Walk before you run

Too often we forget to take those baby steps. A decade long research conducted in joint venture with a BBC production traces the life of a group of babies from the pregnancy stage till childhood. These types of research is not new in the West. Previously, a study was conducted that traced High IQ kids right through their lives to try and make sense of how IQ is related to success in life (they aren't, at least not all of it). One such research comes to mind. In this particular research, they found a group of adults who have painful social skills, or minor disorders especially when it comes to confidence and inferiority complex. They discovered that it was somewhat related to the fact that these adults had never really learned to walk the way other toddlers walked. In fact they mostly skipped the crawling and falling down stage. Instead, they were advanced through the process by using walking aids.

As a result, these toddlers gained muscle and strength on their legs faster and walked earlier than the 'natural process' kids. But researchers later found out, that because these toddlers didn't go through the process of crawling, standing up and falling down they have this fear of failing and also the inability of picking themselves up from disappointment. Apparently, this physical development conforms the child's psychological development as well.

Long story short, the researchers had the adults relieve this part of growing up again. Lo and behold, they had a high percentage of success to get the adults over their pschological illnesses.

Now... last night we took a step back. Last night instead of training the basics of aiki we got back to training our center and extension. The reason is simple. Everyone wants to do what Sensei does. Touch a person, and that person flip flops all over the place. Its cool, I'll get respect that way, or no one is going to touch me now! I'm thinking all those things too... but remember this. Sensei isn't about teaching magic tricks. And aiki tricks is not going to really help you except in demos with your friends and victims.

To learn a bit of aiki tricks, all you need is perseverance. You definitely won't get everything, but you'll get something. And that something maybe enough to convince you that things are going to plan. Unfortunately, that's not going to be the case. In everything there is a base and if your base is hollow, those walls are going to tumble down one day. Soon even.

So what are the basics? Well, the 4 principles of aikido which we have mentioned time and time again. But which we haven't really focused the training on. Yes, its true we have done it from time to time. Its just not enough to do it once a month. Because at the end of the day its like learning to move again. You didn't learn to walk in one day, it took you months. It started with the crawling, the standing up, the scooting, the falling and the the stumbling walks before you got to this walking around thingey.

The training we are doing now, to develop the center and extension is your brand of crawling and scooting. So make sure you do it every day. Otherwise, if you come to class each week and ask me how to feel center, I won't be able to help you. After all, no one taught you to walk but yourself.

So to recap the things we did:

1. Funakogi Undo - stand in hanmi. keep center and relax your body. Do not let your hands flip flop but have some feeling of extension in them. Move your center forward, to move your body and hands. Your body and hands are one unit. As you move your center back, your body and hand follows. Things to avoid are moving your hips, moving your bottoms, moving your hands independantly, stiffening your shoulders and other joints. Breath in and out naturally. You can time it to the movement.

Remember with Funakogi undo, the weight of your body sits on the balls of your feet or your big toes. But do not lift the heels. Just do not rest your weight there. Some people can try to derive power from the ground path. For now just link your center to your feet and move the center. Later you can try to generate power from the ground into the center into the hands and outwards. That will be the basis for you to do the 'wave' and also 'atemi'. Remember that the atemi showed was not a physical strike but it does penetrate uke.

2. Sayo undo. Hands to the side and the knees closest to the hands bent. The other leg is straight. Weight is evenly distributed and still on your toes or balls of the feet. Use your center to move side to side, not the legs or the hips. Your hands and body as one unit as you do the bending down. This is to get into your mind to not move your hands or tilt the body independantly. Instead, you are lowering your center down to move them down.

Remember how we used this to enter someone trying to knee us. Or to move freely and let the knees drive past us. This can only be done if you don't go up or down using your legs or body. Because uke is holding on to you and he can feel your body move that way. Using your center to move, your body moves as a unit and its harder for uke to react. It also makes it very light.

3. Tekubi Kosa Undo. Standing naturally feet shoulder length, arms loose and all parts of the body relaxed. Your body weight now extends into your fingers, you bring the hands to your center and out and in again side to side.

At any point, ask a partner to lift your hands up. If they can't and you're not exerting any power nor are you stiffening your shoulders, then you are doing it right. Remember the scooping pendelum motion used here.

