Great Aikido —Aikido  Greats

This essay is a composite of a number of mini-essays that I uploaded to a Facebook discussion forum: “Aikido —The Martial Side.” It also includes some of my answers to questions raised by members of the group.

Because aikido is a principle-based martial art, systematized around certain philosophical ideals and very specific physical parameters, many critics over the years have questioned its effectiveness. Aikido is particularly vulnerable to criticism because, for the most part, its practitioners do not do ‘live training,’ (pressure testing against unpredictable attacks, or freestyle competitive training).  Such critics come both from inside the art and without. Even though I share the perspective of many of the critics, at least in regards to much of the aikido I have experienced or seen, something bothers me about such discussions—I wonder if the critics do justice to the art. It is similar to criticizing expressionist art, using a popularizer like Leroy Nieman as an example. Whether one likes expressionism or not, it should be evaluated by its greatest proponents, such as Franz Marc or Maqbool Fida Hussain. Expressionist art may not be a style you enjoy, but criticism should be based on exemplars of the art, not the common mean.

There are some martial arts that one can become relatively effective as a fighter in a short period of time; aikido is not one of them. Yet there are, undeniably, aikidoka who have become quite effective as fighters. My friend and teacher, Terry Dobson, working as a bouncer in a Vermont bar, was once attacked by a guy with a chainsaw—he stepped inside the arc of the attack and threw him with a kokyunage, the saw flying one direction and man another—both hit the pavement hard, with the saw inoperable and the man now unwilling.

Many other aikidoka were known as formidable fighters, taking on people from other martial arts in challenge matches or simply engaging in street-fights. Among them were Abe Tadashi,  Shirata Rinjiro, Kato Hiroshi, Saito Morihiro, Watahiki Yoshifumi, to name only a few. Please note that I’ve deliberately named individuals who did not come from a judo, karate or boxing background—rather, their primary martial practice was aikido  (not to say they may not have done a little cross-training). I am fully aware that stories grow over time, and mundane scuffles become legendary. Nonetheless, unless they are all lies, these men had something special. Perhaps before one improves aikido, it’d be worthwhile to examine what one intends to repair, through examining the best of its possibilities—those who are great.

What I don’t mean by ‘great’ is those who are spiritual exemplars, those who are great teachers, or those who show artistry and grace in enacting the two-person choreography of aikido. In this essay, I am only concerned with individuals who are physically superlative as martial artists—who could fight with this art. And by fight, I mean hand-to-hand civilian altercations—street fights and dojo challenges. (1)

I wish to tease out the components that I have observed among those who were able to – and did – protect their training hall against dojo breakers or people who challenged them on the mat, striving to embarrass them or worse; those who handled taryujiai; and those who had or have a particular brilliance that has garnered them true respect, not only among other aikidoka, but among practitioners of other martial arts as well. I am making as clear a distinction as I can between the excellent aikido  practitioner, whatever their rank, and true virtuosos. Were we talking about music, this would be a discussion about what makes Hélène Grimaud, Emil Gilels, Martha Argerich and Marc-André Hamelin incandescent musicians, rather than merely ‘excellent.’

When I refer to ‘components,’ I do not mean the usual principles that are enumerated by teachers in every dojo worldwide: irimi, irimi-tenkan, musubi, awase, enten no ri, ‘moving off the line,’ centering, extension, etc. Everyone learns these principles—at least to some degree. The virtuoso, however, is able to actually enact them against opponents who are not colluding in mutual kata practice. They are able to enact these principles at will against a struggling or combative opponent. And they are able to do this due to certain attributes they possess, that none of these leading lights has ever discussed—except perhaps over a long evening drinking Suntory whiskey, or Otokoyama Sake.

Two individuals (among many) whom I think exemplify this are Takeno Takefumi (of Yoshinkan) and Bruce Bookman (of Tenzan Aikido). Takeno is ‘classical,’ whereas Bookman is extremely innovative, integrating components of both boxing and Brazilian jiujitsu, but they both possess the qualities I will enumerate below. These qualities number five (followed by two other components which potentially take one beyond the abilities of even the modern virtuoso).

I OBJECT TO THIS PREMISE!

Two objections may be raised to this essay, that what I discuss below does not encompass the complete martial art and training regimen of aikido’s founder, Ueshiba Morihei, and that it is also, to some degree, at variance to the vision, not only of his son, Ueshiba Kisshomaru, but also to the legacy of other leading lights of aikido, such as Tomiki Kenji, Shioda Gozo, or Tohei Koichi.  I will discuss Ueshiba Morihei at the conclusion of this essay, talking briefly about his own training methodology that was largely abandoned after the 1^st generation of his successors—and for the most part, even the leading lights each focused only on a part of what their teacher did, not its entirety.

As for the latter objection, one of the things that makes Ueshiba Kisshomaru, the son of the founder, such a great man, is that he ushered in modern aikido , a martial art of the ‘grey zones.’ What I mean is that just as something like archaic martial traditions like Araki-ryu or Kashima Shintō-ryu focused on the inculcation of the values of the warrior class of medieval Japan, as well as the question of one’s survival ( your own, your family, your clan or some larger political entity), aikido is an embodiment of modern society, where few situations end in mortal combat; rather, they are conflicts where some kind of resolution is possible. Therefore, modern aikido provides a place for just about anyone who wishes to enhance their lives through practice of a martial art that is not primarily concerned with life-and-death questions. (2) This has enabled aikido  to exert a much greater, positive influence on people’s lives than Ueshiba Morihei’s narrow, sectarian cult of excellence that was his Daito-ryu, aikijutsu, and aikibudo, some of the names of his martial art’s pre-WWII incarnations.

