Is Aikido Teachable? by Peter Goldsbury

What a silly question! Of course aikido is teachable. The fact that there are probably a million past and present aikido practitioners in Japan and overseas is eloquent testimony to the fact. Since Morihei Ueshiba actually taught relatively few of these million practitioners, the phenomenal growth of aikido can be due only to the hundreds of dedicated teachers who trained at the hands of the disciples who were taught directly by O-Sensei.

This response is plausible, but unconvincing. It is undeniable that the million past and present aikido practitioners (estimates of the actual numbers vary wildly) have learned the art at the hands of these dedicated disciples; whether they have been taught and, if so, how they have been taught, is another question entirely.

Teaching vs. Training

The issue is not just a matter of words, or yet another example of the conflict between eastern and western cultural traditions and the limitations of both. It is obvious that these cultural traditions are quite different, especially when it comes to matters of teaching and learning. Nevertheless, the differences, though important, are not absolute.

On the one hand Aristotle, the inventor of western logic, the university, western educational methodology and much more besides, was every clear on the matter of what was teachable and what was not. In the work known as Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle states that morality, or the awareness of the importance of an ethical system, has to be learned from experience; all one can do is to present the student with learning opportunities and hope.

On the other hand, in the Japanese scheme of things, aikido shihan are not teachers in the commonly understood sense. In fact this title, so beloved of a certain class of aikido practitioners and such a source of anguish to those members who not do not have it and think they should, is unknown outside traditional Japanese arts. A shihan is a model or archetype of the art in question and the title is given (usually on payment of a large sum of money) to those who are considered outstanding exemplars of the art. Completely different titles are used for people in the Japanese educational world, who spend their time teaching the young and/or inexperienced.

The commonly accepted assumptions of the Japanese educational world are also relevant to the question of teaching in the martial arts. A young Japanese is socialized to become a member of a cohesive social organism or tribe; the development of individuality is never seen in opposition to membership of this social organism. Thus education has a more instrumentalist and utilitarian aim than it does in western countries, where the overriding aim is to develop individuality. Students in schools and universities passively receive from those perceived as elders or betters an extensive body of knowledge, much of it learned by rote. This is where textbooks and syllabuses come into play and at the Japanese junior high school level every school in the entire country is following the same syllabus, probably the same part at the same time.

Training, however, is rarely undertaken in the Japanese classroom. On attaining junior high school, a young student will join a sports club and such clubs also exist in the high schools and universities. The student learns by practice such matters as how to address seniors in polite Japanese and how to be a dutiful cog in a larger machine. The training can sometimes be very severe and absolute obedience to the rules is demanded. Anything less can result in problems and has sometimes led to severe injury or even death. Nearly all the student aikido clubs in Japan are organized on this model. The training is led by senior students (usually in the 3rd year) and a common complaint is that the process is very stifling. The weight of tradition is very strong, with the blind usually being led by the blind; students learn how to be polite and dutiful but not much else. Very few of those who graduate continue aikido practice after they have graduated.

Nevertheless, the high school sports clubs do instil certain assumptions that are of great use when practising the martial arts. A student will approach an art like aikido with certain basic assumptions. (1) The aikido world is completely different from the classroom, with syllabuses and textbooks. (2) The world is vertically structured and in no way depends on the interests or explicitly stated views of those at the bottom of the structure. (3) Practice of the art is overwhelmingly a matter of training, success at which involves the ability to learn techniques through repetition. (4) There is no explicit intellectual input, in the sense that the goals are not presented beforehand as an intellectual structure to be explained through the medium of language, though verbal instruction and explanations are very occasionally given. (5) Senior students are presumed to know much more than the beginner and this knowledge is not to be questioned in any way. (6) Techniques are shown and the students are there to practise them, usually with varying degrees of success. Nevertheless, a basic level of proficiency is demanded and is usually attained.

The Ki of Barberism

These very same assumptions operate in other activities, like hairdressing, for example. In my local shop there is a student, a deshi, whose entire training consists of watching in silence what the barber does. In the years I have been a customer I have never seen him cut a single hair, other than give a customer a shave. Eventually, he will be able to do this, but only on selected heads and always under the very watchful eye of the barber. I have no doubt that he will become a very good hairdresser, but this will not be the result of any explicit teaching on the part of the barber. I have been told that O-Sensei used to require of his deshi two years of ukemi practice before being introduced to techniques and in one of his books Saito Sensei suggests two years of suburi before beginning kumitachi. To my mind this is barbershop training par excellence.

