The initial research examined the writings of Aikido's founder, Ueshiba Morihei, his personal students, and the writings of American Aikido practitioners. After developing a background for Aikido as a form of spiritual practice from these writings, detailed interviews were conducted with 33 Americans who practice Aikido in the Midwest at a number of different dojos (martial arts practice halls) representing different styles of Aikido.

The results of these interviews showed that for approximately two-thirds of the subjects, Aikido was a spiritual practice. Of these, roughly half saw their Aikido practice as a supplement to traditional Western religious practice. The other half, however, had rejected or given up traditional Western religious practices and had made Aikido a part of their personal religious beliefs and practices, without aligning themselves with any particular religious institution.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Masami, for her incredible patience in the face of what has often seemed an endless odyssey. Her encouragement and insistence kept me going when I was most tired.

In their home country, the Japanese martial arts have been seen as a form of spiritual practice for more than 400 years. Many of the oldest arts have direct links to a particular kami, Buddhist temple, or Shinto shrine (Friday 1997, 19-24; Shimizu 1976, 10; Mitani 1982, 10). They have often been considered a form of shugyo or ascetic training similar to the shugyo described by Carmen Blacker in The Catalpa Bow (1975).

One of the earliest instances of the martial arts being treated as means for spiritual/religious development is in the writings of Takuan Soho (1573-1645). References to the martial arts as a means of spiritual development can also be found in the widely read Go Rin Sho or Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi, written at approximately the same time that Takuan was writing. An emphasis on the spiritual development of the practitioner can be found in modern martial arts such as karate and Judo which are practiced around the world, and which have even been included in the Olympics in various forms.

This thesis will address the practice of one particular martial art, Aikido, in the United States. Aikido is one of the most overtly spiritual of the martial arts, emphasizing that its teachings are not just a set of techniques for dealing with violent attacks, but, more importantly, they are for improving oneself and drawing closer to the divine. Within Japan, there is nothing unusual about something as mundane as practicing self-defense techniques also being seen as a means of spiritual development, but in the United States, this is a radical idea. Japanese martial arts have been practiced in the United States now for nearly a hundred years, but they did not become widely popular until the occupation of Japan after World War II. After the Allied ban on the practice of martial arts was lifted in 1948, American soldiers stationed in Japan were heavily exposed to Judo and karate, and these two arts were soon being popularized in the United States by returning GIs who had studied them in Japan. Since the early Edo period, Japanese martial arts have stressed the spiritual development of the practitioner, rather than simply teaching fighting skills, and I believe this spiritual emphasis has been retained to a greater or lesser degree in the United States.1

Since the 1960s the martial arts have begun to be popularly recognized as means of spiritual development as well as a way to learn fighting skills. This trend was highlighted by the 1970s television show Kung Fu, starring David Carradine, in which he played an itinerant Shaolin monk in the American Old West.

Tai Chi Chu'an, a Chinese style noted for the very slow, almost dance-like way in which its forms are practiced, is probably the martial art most widely known for its spiritual emphasis, an emphasis which has begun to draw the attention of scholars (DeMarco, 1997). However, there is very little differentiation between martial arts by most people in the United States, and karate seems to form the baseline for people's conceptions of the martial arts, although this is changing.

Since the Kung Fu television show, martial arts movies have moved from being cheaply produced in Hong Kong and having a very limited audience in the United States to being some of Hollywood's biggest consistent money winners. Chuck Norris, Jean Claude VanDamme and Jason Lee have become major action stars. In the late 1980s these karate and wu shu stylists were joined in the box office by Steven Seagal, a high ranking Aikido practitioner. His movies are now some of the most popular action films in America. This has probably done more than everything else combined to increase awareness of Aikido in the United States. However, as might be expected, action movies, Seagal's included, tend to spend far more time on fight sequences than they do on the spiritual lessons of the martial arts.

These movies seem to mirror people's initial reasons for becoming involved in the martial arts. Most people who start the martial arts do so in order to learn how to fight, although this is usually expressed as wanting to learn "self-defense." The spiritual side of the martial arts is most often discovered only after a person has begun practicing a martial art.