Nonetheless, my question here isn’t what makes one a comfortable participant in an idealistic martial art, or even a very dedicated student of a physically demanding, even dangerous discipline that has become a centerpiece of your life. My question is not what makes one a good teacher, a great leader of a dojo or someone who can apply the principles of aikido in other social settings. Finally, it is not the reverse—an unfounded claim that these great practitioners are the best martial artists on the planet through their practice of aikido. My question is what makes one a virtuoso practitioner, regardless of one’s other qualities (and this include morality or spirituality)—it is the same question I would ask regarding such karateka as Kanazawa Hirokazu or Higaonna Kanryo, or judoka such as Kashiwazaki Katsuhiko or Ushijima Tatsukuma.

#1 – POWER

Yukawa Tsutomu was a titan. Shirata Rinjiro was immensely strong. Shioda Gozo, unbelievably, beat Kimura Masahiko in arm wrestling—by Kimura’s own account. Tohei Koichi, post WWII, casually carried two suitcases full of smuggled rice arms-length over ticket wickets at train stations, thereby pretending that the cases were empty: because who could casually hold suitcases with 30 kilos of rice apiece, straight-armed, walking fifty meters until out of sight of law enforcement personnel. When Saito Morihiro was a kid, Ueshiba told him he was too skinny; Saito, working for the railroad, got a length of train track, and repetitively lifted it, this thick-grip weight training and other exercises resulting in him becoming a massive man. In fact, all the Iwama dinosaurs (Isoyama Hiroshi, Watahiki Yoshifumi, Inagaki Shigemi, to name a few) are immensely powerful. Tada Hiroshi is like living whalebone, from all the suburi he did. Tomiki Kenji had huge wrists and when young, a massive neck. Osawa Kisaburo, quite muscular as a young man, asked me to take his son, Osawa Hayato, to Korakuen gym and teach him weight lifting, genially whispering to me in the dojo hallway, “He’s too weak.” There’s more than one body type and more than one way to be physically powerful—but as far as I know, all the great aikidoka were very powerful people, some naturally, others a product of training.

#1A – SO YOU ARE SAYING THAT YOU HAVE TO GET MUSCLE-BOUND TO BE GOOD AT AIKIDO 

A couple of objections have been raised concerning this thesis. First of all, aikido has long been hyped using a false image of Ueshiba Morihei as a slender old man who had tapped into a magical source of otherworldly power. What an attractive marketing point to anyone who is insecure about his or her own strength! Furthermore, aikido’s collaborative style of practice can foster an illusory sense of power amongst weaker people. (3) However, the truth is that Ueshiba was monstrously strong, even in his old age. Terry Dobson, then about two hundred forty pounds on a six-foot frame, tells how he was standing in attendance to Ueshiba when the old man got irate with someone and unconsciously gripped Terry’s wrist. He said that it was all he could do to keep from screaming in pain. Terry told me that it felt like a red-hot wire had been thrust through his wrist—and that it was absolutely different from any grip on his wrist before or since. This wasn’t a ‘pressure-point attack.’ It was like being placed in a mechanical vice. Then Ueshiba recovered his temper (for which he was infamous, by the way, and let go, saying “Gomen ne, Teru-san” – which literally means, “I’m sorry, little puppy.”) (4)

Some people bridle at this concept that great aikidoka need to be powerful and object, saying, “So you are saying the key to expertise in aikido is lifting weights.” I never said that—I just said that every aikido virtuoso is powerful. Very powerful. If one leads a hard, natural life (be it farming, laboring–heck, before power steering was invented, truck driving was a profession for very powerful people only), then supplemental training may not be necessary. However, people brought up in civilized modern society, like Osawa Hayato (or myself), may have to hit the gym.

Then people will object that power development, particularly weight lifting, will “make you muscle bound.” Is this necessarily so? It could be. Do partial lifts that never fully extend or open the joints–you’ll move like a lump of tissue and bone. However, such a statement is ignorant of modern sports science. In fact, Olympic weight lifters test out, generally, as the most physically fit individuals of any athletes, basing this on a combination of flexibility, explosive power, endurance, and joint strength. Closer to home, the answer is encapsulated in a statement by Okamoto Seigo, considered among the ‘softest’ of all Daito-ryu practitioners: “To release one’s strength, that is, to eliminate one’s own ‘tension’ (力み) is difficult. Even those like me occasionally have tension! For that reason, I always say that it’s okay to have any amount of strength, but it’s no good to be tense. That’s an enormously difficult task.” (Reference by Chris Li – Sangenkai)

#1B – WHAT ABOUT SO-AND-SO?

Others have objected to my thesis by citing one or another person, sometimes elderly, sometimes young, who are famous teachers. Some of them have students who, one-and-all, engage in the form of collusive response to the instructor’s gestures that I call ‘aiki accommodation syndrome’—in essence, they unbalance and throw themselves, something that can look amazing to the uninformed or indoctrinated.  Such individuals may be vastly knowledgeable; they may be agile and adroit for their age; they may be marvelous, inspiring teachers, but if they are not powerful—or at least, were not powerful as young men or women—then they were never great, not in the sense that I am discussing here. They enact the movements beautifully, but without intrinsic power, they will have little to no effect upon someone who doesn’t agree to participate along with them.

#1C – WHAT ABOUT WOMEN?

