The truth about gradings

With the next grading creeping ever closer, I thought I'd say a wee bit about them and what they mean (to me - other people may have had different experiences so feel free to comment!).  I'm not going to sit here and give you words of wisdom about how to pass a grading because, the truth is, there's no secret to that.  If you've practiced your techniques and Ki exercises then you shouldn't have a problem in passing to the next level.

Everyone should pass their grading.  Your sensei would not put you forward for a test if there was any possibility that you weren't good enough.  I have actually been to gradings where the student struggled through their tests.  Whether this was because their nerves took over to the extreme or because their sensei had misjudged their abilities, I don't know.  But I would hope that everyone involved had learned from that experience as no one should struggle through a grading.  My own view, which I've mentioned in a previous blog, is that I don't go for grading unless I'm absolutely sure of my own abilities at that level.  There have been times when sensei has been happy for me to go for grading but I have decided not to.  He has always believed in me and has accepted my decisions.  However, I've long been aware that I need believe in him!  If he thinks I'm ready then why am I resisting?  Nobody in my club has ever given me reason to doubt myself (with the exception of the green belt grading but I'll do a different post about that) so I don't know why I hesitate.  I tried to go for my green belt 6 months after the orange belt grading but something held me back.  This time, I made the decision as soon as I got my green belt that I'd be getting my blue belt in May.  Unfortunately a certain baby reversed that decision for me!  But Michael is still going for his and I'm really pleased about that.  Someone asked me if I felt cheated because it's not my fault I can't grade this time.  It technically is partly my fault (it takes 2 to tango!) but Michael is a good aikido practitioner (or aikidoka to give it the correct term) so why should I expect him to hold back?  That wouldn't be fair either.  So the whole point of this paragraph is that in order to go for your grading, trust your instincts.  If you don't feel ready, talk to sensei and if you don't want to go for it then don't.  On the other hand, if you feel ready and sensei hasn't suggested you go for your grading then, again, talk to him.  There's maybe something more that he needs to see from you before putting you forward and that's all part of the learning curve.  It's not an insult and it's not that he doesn't like you - quite the opposite!  He's making sure that when you get to black belt level, you are a black belt and not about to get knocked out during a bar fight on Saturday night (that's not the aikido way!).

So what happens in a grading?  It's not a case of ticking a box on a piece of paper and saying "yes sensei I can do that".  Oh no, it's not that easy!  You must demonstrate that you're able to do the techniques and Ki exercises suitable for your grade.  You might think that's a bit silly - if sensei knows you can do it then why do you need to be tested?  The same could be asked of the education system.  The teacher knows his/her students can do the work but, to formalise that and acknowledge their abilities, they need to be tested.

In a grading, the white belts always go first.  This does sound cruel - they're new to the experience, have no idea what to expect and yet we make them bumble through it first, alone!  But I think this is all part of the test and, despite being the lowest grade, a white belt grading isn't easy.  It isn't meant to be!  If you want your yellow belt badly enough then nothing will stop you going for it.  I remember being the biggest nervous wreck on the planet before my first grading.  However it was actually a nice nervousness because it was an experience I was keen to have - it was fear of the unknown that was giving me heart palpitations!  I remember being at class the night before my first grading and John (there were loads of Johns in our club so anonymity has been maintained!) told me that the room had lots of mirrors in it.  He said "you'll be fine Marie but whatever you do don't look in the effing mirrors!".  Cue nightmare about sensei strategically planting full length mirrors all over the mat so that I couldn't avoid looking in them!  The real experience was fine though - nobody was trying to trip me up with full-length mirrors and I was too busy concentrating on what I was doing to look into the wall mirrors.  My advice to white belts would be to breathe deeply and regularly before your name is called and then just go for it.  Allow yourself to show the other people in the room what you can do because you can do it and you deserve this moment on the mat.  Don't think about avoiding mistakes, think about your yellow belt.  And, if you can, steal a glance at sensei and you will see him standing or sitting with his virtual tail feathers on full display!

