I remember George Leonard as tall, kind, and extremely sweaty. My hands would always slip
off his thick wrists as we practiced, him with a tattered brown belt, and me an enthusiastic
4th kyu. He usually trained under another sensei in our dojo, but started showing up at my
sensei’s classes in preparation for his shodan test. I had no idea what he was going through at
the time. It was years later, after reading his wonderful essay entitled “On getting My Black Belt
at Age 52” that I began to glimpse the context. But in those early days, the rank of shodan was
unimaginable. Even though sensei would say “just keep coming to class” and “all in good time,”
it never occurred to me just how far “all in good time” could be, and just how much my
perceptions could change along the way.

After all, when I was in my early twenties, the adults in hakama seemed capable of feats well
beyond most natural abilities, and it wasn’t obvious how such a metamorphosis could occur.
For example, one hot summer day as we sat in seiza listening to our sensei (an early uchideshi
of Saito Sensei and renowned for his weapon skills) a large housefly began lazily buzzing across
the dojo. After the second or third pass, sensei paused to remark about it, casually gesturing in
the air with the boken he held at his side. As he resumed his lecture I noticed the fly lying still
on the mat a few feet away. Although I was one of the more junior in the class, I was often uke
for his demonstrations and felt some responsibility. “Sensei!,” I interrupted, pointing to the
casualty, and then knee-walking over to retrieve the debris. The fly had undoubtedly been
struck precisely by the tip of the sword my teacher so distractedly waved. I had just witnesses
no-mind in action; and yet the class resumed as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

And yudansha wizardry was more than physical. My very first sensei was a hugh obsidian
mountain of a man, taciturn and brooding, whose dojo was on the top floor of a community
building in the Mission District. As an accomplished actor, his intensity might have been
performance, but the respect he commanded as a teacher was unassailable. I was terrified of
him. One day, as he and I sat knee to knee for kokyu dosa, I marshalled my will to grab his
massive wrists and center my breathing. After a momentary pause, he suddenly thrust his face
toward mine, our noses almost touching. Instantly I flew backward onto the mat in reaction to
his piercing gaze. Smiling to himself he rose and walked away, lessen over.

Almost a decade later, after changing jobs and moving across the Bay, I was training in Berkeley
when I had the privilege of sitting in on the shodan test of a young woman who was at least
eight months pregnant. She had been preparing diligently for years, and it was obvious that if
she didn’t achieve her rank now she would have to wait until her responsibilities as Mom
allowed that opportunity again. Our sensei decided that she should test, as long as she, and
especially her ukes, were careful. No suwariwaza or hanmi handachi. No falls. And no errant
strikes during randori, please.

Her test was wonderful, and she moved with a grace and intensity that belied her girth. As the
techniques became increasingly vigorous, the entire dojo was tense and silent, poised on the
knife edge between success and failure, literally between the possibilities of life and death. As
sensei shouted “yamei” at the end of her randori, the dojo erupted in tremendous cheering and
applause, borne both of relief for her safety and pride for her obvious success in risking
everything in her dedication to our art.

I myself hated testing. After my early tests I recall being mostly sore in my shoulders: not from
the techniques, but from the stress! Sensei’s commands would begin to sound like martian, and
my techniques (hardly the word) would rapidly disintegrate into a tunnel of nervous myopia.
Two or three times I worked my way almost to 3rd kyu, and each time I would move houses
or jobs and find myself, years later, starting over in a different dojo with a slightly different style.
I was getting nowhere, slowly.

About ten years ago, in looking for a swimming pool for my family, I found a nearby health club
that also offered aikido, a satellite of a larger Iwama-style dojo in the area, two nights a week.
It was great to be on the mat again and I trained religiously, though advancement still came at a
snail’s pace. I finally reached 3rd kyu at age 52 (hardly anything to write about), and by 2nd kyu
was dismayed to realize that, in terms of cumulative practice hours, I was still only half way to
dan rank. And, it had only taken 28 years.

Around this time, I found myself yearning for the milestone of shodan. I wanted my technique
to be validated, and I wanted to prove that something I set my mind on could, against the odds
of age and awkward nervousness, be achieved by force of will. But most of all, I wanted to
attain the rank of shodan because of my son.

Soon after I left home at 19, my parents separated, and my mom, who had always been a
housewife and mother, went to work to support her two younger children. Nearing 50 she
first got a job in a bakery, studied for and then finally became a real estate agent. Within a few
short years she went from home-maker to salesperson of the year in one of Marin County’s
largest firms. That was a powerful lesson to me: growing older need never be an impediment
to growth. I wanted my son to learn that same simple truth, not by anything that I could say to
him, but simply by his participation in our lives together.