Personal Background

My interest in the religious aspects of martial arts in the United States is an outgrowth of my long involvement in the Japanese martial arts both as a practitioner and instructor. My experience with the martial arts began when I was an undergraduate and took a Judo class to fulfill a required P.E. credit. From there I became involved in the university Judo club. I continued my involvement in Judo after graduation with a job in Japan, which allowed me to train in Judo as much as seven days a week. While in Japan I also became involved in the Japanese martial arts of Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu iaido and Shinto Muso Ryu jodo, which teach the use of the Japanese sword, and the short staff, respectively. Besides these, I also have some experience in the Chinese internal martial art Tai Chi Chu'an. I have been practicing Judo for twelve years, and iaido and jodo for five years, with occasional cross training in Aikido. All of this experience has led me to investigate whether American practitioners treat the martial arts as religious practice.

Aikido and Americans

In my experience, Americans begin their martial arts training for any number of reasons. Some wish to learn to defend themselves (a sometimes ridiculous notion, because most experienced martial artists never actually use their skills in "real" life). Some come to get in shape, and for them the martial arts are exotic forms of exercise. Some are looking for an active form of the things they have read in the Tao Te Ching or something similar. Some people in the West begin their training in their search for enlightenment. Since D. T. Suzuki spread the idea of the martial arts as a path to enlightenment in Zen and Japanese Culture (1959), the martial arts have been perceived as a form of moving Zen by many. Over time, a martial artist's reasons for practicing often change. Although an individual's initial reasons for starting may remain, they often become overshadowed by other motivations, which develop as they continue to practice. People who start for exercise often come to value the sense of security that they gain from being proficient at fighting, and people who started to learn how to fight often find that they continue because they like the exercise and the camaraderie of the dojo. Others come to appreciate the philosophical or spiritual aspects with which the martial art is clothed, and a few come to the martial art specifically seeking that aspect.

Of all the Japanese martial arts, Aikido is far and away the art most clearly and overtly focused upon the higher levels of development. Again and again in the literature you read that the spirit of Aikido is taught through the techniques of Aikido, that within the techniques of Aikido is a philosophy of true love and protection for the whole world. This is often difficult to connect with the practice and techniques of Aikido because Aikido's techniques are effective fighting techniques which involve the extremely painful manipulation of joints, and throwing your partner around quite forcefully, as well as occasionally just hitting people outright. Underlying the techniques of Aikido, however, is a basic philosophical value of harmonizing, which is present in all of its techniques. Aikido teaches that all things are connected, and that by working in harmony with the energy of the universe and all things within it, one can accomplish whatever needs to be done without conflict. On the other hand, working in opposition to the harmonious movement of the universe is seen as both much more difficult, and something which will eventually bring disaster. While Aikido's lessons are couched in the language and techniques of physical confrontation, they are intended to be applied to all aspects of a student's life. The lessons of Aikido are seen as teaching students to recognize the harmonious nature of the Universe, and how to blend with and live in harmony with the universe.

Despite the unfamiliarity of the basic concepts underlying the Aikido worldview and the general strangeness to Americans of the idea of athletics as spiritual practice, Aikido as religious practice nevertheless does seem to be making some headway in the United States. I believe that for many Aikido practitioners, Aikido serves as a portion of their active religious practice. The goal of this thesis, therefore, is to demonstrate this fact with concrete evidence. To this end, I conducted detailed interviews with individual American practitioners of Aikido.

I wish to look at one other question: How exactly do Americans deal with and internalize a non-Western conceptual system like Aikido? Many of the ideas of Aikido represent a radical departure from the Judeo-Christian tradition that predominates in North America. How people absorb these very different ways of looking at and thinking about the world is serious question. Do they simply jettison the Judeo-Christian tradition and replace it completely with a new tradition? Or, instead of forcing themselves to choose between the two, do they find a way to blend these traditions, perhaps by picking and choosing those portions of each that they find suitable? Do they simply subsume one tradition within the other, or do they find some other answer to this problem?

Related Research

Surprisingly little academic research has been conducted in the West on martial arts spirituality. In terms of Aikido, only three scholars have written on the subject. John J. Donohue has written two books and numerous articles about martial arts practice in the United States. His work favors his background as an anthropologist and tends to downplay the spiritual aspect of martial arts practices, treating them largely from sociological and psychological perspectives. Even his 1991 book, The Forge of the Spirit, despite the name, almost totally ignores the role of the spiritual in martial arts. His books, while treating Aikido as one martial art among many, deal with the functional and social role Aikido and other martial arts play in the lives of practitioners.

