Aki Fleshler Shihan, 7-dan
Just Sit in your Dojo and Polish your art. Even if you have no students, you go to the Dojo and train.
— Chiba Sensei
This was the admonition given to me as I left Albuquerque for Portland—setting out, as it felt at the time, into unknown territory. (Surely I was not the first to hear these words. Also there was Shibata Sensei’s advice, standing at the edge of the cliff on the west face of the Manzanos: “Just jump. Use natural kokyu…”)
Nearly twenty years before, at my first encounter with Aikido, I felt as if falling into the bottomless eyes of a lover I had been seeking. There was no question of pulling back. “Just shut up and train,” is the simplest explanation of everything that came next.
As a student in another person’s dojo, I had long occupied one corner of the triangle Chiba Sensei described so vividly in “The Dojo as a Sacred Space: Teacher, Student, Dojo.” Even as a senior student—with responsibilities at the level of Fukushidoin—one does not stand at the apex. That place belongs to the Chief Instructor, the one who bears responsibility for both transmission and space.
To open a Dojo is to presume, in some sense, to step into the other two vertices of that triangle. It is an act that requires both confidence and humility—often in unequal measure.
Sensei’s instruction, then, was not about location. It was about orientation: remain a student. “Remember,” he said. “You are creating your own ukes for the rest of your life.” Um, serious business!
In a new city, with no established community, I found myself building not just a Dojo, but a Forge. Each day required showing up—to create the conditions for training, and then to submit myself to them. Hammer and anvil, flame and water. The work was no longer private. My understanding, my gaps, my habits—all of it became visible. At this stage, it is easy to believe you understand the art: how techniques should work, how they should be taught. But your students reveal the truth. They embody your teaching—or they don’t.
This is when a different kind of practice begins. Do you know the Serenity Prayer?:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
After thirty years, my path shifted again. I began to think about the divine dance of O’Sensei and his jyo. “Who is your teacher?” he was asked. “Nature,” he responded (so I am told). Choosing to step away from formal Dojo life, the four walls, the triangle, I entered what I think of as a third stage: the “No-Dojo Dojo.” Training continued, but without the structure that had once defined it. I was delighted to learn the phrase, Jikishin Kore Dojo—“Sincere Mind is the Place of the Way.” It resonated deeply. In all times and places, and through all circumstances, one is still on the Path.
And yet, there are times when the Path itself seems to disappear. But still, the work remains. “Sit in your Dojo and Polish your art”. Each day begins with Shoshin; bows of gratitude and respect to the flow from the past and into the future; and then, engaging with the present: Polishing. With the few students who continue alongside me, I sometimes call our practice “Suburi with Sensei.” Simple, repetitive, essential. At this time I am not sure who is meant by “Sensei.” This is not limited to my tiny training space. Bowing and Polishing await one’s attention, wherever and whenever. It feels, at times, like wandering in an open field without clear direction. And yet, I find that I am not alone there: Rumi writes:
My place is the placeless, my trace is the traceless.”
“In the end, to take a step without feet…
And always, there is the reality of embodied life: loving, aging, losing, grieving, accepting, renewing, even dying and resurrecting. At a certain point, the illusion of permanence can no longer be maintained. Aikido is not for the strong alone. It is for the small, the vulnerable, the ordinary person facing extraordinary moments, impossible situations. As physical capacity changes, the art demands refinement: wholeness, precision, efficiency, and ultimate simplicity. Impermanence begins to reveal itself as a gift. I start remembering the lover’s eyes. I start remembering the first time I heard Coltrane. I start remembering the newborn in my arms.
And so, the Polishing continues.
That is enough for today. Tomorrow, we return to the Forge.
Gassho