In the original posts on Facebook, someone raised the question, “What about women?” This is a fraught subject, because many will respond that a statement about power is somehow discriminatory, because it underscores a biological absolute: the strongest man is stronger than the strongest woman, and an average man is stronger than an average woman of the same weight. That this fact has been used since time immemorial to exclude women from power in society is undeniable. Nonetheless, there are many professions with baseline physical requirements—military infantry, for example. There is absolutely no doubt that women can fulfill almost all military specialties, from flying fighter jets to driving a tank, and be equal or superior to men. However, few women can stand up to the demands of being a basic infantry warfighter.

Is this discrimination? Yes it is. Not discrimination based on sexism or something like that; this is reality-based discrimination, focused on qualities necessary for the profession, in this case, warfighting. This is no more bigoted than the recognition that I could never work making central-Asian rugs—my fingers are too big and too awkward.

Any lack of one of the components I am discussing . . . is a lack. And biology can be ‘unfair’ in this regard. A woman Olympic sprinter can outrun most men in the world. A woman Olympic weightlifter is stronger than most men in the world. A woman MMA professional can defeat most untrained men in the world, even those who are much heavier. However, they would be killed by a male MMA competitor of equal weight—hence the concern expressed by Joe Rogan and others regarding transsexual competitors in women’s MMA tournaments due to their essentially male bodies. (5)

So does this rule out women as aikido virtuosi? No, of course not. Returning  to MMA, only a fool would state that Amanda Nunes is not a virtuoso. However, limitations are limitations: the great pianist Josef Hoffman had very small hands—he had pianos made with slightly narrower keys, so that he could sufficiently reach beyond octaves on the keyboard. One cannot similarly compensate for limitations in one’s skill and power in personal combat, unless one has ‘handicapped’ one’s opponent the way Josef Hoffman ‘shaved’ his keys. The limits of one’s attainments are determined by one’s limits. The issue is that if one wishes to become great, then one must train one’s power to its optimum possibilities. And in this case, then one must emphasize the other components even more, given a lower ‘ceiling’ on the extent it is possible to develop one’s power.

#2 – UKEMI

Aikido  comprises two aspects, usually called either tori (‘taker’) or nage (‘thrower’), and uke, (which literally means ‘receiver,’ but is usually interpreted in action as ‘the one who is thrown or locked’). Literally one-half of practice is taken up—in most people’s minds and actions—in conforming to the other person’s intent, being ‘defeated’ or ‘receiving the other’s technique.’ It’s almost as if most students are on a kind of vacation from a combative mindset when taking ukemi: when doing so, one learns, at best, ‘how to take ukemi,’ whereas this half of practice, too, should be ‘how to do aikido.’ Ukemi, done properly, is the royal route to learning kaeshiwaza (‘counters’), atemi (‘hitting body’ – more below) and internal strength itself (also more below).

At its worst, it seems that taking ukemi can be training in making oneself the other’s punching bag. One might claim that it was different in the early days, but ningyo ukemi (‘passively falling like a doll’) has been present within aikido—and I would wager a lot of Daito-ryu as well—since its earliest days. The earliest films of Daito-ryu are those of Ueshiba Morihei in 1934 at the Omotokyo headquarters and at the Asahi Shinbun in 1935. (As far as I know, there are no earlier films by any other Daito-ryu practitioner—at least publicly available—and at this time, Ueshiba referred to what he was doing as Daito-ryu as well as a variety of other names he was trying on, as he strove to become independent from his teacher). And what do we see? The same dramatic, dive-taking ukemi as now. (6)

I could continue with a critique of this type of practice, but I wish to stay focused, however, on modern aikido as it is. Can the type of ukemi that most aikidoka practice contribute to the development of expertise, even greatness, whatever flaws these components may also have from another perspective? It is my view that this ‘conforming to nage’s intent, sometimes exaggerated ukemi’  is, paradoxically, the second component necessary for virtuosity.

To this day, people wonder why most of the uchideshi (‘live in disciple’) and the kayoideshi (those who lived nearby, who, nonetheless, put in the same number of hours of training and were also regarded as disciples of the founder by the aikido hierarchy) are so much stronger than most who did not live this lifestyle. They are qualitatively different. However, these individuals were not getting secret exercises or learning a ‘special, different aikido.’ I think the answer is ukemi. The uchideshi are at the disposal of each teacher, who do not hold back with them. They will treat them as cannon fodder, so to speak. David Lynch, who became an uchideshi at the Yoshinkan several decades ago, had an entry ‘exam’ where he was thrown over and over again in shihonage until he could not keep his head up from the mat and he was concussed. Watch how Shioda Gozo treats his own uke in films—and how they bounce up (or sometimes, stagger up) to have him do it again. You learn to survive when you are at another’s mercy.

Beyond being available to each and every instructor, the deshi, unless things have changed, must provide ukemi between classes for every old guy with pull (high rank due to politics, for example). I used to see some such old men importantly grab one of the young assistant instructors at the Aikikai Honbu and thrown them nonstop for fifteen or twenty minutes, between morning classes. [Of course, were the young men to resist, the old politicians could accomplish nothing—Shioda Gozo himself describes, in his memoirs, assisting Ueshiba in classes with members of the Imperial family, and how a) he had to make absolutely sure that he didn’t injure one of the princesses b) how he took huge falls at the slightest gesture that passed for a technique].