I think it needs to be stressed that students brought up in a western educational system do not have these assumptions and that to approach a Japanese martial art like aikido, especially if it is presented according to the above assumptions, requires an intellectual “paradigm shift” of considerable magnitude.

The idea that the deshi has to “steal” the knowledge or techniques from the teacher is often mentioned by disciples of O-Sensei and there is the implicit suggestion that so-called western ways of teaching based on rational explanation have no place in aikido. This might have been the case in O-Sensei’s day before World War II, but it is clear that aikido’s “centre of gravity” has shifted somewhat. It might be too much to say that this centre is no longer in Japan, but the mere fact of thousands of dedicated and technically able aikido practitioners outside Japan must surely add a dimension to the art that O-Sensei cannot have imagined. In the rest of this article, I shall discuss the question of whether the actual dissemination of aikido has been “westernized” since O-Sensei’s time and if so, to what extent this matters for the future.

Primordial Chaos?

In the present state of objective studies of aikido history, it would probably be impolite to suggest that O-Sensei did not think very much about the teaching of aikido. However, a very large number of interviews in AJ with O-Sensei’s direct students (and my own private conversations with some of these students) suggest that O-Sensei was so filled with the uniqueness and magnitude of his vision that he did not spend a great deal of time thinking about how to put this vision across to other people or explain it in a systematic way. Of course, there are the so-called training manuals Budo and Budo Renshu. The former is supposed to have been written by O-Sensei himself and the latter to have been approved by him. However, (1) they were only given to certain students, probably those who passed certain unspecified tests of martial virtue and were in no sense general aikido manuals available to anyone, and (2) the explanations would be incomprehensible to anyone who did not possess a thorough knowledge of Japanese culture (in particular, of the contents and significance of the collections of Japanese myths known as the Kojiki and Nihonshoki) or who did not already understand the various techniques which O-Sensei practiced at the time. Even then, many immediate students of O-Sensei have confessed that they had very little understanding of the more esoteric explanations he gave relating to the “unalterable” laws of the universe etc. These students continuously trained under O-Sensei’s direction and would surely have been in the best position to acquire such understanding. But this does not appear to have been the case.

Judging from the written records and his own statements, it is highly probable that O-Sensei had experiences which might properly be termed mystical and these formed a central element in the creation of his art. Mysticism is a highly respected element in the Western religious tradition and it is clearly not the exclusive preserve of religions like Christianity, with its western intellectual background. The great mystics like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross were, like O-Sensei, both major reformers in their chosen spheres of activity. Unlike O-Sensei, they both left copious records of their mystical experiences, but these records bring us no closer to an actual understanding of these experiences and they are in no sense a means of replicating these experiences in ourselves. O-Sensei composed some poems that are incomprehensible to most aikido practitioners. But perhaps we have no right to expect O-Sensei to present such experiences in words that we can understand?

The point that needs to be stressed here is that O-Sensei did not simply have a vision of the Divine, in two dimensions, so to speak; his vision was practical in that it combined extraordinary powers of perception of the Real with a set of things to do in order to put himself in touch with the Divine. He attracted a number of disciples and it is also important to stress that these disciples were also in some sense special. They were on some sort of quest and felt that O-Sensei could given them what they were seeking, a situation not quite like the average classroom, or even the average dojo. Recently, I had a conversation with one of these disciples, who joined O-Sensei not long after the war had finished. He said that O-Sensei simply showed the techniques from a variety of attacks and gave his lengthy, esoteric explanations. The names of the techniques that have come down to us were invented by the disciples themselves, in an effort to remember what they were doing, and not by O-Sensei. They struggled to understand a marvelous physical and spiritual system composed of elements from Daito-ryu, sword arts, Japanese prehistory as interpreted by the Omoto religion, which O-Sensei had woven into something flexible, creative, changing, and extremely difficult to pin down, so to speak. The eminent aikid O-Sensei with whom I talked was quite convinced that both aikido itself and the way it was presented had changed very much since O-Sensei’s time and that it would still change after he himself was dead and gone. He was one of the few people still living who had learned from O-Sensei himself over a long period and this situation was, simply, unrepeatable. This was not a cause for regret, but something which had to be accepted as inevitable and looked forward to with optimism.

From Chaos to Order

I myself believe that the teaching of aikido changed quite radically, even in O-Sensei’s own lifetime. I think that the main architect of this change was the second Doshu, Kisshomaru Ueshiba, but other people were also involved, such as Koichi Tohei. I think that these changes are reflected in my own experience of aikido.

