I ended the previous blog with the question whether I consider myself to be martial artist. The perhaps less common term martial artist may also be substistuted here by expert in fighting techniques or tried and tested in some martial art. When I started aikido 44 years ago, it was not to learn how to fight or because I felt a strong need to be able to defend myself physically, but more to do some sort of movement art. And tai chi and aikido had caught my attention because of what I had heard or read about them; there was a somewhat mysterious haze of Eastern philosophy around it dressed up with terms such as softness, natural movement, inner strength, life energy and not aggressively seeking out the conflict but taking out the fuse with peacefulness and so on. In any case, enough to stimulate my curiosity and to want to learn and/or experience that.
The kind of quasi-mystical or magical experiences that one might imagine in that regard do not flow your way just like that, or at least it didn’t to me. Aikido training largely follows the pattern of someone attacking and someone performing a technique in response. In fact, the pattern of a mock fight in which one person performs a specific form of attack where the other has to respond with a certain technique. You practice that a number of times, after which the roles are reversed and so on. It then becomes more or less a kind of choreography in which you can train certain movements, be confronted with your own (primary) reactions and if possible be able to bend and sharpen them. My experience is that you can practice and learn quite a bit within a safe situation plus gain some self-knowledge.
However, that choreographic aspect of more or less knowing what action(s) you can expect from the other person also has its drawbacks. It can give you a false sense of control or security that would be out of place in a real fight on the street and you would be punished for it immediately. A guy called Rokas Leonavičius put his finger on this sore spot a few years ago. The many reactions of contempt and disdain towards Rokas from the aikido community at large suggest that he touched a very sensitive spot and he apparently threw a cat among the pigeons. His criticism mainly concerned the false sense of security as a form of deception that caused ineffectiveness in real combat situations due to lack of pressure-testing and reality checking through competition plus the sectarian character of many aikido groups. Rokas on his Youtube channel now journeys pretty much through the entire martial arts world and seems to have become a kind of rating body regarding the effectiveness of the various martial arts.
In any case, Rokas managed to draw attention to the distinctions between practicing martial (or somewhat martial-like) movements for the purpose of self-examination and personal development and practicing to be able to defend yourself as effectively as possible in unexpected situations and practicing for actual fights and eliminating the opponent as effectively and quickly as possible. Distinctions that are essential. And distinctions that are often forgotten or swept under the carpet by the softer arts such as aikido. It matters a lot what you are looking for in your practice, for how you could best go about it and what is the best way for you personally. And while of course you have to practice things yourself, you are and will for a considerable part remain dependent on others who have become more proficient in whatever than yourself; your teachers.
Then there is another distinction that has traditionally been made within the traditional and established martial arts, and that is of the (more) internal and the (more) external arts. This is not a black-and-white classification (maybe so as an ideal but not in the real world) but rather something that moves on a sliding scale in the sense that many techniques can be performed both externally or mainly mechanically and with muscle power, as well as internally or with intention and a consequent internal coordination of one's own body. To the untrained layman, that distinction will not always be clear or visible on the outside. For me personally, this distinction is very important because it puts me on the track of what I am looking for.
In these so-called internal arts, it is not so much about fighting and winning, but more about developing an inner state of being. One speaks of intention, grounding or rooting, balance, internal strength and things like that. A concept that is central to many of these arts, and many of them owe their name to in part, is a certain kind of (life) energy known in the Indian tradition as Prana, in China as Chi, in Japan as Ki, in ancient Greece as Pneuma and in Hebrew as Ruach. The Indians, I suppose, will call it the Great Spirit, and in Christianity it will be called the Holy Ghost. So you see that it doesn't take a giant step to get from the Dojo to the Church. One minute you're talking about conflict and strife and the next you're talking about spirituality. Hallelujah!
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