Again, one could question the entire enterprise and return to pure wrestling or sumo, but given this is the reality of much of aikido, let’s consider what it does, not what it should be. The only way one can survive this without getting physically broken is to learn to take falls that ‘give back.’ You can’t flop onto the ground—in some dojos, this is done on wooden floors, not tatami. You learn to make your musculature resilient—like hard rubber. I am describing  the effect on the body of such ukemi from the same perspective as pounding and folding steel to temper it. Consider someone who is a manual laborer—they have a toughness unequaled by modern gym-trained, sports-science enhanced individuals. To be sure, they cannot lift as much iron off the ground. But how many bales of hay can they sling up into a barn or onto a truck. Similarly, incessant ukemi will build a particular resilient toughness, one that is directly relevant to the development of functional power in aikido.

What’s interesting is that, viewed in this light, any aikido  practitioner, no matter how inept, could contribute to one’s body tempering. Of course, the challenge is all the greater when one is properly locked up in a juji-garami, or twisted in an intentionally injurious shihonage. But taking ukemi for the inept is another kind of challenge, particularly if one is required to create the illusion that the techniques work, so that, to an untutored outsider, it truly appears that the little person threw the big person with a mere turn of the wrist.

This is even more demanding when taking ukemi for a teacher who requires a certain type of ukemi to illustrate a point, or created a particular effect. However, one will not get this type of tempering if one always takes specialized ukemi for only one such a person. You have to ‘hit all the angles,’ not merely learn how to perform for a particular teacher. It is through the constant ukemi of any and all types, from the rag-doll Yamaguchi tradition, to one’s chasing after the windmill arms of Nidai or Sandai Doshu, to being ground in Arikawa Sadateru’s gears etc. For sheer body building alone, each of those teachers could be ‘used,’ as could any aikido practitioner. This is a key, I think, to why some individuals, the deshi in particular were better—they became stronger through this process in a very particular way, through the sheer number of repetitions of the action. They were twisted and coiled and folded like a Japanese sword.

Beyond toughness, through this process, you learn to hit the mat and be back on your feet, that energy driving you into the next technique. One thereby develops the ability to not only absorb impact without injury, but to use impact on the ground as a force amplifier. For example, if I put one foot against a wall and push off as I punch, the impact will be huge. Ukemi teaches you how to do this using the ground with whatever part of the body is in contact with—the same skill is applicable, at any angle, against people.

So through this process, now you’ve got a resilient bounce to your body—and this can be converted/added to your techniques, amplifying your power. Instead of mere wanryoku (‘raw power’) now you have the kind of strength that a python has—flexible, coiling, still powerful in any position.

LIVE RESISTANCE TRAINING – ANOTHER FORM OF UKEMI

By the way, some aikido groups add another sub-component, another type of ukemi, to this tempering of the body. At the Iwama dojos, for example, they refer to it as kotai training. In this case, ideally using integrated strength and martial awareness, uke resists tori to the peak of the latter’s ability. Conceivably, the junior student could go many months without once successfully accomplishing a technique. With this type of training, they will eventually find the ‘groove’’ (see #4 below) and effectively execute aikido waza, but more than that, they this process makes them even tougher. Added to the strength developed in ukemi, they get an additional added type of power, through coiling one’s muscles throughout one’s body against skilled resistance of an individual who counters you as you move. It is a type of isometrics, but rather than pushing against walls or posts, you are exerting your power against someone who is providing variable power against different attack points—in this sense, one develops, through aikido practice, a grappler’s body. According to personal communication with Terry Dobson, the uchideshi at the Aikikai also experienced this in their own personal practice with their seniors and among each other in after-hours practice.

#3 – FIGHTING SPIRIT

I once was at a presentation by Nidai Doshu and someone sincerely asked, “When did your father became a pacifist.” It took a while for the translator to explain what the guy was saying – the words were simple enough, but Doshu couldn’t conceive of what was being asked, when he thought about his father. In one of the only times I ever saw him laugh out loud, he said, “My father was never a pacifist.” The sincere American was shocked and said, “But sometimes people are too rough in the dojo and people get injured.” Doshu’s reply was, “It is a martial art. It’s not for everyone. Some people are better suited for other activities.” I’ve a story in HIPS where Doshu took two foreign students aside during practice saying, “You are going to be teachers someday, and will have to defend your dojos” – and taught them ways to do shihonage and iriminage <tight> so that the person fell on their head or the back of their neck. There was particular taisabaki involved, so that the person couldn’t take ukemi out of it to protect himself. Doshu went through this meticulously, spotting the uke so that nage could do the technique, yet not injure the other during practice. (7)

Most of the greats have a history, as young men, of physical fights. Some were the dojo protectors—handling challenges. Others got into it in the community. Neither O-sensei nor Nidai Doshu is ever known to have condemned a student for handling dojo-yaburi—and such events went on under their noses, so to speak. To this day, when someone comes to the Tokyo Aikikai headquarters wanting to challenge the dojo, they are invited up to the fourth-floor dojo to fight one of the dojo protectors. I’m not saying that one needs to be a bully—I can think of a few people who sucker punched people on the mat or tore out a shoulder when their training partner was in a vulnerable position. That’s something else. A manifestation of a Fighting Spirit is not victimizing the weak, though one with a Fighting Spirit may choose to do so.

But if you are a martial arts practitioner, are you willing to fight? Do you (or did you, at a certain age), want to fight, and follow through with it when it was offered? Is one component of your training: ”Better you than me!” In other words, you aren’t just going through the motions, however vigorously—you are training to put people in positions of disadvantage, training in to being able to do them harm.

A martial artist without a Fighting Spirit is not a martial artist at all. There will be something anemic and smug about his or her practice, something all too common within some lines of aikido. They lack a certain fiber, a certain steel in what they do.

