What do folks think about aikido's philosophical and spiritual compatibility with other arts? Anybody wrestling with buying into aiki core philosophy, while simultaneously seeking mastery in other arts that have competition, sparring, and attacks? How do you reconcile training in other arts that meet aggression with more aggression, strength with more strength, attack with injurious counter-attack?
I used to train in Tae Kwondo and Tung Su Do, and the hard style never sat well with me, even as a little kid. Now I cross-train in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and I'm loving it! O Sensei mastered jiu jitsu and it is invigorating to feel that I am in some tiny way stepping onto that great one's path, before he conceived of aiki-jitsu. It offers another window into my aikido training, and vice versa for aikido-into-BJJ.
To me, BJJ seems *fairly* compatible with aiki principles, in that the entire game is about controling your opponent's aggression. The wrestler does not need to strike and brutalize his opponent, if he can control him. A BJJ arm bar is totally anologous to a nikkyo arm bar in this respect. And as O Sensei said, "To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace."
Personally I do not buy into the BJJ pressure to compete in tournaments. Even so, it is tough to reconcile with aikido, when every BJJ class ends with a free-roll session (one-on-one sparring), something which O Sensei flatly rejected.
Anybody else out there pondering this?
PS brand new user here, hopefully this has not all been hashed out in a parallel thread
