proper practice to lift up something, for example, a watermelon :), would be to keep your upper body straight and upright, squat, pick up that melon and stand up while you are still in an upright position. You need to use the strength of your legs and position your hip for the ideal lifting position.

This is the same for aikido. We tend to bend too often and it's very hard to learn to keep the proper upright posture. It also sounds easier to bend when you take down your uke but as the pain in my back and waist the day after training proves there should be a better way to execute techniques. I feel lucky that we can practice suwari waza as well. There we need to use our toes and leg muscles that are otherwise not exercised and taken care of properly. We also need to use our hips so there is a higher chance that if we do it properly won't suffer that much when we grow old. And even when we grow old, we can still practice aikido which is a very good thing. Just have a look at aikido masters over 70.

Trust and an attacking uke

Sometimes I'm a bit impatient with beginners who don't understand that uke has to come and attack and it's not really the way of harmony if one partner's intention is to resist or interrupt an already started motion. For example, some beginners 'attack' as if they didn't really want to. They hold your wrist but as soon as you move they release it or stop and unless you tell them what to do a couple of times every training there isn't much improvement. As a partner (being tori) I usually explain that 1. uke is an attacker so has to attack and come forward until he can't 2. if you stop and release my hand you might easily get a punch in your face (which I don't demonstrate).

Be warned: I might sound confused in this post and that's because I'm still far from understanding how things really work in aikido and how some existing knowledge and experience can be effectively passed on to beginners to improve them so we can practice in harmony and can further improve more quickly. I think about these things a lot and, from time to time, I come up with new interpretations, ideas which are often based on something I hear or read.

A couple of weeks ago I read a blog post about trust. It made me think. It also made me realise that my thinking is still of a beginner's and there's still an incredible amount of knowledge to gather along the Way (there are some points in life when we realize how big the world is and how small we are in it).
I'm very similar to the author in the sense that I, too have substantial experience in trusting too much. One point he made was that if you trust your tori (aka. nage) too much you can easily run into one or two punches (which is the opposite of the example above but I'll get to that point later). As I described, this was my problem too and I learned to slow down a bit but I still often forget to keep away from that atemi (and usually this is when I start wondering how someone with a relatively short arm can easily reach my nose :)). Now, what if you are tori and uke does exactly the opposite of my approach, i.e. grabs you but doesn't come forward to attack despite the master's explanation about attacking? I think it can a question of trust. Not attacking can easily be a self-trust problem for a beginner: he doesn't know what exactly is going to happen and he's not confident whether he can roll/fall properly. But if the person is not a complete beginner I think this behaviour also shows that he doesn't trust his partner which should not be the case. Luckily, as someone practices more this becomes less an issue and you can actually begin to practice in harmony. But before that it's very hard sometimes.

I don't blame anyone who's not attacking. There might be other reasons for not attacking apart from trust problems and if it's a lack of trust then that can have a lot of reasons, too. We live in a world where nobody trusts others. And obviously, if you generally don't trust people you can't be expected to trust others right after taking up aikido.

Another point is that if you trust too easily you shouldn't expect the same from everyone else and shouldn't be frustrated if your uke won't attack properly (this has also been made clear in the post I mentioned above). Eventually, you will earn their trust and you can enjoy practicing together much more (at least this is what I always tell to myself when my blood pressure is starting to increase :)).

I think training in aikido could actually increase your level of trust (and hopefully not the blood pressure :)) and during training you can teach yourself to trust some people in a relatively safe environment in order to make your life better. Own example: training can help you a lot to overcome fear and lack of trust so that you can build healthy relationships with other people (you can ask my wife about this ;)).

My first Aikido experinces

If you are talking about aikido in public, probably the first reaction to pop up will be something like “oh yes that Steven Seagal stuff”. Funny though, I didn’t even now this “common sense” until I was doing aikido for about a couple of months. Well, maybe that was my luck; otherwise I would never start learning this beautiful martial art. Not because I have no respect for Seagal, of course I had also enjoyed his movies, but because I don’t really like aggression (and now we all know that was only about entertaining), it wouldn’t be the real motivation to catch up with it.

