“The essence that endures is more real than mere paint, but intangible..”

For me, Aikido is not a watered down, collusional pretence of a dance. Not at all.

It must never be forgotten that Aikido has its origins in valid battlefield combat jujutsu of the most virulent kind. Aikido’s forte lies in the fact that the aikijutsu arts continued to refine jujutsu and pare away the excrescences to reveal core principles that optimize efficiency, leverage and economy of motion to their best. And perhaps more.

When practiced with martial integrity, that is, unmitigated honesty, Aikido purges mental clutter and entanglements, to produce clear thinking. This is a never ending process.

Because it maintains an honest body-mind connection this produces a unique synergy that opens up a Way and enables clarity of perception.

Why does it enable?

Nature creates by overcoming challenges, not as in slapping paint on a canvas then expecting it to last. Nature is constantly reworking and changing. The essence that endures is more real than mere paint, but intangible.

When you are going home from the dojo, where is ikkyo? Where is iriminage? Where are.. the things you just practiced?

Much like a more dynamic form of sand art, everything changes and disappears into impermanency, yet the essence remains. Whilst invisible it is more real than the appearances that are swept away.

What remains, albeit unseen by many, are the predispositions which are keys to all Creation. These open up an entirely different view to existence to enable an harmonious and debt free way to negotiate life.

However this awakening attitude must be maintained vigilantly and constantly fine tuned for optimal performance, just like any engine.

Daily training becomes the Way.

“There is no enemy of love.. There is no time and space before Ueshiba of Aikido.. only the universe as it is..” Morihei Ueshiba

Creation of a sand mandala

Nev Sagiba
aikiblue.com

“Victory has nothing to do with fighting per se and everything to do with understanding what we were previously blind to.”

Sometimes the adage, “Learn to fight in order not to fight,” is not well understood.

Or why it is that training MUST be honest and why it is vital to practice as if preparing for a real life-threatening situation. Various complacencies of mind-rot can too easily set in, which can corrupt the budo arts effect on the trainee. Excuses, spin, compromise, cultishness, avoidance-mechanisms, politics, self-deception and other sidetracks from the Path of clear mind.

The Founder of Aikido propounded living life as if taking charge of your self at every moment, no matter what.

The journey is the Way and it never ends. Without precision and authentic personal discipline, a life is only a part existence half lived. Regular training is simply a way to keep reminding us about life itself with all its vagaries, challenges, tests, trials and tribulations and to enable us to handle them better. Sometimes this involves fighting and sometimes not. Mostly not. There are so many other challenges to be understood by mastering ourselves.

Victory has nothing to do with fighting per se and everything to do with understanding what we were previously blind to. Whereas the spiritually blind will comply readily to any “authority,” buy and consume what they are told to without stopping to question, or follow any enticing carrot held before them to make them pull someone else’s cart, the person without blind spots cannot be dominated. They become empowered to master themselves and give to the world to make human existence a better proposition, if even slightly, than it otherwise could be and has been in darker times..
[Read more...]

“Physical combat and mental conflict are related. They can be
resolved through a conscious entity’s regular application to skill.”

Nothing is simply black or white, but rather shades of gold still unrecognized.

Aikido is refined brawling, chefs and generals are the same, war and cooking no different; and rearing children is the same as training elephants.

Preaching high discernment and then not living and demonstrating it, is hypocrisy.

You can’t build an app to stop a tsunami. You must lift your skirts and run like hell. Our focus as species is in the wrong places. We are not listening to nature and the universe.

In the Pythagorean school a candidate for initiation had to sweep floors and scrub toilets for four years before qualifying for acceptance. Real dojos are the same. It develops forward noticing.

To expect recognition from Sensei but never having turned up to scrub floors, clean and do service work, is a self defeating form of arrogance. Your few dollars mean nothing and cannot purchase either wisdom or skill.

Insatiably addicted to stimulating the senses with abject crap, we have become a species that have forgotten to listen to what matters. Natural disasters have begun to eat us as we bury ourselves in gadgets, excremental visual stimuli and blatant delusion. This is not any “god’s wrath,” rather OUR CHOICE to be blind to the obvious staring us in the face! Our focus is on distractions instead of actuality as it is.

