The Challenge of Not Competing

Aikido is non competitive, but there are times when you can't practice for tripping over egos. Competition exists on many levels: this style v that style, this teachers' interpretation v that one, this way or that?

This can be more than confusing for beginners, who thought that they were studying the Way of Universal Peace and Harmony. No wonder the drop out rate is as high as it is!

But this competitivenes is exactly what the training is, amongst other things, attempting to teach us to overcome - contesting with disharmony is a contradiction in terms!