#4 – THE GROOVE

The fourth component is not waza (‘technique’). Would simply learning each and every technique in in the Noma Dojo photos or those of the Takumakai’s Soden (Ueshiba’s not-yet-named-aikido of the mid 1930’s, when he was in his physical prime) really make you more martially skilled? Perhaps it will give you more options, but if you’ve got the same body, the same will driving those added techniques, it won’t make that much of a difference. How about the much-bruited principles of aikido, such as irimi, irimi-denkan or musubi? These are technical principles that must be present in any aikido technique, to be sure. Nonetheless, they are common requirements for all practitioners of aikido. Of course, the virtuosos exhibit exemplary skill in the basis aikido  principles (I think of Chiba Kazuo’s almost overwhelming use of irimi, for example), but it isn’t those principles that make them virtuosos. Their virtuosity makes those principles reality. Without a certain skill, effective action against an exceedingly powerful or exceptionally skilled opponent is impossible, no matter what techniques you know, or how many principles you strive to embody in your practice. The best term I can come up with is the GROOVE.

Back when I was in Japan, my dojocho, Kuwamori Yasunori held a party primarily for young dojocho in the Tokyo and surrounding areas. One young sensei got drunk – well, they were all drunk – and he told a hilarious story about a karateka who tried to bust his dojo, and how he got punched and kicked over and over again, until he finally got a kotegaeshi on the guy, and as he cranked the wristlock on, the guy yelled “I give up” and tapped out!!!! Only in Japan – a real fight ending by tap out. And the young teacher said, “So the guy left my dojo, and I went home and looked in the mirror, and I had two black eyes and a split lip and blood on my face from my nose, and my ribs were all bruised, and he left without a scratch! And I’m looking at myself thinking, “I won? Kuso-o-o–o!”

The GROOVE or finding the SWEET SPOT, is tied to what in Chinese martial arts is called ‘ting-jin‘ (‘listening energy’) or Rickson Gracie’s, “I flow with their go.” Few people commit enough hours a day to their aikido and fewer still ever train against live opponents who are actively striving to neutralize their technique, much less fighting back, so they think through their waza, as in “I’ll try to apply kokyunage here.” When they run into resistance, one of four things will happen:

• They will try to force their way through
• They will become immobilized: locked down in total tension, or become overwhelmed and confused
• They will recoil or bounce backwards
• The technically adroit will strive to find a better angle to leverage past the obstacle (8)

Those whose aikido has developed into ‘pseudo-instincts’ (an aikido response is so ingrained that it has become the equivalent of a natural reflex) have the ability to immediately perceive the tsuki (‘openings/space’) in the other’s structure/movement and find the line of least resistance while maintaining their trained technique. The latter clause of this sentence is important. A protozoa can flow into empty space. The human expert is able to do this while executing waza. The aikido techniques become ‘inevitable,’ the same way a cat responds if you suddenly grab her and pin her to the ground.

The end result of this is kaeshiwaza (‘counter techniques’). The problem with most aikido is that, unlike judo, where both people are simultaneously trying to find the GROOVE, most aikido  practice is one-sided. Even in those rare dojos that do include kaeshiwaza within their curriculum, it’s a small part of practice, and even then, prearranged—just an extension of rote technique, as in “You do ikkyo, but not with full effectiveness, and then you counter it with a koshinage.” Because of this, one doesn’t develop the pseudo-instinct I’m talking about, where, under stress and resistance, one can still find that GROOVE.

It is quite difficult to train the GROOVE within orthodox aikido. Randori with any kind of arms-length grappling is very difficult to accomplish, unlike body-to-body grappling, where it comes easily. The reason that Tomiki Kenji created the ‘fake-dagger-against-empty-handed’ toshu-randori is that he found basic aikido randori merely became an ungainly tug-of-war. The tanto practitioner is limited in his/her attacks— exclusively stabs to the upper body—which makes it possible (sometimes) to execute an actual aikido technique. As training against knife attacks, it is unrealistic in so many ways, but it does create opportunities to actually bring off aikido techniques under pressure. If Tomiki had either achieved his dream, of melding aikido arms-length grappling within Kodokan judo, or thrown caution to the wind and gone all the way and done it himself by creating a new martial art (a form of MMA, really), perhaps things would be different. But the method of randori that he developed has a deliberate imbalance of the (frankly unskilled) person with the tanto against the empty-handed aikidoka. Sometimes you see some really beautiful waza executed—Tomiki aikido is not given nearly enough credit – but it’s not enough, in my view.

I have tried to avoid prescriptive solutions to aikido problems in this essay, but here I will interject: rather than full-scale randori—which will not work with aikido, there must be research to make a graduated series of reciprocal trainings, where both people are trying to achieve advantage, and there is a back-and-forth. In other words, practice becomes an experimental laboratory, where, for example two or three different attacks must all be responded to with one response, or one or two truly committed attacks are responded to with a random variety of techniques, etc.

