by Nick Walker

You want to learn aikido, and you've got little or no martial arts experience. How do you pick a good place to train?

The only reliable way to find out if a dojo is any good is to check it out in person. There are a couple of big aikido websites, Aikiweb and Aikido FAQ, that have dojo search pages where you can type in the name of a town and/or state and get a list of most of the aikido schools in that area, including addresses, website URLs, email, and phone numbers. Once you've got the list, check out the websites of any dojos that have websites, and contact each dojo to confirm their schedules and other information. Then make some visits.

Don't be fooled by fancy appearances or lack thereof. A dojo isn't made of walls and furnishings and decorations, it's made of people. I've seen huge, beautiful, wood-paneled dojos where the quality of training was mediocre, while some of the best teachers I've ever met teach in neighborhood YMCAs, drafty old warehouses, and even garages (I teach at a YMCA myself -- not only do my students pay less per month than they would at a fancy-looking private dojo, they also get access to showers and a sauna).

When you visit a dojo, wear loose, comfortable, not-easily-torn clothing. Arrive a little bit early. Tell the instructor, or a senior student (anyone wearing a brown or black belt), that it's your first class. And, provided the place meets the standards described below, get on the mat and practice. You don't need to sit on the sidelines and watch a class first. Martial training requires a bit of courage. If you're serious about learning aikido, start exercising your courage right away. Get on the mat!

Before and after class, ask the instructor and/or the senior students all the questions you can think of: How can this stuff help me defend myself? What are the ethical and philosopical principles of the art? How will it make my life better? Why do you bow all the time? What distinguishes aikido from other martial arts? What does the person you're talking to get out of their own practice? The more questions, the better. Most of these questions don't have easy or "correct" answers.  You're just gathering information, and observing the spirit in which your questions are recieved and answered.

There are many styles of aikido, many regional and international aikido organizations, and many dojos that are more or less independent. A dojo's stylistic or organizational affiliation is entirely irrelevant to your search. A dojo is made of people, and within any style or organization, there are people who are nice to practice with and people who are not so nice to practice with. There is no "One True Aikido," and there is no teacher or headquarters or organization that is the ultimate authority in the world of aikido. There are, however, a number of big-headed and small-minded folks out there who believe that their aikido is the One True Aikido and that they or their teacher or their organization are the one rightful and central authority in the world of aikido. Avoid these poor silly souls - victims of the "my way is the one true way" virus often turn out to be bad news in one way or another. It's easy to spot them: ask the instructor or a senior student if their dojo is affiliated with a particular style or organization, and then ask them what distinguishes their style from some of the other ones in town. If you get a thoughtful explanation, good. If you get an evangelical sermon about why this style is right and all the other ones are wrong, or some line about how this style is affiliated with the "One True Aikido World Headquarters in Japan" or something, excuse yourself politely and leave.

The previous sentence isn't as far-fetched as it sounds.  I actually did visit a dojo once where the instructor claimed to have trained at "The World Headquarters of Aikido." A novice who knew nothing about the world of martial arts could easily fall for a line like that. Just remember that a martial art is not a cult or a corporation, no matter how many misguided instructors try to play it that way. A martial art is a discipline, like yoga, dance, or music. Like any discipline, a martial art is no one's property; it is a living tradition open to infinite interpretation and reinterpretation. Imagine if a music teacher advertised himself as being trained at "The World Headquarters of Music!"

Because there's no central authority in the aikido world, the numbered ranks and titles of aikido black belts don't actually mean anything outside of the hierarchy of their own organizations. You might suppose that if an instructor has a 7th degree black belt, it means that that instructor is better than an instructor with a 3rd degree black belt. Not so! It's just as likely to mean that the two instructors in question are from different schools, and one school gives out high ranks more readily than the other. Or that the 3rd degree black belt is too busy paying attention to her students to bother with advancement in her organization's political hierarchy. For that matter, a person with no aikido training at all can buy a black belt in a store, declare himself an aikido instructor, and grant himself a 10th degree black belt! There's no law against it, any more than there's a law against someone who's never painted before declaring himself the world's greatest painter. The moral of all this being: beware of schools that try to impress you with rank, because all that those numbers say for sure about an instructor is how much of a big shot he or she is within his or her own particular organization.

Also beware of people who try to impress you with statements like, "Our instructor trained for ten years with aikido masters in Japan." In Japan? So what? These days some of the most interesting and innovative aikido is being done right here in America. In fact, there's good aikido all over the world, being taught by people of every nationality and ethnicity. Aikido isn't about race or nationality. The notion that being Japanese makes someone a better martial artist is no less absurd than any other racist stereotype. Morihei Uyeshiba, the founder of aikido, said, "Aikido is a way to reconcile the world and make human beings one family" - so any so-called aikido teacher using nationalism and racism as marketing tools has obviously strayed pretty far from the spirit of the art.

What I'm getting at here is that there's a lot of impressive-sounding rhetoric out there that really just amounts to flashy advertising designed to impress the uninformed consumer. Statements like, "Our teacher is a 10th degree black belt trained in the One True Aikido World Headquarters in Japan" are really no different in intent or validity from statements like, "Our brand of deodorant is used by this popular television actor." In a really good dojo, the instructor and senior students won't be trying to impress you with this sort of slick marketing - they'll be too busy making sure that you have a safe and enjoyable first lesson.

Because a dojo is made of people, the only way to really know what kind of place it is is to look at the people. Look at the instructor and the more advanced students. Do they look happy and relaxed? Do they look like kind, good-hearted people? Would you want to move the way the advanced instructors move? Aikido is an art with great power to transform people, so have a good look at what you might end up being transformed into. How do the people in the dojo relate to one another? A dojo is always going to be more formal and regimented than, say, a belly-dancing class. But are there smiles? Is there room for fun? Especially stay away from places where the students appear to be frightened of the instructor.

Try places until you find the right one. Be warned, though: learning aikido is difficult, confusing, and often frustrating - and, because aikido directly addresses our relationships with fear, aggression, and personal boundaries, good aikido training is guaranteed to push all of your least favorite buttons sooner or later. So even in the best dojo (especially in the best dojo), practice will sometimes feel all wrong. It takes great willpower, courage, and patience to stick with aikido training, and these are things that no dojo and no instructor, no matter how good, can provide you with - you have to find them within yourself.

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