Antonio Aloia
This is the second part of a two-part article by Peter Goldsbury. Read part one here.
One consequence is that the international development of aikido as a “new” and “peaceful” postwar Japanese martial art expanded at about the same hectic pace as that of the postwar Japanese economy. Judo experts like Kenshiro Abbe taught aikido techniques to their own prized foreign deshi abroad, who later requested the Hombu to send Japanese aikido instructors. The late Doshu did his best to comply with these requests and a succession of very able (and highly individualistic) instructors arrived in Europe, the US and Australia during the 1960s and began to teach aikido. These “missionaries” had to open schools and create a grassroots organization, the overriding premise being that, in principle, the instructor was a professional and would have no other means of economic support. Doshu himself gave a strong lead to this international expansion by making frequent trips abroad.
The discussion was, of course, conducted entirely in Japanese and I was the sole foreigner present. It was remarked by my aikido teacher, and generally agreed to, that I would have never been allowed within a hundred miles of an aikido dojo in prewar days. It was only after the war, and Japan’s defeat, that aikido was opened up to foreigners. […] It is a fact perhaps not widely known outside Japan that to practice in the prewar Ueshiba dojo, a candidate had to be recommended by two eminent persons connected with the military or politics. Foreigners simply would not have entered into the equation.
The new instructors received no special training in language skills or intercultural communication and I suspect that not a great deal of thought was given by the Hombu to the organization of aikido in the “missionary” countries. Of course, to say this is not to lay any blame at the feet of the instructors involved. A shihan like Yamada Sensei, for example, would have arrived in New York with very little idea of what to expect. I am sure he will correct me if I am mistaken, but I would think that creating an aikido organization in the entire eastern USA was the last thing he considered. Yet he did so, and in fact was instrumental in creating a national American aikido organization. By virtue of its great size and the fact that in 1964 Yamada Sensei was the only Hombu shihan resident in the USA, the USA did not immediately have a national aikido organization, but it was an exception to a general tendency. Generally, the development followed the Japanese pattern and the result was a network of national aikido organizations.
There are good reasons why the overseas structure of aikido took this form. The Japanese shihan was the highest ranked practitioner of the art and also the only link in his adopted country with the Hombu in Japan. On the other hand, the fledgling aikido organization had to relate to government sports organizations like Olympic committees and judo federations and these are invariably organized on a national basis.
However, there are several important consequences of Doshu’s decision. One is that an old tradition was given a new twist. Links in the martial arts are generally vertical links from teacher to teacher and dojo to dojo and such links do not depend on any boundaries (in spite of the fact that in Japan aikido shihan do not usually compete with each other in the same locality). This tradition was not broken by the shihan who went abroad. They opened dojo, attracted members, and trained them in the same way that they would have done in Japan. The dojo had a vertical structure. However, the innovation is due to a certain ambiguity in the concept of a national organization. A national organization can be simply what it suggests: an organization which exists in a certain country, side by side with other such organizations. But in the aikido world, it usually suggests much more: an organization which is in some way representative of aikido in that country. Thus the freedom of the shihan to teach and grade was confined within certain borders, but these borders were national or continental and he was also the sole Hombu “representative” within those borders.
Occasionally, I have been told by Japanese acquaintances (who invariably know nothing about aikido) that I cannot understand ki because I am a foreigner. However, (1) understanding something and being able express the contents of that understanding concisely in another language are quite different and (2) the notion that people are prevented from understanding certain concepts because they are foreign should be seen for what it is: nothing more than a prejudice.
