A busy dojo may have all of the following:
Regular Students, Uchi deshi (apprentices), Office staff, Assistant instructor(s), Chief Instructor, Visiting students, Sempai (or mentor/senior) and Kohai (acolytes/junior)
While there are many relationships, fundamentally a dojo is based on student and teacher relationship or learning and instructing, or leading and following, or shite and uke.
Western ideology seeks to fragment or reduce the world into its parts. It assigns value to those qualities that usually embody the dominant (masculine), and assigns weakness and lesser values to those qualities that are yielding (feminine). In the dojo (for westerners), this is usually seen as a preoccupation or higher regard for the shite than the uke. Doing techniques is more important than having them done to you. In essence there is mental resistance when techniques are done to individuals, they make poor ukes, poor students and thus the Aikido potential in them is limited. They are too excited by the role of the shite, and in their egocentricity (small ego) they limit their growth.
In the east, there is no fragmentation of the universe. Equal value is found in both the dominant and yielding roles. Neither masculinity or femininity is favoured, and the roles fo shite and uke or leader and follower (or if you like teacher and student) are embraced. The aikido mendset recognises that we are always both student and teacher, and resistance to the idea of one will impede the progress of the other.
In the dojo first we learn (L)
----------------------> L
After sometime, we are able to do (lets not talk of teaching yet and instead "doing")
----------------------> L
-------> D
If we are to have progress ... we must ensure that the Learning is always given the freedom to move into new territory ... in time the 'do' will follow ... but we need to release the student in us sincerely and without reservation into the unknown (this is the releasing, letting go element). In a sense we do not let go of ourselves to our teacher, we let go of our controlling and dominating traits and instead yield to the learner or student elements of ourselves. However, if instead we let the limited ego control us we get the following
------------> L | (ego blocks)
------------> D | (ego blocks)
No further progress can be made as an artificial limiting ego has replaced our sincere desire to learn. No new insights or teaching can penetrate this barrier without corruption. Until the ego releases the sincere student within us, we idle because of our self limiting, psychologically constructed limiting ego. What we do is dam the free flow between our learning elements (yin, uke) and doing qualities (yang, shite). In the west students tend to be yang orientated (like the society and ideology that they are but a part of), they embrace the doing element, the teaching element, but the yin or yielding elements as deficient or devaluing in some way. They block the free exchange of these elements within themselves and ultimately bring their progress to a grinding halt. In Japan, the culture embraces both polar opposites as it realises that wholeness can only be achieved by the acceptance and adoption of both. I constantly tell my students when they are the shite, lead and when the uke, follow. When you approach the task you must embody the essence of it. You must get lost in it, unobstructed by the false egos and mental limitations. As the artist blend with the medium, so too must we approach aikido. Blend with the attacker, blend with your role as a shite ... and in true non resistance, divinity is expressed and manifested in all respect of life. You see the divine in the student, the teacher, the technique, the dojo etc ...
Etiquette is used to keep us pure and our hearts uncluttered with limitations. When i am being taught by my teacher, the etiquette of sensei, onegai shimasu, arigato gozaimashita and osu helps me blend better with my role as the student, the learner, the uke, the yin. When i sincerely use these terms, I am closer to releasing the sincere student inside. I release the student in me into the learning experience so that I may grow, and in time so that I may do. In a sense, it matters not what I am being taught, only that I am open to learn. I am as active in the learning process as the teacher. I am actively yielding or receiving. I must be open to receive (uke). Such a realised student is impervious to corruption as the essence of the learner rest solely in their heart. The role of the student like the pillar of a building is strong, and with other pillars (teacher) it can hold the great weight of a ceiling (aikido).
My Teacher on the other hand, fulfills the teaching, doing or shite element. He is not more important in any profound sense, as the experience only exists with us both. Importance in a sense is merely perspective, and perspective in the west usually self serves the limiting ego.
Together, we have wholeness and the flow and growth of aikido can be free and easy. They say one cannot exist without the other (duality) but in essence they are but the same process (non dual). There is no teacher and student. Instead 'teacherstudenting'. The western mind wants to reduce this all to parts, to students and teacher, better and worse, more value and less value. When it does, it is dysfunctional and resistance has established itself. The western mind is puzzled. It is like taking a watch, separating it into all its parts, and wondering why you can't tell the time. In Japan, seasons are welcomed equally. Summer is not favoured over winter. Both are celebrated as the same process.
In the west, we must learn to accept the student inside and understand its vital importance to the "doer". In the dojo, when we are the student, we give ourselves fully to the student inside ourselves. When we say sensei, we are not empowering another; we are instead empowering the student inside. In the east there is no separate I from the greater self. The true ego (cosmic ego) is the entire picture. It is the student and teacher, the shite and uke. We can hide in one, and try and resist the other, but in time it will balance itself out as it becomes more dysfunctional and problematic as balance is desired. In the west, teachers mistakenly place higher value on their role, thinking that dojos rely solely on them. They fail to realise that a dojo with no students is no dojo at all and thus in the same way that all seasons are required to get summer, student and teacher equals dojo. One cannot realise teacher in the absence of student and vice versa.
