Why Keep My Dojo Clean?

By: Michael Baron, 2nd kyu, New England Aikikai

As I look around, I see my apartment is a mess. In fact, my apartment is often a mess. There are dishes in the sink, clothes litter the floor, and a gi hangs out to dry. A winter scarf is on the couch even though it is summer, and a few pages of paper are scattered on the floor. I want to clean it up, but sometimes I just can't get myself to do it. But when I do spend hours putting things in their proper place, ordering my files, sweeping out piles of dust, I feel a sense of calm and satisfaction. There is something about a well-ordered and clean environment that affects me.

But isn't excessive cleanliness what we call being compulsive? Isn't being too clean bad, and isn't cleaning something that isn't dirty just plain silly? So when the dojo is clean why clean it again, why should I do it, and what does any of this have to do with my training Aikido?

As I am made up of things happening to me right now, as well as a collection of years and experiences, so is my training not defined by a single moment. Sometimes we beginners become frustrated with a technique we can't do correctly right away. But who would expect us to be able to? No one can learn technique in a day, if we could we would all be long gone after a few weeks. Is this type of thinking based on a need for some type of instant gratification?

I have been told that ikkyo is the foundation of Aikido, and one only truly sees Ikkyo after years of training. I expect that Aikido dawns on us through infinite exploration of minute details, and that it is in those details where growth can be found. Shouldn't cleaning, like ikkyo, be practiced on a regular basis?

I cannot concentrate on my ki when dancing around my apartment to MTV videos. The clothes that sit on the couch are subtle reminders of the tensions at work, of what has to be done later, of what I forgot to do today. I am not the same person in a bar as I am at a friend's hospital bedside. We adapt ourselves appropriately to fit into a variety of situations. Darwin described the process by which species change in accordance to a dynamic environment. If this is so, it is part of our nature to change, and we change because we need to survive. When our environment changes we change. So we try to create an environment that supports our goals. At the dojo it is physical and spiritual growth. Should not the place where I focus on the deeper me be different then places where I focus on the superficial me?

But still, why should I clean someone else's Dojo? No one cleans my room for me, aren't I just being used to do someone else's dirty work? I think the simple answer is this is that although we do not own the Dojo in the sense that it is our property, nonetheless our lives are invested in it, and that makes it our space. I gain possession of that space by cleaning it.

There is something about touch that develops ownership. From your car, to your apartment, to your significant other, it is the right to touch something that makes it a possession. When I move into a new house, even if it is spotless, I need to clean every corner. It is, in a sense, like a dog marking its territory. The dog does not actually own the tree, but it becomes his tree. I don't actually own the dojo, but if my hands have touched every corner of it, my scent, my mojo, my spirit, my ki, my energy is all over the dojo. I don't clean the dojo because it is mine; I clean it to make it mine.

An observer may not be able to consciously recognize the difference, but he will feel it. In the movie the "Great Santini," the young son is painting the front stairs to his house, and is reprimanded by his sister for painting underneath the stairs. When she tells him no one will ever see it, he responds that he will see it.
It is this extra attention to detail that turns a job into a pursuit. This means going a step further to do something right, even if it appears on the surface to be superfluous. This is why we clean, because we are searching, because we are trying to achieve a goal that does not appear on the surface.

From a martial aspect, perhaps cleaning relates to preparedness in battle. Soldiers clean and re-clean everything, and the officers constantly point out what was missed and what was not done perfectly. The point, I think, is that the more one looks for details, can see something as completely as possible, the more prepared one is and the greater the odds of surviving a combat situation.

So when we clean, we try to not only look for what is dirty now, but what may be dirty soon, why dirt lands where it does, how to avoid dirt in the future, and what am I not seeing that may all ready be dirty. Not just how to avoid this particular attack, but what motivates the attack, what will follow it, and how can I prevent more attacks.

It seems that many people want many things out of Aikido, and expect a great deal from their teacher in the way of providing these things, but not everyone is willing to put in the effort to achieve their goals. It seems common to expect someone else to be responsible for our desires, to blame and resent others for our failures, and never question our own intentions. Cleaning is the most basic and fundamental form of training; it is the smallest possible step toward achieving a goal that a person can make. Sometimes I think that we all want to be the CEO of a fortune 500 corporation, but we balk at the idea of working in the mailroom.

Pride or laziness, or whatever prevents us from being able to take on the menial aspects of a pursuit, may be blocking us. No one wants to be seen as the low man on the totem pole. How do we grow the fastest? First we have to dig though our baggage, sweep out the dusty corners of our minds and see what has been hiding from us. Then we can begin to fill in those places with what we choose, not just what has collected there over the years. This, I believe, is how Aikido can help us. So, my conclusion is, even if your apartment is messy, clean your dojo; it has little to do with dirt.