Dan O'Day

I love this topic because it is pretty much omnipresent in all discussions and addresses the paradoxical nature of the popular understanding of Aikido; as well as many other endeavors, martial or not.

I also love it because there is no answer. Not really. The term "ineffable" I believe was developed for things of this nature.

But that of course ought not to disuade folks from discussion because it is the discussion which joins solitary inquiries together to form community in the quest of...mystery?

Anyway, I think it's a good thing.

I've only trained in the aikido world for five years. Just long enough now to kind of start getting it on a personal level but more than long enough to observe the many who have come before me. This of course has greatly enhanced my understanding of aikido gained from personal training.

For instance a few years back I was at a seminar with Anno sensei. I saw him respond to a bokken strike of great speed with a minimum of five atemis with a jo during the time it took for the attacker's bokken to swing down in its shomen strike.

I was blown away. I couldn't understand how Anno sensei could do all that in such a short period of time. Even more amazing was the fact that I could see it happen. It kind of freaked me out. Maybe I felt a little like Carlos Casteneda felt when he described seeing Don Genaro or Don Juan fly for the first time.

Now, maybe three years later and thousands more shomen strikes experienced in my training I am beginning to understand not what Anno sensei did but rather something which pertains solely to my own perception.

Time is slow. There is alot of time between time. On occasion, maybe when I'm real conciously connected to Ki - I don't know - I can see that shomen strike coming at me and I realize, wow there is a lot of space in here for me to hang out and do my thing. I can practically read a novel before I need to get out of the way of that strike.

When I feel like I want to analyze this - which is often - I sometimes think I might realize what OSensei meant by an attacker losing the moment the attack begins for if we are all one than one cannot fight oneself. And its physical application is simply that the attacker, with their strike, opens up an incredible window of time for nage to respond.

Now I could go off on a big time tangent here but I won't. I stop now to say simply yes, I believe aikido to be very martial.

I've been fortunate in my training to have seen and trained with many fabulous aikidoists. Some of these folks are literally unattackable. They're like slippery eels being chased by molasses dipped turtles. Ok...that's kind of a weird image.

Moving on...unattackable. Yes, of course one may attack but they cannot be successful. They just can't. There are too many gaping holes in their concept of time.

So yeah...to me that's about as martial as it gets. Well....not really. Then there is the ability to transmit this information to the attacker before they attack which of course negates the very idea of an attack. I've seen that too. Yep. That's about as martial as I've yet seen.

The whole idea of martial arts in the three dimensional physical sense I believe is somewhat false and very limiting. The universe is big. Much bigger than a shomen strike and maybe, just maybe it's even bigger than a kokyu response. Though if it's not, I'm ok with that because the kokyu will keep me busy for as long as I live.