The Use of Weapons in Aikidō Training

 It is obvious that the sword is a thing with which one strikes and the spear is a thing with which one thrusts. . . . The cut has its rules, and thrust has its rules, and if a person does not know their function, then he will not do full justice to them. Even though the heart may be strong, if the form is not appropriate, then the stroke will fall where it should not fall. If one deviates from the principle of technique, one will not attain what one desires.

—from Tengu Geijutsu Ron

We should stop doing tachi-dori and jō-dori in public demos. There are lots of real swordsmen in the audience, people who’ve really trained with weapons, and they know that we can’t really take swords and staffs out of people’s hands when they are attacking us. We are making fools of ourselves.

—Kuroiwa Yoshio, Aikikai shihan

Combative systems are not collections of techniques assembled for arbitrary reasons. Each martial art emerges from a cultural and environmental matrix, created by individuals who are the living embodiment of that milieu. An intensive study of any martial art leads one to experience both this matrix and the people who created it, not only on an intellectual level, but also as an emotional and somatic experience. Each martial art has a ‘soul.’

Martial traditions often deteriorate after only a few generations. In many instances, the conditions of the society change, and the art becomes an antique rather than an entity still actually used. In addition, teachers may have withheld what is most essential or successor students simply did not pick it up when it was offered, and subsequent generations may have no access to the specialized training methodologies and hidden applications that are essential to the real practice of the art.

Many teachers learn from bitter experience that even meticulous instruction on the essentials of their art can be wasted effort. Far too many people train to be entertained or to have something interesting to fill a few moments of their lives, and will never devote the necessary thousands of hours to learn what is explained to them. Not only that, if one needs to have too many things explained, one is very likely someone who does not have the talent to learn anyway. Far too often, I’ve heard complaints from people in the West, accusing Asian instructors of withholding essential information. I’ve rarely experienced that. My instructors showed me more, as soon as I manifested (not paid lip service—manifested) what they’d already taught me. For example, I was recently in a class with an elderly t’ai chi ch’uan instructor. He spoke no English, and I no Chinese. He had been working on a technique for several hours the night before with the man whose house he was staying, and he had taken another hour to teach the same technique in class the next day. Everyone was fascinated with the apparent intricacies of the joint lock, which seemed to have a number of components. However, I saw that what he was doing with his arms was almost irrelevant. Rather, he was uprooting the opponent, using his tantien (center point of the body) and locking them up, each time differently, depending on how they organized themselves to rebalance. I attempted what I saw him actually doing, rather than the joint lock, per se. Another students said, “That’s not what we’re doing, is it, sifu?” He offhandedly said, “Well, that’s another way, I suppose.” Fifteen minutes later, as I was practicing by myself, he came over and showed me refinements of what I’d seen, over and over again, checking my technique until he was happy with my ability to uproot him. When I truly can do it well, he will show me more.

To be sure, there have always been instructors who said, ‘steal my technique.’ Some use this as a method of teaching.  Others selfishly used it to horde their knowledge, trying their level best to make it difficult, if not impossible, for the student to really learn, even resenting them when they succeed. In my experience, however, far more high-level teachers are happy to teach, if you show yourself to be someone worth teaching, even if you are from another nation or culture. Happy they may be, but they will not spoon-feed you. Rather, as you steal a little, they ‘leave’ a little more on the table for you to pick up, but you must notice it, half hidden under a pile of techniques and other distractions.

Contrary to popular belief, rote learning has never been the central method of training in martial studies—it is only so at the beginning stages. You do not give life to a martial tradition through lifeless imitation or through immature innovation. One must carry a spirit similar to that in Bassho’s statement: “Seek not what the old masters did; seek what they sought.”

It is therefore imperative that anyone who desires to achieve true greatness cannot take the teachings at face value. This does not mean skepticism. It means that it is necessary to reduce what one is learning to its essential principles and to be mindful of what one is actually doing rather than just ‘going through the motions’ as one is taught. This usually requires countless hours of what people usually call ‘repetition’— but rather than one thousand repetitions, you execute it once, once, once—one thousand times in succession.

