How to Teach Anything in Three Steps

In addition to teaching Aikido for the past 15 years, I’ve been a classroom teacher for nearly two decades. Though the content of what I teach at school as an English teacher is entirely different from what I teach at the dojo, the process for helping students acquire skills is basically the same.

One note before we begin: teaching is an infinitely rich and complex subject without even taking into consideration one’s knowledge of the content they are teaching. Many of the traits, habits, and pedagogical considerations of a truly great teacher fall beyond the scope of this post. My goal here is to provide Aikido teachers and prospective teachers a framework for how they can impart targeted skills to their students.

Where to Begin

Of course, you can’t teach what you don’t know. A skilled teacher has a broad range of knowledge and experience to draw from in their teaching. That said, the good news is that even if you only know one thing, you can teach it to someone else. For anyone who has faced the fear of getting up in front of a class, remember: if you focus on what you know and follow some best practices outlined here, you’ll be OK and you can to offer something of value to your students.

When planning out of a class, the first step is decide what you want to teach. In the classroom, this is often guided by the standards, curriculum, or specific programs that school is using. For teachers in the dojo, we tend to have more freedom, which is both a blessing and a burden.

For me, the process of identifying what I’m going to teach is the result of an inner back-and-forth between what I think my students need and what I’m personally interested in working on. When we have tests coming up, I tend to focus more on teaching that specific content. When not focused on testing, I give myself more leeway to explore concepts, movement patterns, and principles I find myself interested in at that time.

In my years of training, I’ve seen teachers err on either end of this spectrum. Staying narrowly focused on test techniques guarantees technical proficiency, but it can also become overly restrictive and fail to provide the seeds of inspiration that motivate students to pursue whatever grander goals they seek. Conversely, if a teacher simply does what he wants, though the students may feel inspired, they tend to end up lacking the technical foundation they would need to become truly great themselves. 

Making a Plan

Once you’ve figured out what you want to teach, the next step is to start putting together a plan. In Aikido, this tends to consist of a sequence of activities starting with warm-ups and taking you through to the end of class.

Knowing what you’d like your students to gain from your class, it is helpful then to step back and consider what sub-skills your students will need so they can reach whatever outcome you desire. Like reverse engineering, think about where you’d like them to go by the end of class, then consider the steps they’ll need to take along the way to get there.

For example, let’s say my goal for a class is to help my students learn to keep their weight between their feet instead of double-weighting on their front or back foot and colliding with their partner’s power. By the end of class, I’d like my more experienced students to be doing this in the moment in jiyuwaza freestyle practice. For my newer students, I’ll be happy if they can experience keeping their weight between their feet in a few isolated techniques.

I’d start class as usual with basic taiso stretches and movements to get people’s bodies warmed up. Knowing that even experienced practitioners tend to drift out of their center, I’d then work on some solo tai sabaki (body movements) in which people focus on keeping their weight between their feet.

First, I’d have them stand in a neutral stance and ask them to feel their center line, maybe having them shift from side to side to get a sense of where their weight is actually aligned. Then, we’d move into irimi, tenshin, and tenkan movements, each time asking them to focus on keeping their center between their feet and noticing when they drift out of alignment. 

Once they have some experience moving this way by themselves, the next step would be to have them work in pairs. Tai no henko (turning practice) is a great way to do something with a partner that isn’t technically complicated. By starting off with a more simple practice, people can stay in their bodies and remain focused on the targeted goal of keeping their weight between their feet.

Once they’ve had a chance to further internalize this awareness in their bodies with a partner, we would move into full techniques. They were just doing tenkan turning movements, so I’d try to maintain continuity by moving into another technique that begins with turning like udekimenage or kokyuho. 

When that’s going well, I’d up the ante. Most people try to grind their partner’s wrist to bits in nikyo and subsequently end up putting all their weight into their front foot, leaving them with little power in their own body. We might work on nikyo for a bit and then find another technique that people end up over extended on like shihonage or iriminage.

Toward the end of class, I would demonstrate some jiyuwaza freestyle practice, modeling keeping my center between my feet. Having shown it myself, I would ask my more senior students to come up and share their practice while the less experienced students sit and observe. The main point is that I should aim to link from one activity to the next in a way that coherently builds from a basic starting point to the outcome I’d like to reach.

Full disclosure, this isn’t the only way I plan my classes. Some days we just move from one technique to another because that’s what people need to work on for upcoming tests. Other days I may have been busy and not have had time to really plan, so at a minimum I try to find a starting point and see where things go from there.

The good news is that if you go through this process of designing classes based around an intended outcome long enough, it becomes a habit and an experienced instructor will find herself able to spontaneously discover a theme within a series of techniques. These more free-flow classes often end up being my favorite because there is a sense of mutual discovery for both teacher and student.

