A brand new year! Well, already the first month of this year has gone. And the world is a very different place to 2006.

We have one fewer dictator in the world after the hasty execution of Saddam Hussein just before New Year; the Republican party in the States has lost the war in Iraq and its grip on power back home; the earth is warmer - finally it is OK to admit that the weather is seriously funny and that we have caused it for the most part through our drive to consume. Imagine that the German bobsled team has to train on wheels - in the middle of WINTER in Germany!!!

But the beginning of the year is also a good time to start afresh, to look at what we have achieved in the preceding period and what the growth points should be for us in the new year. I graded to Sandan (3rd-degree) at the end of last year - the first time I had graded in nearly 9 years. And what it amounted to in the end was a validation of what I had been doing up until now, feedback regarding what I needed to concentrate on, and the realisation that after 20 years of practice, I was still a student - and would always be one.

Approaching your practice with the mind of a beginner is difficult. Most of us are focussed on becoming better or the best - in and of itself not a bad thing. However, we often measure success in terms of our relative standing to others. If Aikido or Life were a sport or a game, that ranking would be important. However, one of the central goals in Aikido (and in Life) is to become a better person. And that we can only do by looking within. And by becoming more aware - of others, of our attacker/partner, of ourselves. Every technique represents a dynamic relationship between uke and nage born in the moment they come together. Our lifelong practice represents a relationship with ourselves that seeks constantly to challenge the way we do things, how we react, what impact we have on the world around us. And in that regard we are all beginners.

At practice recently I was confronted with having to demonstrate a technique the execution of which I had not seen before. What a liberating experience! To be transported back to the position of being a beginner, and the excitement as the mind and body searched and cut-and-pasted from the thousands of movements they had experienced before until the movements felt right, until we stepped into the flow...

For having the mind of a beginner values what has gone before, validates our prior knowledge but opens us up to new experiences, or new perspectives on an old problem. Training with a beginner's mind does not mean we are stupid. Rather, it says that we are ready to learn, for if you are not making mistakes, chances are you are not learning.

So come step onto the safe space represented by the tatami and come make mistakes. Rather there than in real life...

See you on the tatami soon...

Ghalib

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