What is Aiki?
That’s a common question throughout our organization. The most common definition I’ve heard is “Aiki is blending with your attacker and redirecting their force against them in a non-confrontational way”. OK, that’s all well and good but what does that actually mean?
I’ve asked that many times. The common responses range from “blending and projecting your ki energy in harmony” to “use your opponent’s energy and force to defeat them”. Neither of those answers is something I can teach, explain or really understand internally.
Putting aside the mysticism, spirituality and fog around Aiki, we’ve focused many hours trying to define exactly what Aiki is, and how to teach it. In the simplest terms, Aiki is the study and understanding of balance, stability and friction. (Well that’s the basic three things you need, there are other principles but you really need to understand the core concepts before you can delve further.)
Balance: The ability to maintain body alignment and positioning without falling.
Stability: The physical state that lets you freely adjust your balance and alter your positioning.
Friction: A force that resists the relative lateral motion of objects in contact.
In most cases we only talk about balance. We see taking someone’s balance as the ultimate expression of Aiki and Aikido. However taking balance is really the very last thing we do. In order to actually successfully apply Aiki and unbalance we must first control a person’s stability. To control a person’s stability we have to understand where and how the body becomes unstable. And finally, to make someone unstable, how can we apply friction, force and motion to achieve instability.
At the end of the day Aiki is governed by the laws of physics. As such, it’s something we can, and should be able to define. It’s not some mystical energy that only the ancient masters understood. It’s a definable, repeatable, teachable set of principles that should be studied. Anything less is cutting your understanding of Aikido short.
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Interesting article. Would like to explore some of these newer thoughts once school is over and I have time for me again. I just hope you have not made it too easy or everyone will do it.
Guys someone posted this write-up to my blog recently, any thoughts on it?
When you learn genuine martial arts fighting, you will find certain truths about how to survive. A single of the truths is that the human mental apparatus doesn’t generally work well when it is owning bashed, and survival mode kicks in. Fighters who survive by the quantity of adrenaline kicked in would have you think that that is the point of it all, but it’s not, it’s the worst issue that could happen. Like a species we don’t have quills, or claws, or smells, or jaws, or any specific characteristic that would aid us survive, except that issue we call a mind. It is the mind that solves problems, it is the mind that adapts to survive. It’s this factor referred to as a mind that we must understand how to use if we are to achieve our full potential as humans, and as humans from the fighting mode. A single need to manage the distance in a fight, by controlling distance we have choice as to what weapon we pick to use. The way to do this is to tie a string from the belt to his, and method moving so that the string stays taut with out breaking. Now, move in this fashion, and within a short time your human body will move of the other persons body because it likes the reality of harmony. We have to control the truth in the leg movements. The most leg positioning is after the legs are in a matching stance, that is to say his proper leg is forward and so is yours, the second best position is when you are in an opposing stance, that is certainly to say his appropriate leg is forward, and your left leg is forward. The way to train yourself to always have matching stance is merely to walk in the string, and striving to always stay in a matching stance. We must manage the movement of the arms, again, in a matching or opposing sense. No string required here, but you do have to be aware of distance, you have to match the movement of the partners arms as he closes distance.
I have quite a few of the same articles on my blog at my best self defence products website, you should check it out
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Learning to face an altercation calmly and subjectively is always the goal. Adrenaline will only get you so far, and more often than not, injured. Once an individual no longer feels threatened in an altercation, then they have the time to react and analyze at will.
Of course many drills exist to train automatic reactions. (The above spacing being one.) The goal is to always be in control. No matter if someone is attacking you on the mat, or the street.