The most basic stage of mindful practice is to clearly understand the intention of the discipline that you are training. Without comprehending the goals of the martial art and that of the instructor who purports to teach it, how can we know what we are supposed to learn? We must then consider if we can achieve the asserted aims of the school through practicing its methodology. For example, if the school claims to be based on survival at any cost, does it present a system of techniques that offers one the best chance for survival? In what context? Do those techniques apply to the conditions one would actually face in the environment within which one lives?[i] Or, if the tradition is concerned with spiritual development, do the movements actually foster the creation of a more realized, insightful being?

With this in mind, how does weapon practice contribute to or inhibit the aims of aikidō?[ii] The essential nature of a weapon is as an object created to do harm to others—to cut and slash flesh, crush bone, give pain, even take life. Any other purposes, such as using the weapon as emblem of power or as means of spiritual advancement, are secondary developments. Therefore, the first question: Is aikidō weapon technique effective as a combative martial art?

I have not seen any ‘aiki-weapon’ methodology by any aikidō practitioner that is suitable training for combat. This is not to say that some aikidōka are not highly skilled in the use of their practice weaponry, and that there are not powerful techniques here-and-there within their curriculum. There is no doubt that some practitioners could do considerable harm to people if they chose. However, the method of training and techniques that are practiced are no more appropriate for the battlefield or the dueling ground than those of kendō (Japanese sports-fencing) or iaidō (sword drawing for the purpose of discipline and cultivation of one’s spirit). The techniques of jō-dori, tachi-dori and tantō-dori (disarming techniques of the short staff, sword and dagger respectively), despite their merit in training courage and entering inside the arc of a moving object, would not be effective against someone skilled in the use of these weapons as killing implements. The two-person sword and staff forms, notwithstanding all the ways they can conceivably enhance understanding of unarmed technique, focus on fitting movements together to study balance and body orientation. The spacing is often inappropriate for combative training; many of the blocks could be ‘crushed’ by a forceful blow; and many of the strikes could be deflected or slipped. The two person weapons forms often have one person ‘taking ukemi’ in a manner all too common in aikidō—attacking in a way to make the other person’s technique possible. If one person’s movements and technique are inauthentic, the other’s will be as well. If combat effectiveness is your aim, and you believe that you are training to achieve that end based on aikidō sword, staff or knife work, you are lying to yourself, or at least, someone has lied to you.

There is a body-consciousness that somehow knows if a martial movement is true or false. If you intellectually and emotionally believe yourself to be strong, but doubt your power on an unconscious, level (and the unconscious always communicates through the body first), it will be reflected in your behavior. This can be manifested as a defensiveness about your own (or your martial art’s) potency; a sectarian, religious attitude towards the techniques and doctrine of the school as well as towards the founder and elder statesmen of the art; or bullying of one’s juniors or picking fights with those clearly weaker, to prove the potency of what you doubt in your heart of hearts. I’ve observed all of this within the aikidō community.

If you do not truly understand what you are actually capable of accomplishing, you will, potentially, repeat an illusory act thousands upon thousands of times. Illusion repeated often enough becomes one’s view of the world. Paradoxically, pseudo-combative training can have a more brutalizing effect on its practitioners than effective combative technique if the former is not recognized in its true nature. It’s like using a rattail file to slice your steak dinner; you will get something to eat, but you will end your meal both hungry and somewhat of a mess.

This should not be a controversial viewpoint as both Ueshiba Morihei and Ueshiba Kisshomaru, founder and son, were quite explicit that aikidō is not a method of waging war. If aikidō weapon work was not developed as combative martial training, does it accomplish the often-endorsed aim of aikidō, that the techniques were created in the service of a higher aim—the resolution of human conflict into harmonious relationship?

Human relations, on either a physical or spiritual level, are characterized by multi-levels of communication, and therefore, by constant micro-adjustments between the two individuals. This is true in both combat and conversation. Accounts of Ueshiba Morihei illustrate a man who, in many ways, personified the sensitivity and subtlety that exemplifies this state. Training in aikidō, however, is almost always typified by unambiguous movements in which the attacker remains consistent in his attack from start to finish. This is also true of the aikidō techniques that are used to manage these unambiguous attacks. Compared to the spontaneity of movement and human response that Ueshiba Morihei is said to have exemplified, the movements of aikidō are rather stereotyped and limited. Furthermore, even though the vast majority of aikidō practitioners only train in taijutsu (unarmed techniques), the claim it is derived from the techniques of the sword dominates the technical theories about aikidō. Aiki weapons work, however, is particularly straightforward and unambiguous, and thus does not do justice to the rich confusing nature of the reality of human interrelation in conflict. If aikidō is to be an art that enables the reconciliation of human beings in conflict, we are practicing the outline rather than the art.[iii]

