Aikido: The Ahimsa Martial Art & Its Spirituality

What! how can a “martial art” have anything to do with “ahimsa”, non-violence?” As we shall see, the martial art Aikido, founded in the mid-20th century by Morihei Ueshiba,was refined out of older martial arts to create something new that not only allows a skilled practitioner to prevent oneself or others from being harmed while doing as little harm as possible to the attacker, but is also, if the student approaches it in the right way, a non-sectarian spiritual system. As such, it should be ethically and morally acceptable to most Hindus and most other religions of this world too.

One present-day expert, Sensei James Neiman, Dojo-Cho (head instructor) at the Shugyo Aikido Dojo in Union City, California, defines the art in these words: "Aikido is a complete self defence system that protects you and your loved ones while minimizing injury to your attackers. " Neiman Sensei elaborates on how this is done: "Aikido's effectiveness is in its unique addition of joint locks, pins and throws to basic strikes, kicks and blocks: it instantly ends violent conflicts, and is one of the world's most respected arts because of its philosophy of peaceful security. The training is combined with many other self defense skills to help you develop into a complete martial artist, giving you peace in your mind and spirit while developing your body. Often the key to safety is recognizing danger before it becomes a reality. Aikido is focused on how to maintain peaceful relations with people and eliminate physical and interpersonal conflict. Peace, honor, compassion, and spiritual discipline are among the chief values of Aikido practitioners."

AHIMSA

Now, let us consider ahimsa, so that we can explore how Aikido relates to it. Ahimsa, a Sanskrit word is usually translated “non-violence”, but another meaning is “non injury.” There is a statement in the Mahabharata that ahimsa is the highest dharma.

How this word and principle is applied can vary according to a person's specific dharma. For example, the duty of a kshatriya (Hindu warrior) includes combat against invaders, bandits and other unjust aggressors. Hindu dharma is practical as well as holding high ideals,and in fact, particularly for kshatriyas and others in authority, preventing himsa (violence or harm) is a paramount form of ahimsa. For example, protecting the innocent by fighting, even if it means killing, invaders or robbers is ahimsa, not himsa. Therefore, Indian civilization includes a wide variety of effective martial arts traditions, both armed and unarmed. Indian martial arts are not widely known outside of India, though a few books have mentioned them. One reason is probably because most Indian martial arts are connected with religious bodies.

For example, the wrestling arts are especially known in religious orders dedicated to Hanuman; and the Sikh religion has especially cultivated martial skills, both in a traditional form, ShastarVidya, and a ritualized, somewhat sport-like form called Gatka, of which the latter is more widely known, with demonstrations occurring at Sikh festivals and during parades. Reportedly, some Indian martial art masters have deliberately chose to not share their knowledge more widely, after seeing and objecting to the commercialization of the various Far Eastern martial arts in the 20th century. Even taking the principle of ahimsa including the violent prevention of violence for granted, certainly it is more truly ahimsa if the aggression can be prevented without harming the attacker or at least doing the least possible injury to him or her. Aikido was designed to allow its students to do just that.

AIKIDO HISTORY

Now let's have a brief look at its roots and origins. As already stated , it was found by MoriheiUeshiba, a 20th century Japanese martial artist. In his youth , he studied Shingon Buddhism, which is Japan's form of Vajrayana Buddhism, and which shares many things with Hinduism. He also began studying the martial arts of Japan, starting with the sumo wrestling and culminating in his study of Daito-ryuAikijujutsu under Sokaku Takeda. While he later also took up study of some other arts to augment his own training, it was Daito-ryu that became the linch-pin of his martial arts.

After intensive study of Daito-ryu, he became qualified to teach it and then over years of further training, along with spiritual experience, he gradually refined it to what we now know as Aikido.

Most martial arts, even defensive ones, have as their goal to defeat the enemy. Aikido, by contrast, enables the skilled practitioner to avoid being defeated; and as has been said before, to do so doing as little injury as possible to an attacker. In training, students of Aikido take it in turn to play the parts of the attacker and the defender. Therefore, the earliest things taught to the student are how to safely receive the techniques of the defender, when one plays the part of the attacker. Most importantly, that means how to fall safely and get back up again quickly and smoothly. Another important basic point is proper footwork, allowing the practitioner to sidestep attacks and move in close to the attacker.One of the seminal episodes for Founder Ueshiba happened when a skilled swordsman challenged him to a match. Instead of taking up a sword himself, Ueshiba simply avoided each sword-stroke, until the attacker grew tired and conceded that Ueshiba was superior in skill.

Immediately afterwards, Ueshiba had one of his most important spiritual experiences, but regardless of that, in some ways, the technique he used in that case was simultaneously basic to, and an ultimate of Aikido. He was, it should be noted, perfectly capable of taking the sword from the challenger; sword-taking (“tachidori”) is part of the Aikido curriculum.

A TASTE OF PRACTICAL AIKIDO

Daito-ryu techniques were originally designed for battlefield use by samurai, the “kshatriyas” of JJapan . Although of course students have to train safely, Daito-ryu techniques are often designed to be injurious or even fatal in real fighting.

Ueshiba refined the art, creating Aikido, in such a way that an attacker is either deflected away or captured and restrained safely; many techniques even include nuances that are designed for the safety of the attacker.