4. Tekubi joho kosa undo. Same stance but this time the hands are swung in front of your face.

5. Ude furi undo. (actually this name is for another exercise that requires you to move, but its the same principle) Same stance. Now put one of your hands in front of you and the other one behind you. Using your center swing them around and back again. Hands are relaxed and extended but try to make sure its just loose for now. Shoulders do not move. Hips do not move. Don't sway your body. Initially you will be using the muscles around your navel to move your hands. When you get better, this physical aspect will diminish over time.

5. Ushiro Tekubi Tori Kotai Undo. Stand naturally, hands come up using center close to your body, palms down infront of you but the extension goes up. One leg steps back hands extend forward in line with your back (like bowing).

This trains your hand to move up with center and extension. It also shows you that you can extend forward even though you are moving backwards. Later this will give you an idea on how movement and extension can go different directions.

6. We also did the arm raising thing and letting gravity pull it down. Letting gravity do the work creates a weight on your hands which is natural and not derived from your muscles. This is the feeling you need to carry with you when we strike or handle uke. When you work with weapons, again you move the direction of the weapon but let gravity help with the strike.

The other exercises we did reinforces the basic exercises and principles we are training.

Aihanmi katatedori. We showed the difference of using muscle power and technique to achieve kuzushi as opposed to using gravity, extension (and unbendable arm) and center to move.

From there we practiced nikkyo. Again using strength and technique we showed that uke can resist or run away. Then we use relaxed but extended arms and center to center connection we bring down uke without pain and uke finds it difficult to move his hands away.

We then did gyaku hanmi nikkyo using the same ideas.

Then we did katedori tenkan. Using the geddan version where our fingers are pointed downwards and uke grabs the wrist from the top. Scooping our hands like we are in a river and we avoid blocking the scoop by doing irimi tenkan. The scooping is done to take the water but not the mud of the river so its very light. The shape is like a pendalum and not straight lines.

We then had uke unbalanced. And now we showed that even then, pulling and pushing just gives power back to uke. So we used our center to move in a big circle. Then we stop and then moved uke again this time we bring our hands down then up our heads then down in front of us again. Done right, the feeling uke is like a yo yo with springs. Very wave like. Uke's weight doesn't bother us and uke doesn't feel as if he's being pulled down and up.

That should mostly cover everything we did in class. Not everything, but enough so that you can work on the stuff that's important.

Small steps up the mountain...

I think we've all know that nothing is constant. Our knowledge that we subscribe to in books and manuals and stories, they change with time. Our history changes in time. Our understanding of something changes everytime we experience it anew, or when we receive an explanation of it from a different perspective.

The problem with defining something as something is that you are bound to redefine it later. So it is with this mindset we must approach our learning. Firstly, we learn with a clean mind. We learn the form. We learn Kihon. Basic.

By learning basic, we receive building blocks. The more basic we have the more building blocks we can use.

In order to use the building blocks, we now have to learn the principles of using it. Needless to say, balancing the blocks unevenly and we will unlikely create very tall structures. Thus the principles come to play when we start playing with the building blocks. Principles alone however, without the building blocks is essentially writing music on the score sheet without an instrument to play it. Theoretically it may be music, it looks like music, but you don't hear anything yet.

So kihon and genri are very closely related. Between the two, you are more than likely be able to produce a rudimentary form of Aikido. With Kihon and Genri, we try to define it in a certain way. This is so, anyone practicing Aikido can recognise others doing the same thing. They would also be able to respond or play together. If different people practice Kihon in different ways, getting on the mat would be terribly difficult.

Having understood Kihon and Genri, experienced practitioners will develop the power/potence/effectiveness. We reach this Aiki-chikara usually after a keen 2-3 years training on the mat. At this point in time, we should not only understand all the formal techniques available in the Aikido curriculum, we should be able to use them to the predefine attacks in a smooth and powerful manner. We also should by now, understand the basics of Center line, kuzushi, maai, extension, relaxation, spirals, irimi and tenkan. This level, we have come to grips of the bio-mechanical aspect of Aikido.

Now, imagine 2 cars. 2 Ferraris, same make same model. Put them on the track and tell me who will win the race? Think about the variables now. We can talk about different tyres, different engine oil, spark plugs, brake, fuel and all sorts of things that make cars go tick. Presumably, that if the cars were driven by the same person, the car with the best stuff in it would probably win the race. If they were different car models, we could easily point out that this car's engine has more torque thus produces more acceleration power, the other has more gears and can reach a higher top speed, this one has better suspension, thus can take better turns. All in all, we focus on the mechanical aspects and we feel we now know which car is the best.