On a philosophical level, aikidō has profoundly influenced my own work as a crisis intervention specialist, the ability to step into a chaotic situation and, through one’s own power, create order, as if becoming the ‘eye’ around which the hurricane revolves. However, I have never been in a situation similar to a classic aikidō technique in which the attacker remains consistent in the form and nature of his aggression from start to finish. For example, I might knock on the door of person suffering from psychosis and he answers, screaming, “Go away! Get out of here or I’ll kill you. You are a minion of the Illuminati, the Masonic Elks Club of Rotarians!” My first move is an atemi, throwing him off-balance: I apologize for disturbing him with utter sincerity, but without any attempt to ingratiate myself to him. I apologize powerfully. The situation changes. He is still hostile, still hallucinating, but he is also surprised. He finds I do not present myself as he expects, or fears: neither as a law enforcement officer nor as a ‘typical’ mental health worker. Despite my size, and (some people say) intense appearance, I do not present a threat. So now there are two emotions—in a sense, two attacks—going on at one time. As the situation develops, let us imagine he begins to believe that I must agree with his delusions about his enemies. Otherwise, why would I be so nice to him? This is a third attack. Then again, maybe I’m tricking him . . . a fourth attack! On a very subtle level, I must constantly adjust and harmonize with his multi-faceted emotional and physical presentation, and in doing so, maintain a subtle dominance (irimi), keeping him slightly off-balance, but not so much so that he experiences fear (a sense that he will ‘fall’). Resolution ensues as a quiet, subtle process; there is almost never a dramatic ‘technique,’ with the situation resolved in a single stroke. From this example, it should be clear that for the sake of my profession–and my safety–I do not want to engage in a training method that reinforces a limited unimaginative view of the nature of human conflict. Within aikidō, I see this tendency as most pronounced in the training for empty-handed counters against weapon attacks. There, most emphatically, the technique does not achieve the stature of the philosophical underpinnings.

However, there are definite benefits to aiki weapon training. First of all, it keeps one in touch with its Japanese roots. Although aikidō is an ‘international’ martial art, a loss of its cultural heritage will result in its dilution to something with far less psychological valence. The cultural context is like seasoning that makes a meal rich and complex—without it, one merely has a bland assemblage of wrist locks and throws. Weapons-work, in particular, also excites the imagination. Doing a form with either a staff or a sword gives a certain edge to your practice, not the least of which is a romantic edge. Finally, by increasing the sense of danger, one can learn important principles of aikidō training, such as control, responsibility, irimi isoku (entering in an instant) and awase (‘blending/harmonizing’).

If, however, ‘aiki weapons’ training becomes central rather than a supplement to enhance one’s aikidō, it is very possible that one will arrive at an illusory understanding of both oneself and others in situations requiring conflict resolution. Rather than aikidō as a manifestation of the techniques of the sword, we need to move toward aikidō as a manifestation of the true nature of the interrelations of human beings. Weapons work must contribute to this, if we are to be doing the aikidō that the founder and his leading disciples all have stated is its goal. Most accounts by aikidō’s leading instructors suggest that, for Ueshiba Morihei, weapon work was a spur to his creativity and an important method of his own training. It does seem, however, that it was for the purpose of enhancing the central practice of taijutsu. Practiced mindfully, with full awareness of its capabilities and potentialities, there it should remain.

Can the study of archaic martial traditions be helpful to one’s aikidō training?