Teaching with a Capital ‘T’

Now that you have a plan, it’s time to implement it. This is where the art of teaching really comes into play. These soft skills of teaching are a little more amorphous, but if you stay focused on some basic points you’ll be sure to make progress toward your intended goal.

What would an intro to teaching be without discussing Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (how’s that for jargon!)? It sounds tricky, but the concept is simple. At a given moment, any individual has things they can do independently, things they can do with some guidance, and things they simply cannot do because they are too far beyond their working skill set.

Vygotsky's approach says that we should focus our instruction on helping students take their appropriate next step, wherever that may be. For a new student, this usually starts with getting them to put their feet in the right place. For your black belts, maybe the next step is developing their sensitivity or applying techniques more effectively.

In the classroom, we use tests, quizzes, and diagnostic assessments to figure out where students are so we can identify the right next step. In the dojo though, much of what you need to know is right in front of you. When the student does a tenkan turn and his head drops over his front foot, he has drifted out of his center and ended up double-weighted. This is where it is your job as the teacher to help your student recognize the issue and provide her with a way to move past it.

Bring on the feedback sandwich! If you’re not familiar, the idea is that before critiquing a student or giving suggestions a teacher should let the student know what she is doing well. This aligns well with the Zone of Proximal Development. If a student has walked in the door and made her way onto the mat, she’s doing something right. Let her know what that is. Do not praise her with some vague generality just so you can stick in your suggestion (“You’re doing great, but . . . ). Instead, tell her something specific that she is doing well and then make your suggestion (“You’re doing a nice job of fully completing your tenkan turn, and one way you could improve is . . .”). 

Though at first the feedback sandwich can seem a bit hokey and overly formulaic (my classroom students who are familiar with it have actually called me on using it!). That said, as long as you start by letting the student know what she’s doing well she’ll be much more likely to feel open to critique.

One last note on feedback: avoid giving a student more than one thing to work on at a time. Brains are not built to do more than one cognitive task (e.g. something you have to consciously focus on to do) at a time. If you tell your student to keep her head over her hips, move from her center, and maintain kokyu extension in her arms, she’s pretty much guaranteed not to do any of them. A skilled teacher will identify exactly the next thing she needs to allow her to make gains toward what you’re working on.

Bringing it all Together

There you have it, the secret for how to teach anything in three steps. To review:

1. Identify the targeted skill or understanding you’d like your students to acquire.

2. Make a plan that progresses from isolated skills to deeper integration.

3. Provide feedback so your students can recognize what they’re doing well and take the appropriate next step to moving forward.

As I said at the outset, this is not an all-inclusive guide to teaching. However, I can say from experience that if you use this framework to guide your instruction your students will improve. Good luck, and happy teaching!

Some Thoughts on Training

I’ve been training for nearly 25 years in Aikido and spent the last decade as the chief instructor of a dojo. In my time, I’ve noticed some things about the way people tend to progress through their practice—or not—and thought I’d take a moment to share what I’ve observed.

In the Japanese martial arts, there are different models of how one should make their way through the stages of training from beginner to master. Fundamental to traditional Japanese martial arts is the concept of kata or forms. There are three stages associated with this model: shu (to obey the form), ha (to break the form), and ri (to transcend the form). In my piece here, you’ll see some crossover with this model, though I don’t intend for to give a detailed explanation. For an in-depth discussion, I’d recommend Kazuo Chiba Shihan’s article, “Structure of Shu, Ha, Ri, and Penetration of Shoshin.”

A different approach is to consider how one develops their body as they practice. Morihei Ueshiba O-Sensei talked about this aspect of our training via the four stages of kotai (‘solid’ body), jutai (‘flexible’ body), ryutai (‘flowing’ body), and kitai (ki or ‘energy’ body). A detailed discussion of this approach can be found in William Gleason Shihan’s book Aikido and Words of Power.

But this article is not a scholarly explanation of the way things should be. This is what I’ve observed, along with some caveats and suggestions.

Getting Started

Any martial artist can tell you the story of how they found their way onto the mat. For me, the short version is that I was walking down an alley one day and saw a flyer for Aikido classes at the local YMCA. I called, showed up, and never looked back.

The longer version is that each of us has a broader narrative of what drew us to our art. This perspective isn’t always apparent until one has spent years training, at which point it tends to become more clear. 

For me, my kikkake, or ‘opportunity to begin’ was that I came to Aikido from a place of spiritual/philosophical searching. In high school, for a period, I was depressed and suicidal, and one day I happened to find a copy of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones in my hands. As I read, with each successive parable I forgot my worries and my eyes opened to the incredible possibility of here and now. 

