The last time we trained with Christian Tissier was in 2018. A lifetime ago.

We started attending his seminars for a variety of reasons. Several teachers we had met along our journey had been -and some still are- his students.

Many Aikido practitioners in our area follow his teaching approach, and for years we complemented our regular training at our Dojo with weekly sessions in such groups.

So, given the luck of living in a town that regularly hosted seminars with Christian Tissier, we began to dip our toes into these events. We were white belts -whiter than white could be.

The seminar that took place last weekend presented us with a teacher quite different from the image we remembered.

It wasn’t a technical difference. Christian Tissier’s technique remains extraordinarily clear. His movement is fluid and lightning-fast, fully present. His teaching is keen, expansive, ingenious, yet structured and “exportable.”

The difference was deeper.

Tissier’s seminars and those of his circles have always been characterized by a significant physical component. You work hard, you fall, you sweat-a lot.

For those who love a gi soaked in sweat, this time was no exception… But there was much less sweating in a purely physical sense and much more in terms of deeply integrating his teaching.

We had the feeling -at times even explicitly stated- that we were in front of someone who, after sixty-four years on the tatami, is fully aware that he doesn’t have another sixty-four ahead.

Someone who understood and became a credible witness to the complete physical integration of the principles he teaches.

And who, therefore, gives technique the importance it deserves: a relative one.

It was an intense day of work on principles: grounding, unbalancing, axis, movement. The same approach that, by his own admission, he is now using in his advanced training sessions in Vincennes, at Cercle Tissier, his headquarter.

But working on principles and asking -an even more challenging request as ranks get higher- to step beyond technique does not mean creating anarchy nor thinking people can do anything. Nor that they are capable.

On the contrary, the message was clear: it is within the rigor of execution that one can, eventually, find freedom. Not the other way around. Just as it is in total equality, in mirroring one’s partner, that the possibility of doing something—and doing it well—can emerge.

Liberty, equality… To complete the triptych of values that define the French spirit, only fraternity is missing. Christian Tissier did not explicitly speak of it. But the atmosphere on the tatami conveyed it -not only because he, as always, was fully available and engaging with the audience, but because the work on principles truly placed everyone on the same level.

In short, the impression is that Tissier Shihan has entered that dimension we have seen other Aikido legends reach -Seishiro Endo, another eight Dan, comes to mind. A practice that is much deeper, an atmosphere that is more relaxed and jovial, and a continuous effort to distill a message in the hope that it spreads to as many people as possible so that it is not lost.

A bit like a good winemaker who knows the effort behind every drop of a great vintage and hopes it won’t go lost but will instead bring joy to as many tables as possible.

And since Italy and France share a bond -among other things- through great wine, it is fitting to say that, in a world where many grow sour with time, Christian Tissier is a wine that, as it ages, gains complexity in its structure yet leaves those who approach it with a smooth sensation, able to tell its story to those willing to continue it.

Which, in the end, is the true meaning of tradition.