Aiki Dojo Message - Focus

The best Aikidoists learn to focus.

In Japanese, “to focus one’s attention” is chuuryoku (注力). Chuu means “to concentrate” and ryoku means “power.” Understanding this, one could theorize that focusing our attention is to concentrate our power.

Learning Aikido can be hard. There are a lot of moving parts on many different levels. On any given technique, we can concentrate our focus on larger ideas like the physical, technical, mental, emotional or spiritual, but we can also look down to the smallest detail at things like footwork, breathing, or self-talk to name just a few.

Sports psychologist Dr. Richard Schmidt said something to the effect that it takes 300-500 repetitions to develop a new skill and about 3000-5000 repetitions to correct a bad habit. If Schmidt is correct, then the more we focus on the right thing, the more efficiently we can learn. Mirroring this, when talking about learning, Furuya Sensei said, “You can’t just dig anywhere, you have to dig in the right place.”

Since there are a lot of things going on. Students have to learn to not just focus for the sake of focusing but also learn to focus on the right things. In order to have the power of focusing our concentration, students must learn “to watch intently” or mitsumeru (見つめる), “listen intently” or kikikomu (聴き込む), and kimochi wo hikishimeru (氣持ちを引き締める) or “focus our minds.” Seems obvious but like all simple things, they are hard to do.

The ardent student of Aikido should start by focusing their concentration physically. The physical is where we learn “how” to focus. Learning to see begins with being able to differentiate the techniques and then the details of the techniques. Here we learn to bear down and weed out the things which are not pertinent. Students should first ask themselves if they know what technique is being taught. Later, they ask themselves questions like, “What are my feet supposed to be doing?” Or “What are arms and shoulders doing?” That is why it is important for teachers to focus their teaching on the basics and doing the same techniques repeatedly. The more our eyes see the sameness, the more it begins to learn pattern recognition and seeing one thing over another.

Learning to hear is harder because our minds are talking at the same time. When we can turn off the mental chatter, we can actually hear what is being said instead of the inner dialogues of our minds. Teachers help by cueing with short words which prompt the students’ movement. These cues are what students learn to focus their hearing on.

Learning to focus our minds is a function of both seeing and hearing. Once we can focus our eyes and ears, our minds are not far behind. After technical mastery, we then go inward and try to see where our minds go when we do the technique. Do we talk to ourselves in a positive and kind way especially when we make a mistake? Do we find ourselves getting angry, frustrated, or judgmental? All of these are clues to our true mental state. Thus, the first thing to change is our mental state and that begins by realizing that this is going on. Then we spend Schmidt’s 5000 repetitions on changing it.

The game of life is about figuring out who you are, why you are here, and where you want to go. Learning in this sense is not about accumulation but about paring down to reveal the true you. In Aikido, we learn to focus on not only what is necessary but what it is we truly want - inner peace. Anyone can learn movement, but only the best can focus their minds. That is why the best Aikidoists learn to focus.

Today’s goal: Don’t get distracted. Focus on what it is that you really want.

Watch this video spoof on the Karate Kid to better understand how to learn.