From there, I continued to read more on Zen, Taoism, and Buddhism. As I made my way, each new book would stress the importance of proper practice. It sounded great, but the problem was I didn’t have a practice. I spent some time frustrated, spinning my wheels, but soon enough found my way onto the mat. 

This sort of origin story, as it were, can be a useful reference point along the way. Though our motives for why we train may change, it can be helpful to know what initially brought you onto the mat to help reorient yourself further down the road.

The Stages of Training

When first starting their practice, people tend to enjoy the visceral, physical aspects of training. It’s fun and challenging to gain the new skills of rolling, throwing, and pinning, which tends to be sufficiently stimulating for people to come back for more.

This lasts for a while, and at some point a student will start to accrue technical knowledge. Though those not familiar with the martial arts tend to think of a black belt as one who has reached a level of mastery, quite to the contrary, the first level of blackbelt in Japanese is shodan, meaning ‘beginning level.’ On the way to shodan, one generally focuses on learning technique and establishing proper form.

Once an aikidoka has earned her hakama, she can then begin to explore what’s inside the techniques. In fact, I find the biggest stumbling block at this stage is an overly-narrow focus on technical form. I see a lot of second- and third-dan practitioners who stay fixated on form and eventually end up bored and frustrated, and who often quit around this stage. They become disillusioned because they can’t let go of the rigid structures they have learned. It’s like they’ve mastered the rules of grammar, but find themselves with nothing to say.

To break through this barrier, I find it’s necessary to concede some degree of technical proficiency—not unlike the ha stage of kata-based training. It is common at this point, if not necessary, to wonder what you’re doing and not really have a good answer. If one is patient and can sustain a consistent level of training at this time, he can begin to discover what’s contained in those forms and come to understand the principles they embody.

Though revelatory, this realization isn’t primarily intellectual. One way to say it is that at this point the techniques simply become a part of you. The Japanese might describe this as mi ni tsuku, literally the techniques ‘stick to your body’ and your actions start to fall in line with the principles contained within the forms, much like the ri stage of shu ha ri.

Add a Dash of Complexity

Sounds great, right? Sign me up! Well, it never goes that smoothly, and this is where things get interesting.

In my experience, each student tends to have some challenge or blockage that prevents them from making progress—sometimes multiple barriers stand in their way. Maybe they previously experienced some trauma and now struggle to assert themselves. Others are fixated on winning, and can’t let go of strength enough to discover the finer details of the art.

These barriers manifest themselves in many ways. Of course, the ego looms large here, and whatever patterns we have gotten comfortable with, what we have come to know of as our self, actually stands in our way.

You don’t walk out the same person as you walked in. That is the nature of a transformative practice. A good teacher can spot a student’s intrapersonal hindrances and help him move through them. Some teachers—Kazuo Chiba Shihan comes to mind here!—approach this barrier quite aggressively, trying to smash through that inflexible concept of self. Others are more gentle. Let’s hope you found the right teacher!

At the end of class once, William Gleason Shihan said, “A good teacher doesn't give it to you; a good teacher helps you find it.” Aikido offers us the opportunity to discover something. This discovery is both of the practice and within ourselves. It sounds complicated to say in words, but simply put the thing that seems to stand most in our way holds the greatest potential for growth.

The Next Step

At first we train to roll and throw and pin, but later on our training becomes deeper, more amorphous. I have walked part of this road and know I have much further to go, my path blazed by those before me. It’s not always easy, and the direction not always clear, but I seem to enjoy it well enough to keep moving forward.

I would encourage you to take a moment now to look within and ask what might be standing in your way. Your teacher and those who know you best have probably already tried to tell you about it, though it is the thing we’re least likely to really hear.

Enjoy where you are now, even when it’s hard. Also know that over there, on the other side, is something great, that you are something great.

Awase in the Time of Covid

“The techniques of Aikido change constantly; every encounter is unique, and the appropriate response should emerge naturally. Today’s techniques will be different tomorrow. Do not get caught up with the form and appearance of a challenge. Aikido has no form—it is the study of the spirit.” —Morihei Ueshiba O-Sensei

The word Aikido (合気道) is made up of three kanji. The first character, 合 (ai), may be translated as ‘harmony,’ ‘confluence,’ or ‘agreement.’ This kanji can also be used on its own as the verb 合わせる (awaseru) meaning to ‘match,’ ‘fit,’ or ‘join together.’ If I wanted to set my watch to someone else’s we would 時計を合わせる, tokei wo awaseru ‘set our watches to the same time.’

In the context of training, much of our practice is 合わせ稽古 (awasegeiko), or what might be called cooperative practice. We refer to the person who applies the technique as 投げ (nage, ‘person who throws’) or 取り (tori, ‘person who executes the technique’). The attacker, who later finds himself on the receiving end, is called 受け (uke, literally, ‘person who receives’). These are prescribed roles, and in class we alternate between them with our partners as we practice.