More germane to this paper is Yuji Ueno's Eastern Philosophy and the Rise of the Aikido Movement (1995). Ueno's research consists of approximately 50 interviews conducted in Canada and Japan. These interviews provide some excellent data. Unfortunately, his approach to data on religion is almost entirely psychological, without much analysis of what sort of religious system Aikido might be. One flaw unfortunately mars his analysis. He tries to compare attitudes about ki in Japanese and Canadian dojos, but does so by comparing a Japanese Ki Society dojo and a Canadian Yoshinkai dojo. These two styles of Aikido have radically different interpretations of what ki is. The Ki Society focuses almost entirely upon ki, while the Yoshinkai ignores it completely. This renders his comparative study of the attitudes about ki in Japan and Canada worthless. To be useful, he would have to study Japanese and American practitioners of the same styles of Aikido, rather than ones with opposing views on the point he wishes to analyze.

The other scholarly analysis of Aikido is by Crawford (1992). His article, "The Martial Yen: American Participation in the Aikido Tradition" is the most interesting of the scholarly works on Aikido. He lists several things that might make practicing Aikido attractive for Americans, including exercise and various mental benefits and he points out that there are many less dangerous ways a getting these same benefits. The major flaw in his research is that it is entirely anecdotal. His analysis of Aikido as religion is weakened by the fact that his definition of religion doesn't actually tell what a religion is. He quotes Edwin Friedman's "Generation to Generation" and says that there are

four connections between the preacher and his congregation. These are (in brief): 1 the "multigenerational forces" behind the religious tradition, 2 involvement of the congregational leader during rites of passage, 3 the length of time over which a specific spiritual leader becomes familiar with his congregation (often spanning several generations himself), and 4 the frequent occurrence of individual congregational leaders demonstrating leadership in areas other than spiritual. (Crawford 1992, 33)

Outline of Study

In this study I seek to determine if Aikido is a spiritual/religious practice in the United States. To avoid the above problem of determining what constitutes religious practice, Spiro's definition of religion will be used to determine whether or not activities are religious (Spiro 1966, 96). This should avoid many of the problems found in functional definitions of religion, which are often so broad as to be meaningless. It will still allow functions of Aikido to be looked at, but it is clear enough that religious functions can easily be separated from non-religious functions. In order to fully understand Aikido as a spiritual practice, Chapter II will examine some of Aikido's history. The life and development of Aikido's founder, Ueshiba Morihei, will be looked at particularly closely. Aikido's history in the United States will also be examined.

In Chapter III, the spiritual writings of Aikido will be looked at. These include the teaching poems of Ueshiba, as well as the writings of many of his students, and a brief look at a collection of interviews with American practitioners of Aikido. Chapter IV will present data collected from individual interviews with American Aikido practitioners. This data will show why Americans are practicing Aikido, and what Aikido practice means to them.

In the Heian period (784-1185 C.E.) the primary skills of the warrior in Japan were horseback riding and archery, but as foot soldiers became more prevalent, the use of the sword, naginata (halberd), spear, and unarmed fighting techniques came to predominate, with the sword holding a place above all others. Within the popular literature and urban mythology of the Japanese martial arts, all aspects of spirituality and religion in the modern martial arts are attributed to the influence Zen Buddhism. This represents a tremendous over-emphasis on only one of the traditions involved in the development of the Japanese martial arts or budo. During the Muromachi era (1333-1568), Zen meditation became popular with many of the regional warlords in Japan as means of preparing their soldiers minds for battle. It is a mistake, however, to assume that the benefits sought from this meditation included achieving satori. The monks that teach meditation consider the improved concentration, mental balance, and the ability to maintain a calm mind under the most trying of circumstances to be side effects of the practices used to approach satori. For the samurai warriors who studied Zen from the Muromachi period on, these were often the primary goals.

