VKS KI TRAINING NOTES, JULY '97 INTRODUCTION The purpose of this document is to provide a dialog between students and the instructional faculty on training issues and answer questions regarding technique or training practices or procedures. It is NOT a forum for dealing with philosophy, except as it applies to training, nor business issues associated with the VKS. NOTICES: JULY INSTRUCTOR'S CLASS Class will NO BE HELD. AUGUST INSTRUCTOR'S CLASS Class will be held on August 23rd, a Saturday, at the Merrifield Dojo at 2PM. I plan to cover information received at the Portland Seminar with Tohei Sensei. All instructors are invited to attend. SUMMER CAMPS The Kingston Ki Society - Aikido Club will host a Summer Camp July 11-13 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Visiting Sensei is the Chief Instructor of the Ki Society in the United States, Sensei Koichi Kashiwaya. Training will begin on Friday evening at 7PM and close at 3 PM on Sunday. Tuition (including lunches and a Saturday dinner is $90 for individuals and $150 for couples if paid before 1 July and $110 and $180 if paid after that date. Fees are expressed in Canadian Dollars. I attended last year and can recommend it highly from a standpoint of enthusiastic practice and good fellowship. For more information contact Sensei Bickford at (613) 384-0423 or e-mail: bickford@limestone.kosone.com. HEADS UP: The Montgomery County Ki-Aikido Society will host a summer camp August 8, 9, 10 at Frostburg State College, Frostburg, Maryland. The visiting instructor will be Sensei William Fowler, 6th Dan, Arizona Ki Society and, incidentally, the founder of what became the Virginia Ki Society. Save the dates on your calendar. Early registration for the camp extends until July 18th. Cost is: $110.00 for the weekend. There is a $20.00 supplement required if you wish a single room. Send your application to MCKAS, 19004 Rolling Acres Way, Olney, MD, 20832. NOTE: You must be a member of a Ki Society Dojo to attend this camp. GUEST AUTHOR COLUMN Gibberish and Horse Sense by William Reed Try to get agreement on what Ki development means, much less on how an Aikido technique should be taught. Aikidoists and Quakers have two things in common: both groups preach harmony and neither one can agree among themselves what it means. Holy War is a simple irony, hot or cold. Start with the idea of Ki, a word that has no clear definition in Japanese, much less in English, and you can dig yourself in deeper the more you try to explain it. It is a non-solution to take the Oriental way out by suggesting with Lao Tzu that the Ki you talk about is not the real Ki. Silence may be golden, but it doesn't always provide clarity. You can be sure that the Aikido community will not remain silent about it. Does Ki exist or not? Is Ki a natural force, like gravity or magnetism, or just a mental image which triggers physiological responses like the unbendable arm? Recent discussion on the Aikido Internet list has led one person to conclude that Ki seems to mean just about whatever someone wants it to, and that to argue about it is about as pointless as trying to pin down a definition for "truth," "beauty," or "fairness." I propose that terminology is what gets us into trouble. It doesn't take long for jargon to turn into gibberish. Think about why you were attracted to Aikido or Ki principles in the first place. Chances are it was because it made sense. You understood it intuitively from the first day. Much of what we do in Ki-Aikido is based on common sense, don't collide, keep weight underside, lead the mind. It makes sense the first day, but years later the sense of discovery never leaves you. There are two reasons why we keep coming back. First off, it turns out that common sense is an uncommon commodity. It is easy to be normal, but not so easy to be natural. Secondly, Ki principles offer common sense with a twist. You knew that relaxation was better, you may not have realized that relaxation is also stronger. Human history demonstrates that force works, but it often backfires and doesn't produce results that are very pretty. Aikido is a practical philosophy which demonstrates that leading works better than force. However, Aikido is designed for practice in a dojo. It is too dangerous to practice on the street, where a simple ukemi can break your neck, and all rules are suspended. Inside the dojo it is too easy to choreograph, and rules govern your behavior. Training is valuable nevertheless, for poise under pressure is more likely to save your life than trying to imitate Steven Segal when it's not a movie. Ki principles are valuable because they take your mind beyond Aikido technique into the wider arena of daily life applications outside the dojo. Keep an open mind and you may discover people approaching other pursuits with a kindred spirit. I recently had the privilege of being a visiting instructor for Michael Williams Sensei, chief instructor of the Australian Ki Society, who has built one of finest dojos I have ever seen, inside or outside of Japan, in Byron Bay on the north coast of New South Wales. But it was Valerie Williams who gave me a lesson in horse sense. "It's Aikido for horses," she told me as she saddled up their two horses for a ride down to the ocean, "and these horses don't use bits." The method is known as Natural Horse-Man-Ship, which Valerie has learned from Pat Parelli, who travels to Australia from his center in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. This method is used more to train people than it is to train horses, although it is effective in training wild horses, and at the higher levels involves riding Native