I speak and write a lot about aikido because the intense training I received in Japan had a profound impact on my life. It changed my mindset and the direction of my martial arts training. It influenced the way I studied karate and how I approached self-defense.
What I remember and appreciate most was the harsh, uncomfortable training and techniques that forced me to dig deep and keep going. I experienced similar things in other disciplines, but you have to understand that in aikido, you more or less “willingly” allow your partner to put you in severe joint-locks or you commit 100% to a given attack so that he or she can practice throwing you…hard. At least, that’s how I learned.
Hardly anybody knew what aikido was unitl Steven Seagal hit the scene in the late 80s with his first two movies. The art became insanely popular overnight and soon everybody seemed to be offering classes. What westerners appreciated about aikido was that it is predicated on the idea that a person can safely and effectively defend themselves without causing serious injury to an aggressor.
Now, that same ideology was preached in Japan but there was a twist, at least at that time. According to aikido’s founder, Morihei Ueshiba, students of the art have a responsbility to place themselves at a higher ethical standard than an attacker. Essentially, the aikidoka is to “lead” an aggressive person to a non-lethal conclusion. If you do aikido correctly, an attacker actually harms himself while attempting to harm you. I know it’s a little hard to grasp if you are unfamiliar with the art, but think of the aikido practioner as a conduit that receives and directs energy. That didn’t help, did it?
Here’s the twist I mentioned; more than once I had to relocate a dislocated shoulder of a fellow student after getting thrown in the dojo. Throughout my time in Japan I saw many of the injuries I witnessed in karate; broken noses, broken wrists/fingers, torn ligaments, etc. During my black belt test, one guy got his forehead creased by a wooden sword that he failed to avoid. Not a gentle tap. He went down, he bled, he went home. Come back next year. Aikido may be “the art of peace” but peace doesn’t come without a price.
And that is where aikido loses credibility. At least, in some dojos, anyway.
I haven’t returned to Japan in almost 30 years, so I don’t know what current training is like but I have seen a major shift in many dojos throughout this time. Just as in the case of the language, westerners often misinterperate aikido as being very passive and gentle and that is reflected in the way it is taught and practiced. I realize this sounds a little conceited, but many aikido students I see today wouldn’t have lasted a day in our dojo. Their soft, fluffy bodies would have been hurt by the intense training and thier soft, fluffly feelings would have been hurt by the not-so-subtle disregard of the teachers.
Our western culture has diluted aikido as it has other budo. Somehow we missed the part about harsh and intense training leading to ego mitigation and humility. This, by the way, leads to a peaceful society. Instead, people earn thier black belt and strut around a mat as though they’ve reached some pinnacle status. Oh, and you best respect them. I’ve met many an aikido black-belt who’d never been in any sort of fight ignorantly and arrogantly believe that they could handle themselves. Egos so big they need their own zip code. When pressed by full contact fighters, these wanna-be masters defend their art by saying, “You don’t understand, that’s not what it’s about.”
Even worse, some attempted to go a few rounds with MMA fighters, not realizing that these guys actually train very hard and will not be compliant. They take hits and give hits all the time. Aikido didn't fail; these oblivious folks just used the wrong tool for the job. Their training lacked intensity and their thought process lacked common sense. A big ego will do that.
Real masters are secure in their art and their mastery of it. They have nothing to prove or alibi. They train hard, search and study other arts and allow themselves to be uncomfortable often so that they have the right tool for the job. You can’t hammer a nail with a pillow.
Bottom line, martial arts training is not supposed to be for everybody. There was a reason you had to be born into the samurai class to study martial arts. And when those arts were presented as Budo in the late 1800s after the fall of the samurai, the public was welcome to train but the training was severe. Severe. Anybody could join a dojo but people who couldn’t accept the harsh realities of training didn’t last. It was never intended to be a party.
I’ve had to come to grips with this fact having a commercial school. Some things I now have to consider that I never thought about while teaching on military bases or the few folks that came for lessons at the house: Liability. Attraction. Retention. Markenting.
It’s one thing to teach martial arts for free; it’s another thing entirely to recevie compensation. If you’re not careful, you can get tripped up in all the things I mentioned, lower your standards, teach everybody and their kids (literally) in order to keep the doors open and put food on the table. That’s why a lot of old-school budo teachers never taught for money.
I thoroughly believe there is a group of people out there who are willing to invest thier time and money into budo training. Real training with real sweat, real blood, real pain. They are willing to attempt something new and allow themselves to be uncomfortable because deep down they realize…they need it. Especially today. Especially now. Our dojo is for those people. It’s not for everybody and that’s ok. Anybody can come, not everybody will stay. You gotta take the hits, take the falls and not tap out too early. That’s just the way it is.
Dave Magliano
Tatsu Dojo
Jissenkan Budo
Dojo Cho
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