Fortunately my master Laszlo Elsner 5.dan have more sense of harmony, so after seeing my first ever training in early 1999, I got really excited about something absolutely new (for me, of course :) ), therefore I was already taking the following class in my jogging trousers and my favourite Red Bull t-shirt (you have to look cool, hah?). I remember having pain in my knees, ankles after the first fallings, but I was absolutely determined to survive J At the beginning the progression wasn’t quite easy for me, because the majority of the club was pretty beginner-guys being graded for 5th, 6th kyu, or had no grade at all. So I started to attend classes also in my masters headquarter club, where I could also practice with some guys having hakama. Soon I realized I was utterly addicted to aikido, having 5 classes a week, plus helping out in the children's classes on Saturdays and Sundays, which made it 7 trainings a week…
The reason for doing aikdo is simple: I found something that I was missing and I would really miss in my life. Not just Aikido, harmony or the universe’s energy, but friends. Friends who really made my last decade, and hopefully they will so in the following few ones :).

Bow - Part 2

In the previous post I introduced why you should bow during a training. Now there's a list of when bowing is expected.

1. When you enter the dojo you bow at the door towards the middle of the room. You acknowledge the place of training.
2. When you step onto the mat (tatami) you bow towards the kamiza (shrine) which is sometimes just a framed picture of O'Sensei. Some people do this in seiza (the traditional formal way of sitting in Japan) while others simply from a standing position. You show your appreciation towards O'Sensei who created this martial art. Please note that this is nothing to do with religion, you simply show your respect but it's not kind of worshipping a god.
3. (When there is no space between the door and the tatami, i.e. the mat area starts right next to the door, you can bow only once.)
4. When the training begins, you start with a short meditation in seiza and then first you and the master bow towards O'Sensei which is followed by a bow towards each other (students towards the sensei, sensei towards students). You may say 'onegai shimasu' (pronounced as oh-ne guy-she-mahss, you mean something like 'please teach me') when you bow towards your sensei. I don't think this needs any explanation. It is nice though that the sensei also bows towards you as he accepts teaching you and he can also learn from you during the training by correcting your mistakes or simply finding out which way of demonstrating a technique is best for students to understand how it should be executed properly.
5. When the master finishes the demonstration of a technique the uke he 'used' (inappropriate, but sometimes used word) bows towards the master and says thank you (domo arigato gozaimashita). The students also bow from seiza as they were sitting and observing the master's demonstration.
6. When you find a partner to train with you ask them to practice with you by going to them and bowing. You can say onegai shimasu (~ 'thank you for training with me'). Your partner accepts you by doing the same. Please note that rejecting someone is considered to be very rude and is never done unless you are to practice in pairs and two or more people bowed towards you at the very same time.
7. When sensei says 'yame' (yah-meh, 'stop') or 'seiza', you finish immediately whatever you were doing (if it's possible, even in the middle of a technique except when it would cause injury, e.g. in the middle of a throw), and you bow towards each other and say thank you. You usually say this in Japanese but English, or any other language that are used by both partners, can also be accepted, you just need to show your appreciation.
8. When you are practicing in groups and someone has finished his/her 'round' of being the tori (who does the technique, also called nage), s/he bows towards the next person who will take his/her place. If it's the first round, the order is usually from senior to junior (so that beginners can observe the technique more before actually doing it), if it's not the first round you should use your memory to remember who's next :).
9. Some people bow towards each other after every uke-tori swap (usually after four techniques, two each side). In our dojo this is not practiced (probably to save time), we only bow when we are asked to take our place in seiza or change partners.
10. When you don't understand anything and want to ask the sensei, I think you know what to do: bow :). But the most important thing is that you should go to the sensei and bow and not hail him like a taxi and when he comes to you, bow :). You do the same when you need to leave the room for whatever reason or need to stop for a while. This includes drinking some water which you should do only for a very good reason during trainings (e.g. in 65 degrees Celsius :)).
11. At the end of the class, the same meditation-bow-bow procedure is followed as at the beginning of the training.
12. Similarly, when you leave the tatami and dojo you do the same bows as when you were entering. This way you will use the same procedure to get back to the civil world as to forget about your daily problems when entering the dojo.
13. If you are not training but watching the class, you also bow when entering and leaving. Apart from these, you only need to bow when the others, after the meditation, bow at the beginning and end of the class. During the meditation part you should stand up as another sign of respect.