In any event, it would be extremely valuable to those who wish to learn the GROOVE to carefully study those who have the ability, and to ascertain what are their specific training methodologies to achieve it. I used to train after hours with my first aikido instructor in Japan, Kuwamori Yasunori, and we would do freestyle practice, testing how to actually bring off aikido techniques under pressure. (9)

#5 – FIST

The Fifth Component is FIST. I want to be clear that I am not using the word ‘atemi‘ which I will discuss later, because it truly is something different. Here are some examples of FIST:

1. I was fooling around with Shibata Ichiro after class one day, and he countered my punch to his midsection with a punch over mine. HIs forearm deflected my arm downwards and he hit me in the liver hard. I stayed on my feet, but it froze me on the spot, hunched over, for at least five seconds. If this had been a fight instead of us fooling around, I could have been beaten to death and helpless to stop it.
2. Saotome Mitsugi when I knew him was a master of ‘bracing’—lining up his skeleton so you ran into a lattice of bone, well-braced against the ground. In addition, he was so fast that he could move from one point to another so that it was like running into the edge of a door. He caught a punch of mine just as it was starting to extend from a chambered position and ‘cut’ through my arm with a knife hand to the biceps. It took me off my feet, one the few times in my aikido career that I truly, involuntarily, left my feet. Interestingly, my entire triceps (not biceps, where he hit me—the triceps), from elbow to shoulder was black-and-blue the next day.
3. Kuwamori Shigeyuki, the cousin of my own teacher, had a small dojo behind his house. The steel cross-bars bracing the roof were so low, you’ve crack your ankles if you took a break-fall, so he converted all aikido throwing techniques into punches. He had a fairly high rank in Shito-ryu karate, and once hit his own student in the abdomen and split his colon. The kid almost died—came back to train after his hospitalization was over.
4. Nishio sensei was (also) a brilliant karateka, Kuroiwa sensei a fine boxer, and there are numerous others. But for me the exemplar of this discussion is what I like to call the Iwama dinosaurs: Saito Morihiro, Inagaki Shigemi, Isoyama Hiroshi, Nemoto Hiroki, Watahiki Yoshifumi and many others). They all did makiwara training, and other karate-derived training—Nemoto, for example, shoved his fingers in a box of gravel. They were all well-known in the area for brawling while young (and some not so young). They were not karateka, but they incorporated elements of such training into their aikido.

Wherever the great practitioners got it, whether through cross-training, through naturally figuring out how to hit by extrapolating movements they learned within aikido —the best martial aikidoka of the prewar and postwar era could bang. And in terms of aikido principles, they used irimi to get to the perfect angle; they used taisabaki as a force-amplifier so that the opponent’s oncoming force added to the punch; and they used aikido waza as a means of creating kuzushi—in other words, an <attempt> at shihonage might be blocked by an opponent half-way, but if, in the process, the opponent clamped-down or was unbalanced and the aikidoka was stable, and then, without hesitation would ‘flow’ into a punch to the jaw, midsection, wherever. It is apparent to me that what they were doing, for example, could be called aiki-kenpo—FIST was ever ready as they did aikido .

That concludes my five components that I’ve observed with the best of modern aikido ka. It seems to me that if someone wanted to do “martial aikido ” and lacked these five components, grafting some BJJ or Krav Maga or Systema or whatever you like, would not be enough—in that case, better to simply cross-over than cross-train. However, with these components in place, cross-training would truly be a force multiplier. All to the good.

#6 – IS THAT ALL THERE IS?

I’ve named some people who succeeded at these five components, at least in my view. Why is it, then, when even the virtuosi were imbuing their aikido with the components I enumerated above, the elderly Ueshiba Morihei would suddenly storm in the dojo yelling, “That’s not aikido!” Some people have claimed that it is because they were too ‘rough,’ too focused on power or martial efficacy, and Ueshiba, the apostle of peace and love, was furious at the perversion of his mission. I think it was the opposite. Ueshiba often referred to aikido as a manifestation of the sword. It is significant, though, that he often used the term, tsurugi. This is a two-edged sword, imported from China over 1500 years ago, and made part of the Imperial regalia. It was a very important symbol within Shinto, the religion to which Ueshiba Morihei subscribed. The modern aikido that I have referred to above is, in fact, two edged: one edge is the social and non-sectarian spiritual goals of conflict resolution; the second edge is the martial virtue I have focused on above.

There is a remaining question, though; What is the substance of the tsurugi. The modern virtuoso aikidoka has a powerful athletic body with the ability to fight, driven by a fighting spirit. This ‘sword’ could be considered to be made of ordinary tool steel. Ueshiba Morihei believed that superlative martial virtue was necessary as part of the Shinto rites of reconciliation of the energy of the universe. His methodology of achieving this was through a particular training of the body: imagine a sword of wootz steel, forged in a particular manner to become surpassingly strong, flexible and responsive to stress from any direction. Because Ueshiba did not explicitly teach how to achieve this, few students understood what he was doing. Of the few, most learned partially, and only by osmosis—in other words, they learned unconsciously, and therefore, were hard pressed to pass on what they learned to others.

I am asserting that there is a component that few in modern aikido have trained – much less are pursuing (Ikeda Hiroshi is a notable exception). This is the component that Ueshiba described as Heaven-Earth-Man, a specific overarching training methodology that, when put in effect, he (and a very few of the Daito-ryu people who were his associates and teachers) referred to as aiki. (10)  This is not leverage, this is not ‘getting the best angle,’ this is not musubi (the blending of forces). It is training the body so that you can use it in specific ways—as Ueshiba himself put it, “Aiki is a method to make other people do what you want.” I will note that I have written an entire book on this subject, Hidden in Plain Sight aka HIPS . One of the aims of this book was to establish that far from being unique, this methodology was once far more common, ubiquitous within Japanese martial arts of earlier era.