However, other Japanese religious ideas were influential in the development of budo as well. One of the most important of these was the Shinto idea that enduring physical hardship purifies the spirit. This idea contributed greatly to the way in which budo have been, and are, practiced. Many of the seemingly ridiculous and/or self-destructive practices of the martial arts are really expressions of this belief. Shugendo monks and other groups have long had the practice of meditating and chanting sutras under waterfalls in the dead of winter as a means of purifying themselves, drawing closer to the kami, and developing super-human powers of knowing and healing (Blacker 1975). A story common to the origin of many of the classical martial arts in Japan is that the secrets of the art were revealed to the founder by a kami after an extended period of immersion in ascetic practice. The ideas about purification in Shugendo and the Japanese martial arts come from Shinto, the indigenous religious tradition of Japan. In Shinto, the kami, or gods and spirits, are pure, and humans are impure. By purifying oneself, one can draw nearer to the kami.

The first verifiable martial arts in Japan, those connected with the Katori and

Kashima Shrines,2 were founded sometime in the 15th century, though precisely when is not known. Amazingly, these arts are still extant. However, it was with the introduction of firearms in the 16th century, and the enforced peace of the Tokugawa era beginning in the 17th century, that martial arts started to become vehicles for spiritual practice and development as much as a means of achieving victory in armed conflict.

The writings of three men from the beginning of the 17th century have provided the philosophical and spiritual foundations of Japanese martial arts for nearly four hundred years. The Go Rin Sho or Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi is the most widely known both in Japan and the west. The Heiho Kaden Sho or, Family War Secrets Book by Yagyu Munenori is also fundamental in the history of Japanese martial arts, partly because its author was head of what was at that time the most influential school of martial arts in Japan, Shin Kage Yagyu Ryu, and the official instructor for three generations of Shoguns. Here also is the first strong connection between the martial arts and Zen, with Yagyu strongly recommending the practice of zazen as a means of developing one's mind (Miyamoto 1993, 105).

The third leg of the philosophical stool of the martial arts is provided not by a martial artist, but by Takuan Soho, a Zen priest, Sado (Tea Ceremony) Master and correspondent with Yagyu Munenori. His writings, especially the Fudo Myo Ryoku Chi, or Immovable Wisdom, have been a great source for martial artists, and have been translated into English as The Unfettered Mind (1986). The three letters translated in The Unfettered Mind contain a great deal that is simply mystifying for most people, both Japanese and Westerner alike, yet they remain a tremendous source of inspiration. I have seen calligraphy of fudo myo ryoku chi (immovable wisdom) in numerous dojos in the United States and Japan.

Over the 250 plus years of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan, the martial arts moved farther and farther from their roots as battlefield arts. The arts of the sword were technically denied to those not of the samurai class. However, as the Shogunate continued, the stipends of the samurai continued to be paid in rice while the economy expanded and converted to a monetary base. Under these new conditions, wealthy merchants and farmers found that they could purchase that which was technically forbidden them. The non-sword arts grew in practice as well, and these were much more useful for a populace that was barred from carrying swords. The arts of the staff, truncheon, and jujutsu (unarmed combat techniques) came to be practiced by a more and more diverse group.

As the possibility of war diminished, and the memories of the battlefield faded and died with the generations, the techniques and the way they were practiced changed also. Many arts, including the arts of the sword, came to be practiced exclusively indoors, on smooth, hardwood floors. This inevitably led to changes within the arts, and with how they were practiced. Many of the martial arts lost elements such as footwork which were essential for use outdoors on uneven terrain, and developed traits such as sliding footsteps which are useful only on smooth, polished floors. Accompanying these changes in the techniques was a shift in what was primarily sought in the martial arts, as many practitioners began to prize mental and spiritual development rather than combat skills. It is undeniable that much of what is taught remains effective in a fight, however, or modern police and militaries would not continue to practice them.

These changes were neither instantaneous nor universal. Many schools retained their combat orientation and sneered at those that sought to develop the total person. This shift in focus to the spiritual rather than the practical, however, was present in many areas of Japanese culture, with spiritual ways developing in many disciplines, including sado (tea ceremony), kado (flower arranging), and shodo (calligraphy), among others. The martial arts were just one thread of a larger tapestry. These changes in the arts of the warrior were, and are, but a minor thread in the tapestry of Japanese social and religious life.

