by Mark Binder
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On the other hand, when I decided not to buy a luggage cart, and ended up lugging my 600 pound suitcase through three very long subway tunnels, there was no one to gripe to. A mixed blessing.
I hadn't been to Chicago in years, and in all honesty still haven't seen much of it. The airport is busy, the trains are clean and noisy. It's a spread-out town, with a gridwork address system that's supposed to make finding any place a cinch. "49500 West by -78.43 South by SouthPi. Oh, that's next to the Flypaper Center."
At last I arrived at the City Suites Hotel, where my Aikido teacher, Lou Perriello, and two senior students, Mark Norton and Steve Koon were also staying.
The room was a suite only in the loosest sense of the word. In addition to having two double beds in a shoe box, there was a sofa bed, a couple of chairs, and a mini-refrigerator (empty). Lou and Steve had snagged the beds the night before and Mark N. had ordered an extra spare bed. I got the couch.
Imagine if you will a mattress made from chicken-wire and old springs, loosely padded with burlap and held together with string and you're probably picturing a more comfortable mattress. Even on the floor it was like sleeping on a bed of nails, except I'm not a yogi.
Then, when the El rolled past our window at five the next morning, and the garbage truck backed down the street (MEEP-MEEP-MEEP) for fourteen hours, I began to question my sanity.
In the United States, most Martial Arts instructors don't have any formal training in teaching. There's no certification program, federal, state or local standards. (And these are the guys you want your five-year old to learn self-defense from?)
For more than a decade though, Fumio Toyoda, head of the Aikido Association of America, has been trying to address that concern by holding an annual Instructor's Training Seminar. Every year, more than 100 Aikido teachers and assistant instructors from all across the United States travel to Chicago to participate in the four days of intensive training. In theory, the seminar brings instructors together to establish a minimum set of standards, as well as pass along teaching methods and ideas.
In reality, there were problems.
I wanted to learn how to teach. I wanted to come back brimming with ideas for my classes. I wanted to see different instructors teaching the same technique &emdash; to watch their styles and learn their tricks. I wanted to hear how other people had dealt with slow students or rebellious ones. Dojo dynamics and social politics are frequently issues in Aikido dojos. Sally complains to Sue because Bob threw her too hard. How do other teachers handle the gossip?
There weren't any panel discussions, though, no classes on teaching.
Instead, we mostly got a black belt seminar. You could see the differences between one Aikido instructor and another, but there wasn't enough mat time to process their teaching methods. Instead, at one class you practiced teacher A's st yle, and at the next class you dropped that and tried style B. For example, Toyoda had invited K. Hatayama, a guest instructor from Japan to share the mat. Where Toyoda has a sharp and aggressive Aikido style, Hatayama's style was softer, bigger and more flowing. Switching between classes was like changing between speed skating and figure skating.
My Aikido improved, but did my teaching?
As a teacher I tend to talk too much. When Hatayama taught, he barely said a word -- mostly because he couldn't speak English very well, and his translator was worse than useless. Even without long explanations, it was possible to understand why he moved in a particular way. He would show a throw, and then allow his partner to try it out on him. When the partner failed, Hatayama shook his head. When the partner succeeded, he'd smile and agree, "So, so, so."
At another class I saw how resistant I was to trying new teaching methods. A teacher named Andy Sato demonstrated half a dozen methods of helping students become accustomed to breakfalls. A breakfall is scary looking. It involves flying through the air and landing on the mat with a thud. Once you learn it, it's not so bad, but some people are terrified. As a teacher, I found myself agreeing with the methods I'd already seen, and frowning or shaking my head at new ones that made me feel uncomfortable.
On the flight home, I realized how invigorated I felt. I'd just been through four days of six-hour classes and spent four nights on an iron maiden, but I wasn't tired. My mind buzzed, and my body felt wired and alive.
As we flew, I realized that for many years I'd been trying to do Aikido, trying to learn one technique or another. Trying to make it perfect.
But there is no perfect, or rather if there is it's ephemeral. Aikido is a physical art. If I happen to do a technique perfectly, it is gone a moment later.
So, what is left? You can talk about it a lot (and we do) but ultimately you have to get on the mat and practice, and that's where the fun is.
Just practice -- with joy.