The Reception of the Non-Magician

At the last of the three special classes I gave in California in March, 2026, I encountered Scott Berg Sensei of Aikido of Alamo.  It was an interesting exchange that came with many teachable moments and a new friendship.  

Months later, I received an email from Berg Sensei.  While I was glad to hear that he enjoys reading my blog, I was even more delighted by his sharing his with me. 

https://aikidoofalamo.substack.com/

After reading his post 'Aikido and Speech Therapy', I decided to use the lesson from that story as the theme of the practice for the night.

It was an evening with a small crowd.  When this happens, I often take requests from students, turning practice into Aikido clinic.  Someone suggested doing something about staying connected.  

Wish granted!

For appetizer, I prescribed a katatetori gyakuhanmi back stretch -- ikkyo undo start, get out of grip, switch hands, extend forward for back stretch -- all without nage moving his feet.

The appetizer proved to be harder to digest than I thought.  One has to visualize the ball in front of oneself and use the surface of the ball as the reference for the ikkyo movement, followed by hip turns and weight shifts.  To start, however, people have to be able to visualize the ball . . . 

The lesson of Berg Sensei's story was: If you only focus on the result without paying full attention to the process, there will be no result.  To the contrary, if you wholeheartedly work on connecting with your partner so that they can move easily with you, when will you ever have to worry about achieving the technique?

For the entire class, we worked on the one single technique, with the emphasis of focusing on the movements of oneself.  For their own respective reasons, however, on this night, students were very determined to push and pull to make their partner move.  

A lot of efforts to no avail.

The idea of a multi-course banquet turned into a reception with one single hors d'oeuvre.

At the end of practice, I apologize to the students that I might have been pushing them too hard.  To my eyes, they have what it takes to do what was shown, but, too often than not, they chose to deviate from what was being shown, but to pull out something else.  

There are many reasons for people to exhibit such behavior.  After all, what people do on the mat is often a manisfestation of what they are seeking in real life.  As much as I would love to help them learn what is shown on the mat so that they take the lesson off the mat to make their real life situations better, Aikido intructors are not magicians.  We cannot make people do things, nor can we make things happen.  We do not have the power to expedite growth in people.  We cannot change them.  All we can do is to let nature take its course.  There is no short cut.  

The lesson for me is that I have to learn to let go more and let students take their time, take ownership of their journey and learn it when they are ready.  It is their journey.  It is all about them, not about me.  If I am to insist, I am essentially making the same mistake: looking for quick results instead of focusing on my own actions.