For example, some methods of throwing an attacker are done so as to encourage the attacker to put a hand on the ground prior to being tipped over or thrown, making it far less likely that the head or neck would be injured. To be fair, people who have not trained in Aikido or similar arts may not know how to fall safely, and won't have the ingrained reactions to being on the receiving end of the techniques that help making training safe, so it is inherently more dangerous for a real attacker than it is for a well prepared training partner, but even so, the Aikido-ist aims at avoiding harm to his attacker as far as possible.

Basic Aikido training first of all includes falling safely, stable posture and mobility. Then students can begin the techniques. There is a common thread to everything done in Aikido, which is “aiki”. This Japanese word can be translated as “harmonizing energy”, energy being “ki”. Often this word is considered hard to translate or understand in English, but it works quite well to simply. Think of it as meaning “energy”, in a wide sense which does in fact exist in English: it refers not only to what scientists call “energy”, but also breath and mental energy.

For Hindus, an important clue can be found in the fact that the Founder occasionally defined “ki” as “prana”, breath energy. In a later section, we will look briefly at inner dimensions of aiki, but in practical terms, it means that the Aikido student learns to harmonize his or her energy rather than clashing with the energy of others. This includes the energy of the earth, which we see in the art of safe falling: if you harmonize with it, you fall smoothly and safely, if you clash with the ground, and it hurts and you may well be injured; and it includes the energy of the practice partner, or the attacker. The Aikido practitioner, by blending his or her energy with the partner or attacker is able to use that person's own energy to control and move them.

The Founder also said that Aikido is “not a catalog of thechniques ”. Yet, Aikido practice includes practice of many techniques, and typically Aikido schools have a curriculum of different techniques that one must learn in order to progress in rank.

How might this be reconciled? By remembering that the key of everything in Aikido is simply “aiki”; thus, although one studies specific techniques, and they can be productively used if one is attacked, in the end they are all really exercises in “ai-ing your ki”. The Founder more or less tells us so by defining the highest standrard of Aikido to be “TakemusuAiki”, which can be roughly translated as something like “spontaneously-generating martial energy harmonization”; but rather than translating, it is easier to understand through description of what it is: TakemusuAiki is the ability to blend with the attacker's energy so perfectly as to automatically and effortlessly control his or her movements, neutralizing the attack, free of constraint of any learned techniques. In other words, at this level, one simply does naturally exactly what is needed. Thus, all techniques are really practice in harmonizing ki in those particular movements, with the aim of leading to a level of sufficient ability in this blending that it simply happens when needed.

SPIRITUAL AIKIDO

The Founder and his successors (son Kisshomaru Ueshiba and grandson MoriteruUeshiba) have consistently maintained that Aikido is not merely a self-defense system, a sport, or a health system. Instead, they, and particularly the Founder, have described Aikido as a spiritual practice. Although he generally used Japanese and Shinto words and concepts, he also sometimes used Buddhist concepts, many of which are of course shared with Hindu dharma and other Indian religions.

In broad principle, for example, he said that Aiki also includes bringing into harmony the energy of Heaven, Man and Earth, both on the large scale and the individual scale. Thus he defined Aikido as the “eternal principle of the universe”. Probably a good way to translate that into Sanskrit would be none other than “Sanatana Dharma”, not referring to Hinduism as such, but to the underlying nature of reality which the wise see as the real sanatana dharma of all bona fide religions. In that regard, Ueshiba belonged to a particular tradition of Shinto called Omoto-kyo, which does recognize shared truth among the world's religions. Based on his teachings, it seems likely that Ueshiba achieved something like the “samadarshinah” state described in Bhagavad-Gita: “equal vision”, not seeing the material circumstances of people and other living things, but rather seeing their true, spiritual selves. From this, he denied that anyone is a genuine enemy: an attacker is simply in illusion, and hence the Aikidoist should be compassionate in preventing the attack. This, then, appears to be the spiritual root of the ahimsa in Aikido. The Founder also said that all of Aikido practice is “misogi”. This Japanese word refers to ascetic practices and rituals intended for purification, and which have the aim of "chinkonkishin”, which means calming the spirit and returning to the divine.

Misogi is thus close to Hindu “tapasya” or penance, and chinkonkishin is basically the same thing as yogic meditation. Another important spiritual practice is kototama, which is the chanting of sacred sounds. Does that not sound like “mantra”? In fact, the Founder often makes reference to “AUN”, which the Japanese pronunciation of AUM or OM. (The Japanese final “N” sound is similar to the “anusvara” of Sanskrit, so the transliteration is really of the same sound.)

There are many Aikido-ists who ignore or do not practice these deeper aspects of Aikido, and that is all right, since according to the Founder's own descriptions of the practice as “misogi”, even basic practice itself has spiritual benefit. For Hindus and other Dharmis, though, many if not all of these spiritual practices are already familiar, except in so far as the external cultural differences between Japan and India.

In this way, a close look at the various features of this martial art, Aikido, show that it appears to be quite suitable for Hindus, even though coming from a different, sometimes incompatible, culture. In particular, its ethics and morals place very high value on non-injury, ahimsa, and ultimately does so on the basis of the illusionary nature of hostility and in the underlying truth that we are all spiritual entities. Aikido teaches its people to care about humanity and the world and to seek to make the world a better place.