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I have been taking aikido since April, so I am right around the 6 month mark. I test for 7th kyu this coming sunday.
I have seen a quite a few faces come and go in the short time I have been practicing and I think that Jason makes a good point as to why the ones who seem to be the most "gung ho" ususally don't keep with it. They don't have the patience. This type of person is the one who is expecting to become a great martial artist in a very short period of time. They are probably very athletic to begin with and can jump right and do some pretty fearless ukemi and the like, which can be really fun and make you feel as though you are progressing faster than you really are. They have probably excelled in other sports and maybe even other martial arts and expect to do the same in aikido. But after a few months, when they start getting into the more "complicated and difficult" techniques (they all seem to fall under this category for me) they start to realize that this aikido stuff is hard! It is a lot more intricate than first meets the eye. Even if you can go through the motions and look as though you know what you're doing you just don't have the mental awareness of all of the subtelties and concepts involved, let alone the ability to actually apply them. I supppose that getting tossed around like a feather and promptly dumped on their butt by someone much smaller and a lot less "athletic looking" than themselves can be a rude awakening for someone who thinks that after a few months they can do the techniques just as well as people who have been doing it for years.
Every class I go to I learn again just how much I don't know and just how far I have to go. It really is a lifelong process. And for those who are expecting to jump right in be truly good at this stuff within a few months find out very soon that this just isn't going to happen, no matter how athletic you are nor how many times a week you go to practice.
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