Ueshiba Morihei has become a mythic figure. People who have never met him create all sorts of fantasies about him, while those who have met him each have their ‘own’ Ueshiba Morihei, a figure who seems to be as much colored by the personality of the rememberer as a true historical figure. If one only practices aikidō, one practices through the lens of one’s teacher and sees aikidō much as he or she does. One’s achievements in aikidō can often be limited by the extent of our teacher’s vision, rather than the possibilities inherent within the art. The study of a second art, can enable one to learn one’s first art both from the inside and from a slightly detached perspective, that of another martial study. Though not an easy task, it is possible to fully commit to the vision of one’s teacher while in aikidō practice, and then, through training in a second martial art, get a more objective vision of what one has been doing. Of course, this works in reverse as well, setting up a phenomenal creative tension.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the character of Ueshiba Morihei himself was his unremitting effort to continue to train himself after he had, in effect, created the technical rationale of his aikidō. As we see in films of various periods, he established the broad technical structure of his art quite early, which is not surprising given that it was almost wholly derived from Daitō-ryū, an art he studied for several decades. After this time, he made changes on more subtle levels than where to put a hand or a foot. We can attribute his continuous creative and spiritual development to his training in esoteric disciplines and his study, as both an observer and a participant, of other martial arts. Both continued quite late in his life. Thus, Ueshiba Morihei’s continued refinement was due to a deeper turning into his own spirit and intellect, and also an outward turning for new information that, either in its acquisition or rejection, served to further hone his own skills and insight. I will not engage in any discussion of Ueshiba’s spiritual practices here, but I certainly have observed how training in other martial arts can affect one’s aikidō practice in an extremely positive manner. Among Ueshiba’s studies were the classical martial arts, known as koryū, created before 1867, when Japan opened itself up to the modern world.

The classical systems have their own integrity and ethical values that are categorically as developed as those you find in aikidō. One of the most profound experiences in my own life was my study with Nitta Suzuyo, the nineteenth generation headmaster of Toda-ha Bukō-ryū. I observed her in situations of considerable social stress, where she achieved the best possible outcome through unfailing politeness. Watching her really changed my attitude about what one learns through martial arts, for her courtesy came from an abiding inner strength that was clearly a product of her training.

In addition to its technical sophistication as a method of using the naginata (Japanese glaive—a curved blade mounted on a long shaft), courtesy in both its essence and its ritual expression is emphasized in Toda-ha Bukō-ryū to an enormous degree. I must underscore that reigi (‘the obligation to bow’) is in no way absent in aikidō, either as a practice or as exemplified by numerous individuals, but the particular character of Toda-ha Bukō-ryū, its ‘personality,’ so to speak, emphasizes this study in a unique and powerful way.

Studying a classical system can, thus, break the almost religious thinking about aikidō as the only ethical martial system and can also offer other ethical alternatives that one may not have arrived at through aikidō training.

A second benefit comes from practicing two systems that have radically different assumptions about what happens within conflict. Rather than accepting credulously what one learns in one’s aikidō dōjō, one actually has to think and reflect upon two or more equally valid alternatives. Being conscious of the basic assumptions within aikidō technique and philosophy enables one to express aikidō in one’s life in a vital, rather than formalistic way.

When studying music, one cannot immediately play Bach or Beethoven at a concert level. One must spend years practicing scales and other fundamentals before one can begin to do justice to the music. If you consider the gokui (‘deepest teachings’) of almost any classical martial art, you’ll see that most are a few very cryptic, apparently simple, techniques–they are, however, almost indescribably information-rich, although this is not apparent to the uninitiated. One has to practice many years doing the equivalent of scales to approach a level where these techniques can be expressed with integrity and grace in an uncontrolled situation.

In aikidō, however, it is as if Ueshiba Morihei were walking in the snow with some branches trailing behind him, erasing his footsteps. All he taught was the gokui; better put, all he showed was the gokui, without clearly explaining them.[iv] Studying a classical system allows one, in some sense, to work with technical and ethical assumptions similar to those Ueshiba Morihei studied and, to some degree, turned away from in his younger days. These are some of the ‘lost scales’ of aikidō. Thus, training in a classical martial tradition enables one to retrace, in some fashion, some of Ueshiba Morihei’s own steps, and to experience some of the moral dilemma that led him to create aikidō for himself.

