East Bay Aikido - Oakland, California

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Level One

Tom Gambell (Originally published in 1995)

I just got back from the Mt. Baldy Zen Center in Los Angeles where each year over the Memorial Day weekend Frank McGouirk Sensei of Aikido-Ai in Whittier, CA hosts an aikido retreat which includes aikido training, tai chi, chi gong and early morning zen meditations.

One of the high points of the retreat is the dharma talk by Dr. Robert Moore, Frank’s zen teacher. This year he spoke on the eight levels of mastery. During his talk, I was struck by the similarities between the model he used from his Chinese martial arts experience and the map that I have formed from my own experience. Both start at commitment.

Mastery at level one is showing up. Getting to the dojo. Making yourself open and available for the teachings. Be there.

I have often said to new students that, in the beginning, the hardest thing is getting to the dojo. Once you’re there, the rest is easy. But, as each of us will attest, getting there can be difficult. There are lots of reasons for not going... we’re tired... we’re hungry... something good is on TV... we just don’t feel like it... you name it...

But. Sooner or later, you have to deal with it. How committed are you? And what are you going to do about it? You have got to show up in order to get the training.

In the “old days” commitment was tested first. Students were left sitting outside the monastery doors for days, for weeks, in the cold, in the rain, just to see if they were serious. In Japan, stories abound about new students cleaning toilets for a year before they were deemed worthy of being given even the most basic teaching.

What prospective student of today would wait outside the dojo for admittance longer that 15 minutes before going away thinking that maybe this wasn’t an auspicious occasion on which to start? They would come back when the stars were lined up better, or at least when the lights were on... And, as for cleaning toilets... janitors do that sort of thing... I mean, really...

And yet commitment is the very thing that will immediately determine who sill stay and who will go. All other traits become secondary. Students with physical talent come and go. Students with enthusiasm come and go. It is the students with commitment that come and stay. Not because they are talented, not because it’s always fun, not because of anything other than they are committed to being there. Time after time after time. Because they want to get what is there and they are committed to getting it. It is this quiet fierceness that forms every black belt.

Remember the old stories of how black belts were made. One started with a white belt and over the years the sweat and dirt that permeated the belt turned it black. You couldn’t buy one. You had to make it yourself. No shortcuts. No quick way. No weekend courses. No home correspondence course. You had to show up to get it.

Over the course of a lifetime, there may be an ebb and flow to your training. There are times when you have lots of time to show up for training and there are times when time is scarce for training. Not a problem. Your commitment will keep you on the path.

Remember your commitment. To your training and to yourself.