View Single Post
Old 07-21-2010, 02:26 PM   #12
lbb
Location: Massachusetts
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 3,202
United_States
Offline
Re: Aikido: more than a martial art?

Quote:
Graham Jenkins wrote: View Post
I think that inherent in the technical instruction you have recieved, is vast spiritual/philosophical teaching.
I'd like to believe that aikido is chock-full of all this great stuff, but unfortunately this is an unsupported assertion at best. Furthermore, Alex has the counterargument: if "vast spiritual/philosophical teaching" is inherent in what he's been taught, then it must also be inherent in the teaching of the same techniques under the label of "jujutsu". Make sense?

I think the truth is that human beings often integrate experiences of all kinds in ways where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or at least appears to be. In the course of being taught something, you may learn or grow or change in ways that are beyond the instruction. When this happens, I don't think this makes the activity either universal or unique: not everyone in aikido experiences this, nor do only aikidoka experience this.

In particular, it's misleading to say that such learning or experiences are part of aikido, because as Alex has pointed out, it is very rare that an aikido sensei will teach philosophy or spiritual practices -- I'm not talking BSing over beers, here, or the ten-second token "moku-so" at the beginning and end of class, but actual teaching. Those who practice aikido and who experience growth in some spiritual or philosophical or esoteric realm may have a mutual understanding of what it means for these experiences to be "part of aikido", but to an outsider, the statement would seem to imply that these things are part of the aikido curriculum -- and they're not. For one person, aikido may be one of many practices that can serve as a catalyst for positive change that goes beyond the practice itself -- such that they attribute this change to their aikido practice. Another person, who comes to aikido hearing these claims and believing that he/she will be taught spiritual or esoteric practices in the course of aikido instruction, will be greatly disappointed.
  Reply With Quote