It is true that many individuals in aikidō assert that just practicing the basic techniques of aikidō is enough. In one sense, they are right, and it is right for perhaps 98% of the people who enter a dōjō . However, what made Ueshiba Morihei’s aikidō so much greater than any of his successors? What endowed him with his charisma and power? It is not enough to simply declare him a genius. It was the creative passion that he was constantly putting into his art and life. He came from a place of dissatisfaction with what he had achieved, and was constantly working to create it anew. Most in aikidō today, on the other hand, seem to be coming from a place of faith—that we are presented with the ideal martial art, a legacy of the ideal man, and if we only conform to this, we will attain the same level as the founder himself. One cannot, however, copy Picasso or Rembrandt and assert that one has created a work of art. Without a creative spirit, all that is left is hollow imitation. It is not, through studying a classical system, that each of us must then create our own martial art as Ueshiba Morihei created aikidō. It is, instead, through the conflict engendered between the ideals of the archaic arts and those of Ueshiba Morihei’s vision that aikidō can become a living expression of our own spirit. Studying a classical martial art can preserve within us a ‘beginner’s mind,’ open to learning truth rather than rote.

Then Again—Must Aikidō Weapons Training and the Effective Use of a Weapon for Combat Be Mutually Exclusive?

This essay was supposed to be one of the easy one’s for the second edition of Dueling with O-sensei, one that I merely reworked a little from the first. It was one of the first things I ever wrote on aikidō, and it garnered a fair amount of praise. I must confess that I’ve always felt a little unhappy with it. It betrays more than a touch of arrogance. This is reflected in an all-or-nothing viewpoint, that one is training one way or the other: in essence, I was suggesting that for weapons work to conform to aikidō  principles, it had to be, by definition, unrealistic and in some fundamental ways, ineffective.  However, was I correct that to do weapons training for aikidō requires one to be combatively ineffective, and that as soon as the training methodology has integrity in that realm, it no longer is aikidō? I no longer believe that.

For a number of years, I have had the privilege of training together with Bruce Bookman, founder and head instructor of Tenzan Aikidō. We’ve become training brothers, really; we work on Araki-ryū together, and when my aging body allows it, he teaches me Brazilian jiujitsu, a discipline that he also holds legitimate black belt ranking. Early in 2015, he showed me one of the kumi-jō forms that he had learned from his former instructor, Chiba Kazuo, one of the leading post-war shihan of the Aikikai. Each aikidō teacher’s forms are a little different (though most have their roots in the forms developed by Saitō Morihito from the abstract instruction he learned for Ueshiba Morihei). There actually was a lot to admire in the version developed by Bookman’s teacher. Nonetheless, I found some of the same flaws, at least from my perspective, that I’ve all too often observed in aikijō: one person in the kata, I felt, was learning how to ‘lose’ to the other. In other words, he was ‘taking’ ukemi for the other, and in the case of films I’ve seen, that other was always the teacher. There were also many assumptions of how one would act when in a particular body/weapon configuration that did not conform to my experience when training with highly skilled practitioners. It seemed to me that this teacher, like most, came up with his creative ideas not through a collaborative process, but through presenting things to his students who were expected, if not required, to template themselves to his latest ideas. Although his practice could be brutal, even dangerous, there was no mutual reality testing. (NOTE: another type of training in aikido weaponry emphasizes awase, fitting together in mutual neutralization, or outside cutting range, to work on movement principles, particularly in harmonizing with another person. In my view, almost all aikido weaponry is a mixture of awase and “learning to lose” (that particular type of taking ukemi with the weapon rather than mutual attack).

However, instead of brushing this legacy aside, as I more or less did in the preceding portions of this essay, we decided to retool the kata (in plural). We worked and reworked the form(s),  and soon started experimenting, using elements from our own nearly ninety cumulative years of training—not only what I know from two koryū (and from having observed countless more), but Bruce’s consummate athletic ability and lightening fast reaction time, as well as his years of intensely training with weapons with his aikidō instructor. Soon the kata were quite different–the order of the techniques had changed, then techniques were dropped, altered or added. Each kata focuses exclusively on one or two essential principles (i.e.,  tai-sabaki, slipping blocks into second attacks, or explosive power) that makes that form unique from the others in the series (eventually we intend them to total five). Each form is constructed to make an endless loop: the last move of the form is the first move of the form with the roles reversed.