Unfortunately, you inherited your body and its going to last you a lifetime. There's no changing this model. There is no upgrades for your engine. Sure you can fine tune it with exercise, diet, meditation, knowledge and experience... but in the end, your body is your limitation. Because physical things have limits.

Going back to the race car. Say the 2 equally similar cars competing with each other. Who would win if for example, Schumacher was driving one, and you the other. Most of us would probably say we won't stand a chance. Yet, the physical thing has not changed at all. Its the exact same car with the exact same engine. Theoretically we are even.

Yet intuitively we know that we won't be able to use the car like Schumacher could. We won't turn the way he does, brake the way he does or push the car like he does. Schumacher is like the spirit of the car. His spirit encompasses the physical aspect of the car. He brings with him the knowledge and experience, yes... but also he brings with him the intuitiveness and feeling. We can teach you the same thing Schumacher knows, and theoretically you'll be just as good as him. Yet you lack the thousands of hours he had racing, of all the experiences he had winning and losing, of feeling the tracks, of understanding the car from the sound, vibrations and etc. Schumacher will win, because he can feel the car better than you do.

So, the question is how do we attain that level of feeling? Is it gauged by the number of years you train? Certainly, hours training will help. Experience counts for a lot. As long as the training is honest, bit by bit you will learn what works and what doesn't. Again, you can use the building blocks and principles to experiment with what works and what doesn't. If that is so however, you will see everyone racing as long as Schumacher has be as good as him. You will see countless of Michael Jordans, and Tiger Woods. Yet, these people are few and far in between. They are the notables...

The reason why I wanted to point this out is simple. Whenever we feel disheartened that we can't do something as well as another person. Remember that we have to go through a process. And even if we do go through the entire process, sometimes others will attain excellance before you do. Do not question your ability just yet. You may not be able to perform as well as the star, but you too have skills which others lack. So the question is not How do I get as good as him... but should be Am I doing everything I can?

Attention Intention!!

Last week we were working on developing further our awase skills. I started out with aiki ken where Uke is in Jo-dan. Nage gets as close as he can to uke without alarming him. Uke's intent is to strike nage when he crosses a certain threshold. Nage however must feel that threshold and stop before it.

At that point, nage proceeds to draw his bokken and strike horizontally across uke'e eyes. In that instant, if done with proper extension and feeling, uke has to step back to avoid the strike. Being unable to strike first. The moving of nage requires whole body movement to achieve this.

Uke then strikes down, nage responds with awase and strike back.

Using this as a starting point we proceeded to tachi waza beginning with Nikkyo. Here nage offers the hand. But just offering the hand is not enough. The intention to offer the hand corresponds to nage's earlier cutting of uke's eyes. The hand being offered is an atemi of the mind. As uke grabs, nage awase upwards instead of waiting for the grab. Done right, uke's hands latches on but does not have any control over nage, instead nage now use chushin to control uke's center. Nikkyo is done one handed, by cutting uke's center with nage's center. There will be no pain, uke is unbalanced.

Partners are also asked to do common place variations like blocking and parrying and using two hand nikkyo in order to feel the difference. Most notably, they are asked to compare with just offering the hand as opposed to using the hand as an atemi.

The lesson here is our intention begins our connection to uke. Uke's intention to attack begins his connection to us. By making our intention valid in our minds, we no longer respond to uke's attack but we preempt it. We are joined with him when he begins his attack. But the difficulty is to maintain intent without inherent agressiveness or posturing. The intent stops at the connection level but does not go to the physical level as yet. As uke comes, awase comes naturally as a result of the intent being there. Without intent, nage as fast as he is, awase will feel awkward or clashy.

As a result of good awase, nage now finds himself with positional dominance and chushin can be applied appropriately. Now by focusing on that connection, cutting uke's center is easier. If we relied on the physical connection, cutting is an exercise of strength and mechanics.

Friday night

Last night, we started the first aiki class in my friends dojo. Not that I had that much to teach. Its going to be more like a practice session for us to share and try to develop the necessary components and understanding of ki in Aikido.

To remind myself of what we have done I would like to post it as somewhat of a journal here. That way, I can remind myself what we have done so far and what more we can add bit by bit into the future.