The goal of the martial arts is to train the body and the kokoro.3 The physical training is the aspect which most people are generally aware of. It is easy to see the physical aspects of the martial arts, as they are celebrated in the movies and on television. These, however, are merely outer skills, and it is the goal of martial artist to not need them. Being able to defeat an enemy through skill is the lowest level of the martial arts, one that is idealized by the mass media, and looked down upon by masters of the martial arts. The next level is to be so advanced that you can defeat your opponent without using your skills. There is a classic story about Bokuden, the founder of Kage-ryu (school) of martial arts. (Draeger 1973b, 71-72). Bokuden was on a ferry, and one of the other passengers was a rough warrior who was bragging about his skills and intimidating the other passengers. Finally, he asked Bokuden what style he practiced. Bokuden said, "The style of 'Winning-without-using-my-hands.'" The warrior was insulted and demanded that Bokuden show this. Bokuden agreed, but recommended that they take a small boat that was attached to the ferry and go to a nearby island, so they wouldn't hurt anyone else. The warrior agreed and they set out for the island. When they got close to shore, the warrior leaped out of the boat and waded ashore. Bokuden gathered himself up as if he was going to get out of the boat, but instead he grabbed an oar and pushed the boat back out into the sea. He called back, "This is called winning without using your hands." This is the second level of mastery in the martial arts. It is the level at which one doesn't need his skills, because he can transform the situation so that there is no conflict.

The highest level of mastery is described by Takuan. At this level, your physical skills are not needed, because no one could even conceive of attacking you.

He who uses the sword, but not to kill others means that even though he does not use the sword to cut others down, when others are confronted by this principle, they cower down and become as dead men of their own accord. There is no need to kill them. (Soho 1986, 81)

The first level is the level of physical skill. It is easily seen, and is what most often initially attracts people to the martial arts. The second level is reached by very few of those who begin practicing the martial arts, and the third level exists mainly as a legend and unreachable goal for martial artists.

The level of physical skill, and more precisely the practices that are required to achieve any degree of proficiency in the martial arts are the means by which a martial artist achieves the higher levels of development, and develops his kokoro. The most basic form of development comes from just surviving the rigors of practice and coming back for more. As described by Carmen Blacker (1975), enduring hardship has been seen as purifying the individual in Japan and drawing closer to the kami. The hard practices of the martial arts have much the same goal, to purify the individual, and awaken greater abilities and powers within him. In Japan there are often special, especially rigorous, practices held at what are traditionally the hottest and coldest times of the year, and to celebrate the new year. It is not uncommon to see reports of groups training in a river or in the ocean on the TV news at New Year's, especially if there is snow falling for added visual effect. The hot summer training is not as visually enticing for TV news crews, but it is at least as trying for those who take part in it. These intensive practices last for a week to ten days, and are meant to burn out any impurities in body, mind, or spirit. If nothing else, after surviving one of these practices, day-to-day problems seem much smaller than they did before.

Aikido is a modern part of this tradition. All of the spiritual practices that have been mentioned were a part of the life of Aikido's founder, Ueshiba Morihei, and modern Aikido practice preserves many of these and other traditional religious practices.

The Life of Ueshiba Morihei

Morihei Ueshiba was born on December 14, 1883 in the village of Tanabe in what is now Wakayama prefecture, Japan. Ueshiba's father was a prosperous farmer and merchant, as well as being a local councilman. Reportedly, Ueshiba was a weak child. However, encouraged by his father he took up sumo, running and swimming to build up his body.

Ueshiba's education was not unusual. Although the new Japanese government had recently established a national education system, it had not yet built the schools necessary to teach every student in Japan. Thus Ueshiba started his education at the local terako, or temple school, transferring to the public elementary school when that was completed. Although he started junior high school, he soon transferred to an abacus school. Here he proved to be an especially adept student, rising from student to assistant instructor after only a year. Ueshiba soon left this post for a position in the local tax office. He held this post until he became involved in a dispute between the government and local fishermen who were being squeezed by new government regulations and large scale-fishing operations. His involvement on the side of the local fishermen led to his resignation.

Following this, in late 1901, Ueshiba's father provided him with money with which Ueshiba went to Tokyo and opened a stationery store. The only notable thing about this trip is that this was Ueshiba's first real encounter with the classic martial arts of Japan. Apparently, young Ueshiba studied Tenjin Shinyo Ryu jujutsu and Shinkage Ryu swordsmanship. This episode did not last long though. Ueshiba soon became sick with beriberi and he closed the store and returned to Tanabe.