What made this study most most intriguing is that Bruce is able to add something that I cannot. Despite some years of training in aikidō—perhaps a total of eight thousand hours—I am essentially a kind of guest, a visiting outside expert when I occasionally teach an aikidō seminar. Bruce is, in my view, one of the best aikidō practitioners alive, and as far as teaching goes, he is one of two or three people that I would recommend first if I wished to learn this art at its highest level. I mention this for a particular reason: each time we work out a powerful move, he stops the two of us and asks us both if this way of moving, of countering, of attacking still comports with what is required to properly educate an aikidō student. <As I’ve written elsewhere, ‘when in the house, respect the house.’> We then examine it in terms of stance, of timing and as vague as this may sound, if it can enhance one’s aikidō technique through this practice. We are trying, as best we can, to craft something that will not raise questions in someone who knows how to use a weapon to injure or kill, but fosters even further the development of the goals of aikidō: a fluid adaptability, an imperturbable mind, the ability to remain focused and aware so that one is never dominated (put off-balance, taken off-center), and in turn, is able to refrain from in domination in turn. We are not so grandiose as to claim that we have developed a comprehensive combative stick fighting style; rather, we simply require that each and every technique is a powerful move that can function well against opposition, and that each embodies a general principle necessary for the effective use of the jo as a weapon. We hope, in a couple of years or less, to have developed something that is an exemplar of the best of what each of us knows melded together.

____________________________________________________________________________________

[i] It is common to describe koryū as warfare arts. Most are not—they are, instead, systems of individual combat (dueling systems) rather than true combatives, developed long after the period of warfare ended in Japan. Even those that do focus on archaic battlefield techniques are extremely circumscribed in their curriculum. Few, if any teach how to maintain one’s armor, or even how to don it, much less how to function in group formation, battlefield tactics—in short, almost everything that would be included in the curriculum of basic training in the military is missing. (These were taught elsewhere, not primarily within the ryū system itself). See Amdur, Ellis, Old School, for a book-length discussion of this.

[ii] Amdur, Ellis, Hidden in Plain Sight, See Chapter 3, “Aiki and Weaponry: A Unified Field Theory,” for a detailed examination of the history of various aspects of weapons usage within aikidō, and the nature of that training among various factions.

[iii] I believe that a quite intriguing explanation for the development of aikidō techniques and their arrangement in the specific curriculum that was passed down from Ueshiba Morihei is that of Phillipe Voarino. He tries to establish that the techniques of aikidō that Ueshiba selected from the much larger compendium of techniques within Daitō-ryū conform to a trigonometry, a three-dimensional scaffolding that conforms to the most effective way to exert power, one human body to another. This scaffolding conforms to nature, as the cliché goes, in that every movement inscribes a spiral. Voarino attempts to show what techniques fit at what point on a spiral structure, with a discussion of exactly how the technique should be done to conform correctly to that structure. (Voarino’s schema has been criticized on three grounds: first of all, the mathematically savvy assert that his trigonometry is not as accurate as he claims; secondly, that he sees similarities based on superficialities rather than essentials (the spiral of a snail, a fern, a helix are not intrinsically or mathematically the same, nor are they the same as aikidō techniques; third, he has, in an imperialist fashion, attempted to offer the Iwama style of that he practices as the only one conforming to the ideal he sketches. Still, I find what he has done to be a valiant attempt, particularly given that it corresponds to my intuition that there was actually some reason that Ueshiba selected the techniques he did. See Voarino.

[iv] Amdur, Hidden in Plain Sight, ibid  Many, if not most, ended up studying the outer shell–the techniques that he used to ‘contain’ those essential teachings. I am not asserting that the secret to internal strength is contained in most koryu traditions, because most of them lost that information many generations ago. That is a subject of another essay–or a book. Nonetheless, the older martial traditions show the matrix from which Ueshiba Morihei emerged. Much of what he created–or reworked–cannot be understood unless one understands something of what gave his martial art birth–and this goes beyond Daito-ryu itself, because Daito-ryu, too, is something that emerged from older traditions.

No part of this material may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, without permission in writing from the author. However, you are welcome to share a link to this article on such social media as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Purchase Ellis Amdur’s Books On Budo & De-escalation of Aggression Here

Note: If any of my readers here find themselves grateful for access to the information in my essays, you can express your thanks in a way that would be helpful to me in turn. If you have ever purchased any of my books, please write a review – the option is there on Amazon as well as Kobo or iBook. To be sure, positive reviews are valuable in their own right, but beyond that, the number of reviews bumps the algorithm within the online retailer, so that the book in question appears to more customers.