When I first started aikido in England, my teacher was concerned to present the art in the purest form possible and he tried to teach us with virtually no explanations. We were given a crash course in “Aikido Japanese” and expected to remember these terms and simply imitate his very smooth, strong, impossibly flowing movements. He used to say things like “Kokyunage is like the waves of the sea” (picture me trying to behave like a wave) or “Peter, you must become like a cat” (don’t even try to think about this one). As someone who believed that the archetype of communication was verbal exchange, following the laws of (western) logic, I found all this very soul-destroying. I struggled with this situation until I came across three books quite by accident. One, whose title I have forgotten, was written by Koichi Tohei and gave a step-by-step account of the basic techniques, together with explanations about the potential of ki, which sounded quite extraordinary. (Probably like many generations of aikido students, I used to practise Tohei Sensei’s “unbending arm” exercises on my hapless university classmates.) The second book was entitled Aikido. It was written by Kisshomaru Ueshiba and presented much the same basic techniques and exercises as Tohei Sensei, but with rather less emphasis on ki exercises. The third book was the most helpful. This was Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere, written by Westbrook and Ratti, and, apart from the amazing drawings full of lines and arrows, it contained a chart that showed how all the basic techniques and attacks fit together into a system. This was a revelation to me. There were some gaps, of course. (It might have occurred to some aikidoists that the pattern of omote/ura is sometimes difficult to replicate in certain aikido techniques and, for example, I never practiced hanmi handachi shihonage ura until I came to Japan.) Nevertheless, the chart in Westbrook and Ratti’s book gave the broad outlines of a very comprehensive defensive system.

Another seminal book I encountered was the first volume of Morihiro Saito’s Traditional Aikido. I first came across this book when I was a student in the United States. There was a notice in the dojo advertising a summer training seminar in a certain country, where the book would be used as the main text. Prospective participants were told to bring boken and jo. My own teacher at the time discouraged the use of aikido textbooks, on the quite reasonable grounds that he was a much better model than explanations and sequences of photographs. Apart from iaido classes, which were separate from the aikido classes, there was very little weapons training in the dojo. Yet here was a book written by one of O-Sensei’s closest disciples, giving a precise explanation of kata exercises with the boken and jo, which the author claimed to have learned directly from the Founder. With Saito Sensei’s book, we were introduced to a world where empty-handed techniques and techniques with weapons were taught together. The fact that training with weapons could actually improve ability in the basic empty-handed techniques was another revelation.

I found out later that the publication of Saito Sensei’s book was not viewed with much enthusiasm in certain aikido quarters. Apparently, O-Sensei rarely gave training with weapons in the Hombu Dojo in Tokyo and actually discouraged students from practising with weapons, on the grounds that they might learn bad habits. O-Sensei never taught the 13-kata or 31-kata with the jo and to present them as something learned directly from him was tendentious, to say the least. Such were the arguments when the first volume was published. On the other hand, many other close disciples of O-Sensei quietly devised their own kata exercises with jo and boken and still practise these whenever there is an opportunity. I once attended a summer school in Europe where the afternoon practice invariably consisted of weapons training. I practiced many kata I had not seen before. In answer to my question, the sensei stated that he usually practiced the kata only in his own dojo and never in the Hombu Dojo. In my opinion, Saito Sensei’s initiative and his courage in nailing his colours to the mast have stood the test of time.

I do not want to enter into the question of whether weapons training is necessary in aikido. To me the answer is obvious: it is. What I want to stress here is that three of the most eminent disciples of O-Sensei felt the need to write manuals of instruction in the basic techniques of aikido and that their lead has been followed by many others. The texts all follow the same basic western pattern. There is a brief history of O-Sensei’s life and teachings, sometimes supplemented with examples of his more esoteric sayings. Then follow illustrated explanations of basic stretching exercises and explanations of basic techniques, usually beginning with ikkyo and concluding with fleeting glimpses of multiple attacks. One such book is even called Aikido Complete, but this is a misnomer and I think the author would be the first to admit this. Saito Sensei, of course, has gone on to write several more volumes of Traditional Aikido and has produced another series of manuals, now supplemented by videos. His lead has been followed by many other high-ranking aikidoka and there are now videos devoted to specific aspects of training, such as ukemi, or to techniques against knife attacks.

