There is a myth that circulates in the Aikido community that suggests that some Aikido teachers have aimed to hide the true or real teachings from their students.
The idea being that a teacher may wish to maintain their position above their students.
Or perhaps they don’t want to accidentally teach a competing teacher some secrets that they can they go out and teach for themselves.
There is some evidence that some teachers have tried to hide some elements of their teachings, but I’m not always so sure that it came from a malicious place.
For example, there is no point in teaching a beginner a more complicated technique involving many steps when they have yet to grasp some of the basic movements.
I have come across times where I thought a teacher was holding their students back. One teacher told me he didn’t teach some of the higher forms to his students as they were not ready. Though I could understand that for complete beginners, some of his students were close to first dan level.
I have also seen teachers that discouraged their students from visiting other classes or cross training in other arts. In general, I think that may be a practical recommendation to avoid a student become confused by differing advice.
In general, to me it seems like this idea is like a plot from a conspiracy theory. The nasty teacher is holding back on the hidden secrets from their naive students. It seems too much like a conspiracy theory to be true.
On the contrary I tend to think there are teachers that have great skills but are not great at communicating what they are doing. I also think they may be unaware of what they are doing. Many teachers picked up their skills through being the uke of another teacher and learned through experience and training and have yet to develop the words to explain exactly how they do what they do.
For me, I think the secret is in continuing to improve and challenge yourself. I think there is often too much thinking, talking and procrastinating when we could just train more.
That’s where most people seem to find the secrets anyway.
Those who do suggest that they have discovered the secret teachings seem to end up writing essays and lecturing in long interviews or seminars about their particular system. For me, I think the secret lies in continuing to train more, being open minded and continually challenging yourself to improve at what you are doing.
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