This may sound many if you are a beginner but you will soon find it natural.

If I left something out please let me know in the comments, otherwise bow whenever you feel it is appropriate in reflection of the above points. :)

Bow - Part 1

If you come to England from abroad and you read the word 'bow', first you will probably think about Robin Hood :D. If you come closer to London you will see that Bow is a part of East London (and name of a station). But if you come to a dojo, bow takes on a completely different meaning again.

A bow is a fundamental part of aikido training. It shows respect towards the place you train in, towards O'Sensei (Ueshiba Morihei, the founder of aikido), your sensei (the instructor of the aikido class) and your fellow students. It is part of the training that you always show respect.

You must have seen films, movies with Japanese people bowing all the time. This is part of their culture, they show the appreciation for whatever they think you deserved it. It is very similar to the English culture though, just the manifestation of showing respect is different a bit. In England, you are always 'brilliant','fantastic' but at least 'nice' (ask foreigners how unusual this can be for them/us :)). Even if you don't like someone you don't tell this to them in their faces. I think this has a very nice ( :)) side as, even if you don't think so, you show some respect and don't allow the situation to become aggressive. After a while, you get used to forcing yourself to be positive and at the end you may as well end up becoming more positive (you can as well call it self-programming). So in an aikido training, bow whenever you think the situation allows a bow, this way you learn to respect others (even more ;)).

More on when to bow is to follow this post but you can send me comments before that if you like.

How to put on your hakama?

There are several ways to tie your hakama on. I think you should choose whichever you like best or whichever fits the length of cords (himo) of your hakama.

If I needed to do it for the first time I would try to copy someone I know. You might have a master who prefers you to tie on the hakama in a certain way and expects you to do so either. I think it's also easier to copy someone as you can ask them to stop whenever you want/need or ask them to explain how they do it.

Before getting my hakama I looked up ways to put it on on the Internet. I found several figures, a couple of videos but there were too many ways to do it so I couldn't choose immediately. I had to wait until I got my own hakama and I tried a couple of versions because I didn't want to go to my first hakama training without any knowledge about how to tie it on.

Although later, I recorded how the advanced aikidoka do it in our dojo. This is a version I had never seen before online (unbelievable! Amazing! :D:D) but they say it is the easiest and quickest way, and I believe them :).



However, I do it differently (I am allowed to :)). I think my way of doing it is a mixture of things I found on the web. I try to follow a video found on youtube but finish with the 'flower-like' knot (which is from another document). I'm not including a video of me now, you would get bored at my speed as a beginner hakama wearer. Watch my video source instead.



I think the most cited (and copied) non-video method is in the document created by Bu Jin (pdf). Many other web pages use the same figures to illustrate how to tie a hakama on.

Other hakama-tying resources:

• An illustration.
• Another illustration.
• A forum on this matter.
• Another textual source (go to Using the hakama section).
• Not really the aikido way but might be good to know.
• If you can read japanase you will have detailed instructions (I guess ;)) otherwise only nice illustrations for men and women.

Some, for me at least, interesting ways of tying on and wearing a hakama:
- some people don't wear a belt so their hakama tying is different and not really applicable to us.
- the traditional Japanese way to tie a hakama also falls into this category as you don't wear a training obi with your hakama in civil life (or the belt is different).
- I saw aikido practitioners wearing a hakama and belt 'inside out': hakama inside, belt tied on top.

My knowledge about traditional Japanese clothes is limited to what I read in some articles online so if there is anything I didn't get right or missed out please tell me about it in your comments.