Obviously, the higher your grade the more difficult and numerous the techniques and Ki tests will be.  Again, compared with the education system, your highers (or whatever they're called these days!) were more difficult than the standard grades but your learning had also developed.  The same goes for Aikido.  The yellow belt, orange belt, green belt etc gradings should be no harder than the white belt grading if you've practiced and feel ready for it.  In fact they'll be less complicated because at least you'll know what's happening!

Gradings always stir up a mix of emotions for me.  Eagerness to show what I can do so that I can move onto the next level, anxiousness about making sensei proud, doubt about whether I should have gone for this after all and excitement because it's a celebration of people's achievements.  I don't have a miracle cure for nerves.  A bit of anxiousness is good to get the adrenaline pumping but it's not so good if it's making you feel sick and causing mind blocks!  A grading is not about anyone trying to catch you out and making you fail.  A grading is about you showing your sensei and fellow students what you can do and that you're ready for your next belt.  That little bit of extra pressure on you during the grading is making you stronger.  I've always enjoyed the celebratory atmosphere once a grading is finished.  There's a sense of relief, sure, but it's mainly about congratulations and celebrations (unintended Cliff Richard quote!) and that comes from everyone, even those who didn't grade.  Remember, congratulations should also be afforded to your sensei (because you wouldn't be there otherwise), any Dan Grades who helped you and the other students that you practiced with.  Without those people, you wouldn't be at the level you're at now.

And so, as you've read, there's no big secret about how to pass a grading.  If you've put in as much effort and practice as you can, sensei will respect that and will put you forward for the test when you're ready.  This is where the education system is nothing like aikido gradings - you never truly know if you've passed an exam until you get the results a few months later.  If you're in a grading with sensei's blessing, I'd suggest you're already at the next level and you just have to demonstrate it.  No sweat! 

Ki and pregnancy

My ramblings about Ki must sound very naive and raw.  I'm not too worried about that though because I'm still at the very start of the Ki learning curve and I know I have a long way to go.

I'm beginning to focus on the upcoming event in my life that is going to change everything.  There is a certain amount of fear associated with childbirth and, from my own experience and from speaking to other pregnant women, the fear stems from images in films or TV programmes where the woman is typically lying on her back screaming blue murder, surrounded by machines and medical staff, pushing for all she's worth.  The other strange phenomena I've noticed is that other women play a big part in the fear.  With the exception of a few women, those who find out I'm pregnant immediately clamber over themselves to tell me how bad it is and that their experience was one of pain and complication.  Why do women do that to each other? Where's the support and encouragement? Where's the joy and excitement at the wonderful thing that's happening?

And how can every birth be that bad?  How has the human race survived if childbirth is so horrific?  No man has ever told me a bad story about the birth of their child.  I hear you ask yourself "what would a man know anyway?" but I personally think he'd know quite a lot.  Yes it's from a different perspective but if he was present at the birth then surely he'll have gone through some amount of stress and mental torture as he watched his partner screaming through the most pain she's ever experienced?  Men's stories of childbirth are ones of awe and pride.  No it didn't look like a walk in the park for his partner but look at what all that resulted in... He's holding a beautiful baby in his arms because of her!  

I've always kept the premise at the back of my mind that childbirth is natural and the survival of the species is dependent on it.  The female body is built to bring life into the world - that's what it does!  Therefore I strongly believe that childbirth can't be that bad!  I have to admit though that my resolve does waver regularly!  Is my belief about childbirth so wrong when everytime I turn round someone has a negative anecdote to tell?  A natural part of existence versus the stories that other women (and films) tell me... The two just don't add up!  

As well as the worry that my childbirth beliefs don't match reality, Michael's fear of blood was also causing us both to be anxious about how we were going to get this baby into the world.  Whenever I mention his haemophobia to other women, the typical sarcastic response is "oh yeh well he's going to be really useful isn't he?" coupled with a sharp intake of breath and shake of the head.  Over the last few months, this had me in a bit of a state.  In all honesty, I don't have any doubt about my own abilities to give birth but that doesn't stop the worry that I'm totally inexperienced and my husband will be a crumpled wreck in the corner!  We made this baby, we will be responsible for it, we are partners in this and it's the most natural thing in the world - it doesn't make sense to me that I should be scared of it and that Michael shouldn't be a fundamental part of bringing his child into the world.

