I have practiced aikido for 26 years now and taught for 22 of those and it came as a surprise when having shared teaching an aikido class with my friend and colleague, Sensei Paul Linden, he asked me if I had ever written down what are the key elements of my teaching style.  I have never formally synthesised what I do and am not sure what interest it would be to others, but it did set me to thinking.  So as much as for myself as for anyone else, I have decided to put fingers to the keyboard and try and work it out.

My own practice on the mat has often shown me that when describing a technique to students or working through faults in their own or my technique that I gain new insight into how the exercise in question works.  It seems as if unconscious knowledge becomes conscious for the very first time.  Doing something correctly and knowing why you are doing things correctly are two different things and the latter is far more helpful to the teacher.  With this idea in mind, I hope to gain knowledge by placing my own teaching under the microscope and in so doing, improve on what I do.

At the heart of everything I do on the mat (and I hope off it), lies a very strong view of what aikido is all about.  Practicing with many teachers and students over the years has taught me that my views about aikido are not the same as some and indeed, I am not even sure that they are the same as the majority.  At the very least, I place a far greater emphasis on the underlying principles of aikido, because it seems to me that without a deep understanding of these, no technique can ever be truly mastered.  I do not see aikido just as a martial art, but more as a philosophy for life.  I am not even sure it is a martial art at all.  It could be argued, and I frequently do, that it is just a means expressed through martial technique to learn how to deal positively with a negative situation.  What could be more stressful than having someone attack you with a knife?  If you can stay relaxed then and deal with the situation positively and to your maximum potential, you have a chance of dealing well with the stresses and strains of daily life.

So what is my evidence base for this?  The clue of course is in the name that the founder gave to this wonderful art.  I am no expert on Japanese and I understand that there are a number of ways in which ‘Ai -Ki –Do’ could be translated, but broadly speaking, I have never heard anyone disagree with a translation of ‘The way of harmony with nature’.  This phrase is brilliantly simple, yet so deep and encapsulates a whole life style.  There is certainly no hint of violence or physical destruction in this.  If this isn’t enough, then we can look at what the founder actually said.  He said that aikido was essentially about love and described it as ‘a way to reconcile the world’.  That was certainly his aim and put simply, he was taking technique that was originally designed to kill and maim and using this as a means to teach peace and love.  The master of aikido doesn’t even have to consider their own personal safety.  Their aim is to protect the physical well being of their attacker and to find a positive resolution to an attack.

My teaching is governed by these ideas.  The power of our martial technique and its potential to destroy is undoubted, but the aim must be that we can deflect and defend ourselves against any attack on our physical and indeed mental well being and in so doing protect and teach our attacker.  If someone shows you kindness when you are mean, it is usually a very humbling experience, whereas if our mean spirit is met by an equally mean spirit, we feel justified in having acted as we did.  Both parties usually leave the poorer for the experience.

I want my technique to work and to have no holes in it, but I want to be able to perform that technique in a way that does not damage my uke’s body.  I want to leave him or her feeling exhilarated and wondering how they ended up where they did.  I have never enjoyed learning through pain and suffering, but I pay a lot of attention when I am enjoying myself.  Now there is definitely a school of thought in the martial world that believes that what doesn’t kill you is good for you and that if you survive the sometimes brutal training regime, then nothing can break you.  In fact I think this is probably true.  The trouble is that the percentage of people who do survive are so few, that to me this is a road leading to nowhere.  In the event of survival, what sort of example would such a person be, when they come to teach others?  Violence breeds violence and abuse breeds abuse.  Equally love can be contagious too.  If aikido is ever to truly change this world we live in, then we have to appeal to people from all walks of life.  We have to make our practice enjoyable for those that step on the mat and find a way of reaching out to those who will never enter a dojo.  Put simply, violence and the ability to destroy do not have mass appeal, love and peace do!

For me, it seems bit pointless to teach a skill that is quite likely to be completely unused once you step off the mat.  I aim to give my students something that can make a difference in their daily lives and I tell them that what we do on the mat are ideas and principles that they can practice off the mat in virtually everything they do.  Not all students continue to practice on the mat all of their lives and indeed, the vast majority drop out at some point.  My hope is that no matter how long they train with me, something of what I shown them  will stay with them for the rest of their days and improve their lives and those around them.  If we all were to teach with aim in mind, and continue to light candles that can light candles, we can slowly but surely change our world for the better.

The above is what drives me and shapes everything I do by way of teaching aikido.  I train students to be at ease with themselves and then at ease with their training partner.  Coming from a ki aikido background, I have the four principles devised by Koichi Tohei Sensei, to teach students and act as a touch point for them to become instantly co-ordinated.  These are:

• Focus on your one point or centre.
• Extend ki
• Relax completely
• Keep weight underside, (or as Sensei Ken Williams teaches), have a light posture.

All of these require demonstration, explanation and personal experience to get a handle on.  The words themselves do not provide sufficient explanation.

The language we use on the mat is just as important as the way we physically demonstrate a technique and over the years, I have learned that I have to modify the words I use to explain things if I want to communicate accurately, what it is that I want my students to do.  I try to avoid words like grab, pull, push, hit as all of these tend to have purely physical connotations and aikido if done just on a physical level simply doesn’t work.  The basic martial technique might, but it isn’t aikido if you damage your partner or inflict pain upon them, which is what happens if you impose your will on theirs.  
I believe that harmony within yourself comes from mind and body working positively together and it is no different when working with others.  When working effectively on your own within the dojo or without, you have to be comfortable in your own skin, to use a phrase.  It is no different when working with others, except the task becomes one of being harmonious with someone else.  This is a bit like moving from open hand aikido to working with weapons.  If your aikido is based on a concept of applying technique on someone else, then it is not aikido in my books.  Aikido works, when two individuals are able to merge and effectively become one.  If done in a spirit of love and compassion, then you can lead people wherever you like, because a human being is instinctively able to recognise that they are safe in this type of environment.  Imposing your will on someone else will nearly always elicit a negative response, usually fear or aggression.  Work positively with someone and there is a very good chance that you can find an outcome that is joyful for both.