My teacher at 9th dan level still embraces the student inside. He still talks of his mistakes and lessons, even as his teacher has passed. His teacher still resides in his mind, as present as ever and fulfills his part as the doer. Takeno sensei still opens himself as a student so that he may move forward. Like we say, we start as a white belt, in time, through training, our belt gets dirty, our knowledge increases and it turns black (we are the doer or teacher). As more time passes, the belt begins to fall apart, it fades and returns to white (the student) and the process starts again. In this metaphor, black is seen as not pure or tainted (is this difficult to understand? Think instead of as full) and white as pure (student, empty). One is not to be favoured over the other, or sought in isolation. We must embrace both qualities and move with the seasons as they come. In the same way training should not be favoured only when exciting or progress is made and avoided when difficult or monotonous. We must accept the wholeness of the process and not let the ego hide in any small part of it.
The sincere teacher and student (or shite and uke if you like) is the essence of what we do. The etiquette ensures that the environment is conducive for learning the essence of Aikido of which technique is the visual manifestation. We are not open if we come to the dojo and accept the things we like and reject the things we don't. It is not a salad bar. While no one will be forced against their will to adopt etiquette, those who are involved in shaping the dojo environment must understand it and lead by example. To do otherwise is to let our false ego deprive not only ourselves, but others of the Aikido experience. It I as a teacher do not fulfill my duty to lead, instruct, or be shite, I do not complete the learning the experience. In the same way, if students do not fulfill the duty of sincerely learning, the flow of Aikido is not possible.
Some of you are already taking parts of your on mat experience into your daily lives. The question is how much should we take off the mats? I had trouble in the beginning taking the word sensei and osu off the mats. It was only when I realised that my notion of what these words meant was flawed, did everything begin to sit comfortably with me. Takeno sensei is not my friend, he is my teacher. My teacher would say, Peter is not my friend, he is my student. Together we complete the circle that makes the whole. He is is not more important than I, nor I than him. He allows me to embody the student in me necessary to learn, I allow him to embody the teacher/doer in him necessary to transmit information. Only when I open the channel and he opens the channel is there flow or aikido. But in the west we have a sort of passive resentment to the teacher as we think they are in some way more whole than us. On the opposite side, when we are the teacher, we falsely see our students as deficient or of lesser value. In each case our perspective is far too narrow and serving of the limited ego. This is the social and ideological dis-functionality of the west. Young is good and old is bad. What happens when the young get old? Such perspectives are so one sided that they resist the whole to the point of suffering. I purify my heart and burn this limiting ego when I embrace the student inside (completing the circle). The word sensei (when sincere) is my ally in unlocking the student inside. Truly the dojo is a place of self exploration where in time, the idea of self grows and transcends the limiting ego.
Again, the dojo is not a salad bar. What we think can't be taken off the mat is, in truth, our egocentric limited idea of these terms and thus the process. They are dysfunctional as they serve only one side of the whole. So my teacher is always sensei because and only because I am always the student or learner. I am his student on the mats and off. To do otherwise is to shut myself off to learning ... to block him him from teaching ... make learning conditional ... to reject the student inside ... to reinforce the false idea that Aikido only serves a purpose on the mats. We stunt and restrict the natural order of growth and transcendence. We falsely limit the experience. When I acknowledge the I am always the student, this is a natural state, as resistance of one of the polar opposites is vanquished. The whole is accepted. Each part must embody the whole much like a fractal. I have nothing to teach if I have nothing to learn. To be without teacher, or no longer a student, is the ultimate enemy of progress.
All activities associated with the dojo must provide students and teachers alike with the environment to let aikido grow within. The term sensei, sempai (mentor: not yet in use), kohai (acolytes), onegai shimasu, arigato gozaimashita, osu and bowing are but one. When you try to separte them, you try and separate student/teacher and move away from Aikido. Rei ho (etiquette) and budo (martial way) are inseparable. When we interact, verbal, written, social, blogs, website, mat time etc we must bring to these relationships all the etiquette. Otherwise, the dojo no longer exists as its very foundation has been undermined. In other words, we destroy the student inside that precedes everything. Be pure of heart when uke and pure when shite.
In time all of the above is revealed and understood solely through training and practice.
Wholeness - true self - 'telling the time' - non dual
Infinite ..............
_______________> L Takeno sensei
___________> T Takeno sensei
_______> L Me
___> T Me
_> L You
.................. infinite
Dual - false ego can arise - false self - student separate from teacher - we have watch parts but no time can be read.
L = Learner, student, uke T = Doer, shite or teacher