So what is the solution to worry and fear?  You may not be surprised to read that I have turned to Ki.

When I was 20 weeks pregnant I started a yoga class on a Saturday morning to help make up for the stretching that I was missing from the Friday aikido class.  It was here that I learned the importance of breathing to help relaxation during labour.  Yoga breathing and Ki breathing are actually very similar with slight differences where the Yoga class I attend has developed the breathing specifically for pregnancy and birth.  

There's something to be said about the simplicity of relaxation through breathing.  It's difficult at first because your mind is constantly turning and, in this world where everything moves so quickly at the touch of a button, it's not automatic for us to empty our minds.  This takes practice (as with everything else in aikido!) and will become natural eventually so that if you feel yourself getting tense and stressed you can check your breathing to bring your emotions back to normal levels.

Relaxation through deep and regular breathing prevents the body from producing the hormone that causes a flight, fight or freeze response.  A birthing woman can't run away from giving birth or fight with it and so the body freezes which causes all the pain and complication.  It's a similar situation when being faced with an attack.  If you've got a big masked man running at you with a knife, your body will revert to the fight/flight/freeze reaction.  Keeping one-point, relaxing completely, keeping weight underside and extending Ki (the Ki principles) allows you to deal with the attack calmly, safely and positively.  The flight/fight/freeze response shouldn't even come into it. I have been practising relaxation through ki breathing at home using the Ki Principles which, combined with the yoga adaptations, seems to be helping to lessen my anxieties.  The more I practise the easier (I hope) it will be to relax when I'm in labour.  We'll see!

You can learn about ki breathing on the web page below but the best way to learn is to attend a class:
http://ki-aikido.net/KASHIWAYA/Excerpts.html

verbal aikido

Once of the most amusing experiences I have had in the dojo was at the end of a class a while back. There was a new manager in the sports club and it seemed like he wanted to be running a tight ship.  Sensei often runs his classes late - it's a mutual unspoken understanding between us and the staff.  We put the mats out and then put them away, this saves the staff a lot of bother and so they leave us to get on with it.  In all fairness; who wants to challenge Sensei on the subject of time keeping when he's just thrown a few ukes across the mat or into over-the-tops?  However, one evening the new manager, who hadn't taken the trouble to learn of the unspoken agreement between his staff and their customers, stalked into the dojo when class finished and trampled right over the top of the mats with the clear intention of giving Sensei a piece of his mind.  Aside from his total lack of respect for the dojo, he ignored everyone he passed, making a beeline for Sensei.  When the manager was half way up the mat, Sensei turned round and it was as if the wind was totally taken out of the manager!  The closer to Sensei he got, the slower he became.  He smiled sheepishly and dumbly confirmed to Sensei that we had over-run our class.  Sensei spoke softly in reply so I don't know what he said but, for all the drama that the manager had created on entering the dojo, nobody noticed him leave.

The point of my story is that somehow Sensei defused the situation before it became a conflict.  Aikido is not about fighting - it's about blending with your attacker, de-stabalising them and neutralising the attack.  Sensei wasn't in a dojo-controlled situation, for example 1st form shionage or 3rd form ikkyo, he was in a real-life situation requiring him to use his aiki so that the conflict didn't start at all.  The manager's intended attack was verbal and, like many conflict situations you might experience on a daily basis, Sensei's defence could have been to throw a verbal punch in retaliation and an argument would have ensued breaking down the working relationships that he had worked so hard to build with the rest of the staff.  Instead, he used his Ki and body language to disarm the manager before he had a chance to attack and then, I'm assuming, used words to blend and neutralise.