Because my dojo only held classes two nights a week, I started supplementing my training at
our parent dojo, and then at a third Iwama-ryu dojo in the area, with another of Saito Sensei’s
uchideshi. I alternated between feeling that I was progressing and feeling basically incompetent.
Sometimes it seemed my techniques were actually getting worse (though sensei would explain
that my perceptions were becoming more discriminating).

But, the more often I practiced, the more energized I became, the faster I progressed, and the
less prone I was to injury. But I struggled between the need for regular training, and the desire
to be home with my family, helping with homework and piano practice. One day, while
searching online, I became aware of a Aikikai dojo with noon classes not ten minutes from my
place of work. I joined the next day, and was soon training seven times a week.

The hours were accumulating swiftly now, and I anticipated having the number required for
testing sometime in early February. But as winter came and went, and spring turned to
summer, I imagined my sensei was thwarting me. I trained harder, visiting dojos wherever I
travelled, attending seminars, and keeping notes on details and variations. Amazingly, as my test
date was set first for June, then October, and finally mid-November, I went from confident and
impatient to unsure and self-deprecating; from a desire to prove myself, to a deeper trust in
and submission to the process.

In Iwama dojos there is a particular structure to the run-up to any test. The candidate is
expected to seek a higher ranking student who will agree to serve as mentor, helping fine-tune
the techniques in the months before, and to serve as uke during, the actual test. This pre-test
period is a kind of intense tempering by fire. In many way, both uke and nage are put on the
line, since it falls to the Uke to forge the blade of the student for the next rank, and the
candidate is expected to be completely immersed in the flame of exhausting practice and study.
During class the candidate is singled out and put through the gauntlet, criticised relentlessly,
pushed to the limits of endurance in randori and jiyuwaza. And, it’s a lot to ask of uke too,
since many nights and weekends training outside of class are required.

My sensei suggested that I again begin training at our parent dojo in an effort to find a sempai
there who would agree to mentor me. But by now I had been training for over a year at my
other dojo, and felt at home and committed there. The idea of giving up that time to train at a
third location was troubling. Finally, my teacher agreed to allow me to ask a senior student
from there to serve as my uke, as long as their sensei also agreed. Amazingly, everyone
consented. A nidan from Alameda began training twice a week at my dojo, while we spent
weekends practicing on the mat at his. This was unprecedented. But finally, I was beginning
to grasp what George Leonard had been going through.

My test occurred on a beautiful sunny day in my dojo with its panoramic Bay Area views. My
sensei called the test, as his sensei sat next to him and observed. Unexpectedly, the sensei of
my other dojo also showed up to watch! There were students from three dojos present,
friends and family, and the test went well (even though at one point, as my breathing became
strenuous, I wondered if that was what fibrillation felt like: just like George Leonard
described, I realized later).

I have always been told that shodan is simply a serious beginner, regardless of how magical it
had once appeared. That was now obvious: I felt nothing like the masters I had observed, but
rather like the newest most inexperienced baby in the class. Kohai would expect guidance
from me that I was incapable of providing; and sempai were probably wondering when I’d get
over it and just train. But I began to notice another subtle shift in my understanding that I
never anticipated: it was also a bit like becoming a father.

Prior to the birth of my son, my life was mine, and centered around my development and my
experiences. But the minute little Sean was born a kind of genetic switch was thrown.
Suddenly, I became a kind of husk as my existence and survival became reincarnated into my
offspring. My life was now about my son’s development and experiences. In the dojo, my goal
had always been to perfect and expand my technique. But now, students might look at me,
wearing a black belt, and think that what I was doing was aikido. Therefore, I came to realize, I
needed to expand and perfect my technique not so much for me, but to better serve as the
best example for others of our philosophy and discipline. That’s a much more important, and
humbling, responsibility. And something I now hope to achieve all in good time.

When, so long ago, I heard that phrase, “All in good time,” I assumed the meaning was in the
first word. As if, sooner or later “All” would be accomplished. Years later I’ve come to
appreciate that the meaning has more to do with the “good time” that the “all” occurs in.
Frankly, shodan is hardly a destination; It’s barely a small milestone near the beginning of a very
long path that’s all about practice, not result. But it’s precisely within all those hours of
practice, from the very first until some endless, and unattainable ideal, that the “good time” will
be found.