I was a brand new black belt (wow, that was a long time ago, my how time flies) and while walking thru’ the grocery store a woman hit a slick spot and fell. I sat there looking at her and clearly remember thinking to myself, “So, you fell down why? And, you’re not jumping up, why?”, until I realized that she didn’t know ukemi so I tried to help.

The lesson here for all of us is that beginners are (not in this order); confused, sometimes frustrated, impatient to be able to do what all the “big kids” (black belts) can do, occasionally angry at themselves for not learning faster, disappointed and any of a number of negative emotions all of which center around not being an Aikido “master” (not that any of us are masters of the art form anyway).

A beginner, just like that woman so many years ago, does not know how to fall correctly nor can they easily remember a sequence of waza. In a very real sense, they can barely tie their obi correctly.

It is all too easy to forget that at one time we knew very little about Aikido and now that we have our black belt, Aikido is beginning to become second nature and without realizing it we begin to project our newfound ability onto others who couldn’t do what an Aikido player can do even if their life depended on it. So when we work with beginners we attempt to explain the specifics of whatever waza we are having them do and without thinking fall into the pattern that I found myself in at the grocery store of, “Well, I can do it! Why is it taking you so long to figure it out?”

This is an improper way to teach beginners as all it does is serve to discourage them and lead them to believe that they are incompetent players, unable to learn to most basic fundamentals of the art form.

The fact of the matter is they are NOT incompetent in the least, they are simply as yet untrained and unskilled in the  specifics of the art form and need only your steady guidance (and patience) in showing them and allowing them to learn and progress.

If you are Shodan or Nidan for example, I could blow you out of your fundoichi by simply starting to teach you Koshiki-no-Kata, a warp-drive advanced kata from Kito Ryu Jujutsu that contains all of the essence of both Aikido and Kodokan Judo which is why Kano and Ueshiba and Tomiki all studied it in depth as they formulated their teaching pedagogues.

I wouldn’t do that to anyone but it serves as the example of an advanced player being impatient with a lower level player and trying to force feed information to them and them expressing displeasure either by direct word or by forceful motion with our hands or worse yet, by subtleties of body language that they clue into and them when they ask, “What? Am I doing it wrong?” we reply, “Oh no, it’s just perfect!”

They can pick up on that lie.

So the goal here is to have patience AND to be sincere in our efforts to give them positive support in the same fashion as someone gave us, way back when we were unskilled but desperate to learn.

Originally Published July 25th, 2008