We can clearly see that there is a wide gap of understanding which I
do not see closing as Aikido goes forward in its development.
People do Aikido for a variety of reasons. There are many people who
are not in this lifetime going to be martial artists. They are not
interested in that side of the art. Rather they are interested in
pursuing the movement side, the energy side, the side which serves
as a model for conflict resolution. In some cases they simply like
to have a community of like minded people with whom they can do an
interesting practice.
I have no problem whatever with that. Your practice must be a
reflection of who you are and who you'd like to be. When people are
straight with themselves and others and state that they simply
aren't interested in the martial side of Aikido they are free to
proceed without any criticism from me.
But there are people who have spent many years attempting to
maintain the side of the art which manifests the principles of Budo.
The art as it was presented to me was both a vital spiritual
practice and a martial art. It is a matter of importance to me that
people not misunderstand the nature of what they are doing.
There are many of us who look at what passes for Aikido as nothing
more than an art of "wishful thinking". I have seen people fly into
the air when the nage was ten feet away. I have done techniques on
an uke that sent them flying across the room with a flick of my
wrist fully knowing that that same technique would have had no
effect whatever on one of my own students.
I regularly get on the mat with people
whose strikes are designed to do anything except hit the defender. I
watched once as Ikeda Sensei refused to move until the uke really
struck him. That uke could not get himself to do the strike.
Repeatedly he diverted the strike at the last second.
All of these people had the notion that they were doing a martial
art. But what was going on had nothing to do with Budo. The Founders
of the modern martial arts wanted to preserve those aspects of the
martial arts which they could see developed by deep training in the
martial arts. They recognized that the primary purpose of training
was not combat any more, modern technology made that irrelevant. Yet
they did see that there were lessons which Budo training did provide
and they did not wish to see those disappear.
Aikido is precisely one of those arts. The Founder was quite
specific about not wanting Aikido to be sportified. The training he
gave his students was of the most strenuous kind. He certainly did
not view his art as a form of non-martial dance that had no
application.
When the art is toned down to the point where there is no longer any
reality in the training the lessons of Budo are absent. So when
there are discussions in which it is apparent that well intentioned
people make statements about Aikido that are quite simply not
accurate it does bring out a response.
This is not just a matter of opinion. Spirituality, philosophy,
technical variation, are largely matters of personal preference.
Martial application is not. You can either do it or you can't. In
the old days in Japan, if you set yourself up as a teacher you could
expect that someone would show up on your doorstep to see if you
could walk your talk. If you couldn't, your students were apt to go
down the street.
Those days are gone. So all that is left is the application of
common sense, the desire to gain as much knowledge as possible, and
a commitment to truth in your own training. You have to ask for the
partners who will strike you if they can, the ones who will stop
your technique when you make an error, ones who can reverse you when
they get the opening.
I have trained with every Aikido teacher I have encountered over the
years. There is a huge range of focus and ability amongst these
people. Some can do their technique in a martial context and others
can not. Some are martially ferocious but not useful as models of
the values I am espousing in my life. A small number can do both and
those are the teachers with whom I now go out of my way to train.
Barring going
around the country challenging other martial artists to fights that
is the best
I can do. When teachers who have more ability and experience than I
am likely to ever have tell me something I tend to believe them.
When I see people with a fraction of their experience or even a
fraction of my own experience ignoring their teachings and
maintaining that things are possible which I know not to be, it
rather makes me despair of the state of training and what it means
for the art in the future.
There are people who are highly skilled at technique and teaching.
It is a shame that so many students can not tell the difference
between what is real on a fundamental level and what is simply a
case of the Emperor's New Clothes.
Many of the finest Aikido practitioners I
know have a hard time surviving because there simply aren't very
many people who seem to have the desire to take their art up to the
level it could be. Instead they avoid challenges to their
preconceptions, join with people with whom they can be mutually
affirming, and make their practice fun. That is precisely the thing
to do if you want to remove those elements of personal
transformation which exist in the practice of a true Budo.
O-Sensei challenged all of us to see that there was a radical shift
in looking at his art. It didn't in any sense mean to him that the
art was going to be watered down, made to be an entertaining pastime
for well meaning Seekers. And that is one part of what Aikido has
become. And I don't know that anything will change that. For people
for whom that has appeal, training in Aikido as Budo will not be
their path.
If people do not want to know
something, no one can make them see it. So Aikido will continue to
develop in such a way that merely saying you do Aikido will have no
meaning. Instead you will need to specify what type of Aikido you
do, what is the approach you take, who your teacher is, etc. Then
people might have some idea what you are doing.
There are people out
there doing Aikido which has nothing but a superficial resemblance
to what I am doing. Yet we both call it Aikido. That will continue
as long as there are people training who do not wish to know what
they can and cannot really do but simply wish to be validated for
their efforts.
George S. Ledyard
Aikido Eastside, Bellevue, WA.
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