Yesterday I officially tested for my 5th-kyu in aikido. Before you get too excited, realize that a "5th kyu" is something like "Private, First Class" in the military: the bottom rung on the ladder. Graduation from boot camp. The point at which the drill sergeant stops calling you a maggot and an abortion. 'Kyu' designation descends until you reach "shodan", or first-degree black belt, at which point the numbers begin ascending: second degree, third degree, and on up until one dies or gives up the art.

One major benefit of this unnervingly difficult martial art is that it doesn't rely on strength: I've worked with high-ranking 90-pound girls and 80-year old men who were able to toss me about quite easily. The downside, for a guy with almost 20 years of strength-training behind me, is that...it doesn't rely on strength, meaning that technique is everything, and if they spot you leaning on your hard-earned muscle, they dock ya.

I fully appreciate this idea that strength shouldn't be the focus of a martial art; after all, there's always going to be someone bigger and stronger than you are, and those are the people who are liable to pick on you on the mean streets of Malibu. But in aikido, that means that your techniquehas got to be spot on.

Which mine isn't.

It's all well and good to use virtually no strength when working with someone your own size or smaller--but working with someone who outweighs you is tough, especially as a beginner.

In a testing situation, your opponents--the people on whom you demonstrate the required techniques--are selected at random; you can't choose them beforehand. So It's the luck of the draw whether you get a 5-foot, 110-pound first-year student or a six-foot-four, 220-pound guy who's studied for 15 years. Naturally enough, performing a wrist lock on the former is quite a different matter from performing the same thing on the latter.

My first opponent (you might get two in a short exam like the one I was taking) was a 200-plus pounder who was about five inches shorter than me. His center of gravity was practically below the level of the floor. And I was expected to chuck the guy around like a rag doll without using a whiff of strength.

Er, good luck.It was a cross between wrestling an oak tree and a fire hydrant.

Needless to say, the little technique I have went out the window, and I wound up muscling the guy all over the floor for all I was worth. Though he very easily could have resisted my efforts, he went along with it all so as not to sabotage me too horribly. The upshot, though, was that my test was very un-aikido-like.

When my next opponent emerged--blessedly, a tiny wisp of a thing--I breathed a sigh of relief. The second half of the unarmed portion of my test went much better.

Then came a few weapons techniques, and but for a moment when my mind completely fried when I forgot a basic movement, I aquitted myself reasonably well and wound up with a passing grade.

Up to this point in my life I've managed to perform reasonably well in most athletic endeavors I've tried, simply because I work at maintaining some semblance of strength and conditioning. As a result, I can typically fake it till I make it.

But there's no faking it in aikido.Which is what makes it fascinating and god-awfully frustrating at the same time.
(Some guys who are way, way better than I am at aikido.)