"We should be someone who is a student of aikido."

合気即生活 (Aiki is life)

This week's assignment is to write about how we can embody the phrase, "We should be someone who is a student of aikido."

Aikido students operate on a spectrum, from the casual tourist to the highest ranking shihan. But what makes a student of aikido (break it down: someone who is a true and lifelong student of the art), and how to you become that? In the early stages of learning aikido, you are learning the most gross aspects of aikido and movement — you're trying to understand things like how to roll, timing, where to put your hands and feet, which way to turn — the basics.

As you progress, maybe you can't stop thinking about aikido over many years. Maybe you look at it not as a martial art, but as a way, and aikido starts to seep into other corners of your life. You ponder techniques and situations in and out of class. Not only are you "obsessed," but you start to take a methodical look under the hood at the "why" of aikido — a deeper look into the esoteric corners of the art ("What happens if I move my arm like this, or like this — how does that change the technique?").

Maybe we can embody the phrase "We should be someone who is a student of aikido" by being a student of O-Sensei's ultimately, and realize that our teachers teach on his behalf, interpreting and relaying his knowledge to us. Maybe we can be someone who is a student of aikido by letting aikido into all areas of our lives. Some examples might be cleaning at home as mindfully you clean the dojo, accomplishing tasks before they need to be accomplished, taking personal ownership of tasks.

Maybe it's by approaching every conflict as a practice for aikido, or by using martial awareness when you're driving or riding a bike, or walking through heavy foot traffic downtown. Maybe you can be a student by using aikido as a way to prevent violent encounters from every happening. There's a great clip, which I can't find, in which uke comes at Saotome Sensei with a katatedori attack, and Saotome grabs his hand, smiles, and shakes it heartily. Everyone laughs, but the potential to divert an attack starts at the first encounter.

But all that being said, I'm not sure what it takes to be a student of aikido. I think it's some combination of the above. Commitment, introspection, application to life. I'm not sure I have arrived there yet. I hope to someday.

Additional reading: How to Be a Student of Aikido (by Ross Robertson) and Advanced Aikido (by Phong Thong Dang and Lynn Seiser) (excerpted below)