American style, bareback. A horse is one creature you don't want to have as an opponent, although the horse feels much the same way about you. Horses have all of the instincts of an animal of prey, and that means that unfamiliar people look, act, and smell like predators. There is no arguing about Ki with a horse, as you might with a human partner, for the horse it is pure emotion and instinct. Horses don't like to be forced, and without a bit in the horse's mouth, there is little you can do to force the animal anyway. Using nothing more than your legs and a rope halter with a 12 foot lead rope of half-inch yacht braid loosely tied over the horse's face, the first thing you realize is that you aren't going anywhere without the horse's trust and cooperation. Valerie demonstrated some basic Parelli techniques, by which she easily led the horses in any direction using simple hand signals and verbal commands. She stroked her horse's head gently to the ground and it stayed there, making me think that she could both lead the horse to water and make it drink. Parelli describes a horse as an attitude with four legs. According to Parelli, a horse has three natural instincts: to be perceptive to danger, to fly from fear, and to be gregarious. But the human being is a predator, a horse's biological enemy, and if you approach a horse with the wrong attitude you trigger the horse's natural instinct to bolt, or to throw you off. Apparently it only takes 4 ounces of effort to lead a horse to respond, assuming you have the horse's respect. Parelli says that a rider must do four things to gain the horse's respect: 1) do not act like a predator (mentally, emotionally, or physically), 2) demonstrate from the time you are on the ground that you are the leader, 3) think like a horse and not like a human, and 4) use the natural power of focus and decisiveness in what you want the horse to do. Makes good horse sense, and you didn't realize that you could do Aikido with horses, too. It turns out that horses naturally respond well to a person who is relaxed, calm, and decisive. But a black belt in Aikido is not a black belt in horsemanship. My horse enjoyed more rest stops than he was accustomed to, grazing the delicious beach-side grasses, because according to Valerie, "He knows you'll let him get away with it." Talking about Ki will not take you far with people outside of the dojo. Talking about Ki to your horse is a complete waste of time. However, seeing for yourself what works and what doesn't is an excellent way to deepen your understanding of Ki. You may find that your Aikido training gives you a better appreciation for what others are doing, and that much of what we waste time arguing about could disappear in the light of common sense. [for more information about the Parelli method, Pat Parelli has written a book entitled, NATURAL HORSE-MAN-SHIP, published in 1993 by Western Horseman, Inc.] A STUDENT'S ARTICLE Keep Them Coming Back for More By Marilyn R. P. Morgan Peninsula Ki Aikido Club "Aikido's dropout rate is fairly spectacular," says George Leonard (1995, p. 220), and he isn't the only one to have noticed how many-and how quickly-students come and go. Instructors can't very well spread the good news of Aikido if they can't keep students around long enough to experience the beauty of the art. What can instructors do to improve student retention? This article looks to the professional literature in psychology to provide some answers to this question and suggest ways that instructors can encourage new students to keep coming back. Walking in the door of the dojo for the first time is a big step. Newcomers have a daunting task in front of them, learning a complex art like Aikido, and beginning can be a little scary. Elizabeth Hendricks (1997) describes beginners as "courageous people willing to take on the frightening task of learning something completely new. Every new person who walks through the dojo's front door has been willing to take risks just to be there" (p. 40). That said, what is it that separates newcomers from old timers? It's more than just knowledge of the art. In psychological terms, socialization is the process that turns newcomers and visitors into full-fledged members of a dojo. Most of us can think back to a moment when we realized that we weren't newcomers anymore, that we had begun to think of ourselves as among the regulars. It might have been the first time our sensei called on us to take ukemi for a demonstration of a technique in front of the class, the night we tested for shokyu, or when we noticed that newer students were beginning to ask us questions as if they expected us to know the answers. Whatever your own defining moment was, at that moment you had become socialized into the group. Socialization is what turns anxious newcomers into confident regulars in the dojo. Technically, socialization is "the process by which an organizational member learns the required behaviors and supportive attitudes necessary to participate as a member of an organization" (Van Maanen, 1975, p. 207). Socialization includes learning the language, customs, and values of the group as well as making friends within the group, and it's a requirement for progressing in the art. As Will Reed (1992) observes, "Any fool can achieve shodan with enough practice" (p. 123). If we want students to stay with us long enough to achieve shodan, however, we need to help them become socialized into the dojo. Another psychological term of interest to Aikido instructors is training fulfillment. Training fulfillment is "the extent to which training meets or fulfills a trainee's expectations and desires" (Tannenbaum, et