Yeah, you're definitely reading this thread as a deep dive into the philosophy and the potential for spiritual growth through training. That doesn't mean all this philosophizing can actually replace the physical work—it just means that on this specific topic, we aren't here to sweat, we're just here to talk about it.
If you're cool with just chatting, fine by me, but let others have their say if they want to.
Why does my disagreement with how a martial art should be approached necessarily mean I don't want to talk, or stop others from talking, about the same thing?
Different people interpret what Morihei was doing and saying in all sorts of ways.
Even among his closest inner circle and students, you see various interpretations and different evolutions of aikido styles (which, again, are rooted in specific ideas about the philosophical, energetic, and spiritual foundation of the art).
I don't know where you got the idea that you somehow have the definitive answer on what Morihei intended regarding the relationship between meditation, transcendental energy, the art of peace, and aikido?
Stripping away the philosophical, energetic, and spiritual side of aikido is, in my eyes, basically gutting it—and if it were just that, it wouldn't even be worth mentioning to me. It would just be another "skill," just another way to efficiently hurt someone; and honestly, if we're talking efficiency, a Glock is probably a much better tool for that.
I just can't get on board with the idea that the "art of peace"—especially back then—was something that could, or should, be interpreted in so many different ways. Like I said, back in the day, plenty of arts were trained specifically to kill, whereas aikido clearly aims to cause minimal harm.
As for debating the approach to aikido, its philosophy, or the training methods... I won't even go there, because we'd be here forever. I'm not stripping away any aspects of aikido, but I am also asserting that it isn't the only martial art with a background, a philosophy, and meditative practices. Almost every martial art has some version of that, but it's not what defines them, nor is it the primary focus of most combat arts.
And where exactly did you see people here acting like they've "fully realized themselves and their ki"?
And how do you know someone hasn't actually reached that level of self-realization and connection to universal cosmic energy?
Who's getting under your skin this much?
Well, it just seems like certain "spiritualists" act like they know everything about everything—like they've already mastered themselves, the universe, and ki. To claim you know exactly what ki is when you don't even have years of experience in a martial art is a stretch, and that’s me being polite.
Nobody's trying to push my buttons, it's just this specific way of approaching a martial art that bugs me. Spirituality and the supposed presence of ki come from years of dedicated training and commitment, yet here we have beginners (or maybe not even beginners) trying to define everything and split aikido into "the style where people fight" and "the style where they don't." But hey, maybe that's just me—maybe those are just fancy nicknames for Shin Shin Toitsu and Yoshinkan?
Was anyone actually disputing that?
Jesse Allen2 said:I disagree. You absolutely have to meditate. Without meditation, you can't master any serious martial art!
We’ve got our own YouTube channel for that too.
It almost seems like even the master himself wasn't obsessing over the end results of his training at the very end.
Look, you can't be hyper-focused on training results when you're getting that old. Honestly, it happens even earlier sometimes—where you're just going through the motions of the techniques, purely through movement, without any physical contact, simply because you already know exactly what's coming next and don't need the physical grind to pull it off. There's actually a specific term for that, though I'm blanking on it right now.
In various Karate styles, they train breathing and meditation all the time, too. The issue is that we Americans tend to pigeonhole meditation solely into Aikido, while viewing everything else as just being about striking and destruction—as if Aikido is the only one meant for meditation.
If Claude Pellerin, an Aikikai 7th dan with God knows how much continuous training under his belt, doesn't grasp the concept of Ki, then you can see why I reacted the way I did.
My bad if I crashed your Dojo and disrupted your AI or your KI. 🧐