Aikido Is Training To Face Reality
To create peace from the aggression of an attack is a transformation worth learning.
Photo courtesy G. Blaize, Creative Commons
Aikido is the practice of facing reality. Put another way, it is the practice of being present, of being “here and now,” as we used to say in the counterculture of the 1960s. I remember my astonishment when my mother told me that she looked forward to special events like birthdays and vacations, and enjoyed thinking about them afterward, but as for the events themselves, they were not her favorite times.
So, my mother looked forward and looked back, but neither of these count as being in the here and now. I understood her to mean that she didn’t enjoy the here and now, but maybe it was that she hadn’t been taught how to experience it. When she said this, I thought she was an anomaly, but I’ve since come to believe that she speaks for a great many people. Our world encourages this attitude. We see it all the time in commercials and ads addressing planning for special events — weddings, births, graduations, trips, even retirement — and the emphasis is on the production and management of photos of these meaningful events.
Folks who suggest enjoying the moment are often from the alternative side of things. In this spirit, practices like yoga, and even Aikido, encourage practitioners to be in the moment, to notice your breath, to take stock of the beauty all around you, to just be where you are at this very moment. This is the practice of being in the moment, it is relaxing, and it helps busy people develop a strong and coherent center of being.
But there’s another reason to be here now, and it has to do with the ability to deal with life in a powerful and respectful manner. Life can be intimidating when it isn’t going the way we expect. But, when we expect something, we are thinking ahead and planning how things will unfold at a future moment in time. To stay in the moment is difficult; it means we accept the next moment as it is, and when it comes, without trying to control it. When we’re afraid, we tend to turn away from what we’re seeing, or to mentally reclassify it altogether so that we don’t have to face a reality that seems disturbing to us. Aikido teaches skills to deal with the moment, such as how to develop a calm, strong center. I like to think that Aikido is training to face reality.
Our desire to avoid conflict sometimes prevents us from seeing things clearly. It’s much easier to choose to see something other than the way it truly is, choosing a more appealing view. But with a little practice we will find that reality is not so disturbing, whether standing calmly in front of another Aikido student as they deliver a punch, or seeing that someone is taking our right of way as we drive. If we see clearly, we can avoid trouble before it starts. You might choose to avoid the problem of walking into a gang of rowdy looking teenagers you see down the street, or you might decide to avoid being overly social upon seeing in your neighbor’s smile the clear glint of an oncoming and needlessly troublesome conversation.
Be Aware, Be Calm
It’s important to be aware and to stay calm. These are two hallmarks of Aikido training, and Aikido classes offer many ways to develop these skills. A third hallmark is Aikido’s ability to transform the energy of hatred and violence to peace and joy. The possibilities for a transformed world through a cultivated populace are appealing.
So how does the transformation work? If we notice a pattern of bad behavior, that alone can help us prevent bad acts through imaginative pro-action on our part. Consider this simple example: seeing the gentle teasing of a group of schoolchildren at the end of a baseball game might urge one to find a way to interrupt this brewing energy of the kids lest it become focused on a particular child. Of course, the traditional methods of interrupting are giving a word to the coach, to the parents, to the teachers, or to the children. But these methods don’t always work as well as they should. However, wandering into the group yourself with friendly conversation and a gift of cold drinks may just interrupt things enough to make the whole situation better.
This example seems oversimplified, but it illustrates how interrupting a situation before it becomes overtly aggressive can transform it into something good — perhaps the return to the joy of postgame enthusiasm. Of course, not all situations are as straightforward and as easy to solve as the one in this example. But even so, if we open our minds to consider events in new ways, solutions are available. Aikido offers peaceful options of safekeeping in our often violent and frightening world.
The most celebrated stories of success in resolving conflict are those that do not involve violence. Aikido rounds out its strong, effective, non-violent action with its philosophical underpinnings of respect for all living things. This is not in keeping with the image of a kick-ass martial art, and to those who are attracted to arts of that kind, it will seem like a conundrum that Aikido is peace-seeking. However, every martial arts teacher I’ve had the pleasure of talking to agrees that avoiding needless conflict is important.