al., 1991, p. 760). Tannenbaum says that "training fulfillment may play an important role in the development of commitment, self-efficacy, and motivation" (p. 767). In other words, meeting students' expectations for their practice will encourage them to persist in their practice. The authors of this study suggest that training fulfillment can be increased by careful recruitment of students whose expectations and desires are likely to be fulfilled by the training, or by changing students' expectations for the training to be more consistent with reality. Instructors who work to bring new people into the dojo, then, will get the most return for their energy if they direct their recruiting efforts toward the right people: those who are apt to have the most realistic expectations for their practice. Outreach efforts that educate the public about the reality of martial arts instruction, as opposed to what they have been exposed to in the media, can work toward this end by giving prospective students a better idea of what Aikido is about before they enter the dojo. All instructors, whether they actively recruit new students or not, might also want to let their new students know what they can expect from Aikido practice, both the good and the bad, so that any unrealistic expectations they arrive with can be corrected. Guy DeWolf's practice of "Teaching by the Numbers" (1997) works on both the levels discussed so far: By helping newcomers learn the vocabulary of the Aikido community, he encourages their rapid socialization into the group. Secondly, he gives new students an overview of the structure of Aikido, helping them form an accurate picture of what to expect from their practice and hence improving their chances of experiencing high training fulfillment. Another study of socialization and commitment (Hellman & McMillin, 1994) shows that "newcomers who feel that the group or organization provides necessary and useful information will probably feel committed to the group" (p. 261). This study suggests that instructors, and other students, too, would do well to talk explicitly to newcomers about the benefits of Aikido practice. New students probably walk in the door expecting to learn self-defense, but they may be unaware of the art's other benefits. Hearing from more senior students about Aikido's usefulness in interactions with others in daily life, the physical benefits of regular practice, and even how much fun ukemi can be can help compensate for any disappointment new students may feel when they realize that it's going to take longer to learn than they expected. The term "self-efficacy" refers to a person's belief in his or her ability to perform a task (Bandura, 1977). A certain level of self-efficacy is necessary for students to come into the dojo and begin practicing in the first place. Prospective students who are sure they'll never be able to learn are unlikely ever to start. On the other hand, it has often been noted that the naturally athletic and self-confident type of student is apt to disappear: "More often than not, people who were athletically inclined and picked up everything quickly tended after a few months to get bored and quit, never having made any significant progress. Others who seemed clumsy and slow to catch on sometimes exhibited an extraordinary tenacity..." (Reed, 1992, p. 132). For Aikido practice, there is an optimum level of self-efficacy that's high enough for students to have what they view as a realistic chance of successfully learning the art, but not so high that they get discouraged when it isn't as easy as it seems. Students with low self-esteem, who may expect to fail and, when demonstrable progress is not immediate, will be tempted to write their whole Aikido experiment off as a failure, are a particular problem in student retention. Research shows (Sandelands, et al., 1988) that people with low self-esteem tend to pay more attention than people with high self-esteem to direction from outside themselves about what methods they should use to solve problems. These students, in particular, may benefit from encouragement from instructors and others in the dojo to continue coming to class. They may be less inclined than people with high self-esteem to rely on their own ideas of how to handle the situation, which is fortunate given that they may be predisposed to give up easily. They may not know how much persistence is appropriate and how long continuing to try will be valuable, and they may be more likely to take the advice of their classmates to persist over their own inclination to quit. These students may also benefit from having what early progress they do make pointed out to them. Setting goals for themselves is one way people measure their progress in any field. A team of researchers at Harvard working with children (Elliott & Dweck, 1988) contrasted their behavior with respect to two types of goals: performance goals, which motivate learners to prove their ability to others, and learning goals, which motivate learners to increase their ability or master new tasks regardless of others' perceptions of their ability. The researchers encouraged one group of children to adopt performance goals and another group to adopt learning goals during the study. Children for whom performance goals were highlighted tended to avoid opportunities to learn if there was a chance of making a mistake in public, especially if the children perceived themselves as lacking in skills or ability. Children for whom learning goals were highlighted, however, chose more challenging tasks to work at and did not pass up opportunities to learn regardless of whether