{"id":2431,"date":"2019-05-05T12:36:23","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T16:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/?p=2431"},"modified":"2020-02-17T08:46:56","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T13:46:56","slug":"little-and-big-aikido-suggestions-for-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/?p=2431","title":{"rendered":"Little and Big Aikido: Suggestions for the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n\n

Lynne Ballew, April 2019<\/em><\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

An article in the series Transition: the Next Generation of Leadership<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lynn with Chiba Sensei<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have not\nbeen on the mat for 16 months and I have been retired from Birankai leadership\nfor the same amount of time, yet here I am writing an article for Biran…still\nvolunteering for an organization that I am no longer involved with.  I began volunteering for Chiba Sensei in 1992\nand I never stopped until December 2018. \nOver those 20 years I easily spent 15,000 volunteer hours for Birankai\nand Chiba Sensei, probably more, I never counted.  It is worthwhile to analyze what motivated me\nto volunteer in order to understand what it would take to attract a new\ngeneration of leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wanting to give back to Sensei<\/strong> \u2013 Despite being a confirmed lifetime klutz, at 33, I began training in earnest.\u00a0 As my commitment to my training increased, my teacher took my training more seriously.\u00a0 He started using me for ukemi and paying attention to my progress on the mat.\u00a0 Because he, as my Teacher, took me seriously, I took him very seriously and felt compelled to give back to him and to the organization that he had established. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was fun<\/strong> \u2013 I enjoyed volunteering.  I had a chance to be creative and use what I\nwas good at.  For years I was the junior\nranked aikidoka amongst very talented senior ranking practitioners in the\nroom.  They were much better at aikido\nthan I was but I had something to offer that they perhaps did not.  Very talented athletes are not always the\nbest at things outside of their art\/sport. \nIt was really fun to offer my skills to people that needed help.  I felt good about my talents and myself, as\nthey were needed.  People volunteer\nbecause they get something out of it.  I\ngot a seat at the table and companionship from people that I am still close\nwith.   We had lots of fun along the way\nworking on issues and took time to laugh at each other and the process along\nthe way.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was addicted to aikido, it became\nmy life<\/strong> – Sensei had\nus training so hard and intensely that we couldn\u2019t think about anything else;\nwe became completely present in our training. \nThe outside world disappeared while we were on the mat.  I became addicted to this level of training.  I trained 10 hours a week and it became the\ncenter of my world.  It followed\nnaturally from this that I gave something back to my addiction, my world; I\nwould not have been capable of only taking. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family<\/strong> \u2013 While training and volunteering,\nthe people that I was spending time with became like family.  To this day I count among my closest friends\nin the world the people with whom I trained intensively and with whom I helped\nto shape Birankai.  Even in my departure,\nI tried to leave people in place to replace me so as not to let my family down.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was asked and then I asked others <\/strong>\u2013 Before Ismail Hasan Sensei (Aikido\nof London) left the Kenshusei program at San Diego Aikikai, he asked me to\nvolunteer. He was taking care of the family he was leaving behind.  I agreed.  Next, Elizabeth Beringer asked me to be on the\nUSAF-Western Region Advisory Council.  \nIn later years I asked others to volunteer, they also became longtime\nvolunteers.  Lyons Shihan had married and\nwas busy running his farm when I asked him to take on a fundraising project and\nlater to join the Board of Directors; Peterson Sensei was busy with his family\nand military career when I asked him to join the Board of Directors; and Cohen\nSensei  was busy with her family when I\nasked her to volunteer to help with the fundraising job and later to became\nSummer Camp Coordinator.  They all made\npositive contributions and changed the face of our organization because someone\nasked for their time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what does this history lesson\nteach us<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Training must be intense and martial to attract people to become long term practitioners of aikido.<\/strong> –  In order to get people to show up several times a week to the dojo and to subsequently volunteer I think they need to become addicted to the art.  The only way to do this is with very intense training.  However, a caveat to this is that for various reasons that have been outlined by other people in other articles, the population of aikidoka is aging and we are not attracting as many young people to the art as we used to.  With that in mind a serious commitment should be made by Birankai Teachers to develop an aikido that is both highly martial and low impact.  Notice that there are very few post-menopausal women that remain in Aikido, and yet in earlier years women make up a large percentage of our membership.  We need to develop a type of training that remains intense and yet that people are still able to do as bones and joints age.  Get and keep people addicted even in their 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Build community that people want to\nbelong to and therefore are motivated to volunteer for at the dojo level and at\nthe organizational level<\/strong>. – Without the charismatic leader that attracted me to Aikido it is\ndifficult to attract students to become involved beyond the dojo level.  Chief Instructors should consider using\nsummer camp as a way to attract their students to become involved with and bond\nwith the larger organization.  Attending\nsummer camp can help people feel that they belong to the larger \u201cfamily\u201d and\nthus hopefully motivate them to volunteer for the organization.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ask people to volunteer<\/strong>. – It works.  Most people like to be noticed and to think\nthat their contribution might matter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultivate leadership and volunteers<\/strong>. \n– Chief Instructors should cultivate volunteering as an expression of\nand a deepening commitment to one\u2019s Aikido practice.  Birankai leaders should consider how to\ncultivate an environment in which volunteerism is expected and acknowledged at\nevery level and rank in the organization. \nThis will help broaden the pool of volunteers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take time to have fun along the way<\/strong>. – Don\u2019t try to do too much\norganizationally that you don\u2019t leave time for your volunteers to play.  Meetings should have time for a joke or prank\nor two and not be only about business.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recognize the necessity of volunteering<\/strong>. – Note that many years ago we had over 1,000 members in Birankai.  Our current organizational structure was built on that level of membership.  A larger membership enabled the organization to support paying an Executive Director and providing a stipend to support some other organizational jobs.  We have dwindled to 645 members now.  The lower level of people paying dues will mean that finding volunteers is more crucial than ever\u2026somebody else is not going to take care of it\u2026the organization needs you.  Volunteer to help with something. 
Email Deb Pastors at debpastors@att.net<\/a> if you can give as little as 1 or 2 hours a month to help with the many tasks it takes to keep our village running and continue to spread the art of our beloved TK Chiba Shihan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chiba Sensei and Lynne’s daughter, Hanna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lynne Ballew, April 2019 An article in the series Transition: the Next Generation of Leadership I have not been on the mat for 16 months and I have been retired from Birankai leadership for the same amount of time, yet here I am writing an article for Biran…still volunteering for an organization that I am no … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Little and Big Aikido: Suggestions for the Future”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chiba-sensei","category-why-i-practice-aikido"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2RSKg-Dd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2431"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2462,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431\/revisions\/2462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}