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I found my experience to be much the same as Rachel's. I didn't feel like a fraud but I sure didn't feel like the "expert" I thought I should be.... Despite my seniors gently pointing out "this is just the beginning.." and "welcome to the beginner's club..." etc, it still took well over six months for me to work it out in my head that it was alright that my form was not as crisp as I expected it should be, or that my ability to impart technique (on my night to teach Damien..)was not as profound as those teacher's I've had the pleasure to learn from. All this seems quite obvious but, I think, one must experience the post shodan "hump" and get through it to gain some perspective.
To address Peter sensei's response: I think one's experience learning from and training with Japanese Shihan is, for the most part, a blessing and very different than the North American experience (generally learning from a teacher a little farther down the line). I beleive it comes back to the NA conditioning and mindset of "achieving" and "attaining" shodan. That the black belt denotes an expertise that doesn't necessarily exist. From the little I know, the Japanese experience is much more of a conditioning to the fact that shodan is simply another step along the way and, as Peter sensei inferred, a way for the teacher (and by extension the aikido "establishment") to say: "We take your commitment seriously..." (Feel free to illuminate here Peter sensei....)
All this is speaking from my experience and from what I've seen generally.
Rachel, I agree that one must "just keep practising..." but not just keep practising. Keep practising with a sense of patience (with yourself) and a honest awareness of where you are at and what your motivations are. If you remember why you go to the dojo every day it puts rank into perspective.
Happy Holidays all!
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