they might make public mistakes. Public mistakes are a fact of life in the dojo. All long-term Aikido practitioners have stories of times when they have looked silly on the mat. If we generalize the Harvard study to adults, it becomes clear that kyu tests (performance goals), whatever their other benefits, should not be overly emphasized as goals, especially for students who are unsure of their ability. Students are more likely to take the risks that lead to faster learning if they are encouraged to think of their study of the art as a life-long process (a learning goal). Another study of children and goals (Bandura & Schunk, 1981) found that "Children who set themselves attainable subgoals progressed rapidly in self-directed learning, achieved substantial mastery of mathematical operations [the material used in the study], and heightened their perceived self-efficacy and interest in activities that initially held little attraction for them" (p. 595). In other words, goals can be useful both in promoting rapid learning and in increasing confidence and motivation, but it is important that the goals be attainable in the near term. If the goals were set too far in the future the children in the study did not gain these same benefits. Students might be encouraged, then, to set small goals for themselves. Beginners might do better to think in terms of smoothing out their backward roll rather than of testing for fifth kyu. Taken together, the psychology literature on socialization and commitment suggests a number of things that Aikido instructors can do to help newcomers become regulars: * Tailor the instruction to the individual. Students who have low self-esteem or who lack confidence will need different kinds of support than other students. * Encourage students to see their practice as an end in itself, a life-long practice rather than a program that has some ultimate goal, such as shodan. * Suggest that students who want goals set small, readily achievable goals for themselves. Do not use kyu tests as goals. * Never pass up an opportunity to point out when a student does something right, no matter how small. * Provide students with whatever information they need to understand the language, customs, and values of the dojo. Don't wait for students to ask; they may feel uncomfortable asking questions or they may not know what to ask. * Work at recruiting students who will have realistic expectations for their practice. A Steven Seagal fan club probably isn't the best place to find Ki Society students, for example, in spite of their interest in Seagal's Aikido. * Help students who come in with unrealistic expectations for their= practice develop more appropriate ones. Point out benefits of practice that they have not discovered yet. * Talk explicitly to newcomers about what they can expect, and be realistic about Aikido's more frustrating aspects as well as its joyful ones. * Discuss the off-the-mat benefits of studying Aikido. Don't talk just in terms of "street ukes" and those proverbial bars and dark alleys, but also about the times you've used Aikido principles in the office or at home. * Share your "Wow, I really felt like an idiot that time when..." stories with newcomers. Students will feel like part of the group more quickly when they hear that they aren't alone in feeling foolish at times. In the end, students for whom Aikido becomes a permanent part of their lives all find their own motivation for practice and discover their own personal rewards. In the beginning, though, instructors can influence how easily and how quickly students make the transition from beginners to committed students. Helping students become socialized into the dojo, refine their expectations for their practice, develop their confidence, and set appropriate goals for themselves are all ways to keep them coming back for more. References Bandura, Albert. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84: 191-215. Bandura, Albert, & Schunk, Dale H. (1981). Cultivating competence, self-efficacy, and intrinsic interest through proximal self-motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41 (3): 586-598. DeWolf, Guy. (1997, May). Teaching by the numbers. VKS Ki Training Notes: 2-3. Elliott, Elaine S., & Dweck, Carol S. (1988). Goals: An approach to motivation and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54 (1): 5-12. Hellman, Chan M., & McMillin, Wayne L. (1994). Newcomer socialization and affective commitment. Journal of Social Psychology, 134 (2): 261-262. Hendricks, Elizabeth. (1997). Common dojo conflicts and their aiki resolutions. Aikido Today Magazine, 11 (1): 39-40. Leonard, George. (1995). George Leonard, in Aikido in America, John Stone and Ron Meyer (eds.). Berkeley, CA: Frog, Ltd: 215-237. Reed, William. (1992). Ki: A Road that Anyone Can Walk. Tokyo and New York: Japan Publications, Inc. Sandelands, Lloyd E.; Brockner, Joel; & Glynn, Mary Ann. (1988). If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again: Effects of persistence-performance contingencies, ego involvement, and self-esteem on task persistence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 73 (2): 208-216. Tannenbaum, Scott I.; Mathieu, John E.; Salas, Eduardo; & Cannon-Bowers, Janis A. (1991). Meeting trainees' expectations: The influence of training fulfillment on the development of commitment, self-efficacy, and motivation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76 (6): 759-769. Van Maanen, J. (1975). Police socialization: A longitudinal examination of job attitudes in an urban police department. Administrative Science Quarterly, 20: 207-228. NOTES FROM THE INTERNET (Interesting