Recognize Ego

One should never struggle with their partner. An attitude of mutual cooperation is necessary for improvement. If one relaxes and flows like water, it is easier to go around your partner's attack vice straight into it. Thus the struggling is avoided.

This thought should be carried with you everywhere you go. This does not mean to shrink away from conflict. But one should not seek it out either. Our ego loves conflict. It validates our ego, helps to prop it up, and adds to its growth. In Aikido, we wish to reverse the ego's growth.

Aikido (and any budo for that matter) is first a tool for development of the character and elimination of the ego. It is a martial art second. The first step to eliminating the ego is recognizing the ego. If you recognize the ego, you can begin to understand the affect ego has on you. Once you understand this affect, you can begin to control the ego. Once the ego is controlled, it can begin to be eliminated.

One of the reasons we practice aikido techniques is that they bring out our ego and expose it for all to see (especially in the early stages of one's practice). Continued daily practice in the spirit of cooperation with our partner will begin the long process of chipping away at the ego that has hardened around us over all of our years. Once this chipping away gains momentum, one will begin feeling much freer, lighter, and happier.

This path is long, narrow, and difficult to walk, but the result is mastery of the self and a more refined and honorable character.