What Makes People Try Aikido
And 5 Tips for the Ones Who Didn’t Escape in Time

I’ve decided to gather a few thoughts and observations about starting out in Aikido. Let’s begin with what a beginner actually faces after making the fateful decision to show up for that very first class.

How do people even get the idea to take up Aikido in the first place?
For all its wide presence, Aikido doesn’t exactly get a lot of publicity or aggressive promotion.
After the Steven Seagal films, there haven’t really been any major cultural moments linked to Aikido that come to mind.
And let’s be honest — Seagal’s characters never actually say they’re doing Aikido.
So anyone not already in the loop would have to go the extra mile to connect Hard to Kill with Aikido — and people, as a rule, prefer not to go any extra miles at all.

The most common myth is the one about “redirecting the opponent’s force against them.”
In Aikido, you don’t need any strength — the attacker has it, and we simply redirect it.
We don’t really have to exert ourselves much, because everything is done for us by magic ki energy, which we’ll master after listening to the Teacher’s lectures on spiritual matters.
This myth is kept alive by a few charlatans who use it to attract a certain type of follower.
You know — the “not like the others” crowd.
Fans of vague talk about harmony and enlightenment, and selfies in a gi.
The whole thing is so pathetic, I don’t even want to talk about it.
Not my target audience anyway — idiots don’t tend to stick around in my dojo.

But even if you set aside the magical, mystical, and “esoteric” parts, there’s still a pretty solid myth left standing — the idea that Aikido is some kind of martial art where no one hits you in the head, no one breaks your arms or legs, and therefore it’s perfectly suitable for any delicate and pampered body.
It doesn’t sound quite as outrageously stupid, but the outcome is the same:
You’ll be “not like the others,” you’ll have gi selfies for Instagram, and you won’t really have to do anything hard.
This myth is more persistent — because it’s powered by one of humanity’s strongest forces: laziness.

Let’s move on.
Our new potential disciple starts googling and reading. He reads, googles again, and keeps reading.
He learns about aiki and kokyu ho, builds up a mental jumble of names, schools, and styles.
He finds out who Sokaku Takeda was and who he taught.
He reads about Hiroshi Tada, Masatake Fujita, Gozo Shioda, Morihiro Saito, Koichi Tohei.
Eventually, he even learns that the old man in the portrait isn’t Confucius — it’s Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido.
Finally, he knows everything about Aikido.
All the myths are busted. He has a crystal-clear understanding of what it really is.
(at this point, I raise my sarcasm sign)
Yes, this is exactly what he, as a beginner, needs.
And in a truly titanic act of willpower — defying the pull of laziness — he finds a site like this one, reads it thoroughly, and concludes that this is the place, with the right people, doing things the right way.