mushinaiki

Actually I am not saying that at all. I am saying that if you just study Aikido, the way the founder intended, with Aikido as Misogi, as tanren and as Shugyo, with an open mind, then perhaps this Aiki would come to you without chasing it.
Over 20 years ago I moved to Japan because the Aikido I practiced in my country wasn’t martially effective, and I saw a gaping chasm between the senior instructors of my organisation and the senior Shihan that had been sent to propagate Aikido in my country. I decided the only way to bridge that gap was to leave and study in Japan.
In Japan I also found the teachers at Hombu taught a generally generic version of Aikido, not all but as just another foreigner it was not so easy to bust through, to get what I was chasing.
By sheer dumb luck I moved house and found myself living in the countryside, wondering how I would find a Dojo, when, whilst waiting for a train about 3 days after moving I saw an advertisement that said Aikido. A friend called for me and arranged a meeting, where the instructor took one look at me and said “we don’t teach Aikido to foreigners here, they don’t have the heart to study Aikido as budo”. I knew I had found what I was after from that response. After a lot of begging, I was accepted on probation. Three months of pain later and I was accepted as a member. This teacher, whose Dojo was below his house amongst rice fields in the middle of nowhere won’t be named as he is a fiercely private individual, and I respect his privacy. His warm ups and movements were unlike anything I had experienced before, and he was a titanic ally powerful martial artist.
Fast forward a few years, and back in my home town, still not being satisfied with my Aikido as martial art, I gathered together a group of like minded individuals and outside the restrictions of an organisation set about workshopping Aikido techniques. The guys around me were all ex athletes, strong and powerful and gave no quarter, we were punched, hit knocked down on many occasions, but lucky enough to be able to put in over 40 hours of training a week for at least 5 years, anytime we had a question that couldnt be answered we reviewed video of the masters looking for solutions. Shirata, saito, Shioda, Yamaguchi, Tohei all were consulted. At the same time we continued daily training in the basic movements my Sensei had taught, what have now become popular as solo exercises, as well as suburi training with a heavy bokken. I was adamant that after what I had seen my Sensei do in Japan, that technical ability in traditional Aikido was able to be achieved, and so I believe eventually we came upon a formula. My first three Dan grades in Aikido are from totally unrelated schools. I have studied by luck, Yoshinkan Aikido, whose work on centreline power and ang,es is invaluable, I have also graded in Iwama Aikido. As I said no leaf left unturned.
Eventually I worked in a maximum security prison, in the high dependency unit for years, my senior student right now is the operational skills instructor at our police academy, and teaches a self protection program based on the Aikido principles we discovered through those hard workshop sessions al ost 20 years ago.
I have said all that to say this. I know what it takes to make Aikido a martial discipline, the amount of work it takes to get entries and angles right, to learn to carry the body as though you are carrying a weapon intent on its use, to have the intent needed to extent ones ki. What this training has brought to me on a spiritual level remains mine personally, and can’t be given to another.
I know personally many of the people chasing Aiki, many of them I have trained with, some of them my students from my organisation and others I would call personal friends. No matter how good your Aiki becomes, if your Aikido is not good enough, you will still get punched in the face, hard. If your technical ability isn’t at the level where you can endure under pressure, no amount of Aiki will save you. Have a look at Shirata Sensei’s essay on Aiki, it also contains a picture about correct entry angles, not just a talk on the internal structures.
I have seen some of these guys return from spending months with IP training only to still not have the technical aspect right, still standing in the wrong place, still not making correct entries. I giggle to myself now when I teach that they say to me - that’s Dans stuff, when it was my teachers stuff, I remind them constantly I have never met the guy,(Dan)never trained in Ip, and have no interest in it either. What I do, to me is just Aikido. Many many hours of training and workshopping, what was just Aikido. No special skill, no other art, just Aikido.
That is why I ask that those perusing IP outside Aikido, to just look back inside Aikido, and be willing to do the work and train the way the founder asked. Perhaps then you may find what you are looking for, whether that be some internal ability, martial ability or spiritual ability. Don’t forsake one in persuite of the other. The secrets are in the basics, as they have always been.