“Alternative and Mainstream Budo,” by Nev Sagiba

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that things are often opposite to what they appear to be.

When the word “alternative” is used, I find myself asking, “Alternative to what, exactly?”

It is presumed that “mainstream” refers to “best practice.” This is usually erroneous. Most often “mainstream” is the most common habit, and most often, to the student of consequences, visibly in error.

When you look at most “alternative” practices, they are found to be, based upon evolutionary concatenations arising from the oldest stable and solid natural principles, although also sometimes neglected and therefore somewhat primitive because of lack of appropriate development. And “mainstream” often a badly thought-out fad coming from an extractive and destructive revolution over a previously stable harmony, that has become unthinkingly entrenched as habit because of a perceived short term gain. Often it becomes a dirty habit, long obsolete, known to be so, but blindly clung to nevertheless.

And then, like sheep or lemmings, followers will look around for peer approval and follow blindly and unquestioningly ruled by fear and smitten with unfulfilled desire for approbation, thus falling into an unholy alliance, on a trajectory of error and eventual disaster.

The “human condition” some call it, but they fail to point to the cure.

Since the very beginnings, the person who questions the status quo has most often been unquestioningly perceived as threat by sheep who are led most often by wolves in sheep’s clothing. Despite the eventual vindication of the innovator with the long passing of time and the slow mass growing of some modicum of clarity following much suffering; at the time of producing the core principle, which may often appear as innovation, such a one, being the uncomfortable harbinger of change, will most often be persecuted.

History and prehistory is littered with the corpses of messengers all bearing valid inventions, sciences, ethics and other values; most which are now taken for granted as the very things that make our lives more comfortable than that of the disparate feuding cannibal tribes of hunter gathers that preceded us. The force of inertia is a strong disease.

Innovation and reform requires courage. The same hand that a messenger healed, will be used to cast stones at the very messenger on the way to being crucified, so as to hide behind the dubious shield of political-correctness, the safety blanket of the moral coward. Followers, would not dare to actually walk in the footsteps of the real person they like to mythologize, because that would take work, effort, personal risk, the actual living of moral principle rather than merely quoting it, if that. It would require core values and courage and the wherewithal to implement supposed “beliefs” in an exemplary way. It is easier to fit in, follow and hide behind the unfaithful and dubious security of numbers, making “the right noises”, rather that walking in the footsteps of real and viable integrity.

Now all this is common knowledge. To the clear thinker at least. People will secretly worship this or that. And in select groups even make a show of what they consider to be “faith” by mimicking deemed-to-be approved behaviours, be these “scientific,” “religious” or “styles” of quasi-budo, by way of speaking in predictable clichés and fitting in to what they believe to be that which is accepted by the greater numbers, this error riddled collective constituting the “state religion.” This has nothing to do with authentic “faith, ” “belief,” or verily a working understanding of any kind whatsoever. Merely the cowardly belief that there is safety in numbers. Any assumed predication, of course, over time, as with all things, will have changed, modified and mutated, often grotesquely so, and the origins, even if valid, if indeed they ever existed as pragmatic fact, become long forgotten.

I won’t go into the subject of the devastation of the very life support systems we rely on for life, having been progressively corroded and destroyed to a point of serious global concern, by mass ignorance, blind greed and abject stupidity, if not criminal practices. I won’t go into this or that. A reasonably informed person will already be locally standing up for what is right, to the extent they can. The others, the hangers-on, when consequences come to fruition, will be left wondering why. Or blaming some god or another, instead of their own failures and wrongful contributions that set into effect the very causes that bear consequence.

This brings me to the integrity of Budo practice.

Budo, above all Aikido, is not “a following.” It is contributory pioneering research that deals with the study of real and deadly attrition, violence and conflict. It is not a trendy social club, but a pivotal study of inclusive human nature from the ground up. It does not exclude the need for social sciences. Rather it can seriously complement them in a meaningful way. Aikido is an active work which addresses “human nature” from the darkest attributes to the very brightest, in order to heal and expand the very heart that bridges heaven and earth, not excluding hell. The hells we make for ourselves.

Aikido is not a Way for the faint hearted, or for moral cowards, but Budo, the stopping of the needless counterproductivity of violence as a means. Aikido, real Aikido, addresses this with skill. It researches this skill thoroughly and continuously. Aikido is an eclectic and inclusive Budo which syncretizes into core principles extant throughout the universe at every level. Otherwise it is nothing. Merely mimicking some forms means nothing much.

Aikido training, properly conducted, will assist in improving all attributes of life and make you a well-rounded human being with perspective and context capable of contributing constructively, no matter how small that contribution may be deemed to be at the time. The positive and beneficial consequences may end up being immense in the long term.

On this basis, the words ‘alternative” and “mainstream,” have no meaning or basis, being merely political mind manipulations made by “interest groups”. What we pursue on this path of discovery is the real and living research of the actual and factual in the reconciliation of conflict, in all ways possible, that can bring about continued harmony and its maintenance, thereby leading to the sustained continuation of our very existence as a somewhat “intelligent” species.

Because Aikido is primarily a path of self-correction and actual, living contribution, it is a path of daily practice that requires courage and integrity, the Way of AiKi is a path of the warrior. The peaceful warrior.

Nev Sagiba