General class structure

All classes begin and end with a formal etiquette (reigi) whose meaning is to contain the training experience within the bounds of attention, trust and respect.

These are the essential ingredients in creating an atmosphere within the dojo where practitioners can put each other under pressure in a safe way without letting the practice stray into areas of competitiveness or loss of control.

The basic structure of an Aikido class is generally as follows:

1. Formal beginning
2. Warm-up
3. Falling practice (ukemi)
4. Technical practice (empty handed or with weapons)
5. Formal ending

The warm-up consists of a series of stretches and movements whose main focus is to 'open up' and free the body (joints, muscles) and feeling-attention (awareness).

Falling practice is the practice of undoing our fear of falling and allowing us to discover the experience of being centered even as we physically lose our balance. This is an essential skill in Aikido as practice teaches us that as we lose our balance we tend to reflexively stiffen up to prevent a potentially injurious fall. This would seem completely natural to do at first, however it is just at those moments as we engage with a destabilizing force that threatens our balance, that stiffness inhibits our ability to respond appropriately. This is the same as when learning to surf a wave. The wave threatens to overwhelm us and stiffening and resistance ensures a hard encounter with the water. Working 'with' the wave we 'lose' our balance yet stay centered and can 'ride' the wave without resisting it. It's power becomes our ride to the shore. In Aikido it is precisely the same: we 'receive' and 'flow with' the attacks or techniques of our partner and in so doing, are actually training our ability to engage in a centered and non-resistant way with experience itself.

Technical practice forms the core of each class. The format for training techniques is as a ritualized agreement (kata). This is a traditional Japanese format whereby the roles of attacker (uke) and defender (nage) are fixed, and at basic levels of training, the technique is also decided upon beforehand. Partners practice taking turns being both attacker and defender. As attacker, one commits an attack within the range of the defender to respond and absorb. Defender executes a technique whose efficacy depends upon non-defensive engagement. The energy of the attack is harmonized with, joined, and turned back upon the attacker in the form of the particular technique being practiced. It is now the attackers turn to practice non-resistance (falling) as he flows with the technique into the resolution which is either a projection or a ground immobilization (in the case of empty handed techniques).

So the practice of ritualized 'attack and defense' is actually a practice of learning how to 'surf the waves' through opening up to non-resistance as a strategy of engagement. The attack (yang) is absorbed (yin) by the defender and returned (yang) to the attacker in a technique who now absorbs it it through 'falling' (yin). Whether attacking or defending the key practice is blending and non-resistance, flowing back and forth between yin (receptive) and yang (projective).

Weapon training (bukiwaza) and empty handed training (taijutsu) can take place in separate classes or intertwined within one session.