We started of with an explanation on how to practice that night. The idea behind the practice is not to complete a waza or accomplish a throw. But it is to feel. Feeling your center, the connection and your opponents center. Being able to accomplish a finishing move is secondary.

We also described the stages of learning that we will be trying to achieve. Beginning with Chushin, Awase and then to Musubi and kinonagare.

The principles of relaxation, keeping one center, extending ki and focus is described and asked to be maintained throughout the session.

To being the weapons practice, we practiced shomen with the bokken. Using a 3 step shomen style. Grip the bokken with the fingers lightly, holding the bokken about 2-3 inches from hara and the tip pointing towards uke's imagined throat. Hands and shoulders relaxed, extend ki into the tip of the bokken. One step forward and raise bokken lightly using ki. Shoulders are down, elbows are down, the hilt is above our eyebrows and the bokken diagonally above our heads. Strike by first extending our forearms to fingers to bokken. Done properly it almost looks like we are casting forward. Regardless, the aim is to extend ki into the strike, thus we do not feel heavy hands, strength in shoulders or looking like a chopping movement. Done right it should feel light hands, heavy tip, relaxed arms and shoulders and the bokken will not point down at the end of the cut.

The first practice was jo and bokken paired practice. We did a shomen with a bokken, a side step with jo and extending center through the jo into the partners forearm without pushing or 'hitting' it. Through the jo and contact with the forearm, nage is to feel his center connected with uke's center. Uke is to provide feed back by, first indicating whether he feels pain (which is wrong), he feels being pushed (wrong), and whether he can move freely without nage being able to control/sense it. Lastly, if nage can manage it, he can try moving with chushin to kuzushi nage, take center and tenkan or take center and uproot etc.

The second practice was again paired practice. This time the emphasis is on awase. Nage with jo, slides right food to the back and puts 70% of weight to the front, leaning forward. The Jo is extended upwards into uke's throat. Contact is emphasised as pure awase with no blocking or avoiding. The goal is to achieve blending as uke raises bokken not as he strikes downwards. As the cut is complete, jo is touching the bokken lightly, chushin is felt, musubi is also felt on the weapons. Nage proceeds to advance lightly all the time with the feeling of extension. At any time uke feels force on his weapon, he can withdraw to strike. Nage proceeds to stand just parallel to uke and lightly perform iriminage.

I originally intended to continue with jo from there with nage taking uke's center through the jo he is holding. From there, I wanted to do uke tsukit nage and nage again controlling and playing with uke's center. But, seeing as this requires more indepth exposure to weapons for the new students, we left it for the future.

Next we did tachiwaza shihonage. Uke holds gyakuhammi. For omote, nage is asked to first extend his ki physically through his hands. Gradually he is asked to reduce the physical extension but maintain only ki extension. The idea is that physical extension usually limits our ki extension to the tip of the fingers. Once we have reduced physical extension, maintaining extended ki into uke's center at all times, we bring our center down lightly by bending the knees and we proceed to enter uke's space in front of him. Done right, uke doesn't feel force through his hands but he will be uprooted slightly. Keeping our connection through the hands, and maintaing our extension, we kaiten and extend our hands slightly. Uke should fall of his own accord. Nage should not cut down his hands as it is not necessary. This is to avoid physical pulling of uke. Unbalanced as he is, pulling down uke will not be too hard, but it voids our practice goals.

In ura waza, we do tenkan first. Again beginning with physical extension and then only ki extension. Bring our center near our hands with disturbing uke. Drop center and tenkan. The rest is the same. Only reminding ourselves to be slightly forward of uke throughout the tenkan. It is never past uke and our hands are never behind us but always extended in front of us.

Later we may practice shihonage with 2 hands. But for now, the main goal is to ensure we feel connection and extension of ki. I believe if we start with 2 hands as usual, nage will likely start using physics and power to move uke.

After this we experimented a bit with ateru as a taster to musubi practice and understanding aiki.

Then we did suwari kokyu. Starting with again physical extension and then relaxing into just ki extension. First nage just blends into uke and uproots then letting uke fall down. 2nd, uke is now asked to do something with nage's hands. Pull, push, pull down or spread apart. Nage must extend ki and connect with nage. Forgetting both his hands and uke's hands, feeling center alone, nage now feels where uke's center is offbalanced and moves the center there. The physical movement follows the center movement. Done right uke cannot resist this. It is not, if uke push nage pulls. It can be uke push, and nage actually returns back uke's hands towards him. All depends on where uke's center can be brought to off balance.