Of course, many of these books have been written by Japanese instructors who had the job of teaching aikido to non-Japanese and it is indeed the case that these instructors had to find ways of making aikido attractive to Westerners in order to survive. But two points need to be made in this respect. (1) There are notable exceptions to the practice of making a monument to one’s aikido experience in the form of a textbook or video. Some very eminent aikido senseis have never felt the need to do anything other than teach aikido in the way they grew accustomed to over the years. I think that in Japan, such senseis constitute a sizeable majority. (2) The books and videos are not there simply to teach the art to non-Japanese. The late Doshu’s Aikido was a translation of a Japanese original and both Kisshomaru Ueshiba and his successor at the Hombu Dojo have produced a large number of manuals explaining aikido to the uninitiated, very few of which have been translated. It might be too much to say that the method of presentation is exclusively western in character, but there is a world of difference between these instruction manuals and privately circulated works like Budo and Budo Renshu. The texts all answer to an apparent need to present aikido in a structured way, with explanations according to principles and this need was felt in O-Sensei’s own lifetime.

From Order to System

The publication of a flood of textbooks and videos is not the only way in which aikido has become westernized. I have mentioned the volumes produced by Morihiro Saito above and they present a well-crafted organisational structure, blending weapons and empty-handed techniques into a coherent whole. It is not so clear with Saito Sensei where one starts, since all the elements in the structure appear to be necessary. It is relatively easy to start, however, unlike the case with other senseis who have created sophisticated systems of aikido which are extremely difficult for the beginner, but very exhilarating for more advanced students. There are yet other senseis, however, some of whom have written manuals and some not, who have created their own systems which require the student to enter at a certain point and emerge at the end-perhaps several years later-an accomplished aikidoka within the system. The student needs to begin at the beginning, otherwise the perceptions necessary for proceeding to the next step will not be acquired. I think this is probably the most extreme case of adapting aikido to the demands of western logic and it is no surprise that all the senseis I have in mind have been faced with the problem of dealing with western educated students.

I do not want to assert that creating a sophisticated aikido training system is wrong; I merely think some valid questions can be raised about how one practises with those who have not been exposed to the system. I have often seen this phenomenon at international training courses. The sensei leading the practice shows a technique and many of the students try to perform the technique more or less exactly as it has been shown. There are always some people, however, who perform their own variations according to the system in which they have been trained and sometimes I am not sure that they even see that what they are doing is quite different from what the sensei has shown. I have often seen this with training sessions led by Doshu, both present and former. In my opinion, the present Doshu teaches a very minimalist kind of “classic Hombu” aikido which is sharp and sweet, devoid of unnecessary adornment, very effective, but rarely imitated. As for techniques, the best examples of this phenomenon relate to the relatively simple techniques like iriminage or kotegaeshi (especially the feet and hands) or the shomenuchi attack. Some senseis insist that in shomenuchi ikkyo, tori initiates the attack with shomenuchi and performs the technique on the arm which uke raises for protection; others-the majority-assert that uke should attack strongly and that tori should wait for the attack. I have heard the arguments on both sides and it seems obvious to me that both are possible. But one of the problems with learning an structured aikido system is that it does not encourage any readiness to accept other, equally valid ways of doing the same technique.

Conclusions…

I have suggested that O-Sensei did not teach aikido in the recognized sense of the word. He allowed certain selected persons a glimpse of his art, as a means of personal encounter with the Divine and encouraged these persons to form their own aikido. They did this and were faced with the responsibility of passing on what they had learned to other people who had not encountered O-Sensei directly. Many of these disciples were faced with the task of presenting aikido to non-Japanese, who could never be expected to undergo the same intense training as they had undergone. Quite rightly, they wanted to present aikido as authentically as possible, but in a way easily understood by their students. Some of these senseis decided that training was the thing: constant repetitions of the techniques until they were second nature. Others decided to supplement this harsh diet of training with some teaching: a logically structured presentation of the techniques organized into a system, with varying degrees of sophistication and commitment required.

The development of objective standards in aikido teaching systems, supplemented with textbooks and videos, is surely desirable. The more peripheral activities, such as ukemi and warming-up exercises can also be subjected to some searching analysis. A student with whom I trained recently, a physiotherapist by training, plans to do research on warming-up exercises and asked me to help him conduct a survey on the style and benefits of such exercises. I think that such research is very necessary.

Nevertheless, I want to suggest that aikido is still basically a solitary activity, where the student is ultimately the sole judge of progress. The senseis are there to present the student with some possibilities and to allow them to grasp these possibilities. As the title Shihan suggests, they do not teach: they simply point the way.

(Note: The views expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author and should not be understood in any way as the views or policy of the International Aikido Federation or IAF, of which the author happens to be an official.)