Niall Matthews wrote it in another thread and I agree with him.
Aikido is a way of life.
I'm new here and perhaps you treat this item before. I hope I can explain what I mean, in spanish or german it would be easier for me, it is a challenge to do it in english and I know that stepwise I will refresh this language again.
In our first aikidoclasses we are confused trying to understand anything between the rare movements and the strange words.
But after a few years we realize that the movements give sense and we notice a change in our behaviour, we become much calmer, organized and see every problem from a certain distance.
As a shodan we get a responsibility as a person, a human beeing in all our acts and our behaviour during the rest of our life.