In 1903, Ueshiba enlisted in the army and was assigned to the 37th regiment of the Fourth Division, in Osaka. What is most important about this is that it was during this period that Ueshiba began to study martial arts seriously. He became a student of Yagyu Ryu jujutsu under Masakatsu Nakai, in Sakai, Osaka. While in the army, Ueshiba was also stationed in Manchuria for a year-and-a-half.

Following his discharge from the army in 1907, Ueshiba returned to Tanabe. Ueshiba was reportedly moody and depressed while living in Tanabe, often taking his sword and disappearing into the mountains to fast and train. He also performed mizugori daily. Mizugori is a traditional ascetic practice in Japan, involving pouring buckets of cold water over one's head and body to purify oneself and draw closer to the kami. Ueshiba's father had a dojo built on the family property and invited a prominent judoka, Kiyoichi Takagi, to train Ueshiba. Ueshiba also continued his training in Yagyu Ryu jujutsu, commuting to Osaka periodically to train there. Eventually he received a teaching license from the Yagyu Ryu in 1908.

In 1910 Ueshiba became interested in a government project to settle the northern island of Hokkaido. After making a tour of Hokkaido, he arranged for recruiting in Tanabe, eventually gathering over eighty people to settle the area of Shiratake, in Hokkaido. On March 29, 1912, Ueshiba and his party set out for Hokkaido, leaving his wife and young daughter behind in Tanabe until appropriate accommodations could be constructed (Ueshiba had married in 1902).

The pioneers worked hard, and by the third year the fields were producing a decent yield, and their timber business was showing a profit. What was most important about this adventure was not the success of the pioneers however, but the fact that it was here that Ueshiba first encountered Takeda Sokaku, the founder of Daito Ryu aiki-jutsu.

Initially, Ueshiba had little opportunity to practice martial arts in Hokkaido, but he was obsessed with physical strength, felling trees by himself, uprooting stumps with his bare hands, and playing tug-of-war with draft horses. He also continued to meditate alone on the mountains, and he didn't stop his practice of performing mizugori daily, which in northern Hokkaido in the winter would be an extreme ascetic practice indeed!

Takeda Sokaku was famous in Japan as an unrivaled jujutsu master, and he was invited to Hokkaido by the prefectural police to train them to deal with the gangsters and highwaymen who were running wild in this frontier. Ueshiba met Takeda on a trip to the town of Engaru, and after being easily defeated by Takeda in a demonstration, Ueshiba, who, partly because of his great physical strength, was unaccustomed to losing to anyone, asked for admission to Takeda's Daito Ryu. Ueshiba immediately became a student of Takeda's, spending the next thirty days training with him. At the end of this time, Ueshiba was awarded a first level teaching license in Daito Ryu. His absence caused some concern in Shiratake, since he didn't tell anyone there what he was doing, and it was concluded that he must have died in a blizzard.

When he returned to Shiratake, Ueshiba constructed a dojo on his own property and invited Takeda to live with him and teach there. This was a martial arts apprenticeship in the traditional mode. Ueshiba was expected to personally take care of all of Takeda's needs, including the preparation of his food and bath. In the course of his career, Takeda had killed several people and so was suspicious of everyone, suspecting his food of being poisoned, and there being an assassin around every corner. Because of this, Takeda was an especially demanding master, requiring, among other things, that everything be taste-tested in his presence.

With Takeda in residence, Ueshiba would study privately with Takeda for two hours every day, as well as seeing to all of Takeda's daily needs and tending to his own business. It was at this time that Ueshiba learned many of the techniques which would later become Aikido. The art that Ueshiba learned from Takeda was one which employed a variety of wrist locks and throws. The emphasis was upon timing and blending with one's opponent. One vital element of Ueshiba's Aikido was strikingly absent from Takeda's Daito Ryu aiki-jutsu. This was the philosophy of love, spiritual harmony, and personal and world development that set Aikido apart from many of the classical bujutsu systems of Japan, and even from most of the more modern budo systems such as Judo. The older bujutsu system had little place for love or universal harmony.