Sometimes, words themselves seem inadequate to provide real meaning to a student.  Some words have no meaning until you have experience of what they mean.  For example, how do explain what ‘ki’ is to a new student.  There are a number of phrases and definitions that I have at my fingertips, but frankly until you are able to work with someone on a physical level, and allow them to experience what ‘ki’ is, words can be pretty useless.  Given this, a key tool for me when teaching is to explain things by using metaphors and similes that anyone is likely to be able to relate to through the normal course of living.  I will adapt these to fit what I know about the individual.  I might relate it to the job they do or other interests that they might have or their domestic circumstances.  It is true that a picture paints a thousand words, and can get an idea across in a way that any description of the picture totally fails to do.  Using pictures, metaphors and similes is a fast track way to impart knowledge.

It is my belief that everyone who steps on my mat can teach me something and has a unique gift to offer.  I have had the privilege to study under and work with many great teachers over the years and all of them have shaped my aikido in one way or another, but the teachers who have had the greatest influence on me, have always been my own students.  Their honesty and willingness to allow me to treat our dojo as a laboratory, somewhere where we all can experiment safely, has helped me grow in ways that a more conventional approach would never have allowed.

In practical terms this means that I actively train with my students.  I do not just demonstrate the techniques that I want them to learn, but I actively participate in the training.  I will work my way round the class and try to take ukemi for my students.  I find that this is by far the best way of identifying where a technique is breaking down and it allows me to zero in and improve on what they are doing and also improve my own knowledge of a technique.  Whilst some mistakes are common, every student has the ability to make unique mistakes of their own and identifying these, and putting these right, often provide you with information about a technique that you were never previously aware of.

My aim is to create an atmosphere that encourages investigation and questions, as this is the best way to allow all to flourish and grow.  Being open to questions and allowing students to question my technique, allows me to try and justify and inform students, but on occasion to admit that maybe I do not have the answers or that I need to change.  Allowing students to question you and accepting that you do not have all the answers brings rich rewards and a fast track to good learning for all.

As an add on to this, I believe it is vital that I keep in mind the fact that whilst I may know more about aikido than most of my students, they will have knowledge and insight that I do not.  Furthermore their own unique experience of life will definitely give them gifts that I do not possess, so ensuring that this is respected and allowing them to bring their gifts to the table is vital.

I think it is important to adapt your teaching style and methods to reflect the culture that you work within.  Aikido started in Japan, but their culture is very different to ours.  I believe that a failure to recognise this will turn a lot of people off.  Western society is not nearly so hierarchical and I think it is important to reflect this in the way my class works.  I am not comfortable with the idea, that just because I might have more answers than most of my students when it comes to aikido technique, that I have all the answers when it comes to dealing with the daily business of living.  It seems to me a ridiculous idea that when I was teaching at the age of 30, or 40 or 50 as I am now, that I will have the wisdom of some one aged 77, (the age of my oldest student).  It is likely that such a person will have a much greater experience of what life has to offer than me.  Equally I recognise that age isn’t necessarily a path to wisdom and knowledge and there is no reason why someone who is much younger than me, is not just as capable of teaching me something.  I have been fortunate enough to live a fairly charmed life, and so I have never experienced some of the harsher realities of life that many others are forced to endure.  All students deserve the utmost respect and have the capacity to amaze and inform you.  I find that respect engenders respect and personally I am turned off by people who demand it.  Respect has to be earned.

As I have suggested, every student comes to the mat with a unique experience of life and as such everyone of them is an individual.  As a teacher you need to be aware that different people learn in different ways.  Some people learn best hearing the spoken word.  Others do better from watching what you do and others need to feel a technique before they can begin to repeat it.  More often than not, you need to use all three.  Finding out what works best with each individual, and trying to ensure that the information you are attempting to impart is consistent across all modes is what I aim to do.  Many is the time though that I am told that the words used suggested one thing, but that my body did something completely different. 

I rarely approach the mat with a definite lesson plan, which seems to be the same for most teachers I talk to.  At most, I might have one idea or concept that I want to explore.  Often a simple phrase or idea will have come to mind, maybe whilst taking a shower or settling down before sleep.  These eureka moments engender great excitement and I can not wait to take them to the laboratory and explore them.  More and more I find that aikido is an instinctive and organic process and I trust these feelings more than ever.  If it doesn’t feel right then I do not proceed, working out why it does or doesn’t feel right is how I grow.

Aikido is a hard task master as it sets high standards.  I can not separate aikido and life and therefore I strive to act in a way off the mat that is consistent with what I teach on it.  It is good to be mindful that students do not necessarily join your club to have you instruct them in how to lead their lives.  Sadly the phrase that those that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones come to mind and I can think of all to many aikido teachers who whilst they demonstrate excellence on the mat, fail completely off it.   Recognising that I am human and that I make mistakes like everyone else is vital and humbling.  Just as on the mat I strive for improvement all the time, so I approach my daily life.  Learning to forgive my failures has been hard at times, but is very necessary.  When you sign on to study aikido, you need to recognise that you are embarking on a lifetime’s journey that has no end.