I have always been interested in the martial arts. As a child I loved to watch Kung Fu with David Carradine. In the fall of 1982, I learned that a waitress at the restaurant where I was working was a black belt in Aikido.

I didn’t know anything about Aikido. Maureen began to talk about a Japanese gentleman named Ueshiba who was a master in martial arts, but who was troubled about what it meant to defeat an opponent. The goal of most martial arts is to maim or kill, but that meant dealing with the consequences afterward. Perhaps the opponent’s family would want revenge, or the government would want to prosecute, or you might feel terrible about what you had done to your opponent. Ueshiba began to search for another way, developing a way of harmony. In this new way, rather than using your opponent’s energy to hurt or kill them, you would take their energy and put it in a safe place, where it couldn’t hurt the person attacking or the person being attacked. I found the whole idea intriguing and mysterious. Maureen suggested that I watch an Aikido demonstration.

When I attended a demonstration a few weeks later, I was intrigued by what I saw. A tiny Japanese man was tremendously powerful, hurling people across the mat where they would gracefully roll out like gymnasts. I knew at that point that I was hooked. I had to try Aikido. In January 1983, I signed up for what would turn out to be one of the most important, and rewarding, challenges in my life.

In my circumstances, balancing Aikido with the rest of my life wasn’t always easy. Due to work schedules and relocations, I have trained at four different schools, or dojos. I have trained under five master teachers, or Shihans. There are two Shihans currently at ACLA, where I have trained since 2013. I have found the instruction here to be exceptional.

I believe the diversity in my training has helped to make me a better teacher. Each time I changed dojos there was an element of starting over. I learned that the climb up the mountain to Aikido mastery has many paths. I believe that helps me to gauge where a student is on their own path up the mountain, and to shine a light on their path to help them move forward.

I credit my Aikido training with helping me to achieve success in the business world. I found that what I learned from Aikido provided a huge benefit in my work interactions. Beyond the physical benefits, such as calmness and centeredness, the idea of joining with an opponent’s energy, rather than fighting against it, applies in interpersonal interactions as well as in Aikido practice.

Illiano Sensei teaches Fundamentals and Open classes on Thursdays