Month: March 2021

For those familiar with the martial art of aikido, there is a certain man, born in 1940, who had remarkable influence on many individuals, both positive and negative, and for many others, who had only peripheral contact with him, he assumes immense symbolic importance, far beyond many of his contemporaries. This was Chiba Kazuo.

I have practiced with many individuals who trained to be powerful in the service of their country or an ideology—they had a cause. I’ve practiced with many others who wanted to be powerful because it is, quite simply, a wonderful thing to be strong. I’ve practiced with many others who strove to become powerful because they had been victimized before, and they wished to either ensure that they could ‘stop it’ this time around, or more pervasively, transform themselves so that they no longer had a sense of personal identity with the helpless victim they once were.

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Japanese martial arts, as codified systems known as ryuha was developed in the Edo Period (1603 – 1868 CE). Also known as the Tokugawa era, this was perhaps the most successful totalitarian state ever developed. Through an elaborate system of checks-and-balances, the Tokugawa family, in the role of shogun, ruled a vast archipelago, comprised of separate feudal domains. Unlike Europe, they were able to maintain this essentially feudal federalism even with the rise of an economy based on the capitalism of the merchant class.

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