The Ki of Earth is gravity and ground. You can use gravity in any downward movement, if you do not tense your muscles. A tense application of downward force would, in effect, be putting the brakes on pure gravity. Were you to extend your arm above your head and let it drop without impediment onto your thigh, you’ll leave a bruise (this is a good test—if, after two or three reps, you are not in significant pain, you aren’t using gravity). Ground is, simplified, pushing into the ground (which doesn’t move), so that forces travel upwards through one’s body. The harder the push, the more power—if, of course, you do not lock-down and tense yourself when doing so. For Ueshiba Morihei, training in this aspect was the elimination of any inflexibilities that impede the forces of gravity and ground going through your body (the shoulders and hips being most significant). Such common aikido exercises as torifune and ikkyo-undo are not ‘warm-ups’—they are methodologies which, when done correctly over many thousands of hours, create a body that uses the Ki of Earth without impediment.

The Ki of Heaven is associated with breath (but not somehow a ‘puff of energy’ that blows the other person down). Rather, breathing is coordinated with specific exercises that stretch and open the joints, while simultaneously strengthening the connective tissue, particularly in spiral movements. This coiling energy can be found in a lot of martial arts. Bajiquan is notable for this. This is a force amplifier. Aikidoka called this kokyu-ryoku—even though most do not know what this really means. Interestingly, Ueshiba’s incessant prayers, had the concurrent effect of giving him hours of daily training in kokyu-ryoku, through his particular chanting, coupled with specific postures, patterns of breathing and concurrent stretching and pressure within his pneumo-thorax. Most of his students, who did not believe in his religious activities, chanted along with him (at least in earlier days) but received limited benefit, because merely making sounds with one’s mouth will not properly train the pneumo-thorax within.

The Ki of Man is tanden. This is not Tohei Koichi’s ‘one point’—rather, it is a complex of muscle, bone and connective tissue: diaphragm, abdominal wall, back/spine & pelvic floor. Consider this not only the ‘core’—as Western exercise systems talk about—but as a kind of differential gear, to drive power from the legs through the body and the limbs.

Assuming you’ve read this far: what’s the point? Stability under stress. Spontaneous, fluid motion. Explosive power. Mochizuki Hiroo recalled that during WWII, he trained with Ueshiba and what he did was essentially, no-inch strikes from any angle that knocked the wind out of him. This converts all joint locks into a kind of a strike (with forearm or shoulder, for example) to an extended limb. Furthermore, the ‘invisible techniques’ of Ueshiba Morihei, where people said,  “I don’t know what he did and I was on the ground,” are also the product of the ability to instantaneously move the whole body into the GROOVE, and exert all your power as you occupy that space. When this is done impeccably, minimal movement actually can have a significant effect on the other person.

The only way to acquire this is specialized training—Ueshiba actually presented various training regimen at the beginning of his classes that people thought were warm-ups. In fact, his real training was on his own—he merely presented these exercises at the start of practice, in a sense, demonstrating them rather than training them there. Because they are boring to practice at any length of time, people merely ran through them for a couple minutes, interpreting them as taiso (‘exercises’) rather than tanren (‘forging of the body’). For these ‘exercises’ to be of any value takes many hours of a too short life—and truth be told, there are a lot quicker ways to acquire high-level fighting skills. Nonetheless, the point of all of this is that many people, today, are frankly mystified that Ueshiba was so respected. Even his pre-war films are not all that impressive. I think (or would like to think) what he showed in such exhibitions, was no more related to the core of his art than Bruce Lee’s film choreography to his real Jeet Kun Do.

To return to my theme: The five components are a basis: They stand alone—and the evidence of their value is in such individuals as Sugano Seiichi, Kato Hiroshi, Chiba Kazuo, Saotome Mitsugi, etc. One can cross-train, and if effective, integrate it within one’s aikido—examples abound, such as Nishio Shoji, Kuroiwa Yoshio and Bruce Bookman. But if one wants what Ueshiba (and some others) could do, all the previous components are not an end in themselves; rather, they is a vehicle for a very specific training methodology. (11)

So, let us return to atemi. People think atemi is hitting AKA FIST. Atemi doesn’t mean hitting the body. That would be written like this 体当たり (‘tai atari’). Atemi is written 当て身。And literally, this means, ‘a body that hits’ In other words, true atemi is not fisticuffs, not pugilism. The proof of this is that atemi existed in Japan for hundreds of years before any pugilism existed in Japanese culture—it was there within jujutsu, even though they were definitely not boxing in any shape or form. Japan was an armed society, and atemi was an adjunct to combat, where people could deploy a blade at any moment, not to be used in  a stand-alone fistfight. In true atemijutsu, one can, with just about any part of the body, impact the enemy in a way that is devastating (an example of this would be Conor MacGregor’s shoulder strikes in a recent match—not done in the same way I’m outlining in this chapter, but devastating nonetheless).

To be clear, I’m not a missionary; I really don’t care whether other people decide to pursue this type of training or not. It simply is important to me, and it is clear to me by the evidence, it was surpassingly important to Ueshiba Morihei. It seems to me that beyond all else, there should be interest amongst aikidoka in what the founder of aikido  was actually doing when he engendered such respect, even awe, from people like Haga Junichi & Nakamura Hakudo of kendo, Kotani Sumiyuki, Mochizuki Minoru and Tomiki Kenji of judo, Konishi Yasuhiro and Okuyama Tadao of karate, and any number of others.

