I dont know any way to cultivate intent, rather than to believe you are going to do something and then to do it. I trained with an instructor a while ago who had very good aikido but I personally really disliked all of the dojo's concepts and the way that they practised. The one thing that i took from it though was an excellent point he made. 'Align your intent through your angles of attack'.
Gave me plenty of food for thought and is something i now think about the majority of the time when practising. So I suppose it was worth the trip afterall