My teacher used to say that Aikido teaches the base lessons that all martial arts use. By this I took him to mean that in Aikido classes we have practices for learning to center and ground, whereas in other arts, it’s often assumed that students will pick this up along the way. Aikido ultimately attracts those people who do not act from hatred and anger, but who strive to do what’s right when threatened; people who desire to learn how to respond appropriately from a quiet confidence and desire to be effective citizens in the world. Aikido is a big picture art, and Aikido training is a step-by-step process of cultivating that peace within ourselves by embodying it.
There Is A Need For Peaceful Conflict
Having lived in relatively peaceful times, we see the benefits to civilization when peace — rather than fighting, destruction, and mayhem — is our daily fare. When I was a girl, upon hearing the violence described in the evening news, I would argue with my father that conflict is not necessary! But as my Aikido teacher used to say, if lions lie down with lambs instead of eating them, then we would have problems of overpopulation of the lions and lambs and probably starvation too, because there wouldn’t be enough food or space for them all. Of course, this was my teacher’s way of illustrating that a certain amount of conflict is necessary for life. My father would agree.
There is another illustration of the need for conflict that I find more compelling: a seedling’s root must push away the dirt to make its way to the nutrients below and its expansion above. Not only is this necessary to its survival, but it counts as a form of conflict: by pushing aside the earth both above and below to claim enough space to support its physical expansion, the sprout is displacing other forms of existence to claim property for its own well-being. How does this differ in principle from a classic act of conflict? I daresay the taking over of another’s space has been the reason for many wars, even a very current one. The difference here is that by usurping another’s property we’re no longer talking about natural conflict; the line has been crossed to unwarranted aggression, which is beyond the basic conflict of nature.
Basic conflict of the sort we use in our own ambulation — pushing against the ground to propel us forward — is a conflict that is the natural production of life, like the sprout’s pushing aside the dirt in order to grow. Conflict, then, is a normal part of life. As Laurie Anderson sings, “Every time we take a step, we fall a little bit and catch ourselves.” And, as the Delta Airlines ad for the Olympics says, “You have to have gravity to create lift.” Here the pressures against another living entity, Earth, help us move about in space even though with each innocent step we may be putting an end to the life of many small living things like insects and seedlings. But it is not malicious; conflict seen in this way does seem unavoidable and necessary to life. It is aggression that is blameworthy and generates bad acts. Such aggressions are an over-escalation of basic conflict. And it is aggression, like an attack, that Aikido can transform. Such acts are an aberration of nature and cross the line of acceptable behavior.
The Stronger The Attack, The Better The Gift
Aikido comes from sword and staff arts. But it is worth noting that such lessons emphasize the importance of being in the moment: critical to good sword and staff work is the awareness of distancing, timing, and posture — subtle aspects of reality. In Aikido we train to see the energy of an attack as a gift, and so the stronger the attack the better the gift! In the Aikido perspective, the more energy we have to work with, the easier it is to unbalance the attacker. Far from overwhelming the attacker with one’s own strength, we use the attacker’s own power to off-balance them, which interrupts their attack. And, we do this while we conserve our own energy. The strategy of overwhelming an attacker with insurmountable strength is not practical as there will always be someone stronger, someone with more guns. This kind of contest of strength against strength is a losing battle. Aikido practice will prepare us to fight if the fight is worthy of our time and effort.
To create peace from the aggression of an attack is a transformation worth learning. In fact, this is Aikido’s true purpose: training students to use the attacker’s lethal energy to bring about a peaceful conclusion. Based on the principle of loving kindness and protection of all living things, Aikido even teaches compassion so that we bring the least amount of harm even to the person who attacks us. Aikido is a path for creating peaceful living through responsible stewardship.
Excerpted from The Hidden Power of Aikido by Susan Perry, Ph.D. © 2024 Park Street Press. Printed with permission from the publisher, Inner Traditions International. www.InnerTraditions.com
Susan Perry, Ph.D., has practiced Aikido for nearly 50 years. She holds a Rokudan (6th-degree blackbelt) in Aikido, a doctorate in philosophy, and a Godan (5th-degree blackbelt) in Japanese calligraphy. Best known for founding and publishing Aikido Today Magazine, she is now president of Aiko Institute. A former assistant professor in the California State University system, she lives in Claremont, California. https://www.susanperry.info/
