I originally wrote this essay in 2012 in preparation for my Aikido ni-dan exam.

“We are not on this earth to accumulate victories, things, and experiences, but to be whittled and sandpapered until what’s left is who we truly are.” Arianna Huffington

I think what first drew me to Aikido was purely intellectual—a flyer describing it as a martial art dedicated to peace and the resolution of conflict. Sounded good. Who doesn’t want peace and conflict resolution? But what kept me coming after the first class wasn’t anything I could intellectualize. My body wanted me there. My heart knew that it was good for me. If anything I found aikido rather scary; for the first couple of months, if a technique called for rolling I would just sit out and watch. But there seemed to be some invisible force compelling me to class each time. Regardless of what happened during the class, when I left the gym, our dojo, I felt at peace, and all the small and large annoyances in my life at that time seemed to just fade away.

Do you ever have those moments of perfect alignment within your heart and mind? There’s a clarity of purpose, an ease of action. What to the outside world may seem difficult, to you it just flows. That for me was Aikido, when I first started training in earnest in the mid 1980s. At some point in my early twenties I realized that Aikido was something I would be doing for the rest of my life. There was no decision involved. It was just the path that was there, like the Yellow Brick Road, beckoning me forward.

For the first several years, the path was clear. I spent most of my twenties doing aikido. I trained with Doran Sensei at Stanford and Aikido West, and with Doran, Nadeau, and Witt Senseis at the Turk Street dojo in San Francisco. After graduate school I traveled to Kyoto, Japan, and trained with the Kyoto University Aikido Club for almost one year, which is where I received my shodan in 1989.

Then training became more difficult to do. I got injured. My career kept me busy and traveling. I had no interest in testing further, after years of school and intensive aikido training, I wanted a social life and I had work to do. I still trained, but only a few times a month, instead 5 days a week. Several years later I got sick, very sick. My training was down to a few times a year, if that.

So, what is it about this path? O’Sensei tells us, “True budo is a work of love. It is not killing or fighting; it is a work of creation and growth which gives life to and nurtures all things. Love is the guardian deity of everything. Nothing can exist without it. Aikido is the expression of love.”

For a couple of years I couldn’t train at all. I could barely walk 50 yards without running out of breath. Every doctor I consulted told me the same thing—avoid all stress, and any activity that might make me tired. My world became very small. I did sitting and standing chi gung meditation twice a week for 4 years.

I didn’t think I could ever do Aikido again.

I learned to let go of everything, to surrender. How I saw myself, my identity, I had to let that go. The things I thought were important—my competence, my vitality, my success, my health—gone. At first I struggled and resisted with this state of affairs, but that took too much energy. This new path, the only path left, was acceptance.

I found that quiet place inside from which springs compassion and serenity.

Surrounded by my family, I learned love.

When everything was stripped away, that was what was left. Love, and a deep appreciation for being alive every moment.

Slowly I started to get better; it took several years. Now I’m 52 years old and I’m taking my nidan test in Aikido. I’m deeply grateful for our sensei, for my training partners, and for the gift of the universe that is letting my body do this practice once again.

I started this essay with a quote by Arianna Huffington, “to be whittled and sandpapered until what’s left is who we truly are.” I love this quote. Now that I’m older, I get it. Aikido, like life, polishes us. Every day we bring our selves and our worlds to the mat, and every training is an opportunity to let go of ego, let go of opinion, anger, emotion, let go of everything that isn’t essential, of everything that isn’t love.