My path to Shodan...

3 years ago, my son wanted to take up aikido and I could totally see it. When I was 23 I also went into aikido and got up to^4th kyu. I was in it for a year and a half and then things came up. 6 months to Australia, then 4 children, so yes... All excuses not to go of course...

Aikido and Youth Dreams

Until that moment.I saw my son already getting his black belt and felt a bit like a parent who never got to play professional soccer but pushed his child to get to that point. As if your child has to go live your dream. That is what I am afraid of. Those boys should go and dream for themselves and achieve them, but it did trigger me.So I created a kind of pain, as it were, about not going to make it and that started to push me forward.

So the moment he signed up for aikido I did too, now 3 years ago. At the time I signed up, I was 36 and thus already 12 years older, but I immediately set myself some goals.

• In one year, I want to be at the same level as when I was 24, i.e.^4th kyu.
• Then the following year I want to have^2nd kyu.
• Getting Shodan, or black belt, the following year.

Then, of course, something had to happen because in aikido, not many get their black belt in 3 years. Most take an average of 6 years. To my knowledge there was only 1 who made it in 3 years and he trained 6 days a week for it. I didn't want to do that so I asked myself other questions.

After all, there is always another way, and inspired by the books "The four hour workweek" and "The four hour body," I knew it was possible. I began to link a lot of joy to goals and pain to not achieving them.

Levels in Aikido

After a year, I was at my old level,^4th kyu. Below you can see how the grades progress in Aikido. Behind that I have briefly mentioned the color of the band for the sake of the image. In Aikido we do not have colored belts but this way you can see approximately how it progresses with karate or judo:

• ^6th Kyu (white belt)
• ^5th Kyu (yellow belt)
• ^4th Kyu (orange belt)
• ^3rd Kyu (green belt - Hakama level)
• ^2nd Kyu (blue belt)
• ^1st Kyu (brown belt)
• ^1st Dan - Shodan (black belt)

Then it rises to^2nd,^3rd,^4th,^5th, ^6th, ^7th, ^8th, ^9th and ^10th Dan. Only the creator of Aikido had ^10th Dan. Aikido means the way of harmony and therefore the philosophy is "I no pain - you no pain." To achieve that in a fight you have to be of good character. I really like that philosophy and the whole idea behind it.

You see there are still plenty of goals to achieve after the^1st Dan, but you have to start somewhere. After the first year, I now had to grow to^2nd kyu in one year. That was not possible with training once a week so I came up with the following.

What is the shortest route to your goal

My teacher Nico Jacobs wanted to learn hypnosis and I wanted to learn Aikido. You guessed it ... we did a swap. He would personally train me to^1st Dan (Shodan) and then I would teach him all about hypnosis and hypnotherapy and train him in the Shodan of hypnosis.

And it worked perfectly. That year I started training 3 times a week, 2 of which were personal and purely focused on passing the next exam. In June 2013 I took the exam for^3rd Kyu and was allowed to wear the hakama. This is a kind of black skirt that symbolizes the Yang (the male power and gravity). In fact, the top is white of the suit and that symbolizes the lightness, the soft, the Yin. Legs heavy, arms light.

The road after that was interesting because after that I did have to get used to having such a new item around you. In December I got my second kyu and then I heard from one of my old teachers that you had to have at least one year of^1st Kyu if you want to be allowed to go up for Shodan....

Strike out?

Oops, I hadn't counted on that. I hadn't because I wanted to go up that next year and I only had^2nd Kyu. Hmmm, but there is always a way I thought to myself so that year Nico and I started DTIs. Since Nico could already hypnotize well we started using more hypnosis with it. A DTI is a Deep Trance Identification and then, in hypnosis, you can copy steps into whomever you want.

That way you can learn skills faster and copy from the best. This is how I got into the masters of Aikido that I hold in very high regard such as Bruno Gonzales, Christian Tissier, Wilko Vriesman and, of course, O'Sensei himself (Morihei Ueshiba). Ueshiba is the creator of Aikido.

Also, I had already told a lot of people that I was going to make it, and a public "commitment" is very powerful when you want to start reaching your goals.

There is always a way...

In February 2014, during an Aikido training session I heard one of the teachers say they would be having exams on March 30 in Den Helder. Interesting I thought and immediately asked if I could join and I could. We started doing more and more DTIs and even more targeted training because I now had only a month before my 1st Kyu exam....

On March 30 after a grueling exam, where I faced 3 more opponents, I passed my^1st Kyu. Yes!!! I was only 1 step away from my goal and it became more achievable. There was only one more hurdle....

The Last Horde ...

Now I was allowed to participate in the black belt preparations and had to obtain an autograph from the teacher there. The teacher who does the preparation there is also the technical director of the Dutch Aikikai Foundation. He can be quite strict and strict and I think highly of him. Wilko Vriesman is ^6th Dan and I think he is the best aikidoka in the Netherlands.

3 weeks before the exam I went through my back.... But with hypnosis and with help from some amazing people, I was able to train again December 1. Fortunately because I did have to hand in the bill to take the exam.

December 1, I handed in my bill at the Dojo in Amsterdam. That bill says you want to take an exam and you need a signature from the Sensei. But anyway he didn't give it...

December 6 was the final prep session, and everything actually went pretty well, so on December 7 I was able to take the black belt exam. After a good exam, I received feedback that it doesn’t have to be flawless… I think that says it all…. PASSED!

YESSS!

In 3 years, I reached my goal and I hope this story will inspire you to set goals as well. What would you like? And then paint a picture of it as if it were already there.

You've already made it and from there you work toward it. I myself had put that image on my timeline so it became inevitable that it would happen. For any athlete who wants to reach their goals faster, I can really recommend hypnosis. You will find that you can achieve that much faster than you think now.

I achieved my black belt in Aikido with an average of 2-3 times a week training in 3 years. According to many, one of the most difficult defense sports there is. I don't think there are many people in the world who have done that after me.

All thanks to thinking differently, focusing differently and training differently ... with a touch of hypnosis 😉