I was thinking about this the other day in a meeting at work.  We all have that one colleague (some of us maybe have more than one) who are never truly happy and always seem to want to start an argument.  For me, it's a member of my team who is, by far, the most pessimistic person I've ever met.  My challenge is when we're in meetings and I have a suggestion or an idea which she always, without fail, counteracts with a negative comment or story.  I leave the meeting feeling demotivated - me being in that meeting is a total waste of time because I can't put anything useful forward.  However, a couple of meetings ago I fought back.  My colleague aggressively questioned something I had put in the  minutes of the previous meeting and I verbally punched her back which resulted in an argument in front of the entire room.  This time, I left the meeting feeling shaken and exhausted - like I'd actually just done an hour of physical exercise!  As always, when I feel something hasn't gone particularly well, I reflected on what I could have done better.  I'm not satisfied with just sitting back and letting this person sap the spirit out of me, nor am I satisfied at getting into a fight with her.  So what could I do instead?

In a previous job, my line manager was a bully and regularly put me down or made fun of me... or was just down right nasty.  It was during that time that I read a quote by O-Sensei along the lines of "the wise win before the fight while the ignorant fight to win".  My way of dealing with her was imagining the first poke in the Jo Kata and making contact with her so that she flew backwards out the office window.  The more I imagined doing this, the further out the window she went!  Interestingly in reality, the more I did this in my mind, the less she spoke to me and the more peace I got!  Especially if I imagined it the minute she walked in the room.  My current "nemsis" is not a bully and is in fact a nice person overall - she's just one of these very unhappy people that can't see the good in anything.

I decided the next time we were in a meeting, instead of imagining an attack, I would try to disarm her first therefore negating my need for the imaginary Jo!  And so in the following meetings, I smiled at her and nodded my head encouragingly when she spoke.  If she belittled me or pushed my ideas aside, I thanked her for her opinions and asked if she had an alternative solution.  I by-passed anything that I could have taken offence to and essentially just ignored her negativity.  If I got stuck, I asked for other people's thoughts and that would get the conversation going again.

I'm not going to lie, it's hard work!  And I still haven't got it 100% right as it's all too tempting to bite back or withdraw into myself or, even worse, get up and walk out of the meeting because I just can't be bothered anymore.  If I did any of that during class, Sensei would have something to say and I'd be ashamed of myself!

That's not to say that I haven't had the same feelings on the mat.  A while ago (I may still have been a yellow belt at the time) I was at a different dojo (within the same aikido club of course) with a different Sensei taking the class.  As there were no gradings coming up we were having a bit of "fun" with eleventh form.  Eleventh form just frazzles my brain and normally I do have fun with it because I don't need to know it for an upcoming grading (yet) but this particular exercise we were to practice was just so confusing!  The more I tried to do it, the more confused I got and the more frustrated I became which meant that anybody working with me was having to stop and explain what I was supposed to be doing.  While I always appreciate the help, it was just getting me more stressed out as I knew I was holding the rest of them back.  At one point I just wanted to sit down and cry! It happened again when we were practicing grading techniques for our green belts.  I knew what to do but it just wasn't coming together that night and it took a lot of effort for me not to fold my arms and announce "I can't do this, I'm not grading anymore".  I have no idea what Sensei would have done!  But out of respect for him, my fellow practitioners and myself, i have never allowed myself to be beaten by my own frustration and I would NEVER walk out of a class.  So why should a meeting at work be any different?

During my endeavours to win before these little fights with my colleague even started, I came across this website: http://www.verbal-aikido.com/.  For me, it makes a lot of sense.  I work in HR so you can imagine that my meetings with my pessimistic colleague is only the start.  Sometimes, staff can get very angry at something and want someone to blame.  Or they want to vent their frustrations on an imaginary punch-bag.  Very often they end up in the HR office either to verbally attack me or as a result of one colleague verbally attacking another.  It's actually quite hard to have an "inner smile" without actually smiling on the outside!  When someone is in the middle of ranting about how rubbish the conditions of paternity leave are, it doesn't help when I start smiling at them!  Just like actual Aikido, verbal aikido is going to take some practice!