If valid, the link between actual physical presence to a location and an inner, mental or spiritual reality can only occur through a conscious entity by personal, daily conscious application to skill in action.

Physical combat and mental conflict are related. They can be resolved through a conscious entity’s regular application to skill.

Aikido, when applied to survive is nothing more than refined brawling without concepts getting in the way. Or any other strategy of survival which notices what’s coming in advance and preemptively acts accordingly.
[Read more...]

“To survive a multiple attack situation, to increase your chances of survival, it is imperative that you are firmly grounded, balanced, breathing, moving and know where everyone is at all times! Why?”

Why did Morihei Ueshiba place multiple attack training on top of his list of priorities? Why did he make it a point to denote this in part 2/ of his: Six Rules of Training?

For a start he had live experience. Secondly, he was able to actually do what he preached. And third but not least, he practiced incessantly.

But let’s break it down and analyze it. Since we are not right now being assailed with an attack, it is possible.

A) Why balance? One, “accomplished martial artist,” said to me in 1987, “What has balance got to do with surviving an attack? The same individual, watching us train also said, “That wouldn’t work in real life,” and watching buki tori, “Yes but, (my favourites are the yes butters) if that was a highly trained swordsman.. yada, yada..”

Who meets “highly trained swordsmen” on a rampage every second day in today’s world?

B) Why breath? Aside from fancy convolutions which are totally unnecessary, why is breath vital?

C) Why move at all? Why not just stand there?

D) And why do you really need to be aware of who is behind you with something sharp?

To survive a multiple attack situation, to increase your chances of survival, it is imperative that you are firmly grounded, balanced, breathing, moving and know where everyone is at all times!

Why?

Why is it that we PRACTICE like this? Why did the Founder of Aikido? Why should we continue to do so?

This is a contributive exercise. What can you bring to this as a discussion from your experience both in the dojo and live situations?

Please respond with your view.

Nev Sagiba
aikiblue.com

Multiple attacks and ground wrestling are the singular best forms of training practice you can do.

However, in a live survival situation, these are the very things you try to avoid.

Why the apparent contradiction?

There is none. These are the essential backup you will need when things vary from preferred of standing up and fighting the rare one individual which seldom happens.

These are the extremes that do happen.

The worst mix is to get caught on the ground when the opponents are multiple. There are training techniques for this which are concealed by the partly veiled Hanmihandachi (also: Hanza Handachi) methodology. This is the most critical of all training, if you intend to be a survivor of, “crunch time.”

On their own, these forms of training teach much but only in the context of thoroughly understanding the basic techniques. I won’t even begin to go into the benefits of ground wrestling but it opens your mind, enhances your body-mind connection, fortifies your ki and your ability to read intention, teaches balance and among many other things gets you immensely physically fit, augmenting your cardio/stamina as well as muscle strength, resilience, flexibility and co-ordination.

Multiple attacks training is the preeminent survival training. Words don’t cut it. Do it.

Hanmihandachi, now grossly misunderstood and mostly poorly practiced as mimicry without understanding, holds the keys to not ending up on the ground and many other things not easily depicted in words. Here too, do it, train and practice with a thoughtful and questioning open mind.

Long before a certain shoe manufacturer thought of it, one of my best teachers would often say, “Just do it!”

As for Budo, this I recommend most heartily, particularly when exploring to uncover the immense potentials of Aikido.

Tomorrow never comes. There’s no time like now.

Nev Sagiba
aikiblue.com

Are you really practicing Morihei Ueshiba’s Aikido?
Or something else?

The Founder of Aikido penned (or brushed) six “Rules of Training.” These were often displayed on the wall of a dojo. These precepts have appeared variously in such publications as, “AIKIDO” by Kisshomaru Ueshiba, and; “AIKIDO, The Arts of Self-Defense” by Koichi Tohei Edited by Morihei Ueshiba, and also some exclusively Japanese Aikido publications.

Let’s look at Morihei Ueshiba’s six rules of practice.

At a cursory glance, they may appear simple.

Don’t be deceived by their brevity, however.

Because of their succinctness and apparent simplicity, it may be possible that these vital admonitions have been largely overlooked or have not been considered with the seriousness they deserve.
[Read more...]