tidbits from cyberspace) On weekends I work 2nd shift as a security officer at a local hospital. I took the job a month or so ago because it sounded interesting. The security office is in the ER and we get all kinds of crackpots and wackos off the street coming in there looking for free medical care. Most just trying to get a free fix on painkillers. Not a day goes by that I don't have to run somebody out of the hospital. Those situations are always a little tense because you never know how someone is going to react to being kicked off the premises. I would have to say that Aikido comes into play in nearly every one of those types of situations. Being aware of your surroundings, observing the subject properly, keeping balance and center with words and actions ect. Most of the time it is pretty easy work and I have never had to physically remove someone from the hospital. However security calls into the ER itself are another matter. You never know what you will face or see going through those doors. Last week I received a "STAT" call to the ER. When I arrived I was pointed to a room, and inside was a drugged-out-of-his-mind teenager, about 16 or 17 years old. He was a pretty big kid too. Big enough to be plenty wary of him. He was cussing and swearing at everyone in the room, very verbally abusive. The funny part about that was he was doing it all to a rap. like Rap music. I was plenty alert about now cause I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what was allowed from me, hospital rules and all. Remember I haven't been working there that long and this was my first call of this nature. Anyway the upshot of it was that he didn't want to be there and the ER crew had to treat him. But he wouldn't cooperate at all. Eventually all the ER crew left the room except one Tech. So it was me and the Tech. This kid was really getting restless and wanted to leave. I was talking to him trying to calm him down. Well apparently I said the wrong thing to him cause he up and charged me. I extended "ki" with unbendable arm to keep him away from me. I had my right hand on his left shoulder and the other going under his chin in a mini-tenchinage. That really pissed him off and he took a big right handed cowboy punch at my head. It was like a typical yokomen strike. I blended with it and drove his fist down and turned him so his back was to me. I didn't want to hurt him yet so I just pushed him away. Also I had no idea what I was allowed to do, I had never been in this kind of a situation before. Usually we just follow the orders of the ER crew, but there was none there!! Anyway he turned and threw another punch, this time I caught his punch, blended with it again, but he began to struggle against it so I just went with him, didn't fight against him and suddenly found myself applying a monster sankyo on him and slamming him to the ground. I straddled his back, switched to a different variation that we had recently learned in class and he was pinned for good. He was struggling like a fish out of water. He reached back with his free hand and found that one suddenly pinned too. So I took out my cuffs and slapped them on. The whole thing lasted about 5 seconds. I looked up and saw 3 cops and the whole ER crew watching me. I thought I was really in trouble for what I did. The ER crew came in scooped him up and slammed him on the bed. And began putting the restraints on him. I was shaking like a leaf! So much adrenaline was flowing it was incredible. I couldn't write up my report on the incident for about 3 hours I was shaking so much. I have never been in a physical confrontation in my life until this one. I have often wondered how I would react to one. And being drugged up as he was, he was incredibly strong. But flowing with him and not fighting against him won the day. The bottom line though is that everything flowed. Didn't even have to think, all the skills were there when I needed them. Almost perfect class-like execution. Only a lot faster paced. Hy, Mesa Arizona CHIEF INSTRUCTOR'S NOTES: By: George Simcox COMMENTARY I have just returned from the Tohei Seminar in Portland. It was a gala affair with Tohei Sensei teaching every session. Much of his teaching was from an especially constructed chair. He was assisted by his son, Shinichi, in all of the classes. In my opinion, it was vintage Tohei. His message of sharing of knowledge and the importance of Ki in daily life as well as Aikido technique continues, unchanged. He is wonderfully consistent and teaches with great clarity. The Oregon Ki Society pulled out all of the stops in their preparation. The various banquets were wonderful with the decorations clearly showing the dedication of the students and their instructors. Next year the National Chief Instructors' Workshop will be held in Hawaii in conjunction with the celebration of the 45th anniversary of Aikido's introduction into Hawaii. The celebration will be in Honolulu with public classes on August 11,12 and 13 and the Instructors' Workshop on the 14th. More data will follow when I receive it from Sensei Tabata, the host. TRAVELS I will travel to Kingston, Ontario, Canada with Senseis Jon Doner and Minh Pham to attend Sensei Bickford's Summer Seminar. I will give a report next issue. The following Saturday I will be in Charlottesville to administer a Sho Dan examination for Donna Shirbacheh. On August 2-3 I will be in Pittsburgh for a weekend seminar and testing. GENERAL For those of you who are following my health situation I just received good news from my oncologist: my prostate specific antigen (PSA) is now <0.1 (nondetectable). Looks like I will be around for quite a while longer.