Quote:
Christopher Li wrote:
Unfortunately, we seem to be reaching a point where any and all feel good moments are labeled as "Aiki".
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Yes, seems to be true.
Even within my own aikidō-club we have this. "Everything is aikidō, as long as it creates good feeling, helps to communicate, makes life joyfull and brings people together": This is what at least one fellow teacher in our club explicitly teaches on the tatami. aikidō becomes a certain view of life - or way of life.
You can communicate in an aikidō-way. You can solve problems in an aikidō-way. You can do your work in an aikidō-way. Or even walk down the street in an aikidō-way. Everything can be aikidō.
And the way to perform the waza gets adjusted to that point of view. It is very interesting how the understanding of aikidō as a way of life, a way of feeling good within life and with other people changes the waza over time. aikidō merely becomes a kind of a "flow experience".
I think, there is a lack of experience of the sophisticated internal body work which is inherent in traditional Japanese budō. Most people seem to have never been exposed to that feeling, be it with a student of Ueshiba osensei or a koryū or even daitō ryū. So the deeper technical understanding of how to develop and to use one's body that can be found in the old streams simply got lost in their practice. They are not longer connected to the wisdom of creating aiki within onself as a way to use one's body.
But the forms, the kata, the outward body movements without that don't t transport any essence in itself. While they are open to any interpretation.
And because the pure forms don't tell you something about "aiki within me" they need to blend with the movement of the partner. That's all they can do.
It reminds me of practicing only the omote kata of a ryū ...
And the same is true, I think, regarding the spiritual teachings of aikidō. There simply is a lack of understanding of what Ueshiba osensei meant when using terms like "self-cultivation", "personal refinement and spiritual growth".
People pick up these terms without connecting them to the roots in Daoist internal alchemy, esoteric Mikkyō. Not even Shintō. And so the terms lose their actual content. They don't transmitt anymore what was to be contained in their understanding and practice.
An so the "peace" created by the specific arrangement of two specific hexagrams becomes the "peace" of the '68 generation ...
Finally, I think, a lot of people lack a source of orientation in this complex life and world. People have lost confidence in "Islam, Christianity and Buddhism" which you list and all those other meaningful systems that claim to provide a certain way of life. But that blank space has to be filled in.
And that is where aikidō comes into play.