Spirituality. I don’t mean religion. Hopefully you wont see much apparent spirituality in a dojo, which is a good thing. If you’re fortunate though, you’ll be surrounded by it. Real spirituality is for the individual and not for ostentatious display. It’s most certainly not found in how you perform your techniques or even in the bowing or the rituals that are part of every day practice.

Within the budo Aikido is regarded as one of the more spiritual arts. O-Sensei intended Aikido to be a process of spiritual development, the ultimate purpose of which was the achievement of self mastery.
What is self mastery? It is the development of your will power and all the non-physical aspects of yourself. For instance people often come to the budo because they want to develop self confidence or parents enrol their children in a dojo so that they can learn discipline or self-control as it’s sometimes called.
Self-control, why would you want to learn that? Isn’t it better to be free and do what you want? Are you sure you’re free to do whatever you want? Have you ever wanted to do something but been afraid to do it? Ever decided to get fit but never managed to motivate yourself to do it? Ever done something you knew would cause future problems, but done it anyway and felt like an idiot after?

Imagine the possibilities of having more self-control. You would have joined a gym and got in shape, you would have chatted to that guy or girl you thought was cute, you would have gone on that course, got a promotion and be earning more money. Far from imprisoning yourself, self-control removes fear and self destructive impulses from your thinking, setting you free to do achieve your goals and when people see you acting in this way they will label you as being a confident person.
How does Aikido do this? An Aikido dojo provides a supportive environment geared towards self development. Aikido training desensitises you to failure and makes you accustomed to success because you will be making mistakes all of the time and then moving forward from them building confidence in yourself. It teaches relaxation while executing bold, decisive action under pressure. Learning Aikido also boosts your powers of concentration because intense focus is needed to perfect your technique, because of this Aikido has accurately been described as moving meditation.

I’m not saying any of this is easy; there’s a reason we ask if you’re one of the 5%. Every new year gyms make a fortune out of people that sign up for a year and don’t last two weeks and things are no different for us in the budo. What I am saying is this: If you make the choice to start training with us and you have the discipline to stick to that choice, although it will be hard, the rewards will be more than worth it.

Alex Lawrence, Nikyu no Zanshin Kai