About safety

One of the reasons one might start doing aikido is that you want to feel safer. I too wanted to gain some self-confidence and just generally, wanted to feel safer in the street at night (though the places I lived in before coming to London were not particularly unsafe).

Another aspect of safety in aikido appears when you are actually practicing. You obviously don't want to harm either yourself or your partner or anyone practicing within the dojo. For this reason, i.e. to avoid injuries, we should train carefully and should not do silly things to show how much you know ("let's throw the uke as far as we can...").

When practicing, it's always the tori who controls the technique, hence he is responsible for the safe execution of a technique. The tori can control where the uke is thrown as the uke sometimes can't see where's some space to be thrown (and the tori is supposed to lead the uke anyway).

There is one more way to prevent injuries, and this is clothing. If the sleeve of your gi bottoms are too long, you or others can step on it and, because you can't step properly, someone might get injured. Hakamas are even wider, looser-fitting and might also cause injuries when they are too long or the aikidoka is not prepared to wear them safely.

I think this is why many aikido dojos do not allow students to wear hakama until they acquire certain skills and experience (3rd, 2nd kyu, 1st dan). Two things I wouldn't like are wearing hakama from the first day or not wearing hakama at all. I think these are rather two extremes as a beginner doesn't even know how to walk (especially in shikko dachi) and I wouldn't like to take the nice look of a hakama away from advanced students. Saying that someone doesn't wear hakama at all is being overcautious but tell me if I'm wrong in this.

The other thing is the colour of the belts. I'm much more flexible in accepting coloured belts for safety reasons but I also think that as the Japanese could live without these colours for ages so should we. The purpose of aikido is also to work, practice together with anyone so if you don't know how advanced your partner is you can either ask or start the techniques slowly to find out where s/he is in his/her Way.

Safety is for not getting injured and concerns about it should not take anything away from people. I don't go into a dark alley during the night if I don't feel safe but I shouldn't feel unsafe during a walk at night anywhere (e.g., a well lit street). If someone really wants to hurt you they will, but such mean people are, I hope, very rare. Similarly, accidents can happen in aikido trainings but serious accidents are also very rare.

The first training

It is generally understood that first things are always memorable. You remember your first day at school, your first kiss and most certainly your first aikido training! There are, obviously, exceptions but if you loved it (or it was a complete shock :)), you will probably remember. This post is about my first training experience. If you too have your story please share it in the comments.

It was back in 1999 in my 2nd year at the (then) University of Veszprem. Each semester, we needed to collect 20 signatures from some sort of sport activities, and I was really bored with the excuse-sports the year before (airgun practice), so wanted to do something 'extreme' along with some friends. At that time a martial art seemed extreme enough, so I picked one at random. Alright, this is not true :). It wasn't random. I already heard about karate and kungfu but nothing about aikido, so it was an obvious choice :).

Having no martial art experience, the first training was...very funny. You had to sit down in the beginning in a line with others, and had to be in total silence for at least a minute. Then there were these jumps and breathing exercises, still in silence.
If you are in an unusual situation you often give a strange smile or play around with your fingers, ears, pen, etc., and since my body movements were controlled, smile remained :) Actually, I was really about to burst into laughing, and so were the other newcomers (roughly 15 of us). There was one time when I even needed to pretend coughing to hide a sudden laugh. I felt exposed in front of all those people and I was so lame. At the end though, I was tired and didn't feel like this anymore*. During that week of my first trainings, I already decided that aikido would be a long-term "exercise" for me.
By the way, the training was about tenchinage (as I learned its name later on).

Please share your experience with me (and other readers) even if you martial art is not aikido. That would make the story-set really interesting.


*this is not true either :D. There are still days when it's hard to control myself in the beginning of the meditation before class. The difference is that now it's now because I'm in an unusual situation but because I want to train so much and my body would jump and do those tenchinage (and many more) techniques. Be warned: the squeaking sound of a swinging punch bag can be very dangerous :D!