The Most Deflating Moment Of My Aikido Life

When I look back on my Aikido journey, one moment stands out — and not for the reasons you might expect. It wasn’t a triumph, a breakthrough, or a beautiful technique. It was the moment I passed my black belt grading.

After a long week of training at summer school, my body was broken. My knee had gone completely, strapped up and aching with every movement. I was in so much pain for my grading and adding to my discomfort was my Uke who was unforgiving. The judging panel expect a very specific Hombu style that isn’t my thing at all and because of all the reasons above, I was certain that I was going to fail the test.

When they called my name and told me I had passed, I was stunned. Relief, disbelief… but not joy.

We all went to the canteen afterwards for lunch. Friends, senpai, sensei — everyone congratulated me. And yet, as they talked and laughed over lunch, I felt utterly deflated. An overwhelming emptiness settled in. I had reached the milestone I thought I wanted, the one I had trained for so long and visualised so often — and yet inside, I felt nothing at all.

Beyond the Belt

That moment taught me something profound: the belt itself meant nothing. Yes, it represented ten years of practice, commitment, and consistency. But the identity of “black belt” didn’t change me. It didn’t define who I was.

And it made me wonder — how many other labels do I think of as “me”?

• Husband

• Father

• Son

• Musician

• Drummer

• Teacher

• Black belt

If I lost them all tomorrow, would I stop being who I truly am? The answer is whilt labels might be useful in conversation, they never touch the essence of who we are.

If you were to turn your attention inward and ask with complete honesty: Who am I? What you discover is that you are nothing other than awareness itself. All the labels that you thought defined you are only costumes layered on top, masking the simplicity of our true nature.

The Paradox of Grading

This led me to question why Aikido has grades at all?

From white belt to black belt, it’s a dualistic system. It divides. The very structure implies progress comes through accumulating achievement, status, or rank — when in truth, the practice is about doing the opposite: stripping away the layers we’ve built around ourselves.

O’Sensei’s words point again and again beyond technique, beyond form, beyond winning and losing. He showed no interest in grades or status. Yet, while he was still alive, his son began formalising Aikido into ranks, techniques, and syllabus. Did O’Sensei feel his son was missing the point? Did it trouble him? Or was his realisation so deep that he simply let such thoughts pass, continuing his own practice without concern that many misunderstood him?

Closing

Passing shodan was the most deflating moment of my Aikido life — and also the most freeing. In that very moment of emptiness I saw that the belt was never the goal. The real achievement was to lose the desire to identify as it.

The reason why I continue to train is to continually practise and experience being conscious in the present moment. Anything else is merely an illusion that we can still experience, just no longer attached to. If we continually practise this, we begin to notice the subtle ways in which the mind tries to cling, to label, to own. We see how tension arises from the very thought of becoming something, rather than simply being.

In time, the dojo becomes a mirror, reflecting not technique but awareness. Each movement reveals the state of one’s mind; each interaction shows the quality of one’s presence. Progress is no longer measured in rank, but in the quiet softening of the ego — the gentle dissolving of resistance.

And eventually, training ceases to be something we do. It becomes something we are. A quiet, living expression of harmony in motion.