In the next class we may practice jo tsuki and bokken shomen with unarmed disarming. The practice will focus on awase and chushin.

Back from Gashoku in Jakarta

Just got back today from a 2 day Aiki camp in Puncak at Jakarta. I would show you pictures but since I used up all my memory card for videos instead, you'll have to make do with my words painting the view.

First of all, I had hoped I would lose a little bit of weight say 1-2 kg during the camp. I mean after all we're talking about 5 sessions a day here. Unfortunately it didn't happen quite to plan. The food in Jakarta is undeniably good and they have rice with everything.

Ok back to the subject at hand. I won't narrate everything we did, but only the things I want to make a point of remembering.

The first class we did was with weapons. Jo and bokken practice. The katana tsuki and jo takes awase in 2 ways. One where we had the jo vertical to the side and we irimi to his hand and musubi with chushin. The 2nd, we awase like spear diagonally upwards to uke. The awase is 0 energy by the way. We then continue to go in and execute an irimi nage. Again, no physical pushing, musubi.

We did all the characters of Aiki. Some helpful tips.

For downwards ki, one basic method is to harden ki extension physically and then make it zero.

For ateru (this not proper ateru btw, just like the above is not the correct downwards ki), receive and return. Its almost enveloping the power back like a wave. It does not feel like a catch.

Proper ateru. I managed a bit sporadically here. Keep the feeling of skin and uke's skin. Move uke's skin with yours. Forget gathering ki to center and exploding it out. That's more like Focused energy. In fact sensei says that my skill hitting is focused energy method which can evolve into ateru.

Pulling aiki. Again skin moving skin is the best. A beginner may visualise uke's tanden and connect, then pull the tanden with our movement. Ie. our tanden connect with uke's. Our tanden move our hand and uke's tanden like a line. Don't use triceps!

Always be aware of uke's grip on whereever it is he's gripping. If any movement enforces the sensation, then that is the wrong way.

All waza can use the different characters of aiki. Our preference will be decided by the type of person we are and the situation that uke engages us. But in this school we practice all.

Practiced with jo disarming. Again practice awase.

To reinforce my last post, the sequence of practice is this:

1. Chushin

2. Awase

3. Musubi

4. Kino nagare.

Remember there are various levels of ability for each of the above. But each ability leads to the other. So start with Chushin like sensei, but practice for awase. And when we understand awase more, practice for musubi.

Also, we are reminded that an opponent that grabs us, could have hit us.

If we just focus on tanden to tanden connection, what happens when we have multiple attackers. That's when musubi comes into play. Again musubi here is long distance musubi. Train this with enveloping aiki.

Note, ateru is not harmful. But it will be painful against people who resist especially those who uses energy build ups or shields. Most times they'll get better on their own though it hurts. But other times you'll need someone to push the locked energy out. I have a theory that it all gets warped out because ateru does not have impact. It also doesn't penetrate. It crushes but there is no impulse energy.

Kaoru was heard to mention relax your legs. In fact at anytime we do anything, our body parts should be able to move. Hmm, funny because during our weapons awase, the stances were too wide. Though, the feeling was relaxed. I guess its ok to have long stances if we are not dead weight but poised/as in connected with musubi.

Sensei's parting advise is to teach everyone extension and center. I told him we will practise aiki with the regulars. Otherwise, we'll fall behind everyone in Jakarta.

Something else I need to remember is, we can enter someones space. In fact when we did a tachi version of the jo awase/disarming, it is very penetrative. The feeling is uke gets cramped down. Also note the tachi waza here is more powerful then the jo version. Nage's circle is smaller. This is also harder to do but the key point here is awase must be 0 energy.

I can't remember anything else for now, I'll add it later.

Arigato gozaimus.

Ah, a final wisdom...

What is an apple? A red skin? A yellow flesh? A sweet taste? A nutrious food? A seed...

The Principles of Aikido and Aiki

Whew, the weeklong training with Hakim sensei is coming to an end. Although it has been a hectic week with too many late nights for my liking, the learning has been non stop.

The best thing of it all is that, every practice has been rejuvenating. Its unlike training with some aikido classes, where students ache with pain and injury and training is more often than not a cumbersome exercise filled with disheartening moments.