One of the greatest criticisms of Aikido on the internet—for those who pay attention to these sorts of things—stems from this approach to training. When uke attacks, he knows he’s going to be thrown or pinned. As nage, we know we’re going to ‘win’ and successfully apply our technique to the other person because that’s our role. The criticism then becomes that Aikido is merely an elaborate performance in which people take turns falling down for one another like some sort of martial dance.

Fine. Let the trolls think what they may. 

Though at times I, too, have questioned the cooperative nature of our practice, I have come to see that it holds great wisdom. On a practical level, Aikido techniques are quite refined and demand great skill to be applied correctly. With a partner constantly resisting our attempt to execute a technique, we would learn little. People would end up reverting to their reptilian instinct to fight and muscle their way through, thus preventing them from gaining finer skills or technical knowledge.

On a philosophical level, awasegeiko allows us to practice our art in a way that embodies the principles described by the founder. Morihei Ueshiba O-Sensei said, “Aikido is the principle of nonresistance. Because it is nonresistant, it is victorious from the beginning . . . Aikido is invincible because it contends with nothing.” When we approach our practice from the mindset of wanting to defeat others, we train ourselves, literally teach our nervous system, to expect resistance at every turn and find ourselves fighting with everyone and everything. If this is the way you’d like to live, that’s your choice, but Aikido offers something different.

A Caveat

Though awasegeiko can teach us to move smoothly and apply technique skillfully, one eventually needs to learn to manage an attacker who isn’t compliant. This is not the place to begin your practice, but if you spend a lifetime throwing and being thrown with complete passivity you will end up uncertain of yourself and, ironically, be left with nothing but your fight-or-flight reaction to deal with real conflict when it occurs. Life gets messy, and one must be able to remain centered and keep peace within himself even in the face of aggression.

Once an aikidoka has learned the basic forms, a thoughtful practitioner will find opportunities to test her skills in situations of less compliance. In the dojo, this may mean asking for a partner to provide resistance during a technique. Sometimes simply training, letting uke move as he does and working through the sticky parts, is quite fruitful. On the far end of this pursuit, some go out and test their skills in the streets as many of O-Sensei’s students did back in the day (despite O-Sensei’s explicit mandate never to fight!).

In my years of teaching, I have found that most students (especially the men—sorry guys!), try jumping to this less-compliant form of practice much too soon. They push, they pull, they stop progressing, and their bodies never learn to relax enough to access those aspects of our art that hold the key to really making it viable.

Now, if a student is patient and able to maintain her sensitivity through awasegeiko, she can eventually begin to study the principles of Aikido with a resistant partner. The key is that when practicing in this way, one must fastidiously not respond to force with greater force. This is both counterproductive and dumb. 

When working in this new paradigm, the aikidoka must accept that she will at times not be able to complete techniques—even with white belts whom she has thrown to the mat hundreds of times prior. With this letting go of the desire to win, to throw, to defeat others, a deeper level of training may then begin.

Eventually, after years of dedicated practice and healthy doses of humility and ingenuity, a practitioner becomes able to fluently respond to a given situation exactly as it is. She doesn’t resist, yet she maintains her ability to move freely and neutralize whatever attack may come. In short, awase, regardless of what comes yet in perfect harmony with the circumstance at hand.

Awase in Context

It struck me recently that this concept of awase has much to offer us now, as we make our way through this pandemic. What does it look like to live in harmony with a virus that has killed hundreds of thousands and collapsed the world economy?  What is the right way to live in a country thrown into further chaos by political division, widespread mistrust, and the legacy of racial injustice rearing its ugly face yet again?

There is no generic answer. I cannot tell you what is right, because although we share the same world, you inhabit your own space. There is no correct puzzle piece, but inevitably your piece fits somewhere and it is your job to find out where that is. 

Awase means bringing oneself into accord with one’s surroundings. It is as much about what’s out there as it is what’s inside you. It cannot exist in a vacuum, and since the world is in constant change, there is no static perfection. We must find what is right in every moment and be willing to let go of the preconceptions or attachments that might otherwise bind us to future misunderstanding.

So you can’t travel—go for a walk in the woods. So you can’t see friends and family—take time to remind yourself of all the people you love and tell them that you love them. So you can’t train, not like you used to—find another way!

Recently it has been hot. We try to avoid training in the dojo because the air circulation isn’t so good. The dojo parking lot retains heat, so we’ve been practicing outside in a local park. At the end of class the other day, one of my students remarked, “You know, there are things I’m going to miss about this Covid time,” and we both looked off over the water to a beautiful smoldering sunset.