05/22/2026
AIKI MASTERY ALREADY THERE
In hard style martial practice, a kick improves as one progresses from white to black belt. All of the myriad things that go into a kick to produce force gradually come together. At first, one thinks about many seemingly overwhelming components. Across time, one thinks about less components as bits of mechanics become natural and unthinking. Post-black belt, the trek up the mountain of improvement continues. This process of a right way, then how it fits your particular body type continues to change across time, just as it does in any knowledge base.
In martial aiki practice, the progress toward mastery seems even harder due to the tendency to be less blunt and less power-focused. But this is very deceptive. To be less forceful requires something that you already possess rather than something you need to develop. It is already there.
What?
The problem is that you think. And you think that you do not have it. And you think that it is something that it is not.
And yet, every aiki beginner has moments when one does next to nothing, and it is very effective, and one is left somewhat stunned and surprised. Yes, there are techniques and nuances that appear and that introduce more awareness of that which you already posses in that journey up the mountain of experience.
In the everyday world, another person is not you. But in the aiki world, which is really the same everyday world, another person and the local space within which you stand as well as the universe is you. In martial practice, when you are held or punched, you resist, push, kick and punch. Lots of ideas are making you do this. In martial aiki practice, you do next to nothing. If you can really do next to nothing, hands and body will be somewhere in space. Lots of feeling is making you respond in this way that is protective for all. You already have it.
When I bow, I bow to your mastery that is inherently there from the beginning. You just think that you have to do something different. The master that is the true master is the no-master without rank.
In Zen or Tao or Upanishads, you might repeat, “Where is my master”--not to find your “master” or “grandmaster” as much as to aspire to find your true self nature. From an everyday perspective, we would like a know-it-all master, but it is an illusion. “Ask instead, Im oo ko, “What is this?” or moo ut ko, ”Who am I?”
Perhaps this is too much to ask, but it enters the deep heart of aiki, way, way beyond aikido, hapkido, aikijutsu, and on and on.
