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Old 07-30-2002, 01:09 AM   #65
batemanb
 
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Dojo: Seibukan Aikido UK
Location: body in UK, heart still in Japan
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 1,031
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Quote:
David Martin (davidmartin) wrote:
I'm interested that the subject of demotions has come, since it is one that I have some personal experience of. When I started training I was very much motivated by gradings and belt colour. I think this is almost inevitable with students new to Aikido. However, after 4 years of diligent and hard training I reached the rank of 1st Kyu, and believed that I had overcome my focus on grade and belt colour. Then... I decided (due to orgainsational politics) to move organisation, and train elsewhere. There was a penalty however... I was demoted all the way back to novice, since my new organisation refused to accept grades from elsewhere.

Now, this was a choice I made myself, but it was very hard to accept, and I realised that I was not quite as "pure of spirit" as I thought . Anyway, I persevered, trained hard, and eventually (after 18 Months), regained my grade of 1st Kyu.

I think I have learnt 2 main things from this..

If you are devoted to your training, you will overcome your natural competitive, ego driven motivations.

If you can honestly say that you train purely "for the love of the art" then you are in a VERY small minority.

All of us suffer from the human foibles of vanity and ego, but the true measure of our commitment to Aikido, is in how we strive to overcome these weakness, and always seek to practice with an open and pure heart.

Dave
I too have had a similar experience to Dave. I trained for nine years or so back in the UK, in a dojo that focused on the training more than the grading (didn`t say test ). As a result of this I had never been bothered about what colour my belt was (or so I thought). I took four tests during that time and was graded ikkyu when I moved on.

When I arrived in Japan, I went straight to the Aikikai Hombu and joined up, only to be told that my ikkyu was not recognised because my UK dojo was not Aikikai, I would have to start again from the beginning. As someone who who thought they weren`t bothered about grades, I was surprised when I found myself resenting this. I had worked hard for nine years to get where I was and it was being wiped away without a thought. I festered on it for three or four weeks, even contemplated giving up completely before I came to the conclusion that it was only disappointment. Losing the grade did not make my aikido any worse, did not change my ability (what little there was anyways ), it really is all about my training, not my grade, I made the choice to carry on. As it turned out, I moved apartments shortly after and quite by chance found myself living about 3 minutes away from a local dojo, which was a lot more convenient than the 40 minute trip to Hombu. I went to visit and signed up immediately and have been training regularly ever since. After nine months, I took my first grading and was bumped to nikkyu. OK, that`s not the grade I had before I came here, but do I really care, not any more (I think? ), guess I`ll just have to keep training to find out.

A difficult problem is easily solved by asking yourself the question, "Just how would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
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