The practice is not easy. Though physically it is not as demanding as normal classes since Hakim sensei is fond of lecturing about Aikido as much as he is of physically doing 'aikido'. After all, the key here is that Aikido is spiritual in nature. The fundamental aspect that makes it different to other arts, is the spirit and heart that is required to practice aikido with.

Anyway, before I forget everything I've learned so far let me just jot some key points here for everyone's sake.

Principles of Aikido

1. Keep Center

2. Relax

3. Extend Ki

4. Intention

Followed by the Stages

1. Aiki no Kokoro (heart of aiki)

2. Aiki no Genri (principles of aiki)

3. Aiki no Waza (the techniques)

4. Aiki no chakray (the power)

5. Takemusu Aiki (all encompassing/complete aiki)

Characters of Aiki

1. Entering ki

2. Downwards ki - disolve

3. Inviting ki

4. Absorp ki

5. Pulling ki

6. Ateru

7. Enveloping ki/control the mind

No mind

Not thinking about the unnecessary

Immovable spirit

acceptance, surrender

Other training elements

Taking the opponents line. Using inviting aiki, we flow with the line but do not avoid it.

Cut, cut and cut both as nage and uke to maintain weapons

Although we cut, we must find the path to cut and not cut blindly

Extend opponents ki. Up, Down and fingers.

Whilst we extend our ki, make sure we do not just physically extend. There is extension in the mind and the hands are relaxed. We can do physical extension in certain circumstances, but at times we need to make our hands 0 but still extend in the center.

Awase, Musubi and Kino nagare

Maintain chushin. Saeka tanden, kokoro tanden, jo tanden.

Musubi - standing to standing.

Feel opponents center and manipulate it.

Shihonage - ashi sabaki, center down, hand lightly touch above, center move together.

Irimi - 3 styles. Head sweep in. Chushin rotating arm. Ashi sabaki irimi control hand body and throat.

Kuzushi kosadori. Center close. Down. Draw the sword out.

Musubi - point in hand move.

Moritodori - center close and turn point.

awase ryotedori. Cut horizontal.

Kotegaishi - finger ki direction. Grab is touching with fingers.

I think I'm too sleepy to make more sense then this.

Weeklong training with Hakim Sensei

My teacher from Jakarta is here in KL for a little more than a week. Last night we had our first class and from Sunday onwards we will have a week long practice everyday.

Sometimes, all our life we will be learning from a teacher who gets paid to do his/her work. Some of them might be teachers you like and some would be the ones you dislike. But rarely do you find a teacher who teaches you in order to learn.

In Aikido, a teacher teaches not just because he has something to learn, but he teaches so that he too learns as well. But finding a teacher such as that is difficult. Also finding a teacher who understands that very important aspect, AND also has some very good fundamentals to teach is monumentally more difficult. I am blessed to have found Hakim sensei who is what I consider my true Aikido teacher.

Having said that, anyone here will think I have now shown disrespect to my previous teachers Sensei Kolesnikov, John, Sara and Marcus; and all those Shihans and sensei's who have I have spent considerable time with Yamada, Ariffin, Harry and so on. They have all thought me something and that is undeniable. Yet, they have not fulfilled the role of being a teacher to me. That they have taught me much including ettiquette and fundamental aikido skills is important. Yet a teacher must also teach spirit and he must do that not by just lecturing but also doing.

That is why it is important to practice with a teacher. Because mere words alone do not translate well into the page of Aikido. Most physical arts require physical instruction. Aikido goes beyond physical instruction and requires mental and spirit unification. Imagine how much harder one has to practice in order to attain this.

Seeing Hakim sensei's aikido is testament to his abilities. At his young age, one is surprised to see how well he grasps the knowledge of Aiki. But he himself was in a similar state of any aikidoka out there not too long ago. He had been taught by several senseis and have reasoned that his skills were if not the best, certainly respectable. Until he found himself unable to execute his techniques on a certain individual. Realising that he has found a weakness in his art or himself, he sought a teacher. That teacher told him that his techniques are already good but his heart is not good enough. Finally the teacher agreed to teach him if Aikido until he requires no techniques anymore.

And because of that failure, Hakim sensei has finally found his path and the knowledge that he craved for. Certainly that knowledge is something that I too crave for and I believe any aikidoka out there would want that even if they do not know it themselves. Otherwise, why are we learning Aikido?