Bits and pieces

When we can’t run away, aikido can give us another way to respond, a way that is neither fight nor flight. Aikido says: “Don’t fight. Don’t flee either. Let go instead. Let go of the whole situation. Go inside it. Follow it through. Use only your intuition”.

In most ancient cultures, lasting thousands of years longer than the stultified, limping histories we laud so much because of a few gadgets, their story survived all manner of attrition because of something that transcends all gadgets: Respect. In these true civilizations based on higher, more noble values of contribution, rather than mere fear of lack, it was mandatory to be a well rounded, highly skilled participant of the mechanism of the group, tribe nation, whatever. As part of this, an initiatory schooling which combined connectedness with heaven and earth, all the directions and the Centre of existence foremost; multi-skilled warrior training, hunting, gathering, farming including natural horticulture or as now labelled permacultiure, animal husbandry, communication skills, social technologies of the era, sciences of the era, healing arts and all the attributes which have nowadays become considerably specialised, were mandatory learning before one could claim humanity. Storytellers became the historians of the tribal ways evolving into the archivists of today. Ability in all the required skills of the era were the expectation of a well rounded human being who considered not only all human beings, but indeed all life and creation as manifestations of the sacred.

The Hindu Rajputs resisted India’s Muslim conquerors for hundreds of years before accepting Mogul control in the 16th century. In that era of almost constant war, the Rajputs employed a legion of bards to chronicle their exploits—in songs of great horses as well as great men—tales so bloody they make the Greeks and Trojans of the Iliad look like Quakers.

Grading is a means of objectively evaluating one’s capacity and progress by one set of standards. However, I believe that such a viewpoint has no relevance to seeking the Tao. For how far and how deep one has gone are internal questions that only the practitioner can answer. I have come to believe that it is impossible to measure each person’s depth in their pursuit using a fixed standard.

Some aikido teachers talk a lot about non-violence, but fail to understand this truth. A pacifist is not really a pacifist if he is unable to make a choice between violence and non-violence. A true pacifist is able to kill or maim in the blink of an eye, but at the moment of impending destruction of the enemy he chooses non-violence. He chooses peace. He must be able to make a choice.

Some practitioners of modern martial arts deride kata training, claiming that an adherence to form is inherently weak. They claim that one trains stereotyped responses by rote and repetition, thereby rendering oneself unable to respond with freedom to an unpredictable, random attack. On the other hand, one’s freedom is limited by one’s neurological organization — stereotypical patterns of action and reaction entrained through another type of kata training — the repetitive, habitual patterns of movement one arrives at simply by living. Proper kata training is, in fact, a means of teaching one’s nervous system new patterns of response. Without sufficient repetition — ideally, mindful aware repetition - the nervous system will not develop new interconnections to coordinate new patterns of response. It is, paradoxically, through limitation and delineation, that one is able to approach freedom.

To “get” Aikido you have to understand with your whole body. This means DOing. Aikido is a DO so we must do before we can understand.

Aikido is a Japanese martial art that includes techniques for bare-handed wrestling, using weapons, and dealing with the armed enemy.