The annual Aiki Taisai (合気神社例大祭) festival occurred on April 29, 2022in Iwama, Japan. Despite the rain, the event brought a surge of people towhat is normally a relatively quiet and sparsely populated rural part of Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.
Amid entertaining and feeding the many visitors that stopped by the Iwama Shin Shin Aiki Shurenkai’s nearby Shin Dojo, Saito Kaicho explained a concept passed down from the Founder: that there are three distinct kinds of aikido.
The first is called strong aikido (強い合気道 / Tsuyoi Aikido) and is found in daily training (keiko/稽古). This includes basic (kihon/基本), flexible (jyutai/柔体), and flowing (ki-no-nagare/気の流れ) practices, as well as variations (henka/変化), continuations (renzoku/連続), rigorous applications (荒技/Arawaza), and even countering (kaeshi/返し) techniques.
Strong aikido is necessary to embody aiki principles, cultivate power, inculcate techniques, and personally develop in the art as a comprehensive Way (道). The emphasis of this training is a firm grab or sincere and powerful attack, only lightening up to allow for beginners or the infirm to build their strength gradually through sincere training. This is where the preponderance of time, attention, and practice is rightly focused.
The second type of aikido is that which never loses (負けない合気道/Makenai Aikido). This kind of aikido is focused on practical applications of technique in real combative (実戦/jissen) situations. Makenai aikido includes all the technical skills developed through consistent strong training yet also incorporates whatever applications (応用技/Oyo Waza) the situation calls for.
An important aspect of makenai aikido is moral character, personal fortitude, and a sense of bravery, without which one is unable to face the danger inherent to a confrontation that could determine life, death, or permanent disability (真剣勝負/shinken shobu). Understanding makenai aikido is essential for maintaining presence of mind and exerting one’s self to the fullest (気張る/kibaru) even in the face of an inevitable death, whether it is in combat or as the natural end of the human experience.
Developing the faculty for makenai aikido occurs largely as a consequence of consistent training in strong aikido and fostering the stamina required to undergo the rigors of keiko. Additionally, one must engage in contemplative practice, such as the Founder’s tradition of daily ‘spirit tranquilizing’ meditation (鎮魂/Chinkon) that carries on today at the Tanrenkan Dojo before morning keiko. Other austere practices, such as waterfall purification (滝行/Takigyou), also encourage a personal confrontation with the nature of mortality, expand psychological endurance limits, and stimulate awareness of ultimate reality. This type of preparation is essential to being ready for spontaneously generating an effective response to lethal challenges.
The third category is demonstration aikido (演武の合気道/Enbu No Aikido) which is useful for displaying the fruits of training. Demonstration aikido promotes the practice by attracting students, building community, and fostering relations by bringing people together. It is an essential component of aikido, to be sure, yet practicing in this mode should be reserved to a minimum amount of time, usually to prepare for a specific demonstration event.
Aikido students and teachers need to be cognizant of these three distinct kinds of aikido and sincerely assess their own understanding of each. Care must be taken to avoid dwelling in demonstration practice at the expense of training in strong aikido. And one must always be ready to apply the skills of makenai aikido when the situation calls for it.
The unfortunate circumstance of certain organizations that exclusively practice demonstration aikido only reinforces the importance for students of the Iwama Shin Shin Aiki Shurenkai of training in the Founder’s tradition as uniquely expressed in Iwama. Witnessing the neglect of others should only encourage a redoubling of personal effort, whether it be through sword, staff, or body techniques, in strong training as the main pillar of comprehensive aikido.
-This article was written by Tim Haffner