Oookay. There is a mysterious word that gets passed around in Japanese martial arts circles that has people chasing their tails in an attempt to become either indomitable heroes or peace-loving gentle spirits. How is it that the same concept can have such vastly different interpretations? Probably because of the secretive nature of traditional martial arts teachings, but also because it’s really difficult to do properly and can be even harder to explain properly.
So, the term aiki (合気) traces back to Sokaku Takeda, and the founding of Daito Ryu Aikijujitsu. It was the name he gave to the secret power he used to defeat opponents much larger than himself. He toured Japan trying to teach this secret to practitioners of jujitsu, sometimes only for only a few hours, but most famously to Morihei Ueshiba the founder of Aikido.
“The mysterie(s) of aiki are revealed as duel opposing spirals one rising on the right, one sinking on the left. A friction is created in the middle. This gives rise to yin and yang. once you move this way no one can stop you”
Ueshiba on Aiki
Ueshiba took aiki and ran with it. He collected jujitstu training methods that cultivated a body capable of creating this incredibly powerful movement style and proceeded to teach it to the world. However, like any good game of telephone, transmission errors (some hilarious) ensued.
So, first and foremost on the list of strange translations is the idea that aiki is about loving your opponent. Okay. In the Buddhist tradition of loving everyone (Japan is about 70% Buddhist) I get it. It’s not a wrong thing to do, but as a core tenet of a fighting art it’s a little strange. Part of me thinks it’s camouflage like the dancing arts of South America, that some people just bought into.
Second on my list is the idea that aiki is about trying to connect your energy to your opponent, and defeat them thusly. Like, tie an invisible thread from yourself to them, and somehow control them with it. This falls into the category of “invisible magic’ bullshit martial arts and doesn’t deserve any more street cred. Visualizing in order to organize your body is one thing. Thinking ‘The Force’ is real is for children.
Along the same line is the idea that you create a physical connection, via a grip, hold etc. and anchor the other person to your center of mass. If you connect yourself to someone who is significantly bigger, stronger and heavier than you, what’s going to happen is they are going to use your connection and whip you to death with it.
Okay, next comes the misclassification of otherwise generally good ideas.
Next comes the idea that aiki means “going with the flow”, or matching the energy of an incoming force. This is different from just letting someone push you around, in that you redirect the force. Watch one of the Gracies on the mat and you will see this beautifully illustrated. However, it’s not aiki. It is awase.
Getting probably closest to the mark is the notion that aiki is somehow a sphere of energy that surrounds you that you move along to deflect, redirect and throw an opponent. Like I said earlier, good visualizations can have good results, but it’s important to remember that it’s 100% imaginary. Circles are incredibly powerful geometry, and moving tangent to force is key to not becoming someone else’s physics experiment. If you look, you will see sections of circles in every human movement, and anyone who ignores them is either a charlatan or an idiot.
Coming near to the end is something I still refer to as aiki (lowercase “a”) because I haven’t found a better name for it yet. It’s the idea of a circular push/pull in your movements. It’s distinct from the sphere concept in that you are using balanced (ai) forces (ki) to create a powerful, difficult to interpret and therefore properly react to, movement. Most accurately I suppose your could call it in/yo or yin/yang and when evaluating individual movements, we ask “Where is the push (yang)? Where is the pull (yin)?”
Last we get to Ueshiba’s and Takeda’s Aiki. This is something that occurs entirely in your own body and has absolutely nothing to do with an opponent. It has consequences for anyone interacting with your body, but the center of it is creating a quality of movement that is almost superhumanly powerful and feels “really weird”. It truly sounds like more Jedi bullshit, and if not for being on the wrong end of it I assure you I’d be pretty skeptical. However, at 6’2″ and over 200 pounds with 30 years experience in various grappling arts, being handled like a child by a man 20 years my senior, and again by a short, overweight instructor with an artificial knee I had to give in to the facts.
Real Aiki is about unifying the body to move as a whole like the ropes in a ballista. Dual, opposing spirals of force, creating a shear up the body using the myofascial trains of tissue from foot to head and finger to finger. It takes an incredible amount of time and training to cultivate. It’s frustrating and unrewarding for the first several years. You look and feel like an idiot training it, and until you really understand it, you can’t even explain what you are doing to your friends and family, much less why. Then the magic happens and you pull a movement that seems impossible, grapple someone who should tear you a new one and win, or just start wondering why everyone you put hands on feels like a wet noodle.
Good luck on your own voyage of aiki discovery. I hope this helps.