#7 – STEPPING OFF THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

There is one more component regarding Ueshiba Morihei—HACKING THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. Ueshiba practiced various austerities, derived from Shingon Mikkyo and then later from Omotokyo. In particular, he did chinkon-kishin, which has its roots in shamanism: allowing a deity to take possession of one’s mind. Aside from the risks involved, one has to be part of the belief system to make use of this, and most of such austerities require vary harsh rituals that stress the nervous system to the maximum. Ueshiba is proof that there are potential rewards to this, but it requires a commitment far beyond what most people would be willing to give to martial arts training. That’s what made Ueshiba unique amongst his Daito-ryu peers. (I didn’t say better, by the way—how would I know. Unique). (12)

There was a ubiquitous practice amongst warriors who believe combat was their only means of immortality through creation of a name beyond death. Bare remnants of this remain today. This is done by means of a melding of shamanistic practices like vision quests, spirit possession, etc. combined with martial training. (13)  It’s dangerous—both physically and psychologically. Often it included starvation, sleeplessness, exposure to the elements, physical training beyond exhaustion, and physical mortification. The end goal of this is an analogue to the berserker state (and this is not a chaotic excited delirium—rather, it is going in the zone, like Michael Jordan in the last seconds of the game, but in this case, in the service of killing). Ueshiba did this—and it required many hours for many years. I’m not recommending this for anyone. But an accurate description of Ueshiba—and what made him unique, not only from modern people, but also from his Daito-ryu peers, was his obsessive ascetic training. The claim is that one can tap into the nervous system, enabling one to do superhuman acts is something the reader may believe or not. A book I’d recommend, from a modern perspective, is Bone Games

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Footnotes

(1) And just to be clear, I don’t have anyone’s fight card in hand—it is certainly possible that I am in error considering one or another person I mention, but I’ve either experienced their abilities firsthand in the dojo or have observed them in film and they shared the same qualities that I describe among those who undeniably were formidable.

(2) To underscore, pure aikido has saved lives. I know correctional officers at maximum security prisons who have used aikido in hand-to-hand combat, saving their own and other’s lives against armed attackers. I know police officers who have done the same. Nonetheless, I will repeat, mortal combative engagements are not the prime focus of modern aikido—if that were true, its technical corpus and training methodology would be quite different.

(3) Please understand that I am not faulting this film clip. It is teaching children excellent movement, and the essentials of aikido. The problem is that all too many people, in the children’s position, after years practicing in the same manner, actually believe that they can manage a violent attacker so easily.

(4) Mochizuki Minoru, the great prewar student of Ueshiba Morihei, very skilled in a number of martial arts, stated that the reason people took such dramatic jumping ukemi with Ueshiba is that they were trying to get away from the pain of his terrible hands.

(5) The proof of this concern is you do not see—and I wager that without robotic implants or nanotech, will never see—a female-to-male transsexual competing at a top level in male competition.

(6) I have been told by two sources that there is a film of Takeda Sokaku, taken by the staff of the Asahi Shinbun, near the end of his life. One witness said that when he saw the film, he thought it was a second film of Ueshiba from the same era, only to look closer and realize that it was Takeda. Please note that neither of the people who told me this saw the film themselves—it is something they heard about 2nd or 3rd hand.

(7) There are several take-aways from this story. First of all, when others in the class stopped to observe Doshu teaching these two men, as was the custom, he told them to go back to their own practice, saying, “This isn’t for you.” A greater take-away is this: Doshu is often denigrated as teaching a watered-down martial art, unlike the ferocious aikijujusu of his father’s younger years, that he should have learned, given he was growing up in his household. People then assume that his father didn’t think enough of his son to teach him the real martial art, or Doshu was too untalented to really learn it. However, it seems clear that Doshu taught a standardized curriculum for a greater, modern society. Similarly, Ohba Hideo returned from observing a Daito-ryu demonstration and expressed his amazement to his teacher, Tomiki Kenji. Tomiki said, “I can do all of that,” and proceeded to demonstrate the same techniques on Ohba. Tomiki then stated that spending most of one’s life learning such arcane skills was anti-social—that it took one away from actually contributing to society. Rather than dumbing things down, both these men, in their own way, presented aikido with other aims in mind than those of Ueshiba Morihei, much less those of Takeda Sokaku. Nonetheless, Doshu, in this anecdote, reveals that he had learned what his father knew, because, throwing and locking an individual in a way that they cannot escape injury is pure Daito-ryu jujutsu.

(8) The last of the four options isn’t bad, but in the chaos and speed of real fighting—or even a competitive match—it will not be enough.

(9) Kuwamori, when pressed, always had judo to fall back on. To be honest, I sometimes thought the entire attempt to study aikido from this more martial perspective was quixotic, because he beat me far more often with judo techniques than aikido waza. I return once again to my original thesis, which could also be summed up in the phrase, “Respect the house.” I still remain fascinated with those who have succeeded in making their aikido powerful and worthy of admiration.

(10) Ueshiba later referred to it as kokyu-ryoku and still later as takemusu-aiki

(11) What I am discussing here does not offer ‘mystical power’ (please, God, don’t post that video of the idiotic no-touch ‘aiki’ master who gets punched out by a tubby MMA guy. That’s not what I’m talking about).

(12) When I first posted this section on Facebook, I got a question whether I was referring to ‘hacking’ into one’s own nervous system or that of another person. In this essay, I am talking about one’s own.  Hacking someone else is the meaning of kiaijutsu (which requires, by the way, hacking your own to be any good at it). Some koryu are truly sophisticated at this. Araki-ryu, which is my main study for the past 45 years is one. I distilled a modernized version of this as part of a project for DARPA, along with cognitive scientist, Robert Hubal. The results are in two books, The Coordinator and The Accord agent (two versions of the same material for different audiences).

 

(13) These practices could be acquired through Shinto, or in other forms, through Mikkyo or Shugendo.

 

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