Thread: Shinto
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Old 11-08-2002, 11:24 AM   #1
Aribu
Dojo: Tsubaki Kannagara Jinjya, Granite Falls, WA
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 2
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Shinto

I have seen a great many posting about Aikido as it pertains to Christianity, some about how Aikido is related to Zen or Buddhism, but I haven't really seen anything on Shinto practices. There are some questions posed at the end, but first I'll give a tad bit of personal experience/background info.

Recently, I've begun to train at Tsubaki Kannagara Jinjya, a shinto shrine in Washington state, under the shinto priest Koichi Barrish. (It's the U.S. branch of the Tsubaki O' Kami Yashiro in Japan, which enshrined master Ueshiba after is death. See www.kannagara.org/Quotes.htm.)

Many of the "traditions" performed in Aikido dojo are actually shinto practices. As an example, I've read a couple of times on these boards about doing the 2-bows, 2-claps, 1-bow tradition, which is a part of many shinto ceremonies. When entering the shrine (after purifying our hands and mouth outside), we perform this (the bowing is to show respect for the enshrined kami, and clapping purifies the air - a remedial explanation, I'll admit...I'm no shinto expert.)

At the end of training, sensei performs a ceremony performed by master Ueshiba at the conclusion of his training sessions (it has never been made clear to me how often Ueshiba did this, and I've never asked. I believe ours is also somewhat shorter, as our time is limited in some respects.)

I would not give up the shinto ceremony aspects of training at the shrine for anything. It creates an atmosphere in which it feels like what we do has a connection with something, if that makes sense (this is on top of the innate tendency of Aikido to be extremely fun to practice). One of my largest complaints of martial arts in the past has been either the sportification or (to coin a phrase) "new-age-ification" of any given form. (In my opionion, this is largely the fault of people in the United States. Americans are generally - even if they don't want to admit it - offended unless something is either Christian or completely non-religious. As a result, to succeed commercially, a dojo must prove how non-religious it is by referring to blatantly religious acts as mere traditions...this may seem like nothing more than a digression, but it helps lead to the point of this thread...)

Some questions about which I have been curious are as follows:

Has the American view of religion due to the dominance of Christianity taken anything from practicing Aikido?

Along the same lines, does the large-scale commercialization of martial arts detract from Aikido training?

Do you ever wish that your dojo was a little less religiously sterile, or do you prefer that it be more neutral?

Is it ok to traditionalize shinto religious practices so that they are acceptible to Americans, or would it be better to drop them entirely since their meaning is no longer present in many dojo?
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