This article on the Bujin website by Paul Rest of California is about a “low-impact” aikido programme which brings some of the benefits of the art to those who may not enjoy the athleticism and cultural apparel of traditional aikido. It reminded me of Paul Linden’s no falling aikido class which I attended in Columbus Ohio, which while in a dojo and not a gym is based on the same idea.
In creating Holistics I’ve tried to take this one step further – create an accessible form through which people can learn some of aikido’s lessons without needing to be as fit or as weird as martial arts demands. Wendy Palmer’s Conscious Embodiment and Richard Strozzi Heckler’s corporate work are also in this vein.
For the last few years I’ve been exploring the tension between what’s lost when physical intensity is diminished, and what not only remains, but what can be gained when the karate chops stop flying and you have the mental space to slow down, feel and play. It’s been my experience that people can lean some of aikido’s life lessons quicker outside of a martial context. I’ve heard cynicism from senior aikidoka in regard to this who’s thinking seems to be, “I’ve been through so much, it MUST have been worth it” but their assumptions are not supported by the evidence I see every day. Further I would say that regular martial arts often fail in their claim to be a “way” or life-path, leading to personal development or teaching skills that transfer usefully into life. I know too many arseholes that can do great wrist-locks to take seriously the naive claim that “aikido makes you a better person” though I also have seen that it can, and there is mounting scientific evidence to support the possibility.* Another question here is how can one maximise the transfer from mat to life within the context of regular aikido training? Simply holding it as a possibility, raising it as a question in class and teaching principles over tricks is a good start.
Now the other hand…we’re supposed to do everything on both sides in aikido right…lessons learnt quickly and easily (and it IS possible to teach centering for example, very quickly) may not go as deep as hard-fought knowledge. So are there aspects of learning aikido that are inextricably linked with “hard” (read exhausting and distressing) training, the purpose of which may be to:
– develop the will
– developing relaxed or efficient body movement
– bring on altered states
Many of these are one the “hard” way to accomplish what “smart” can also do and in the worse cases “hard” just means dumb. It could also just be said to be a matter of taste with different people connecting to different approaches. Crucially, I would accept that true embodiment does only come with long-term committed practice, but that this practice can be throughout life as well as on the mat.
On balance and having done both types of training in some depth, I’d say that not only is “hard-training” not the only road-map, but that there’s some crucial things the meat-head, crash-bang-wallop crowd will never understand. Likewise there are also other vital pieces that people can’t get without blood, sweat and tears. Developing relaxed, efficient body movement for example can be sped by intelligent teaching, but is also a function of the hours you put in doing exercise ad nauseum. I guess that this wont be a popular conclusion, but that’s life, you can’t keep anybody happy if you’re going to say somthing new.
I really enjoy bringing “aiki” principles (e.g. confluence) and practices (e.g. centering) to regular folks, and applaud those like Paul Rest and Paul Linden being creative and doing similar work. If we love aikido and think that it’s a good thing for people to do, lets start finding ways of getting it out there – in gyms, in businesses and in schools. If we want aikido to remain a the pursuit of a minority who think twisting wrists is a crucial life skill then let’s keep doing what we’ve always done and getting what we’ve always got.
* Aiki Extensions holds a research database on this.