The notion of a “national character,” that there are special exclusive features of a culture, is notoriously fraught with difficulty, especially in relation to a supposedly non-political activity like aikido, whose freedom, creativity, lack of definition, and universality is its strength. Yet something like this appears to be the basis for the current international organization of aikido. I have suggested above that aikido in Japan presents a special case, first because Japan is the country where aikido originated and secondly because there are certain special features of Japanese culture. It has been said that the Hombu in Japan did not really understand the actual situation in foreign countries and that aikido in France, for example, should be run by the French, aikido in Germany by the Germans and so on. This is fine as far as it goes, but there is a danger that the supposedly unique features of “national” aikido organizations will be attributed to the art itself: that because aikido in Scotland is practiced by the Scots, it has special features not shared by the English counterpart over the border. But why should aikido in Scotland be any different from aikido in France, Australia, or Finland, or Japan?
The names of the techniques are only a superficial difficulty. The Japanese feel that the spirit and techniques of aikido should be expressed in Japanese and this is reasonable. As I have said earlier, nothing hangs very much on this because most non-Japanese simply do not grasp the cultural resonance of terms such as omote, ura, hara, or ki. Kotegaeshi and shihonage would be much more cumbersome if expressed in English, for example, but that is all. I think it is unlikely that anyone would argue that it is essential to the integrity of aikido in Spain, for example, that the spirit and techniques be expressed in Spanish.
The techniques themselves also present no special features. Thus, the skills required to practice aikido techniques do not vary from country to country and if the instructor has been properly trained, the techniques practiced in Boston should be just as effective as those practiced in Budapest.
This leaves organization and here the waters become rather muddy.
A distinction must be made between the art itself and the organization of the art. Aikido in Japan is practiced in a cultural context which the Japanese fully understand and accept. The organization of aikido in Japan is also Japanese in character and the two overlap very closely. Despite superficial appearances, Japanese society is also vertical in character, with decisions usually handed down from the top.
However, the innovation is due to a certain ambiguity in the concept of a national organization. A national organization can be simply what it suggests: an organization which exists in a certain country, side by side with other such organizations. But in the aikido world, it usually suggests much more: an organization which is in some way representative of aikido in that country. Thus the freedom of the shihan to teach and grade was confined within certain borders, but these borders were national or continental and he was also the sole Hombu “representative” within those borders.
Equally, aikido abroad is also practiced in a Japanese cultural context which few foreigners fully understand, but which most accept as part of the package. However, the organization of aikido abroad is not Japanese in character, or is so only to the extent that a Japanese shihan might try to run things by himself in a Japanese way. There is no close overlap between the art and the culture in which it operates.
But all this means is that the reasons why aikido organizations overseas have a “national character” is that they are overseas and the Japanese are in a minority. A consequence is that the Japanese shihan might not be happy with the way decisions are made, but this has to be accepted. However, an area where “nationalist” considerations might obtrude more sharply involves the aspects of aikido organization concerned with international relations and with dan grades.
A person might move from one country, where he/she has trained for many years under Shihan A, to another country and a nationally-based structure would dictate that he/she must now transfer this allegiance to Shihan B, who is an unknown quantity. Practical considerations such as distance might dictate that this transfer of allegiance is unavoidable, but it still breaks a link thought by some to be essential to the integrity of aikido.
The person’s relation with Shihan A, and with Shihan B after moving to the new country, will almost certainly involve dan grades and here, also, it is likely there will be some tension. A grade is the expression of a vertical relationship between student and teacher but it is also an objective (i.e., horizontally based) indication of the person’s proficiency and thus of the teaching and examinations in an organization. In a nationally-based organization, it would certainly undermine the authority of Shihan B if the person were to insist on being graded by Shihan A.
By way of a conclusion, I believe that aikido is an activity which contains its own end and as such is morally neutral. Of course, practice might have other, beneficial, effects, but these are separate and should not be taken as automatic. Since it is practiced by human beings in groups, aikido will always have a cultural and political dimension, but aikido is not at all like a religious or political movement and in my opinion should not be used in support of political aims. The organization of aikido into national groups has good historical reasons and is sometimes practically necessary, but it should serve a purely pragmatic and utilitarian purpose and has no essential connection with the art itself.
(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.)
This is the second part of a two-part article by Peter Goldsbury. Read part one here.
Josh Gold
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