In 1919 Ueshiba abruptly and permanently left Hokkaido. The ostensible reason for this is the grave illness of his father, although this does not seem to have been the real motivation. Before he heard of his father's illness, he had already sent his wife and children back to Tanabe. His home and land he gave to Takeda. In addition, on the way back to Tanabe, Ueshiba detoured to Ayabe, in Kyoto prefecture, to visit the headquarters of Oomoto-kyo, a newly founded religious group. He met the leader of the group, Deguchi Onisaburo. According to his various biographers, while praying in the Oomoto shrine,

Suddenly an apparition of his father appeared before him. Then another figure emerged form the darkness, saying, "What do you see?"

"My father," Morihei replied sadly. "He looks so old and wasted away."

"Your father is fine." Onisaburo gently said to Morihei. "Let him go."

Ueshiba was fascinated with the Oomoto-kyo headquarters in Ayabe, and stayed several days, studying the doctrine and practicing Oomoto's meditation and purification techniques. By the time he reached Tanabe, his father had died, peacefully. (Stevens 1987, 23)

It seems likely that Ueshiba had heard of Oomoto-kyo while living in Hokkaido. It is reasonable to assume that Ueshiba had been on a spiritual quest nearly his entire life, judging from his on-going habits of meditating on mountains and performing daily misogi in the traditional mizugori manner. In addition, Ueshiba could not have been ignorant of the spiritual aspect of the martial arts, since the Japanese government had been promoting the martial arts as a means of developing the spirit of the Japanese people since the Meiji Restoration.

Based on these facts, I believe that Ueshiba, having heard of Oomoto-kyo in Hokkaido, and probably having read some of their literature (as Oomoto-kyo had a very active printing division, which included a national newspaper), Ueshiba left Hokkaido with the intention of investigating Oomoto-kyo for himself. It is possible he intended to join Oomoto-kyo even before he left Hokkaido.

Within a few months of his father's death, Ueshiba moved his entire family to Ayabe, to live at the Oomoto compound there. This was not a light decision, because every member of his family objected. His wife and his mother especially wondered how the family would support itself. John Stevens quotes his wife as having complained "Why leave this place when we have productive land and fine neighbors? Are the gods that you say are calling you going to pay you a salary?" (Stevens 1987, 23).

In Ayabe, Ueshiba quickly became integrated into the daily life of Oomoto-kyo. Two of the basic beliefs in Oomoto-kyo are the importance of natural food, and that art is the mother of religion. Having been a farmer his entire life, the first of these teachings was not difficult for him to put into practice in the Oomoto-kyo fields. The second teaching led him to take up both calligraphy and poetry.

After moving to Ayabe, Ueshiba continued his martial arts practice alone, but when a fire brigade was organized, he helped train them, including in basic self-defense techniques. Shortly after this, the leader of Oomoto-kyo, Deguchi Onisaburo, asked Ueshiba to teach budo to other members. A building was remodeled, and became the "Ueshiba Dojo," Ueshiba's first dojo. There were probably two reasons for this turn of events. The first would have been to build members' strength, health and character through the practice of traditional arts. Secondly, it was probably to train a group of bodyguards for Deguchi, since the Japanese government was beginning to look askance at some of his teachings.

The martial art that Ueshiba was teaching at this time was Daito-ryu aiki-jutsu. It was fundamentally the art that he had learned from Takeda. In fact, Takeda visited the dojo in Ayabe on two occasions.

On February 11, 1921, the government raided the Oomoto-kyo headquarters in what is known as "The First Oomoto-kyo Incident." Based on rumors from disgruntled ex-members, and allegations from government spies, the police raided the headquarters and arrested many of the leaders, including Deguchi. Although most of the charges eventually had to be dropped, including those hoarding weapons, Deguchi was found guilty of lese majesty and given a five-year sentence.

It was upon Deguchi's release from prison that Ueshiba seems to have moved into the inner circle of Oomoto-kyo activities, when Deguchi made Ueshiba his personal bodyguard. Ueshiba had already absorbed a great deal of Oomoto-kyo's teachings, including meditation techniques and purification rites, which include a revived form of the traditional Shinto purification ritual chinkon-kishin. As Deguchi's bodyguard and confidant, Ueshiba also learned a great deal of Oomoto-kyo's kotodama4 (word-spirit) teachings.

In 1924, Deguchi started to put into action his dream of founding a nation based upon his religious teachings. With Ueshiba and a few other followers, he set out on what is known as the "Mongolian Adventure." In the course of traveling to Mongolia, Deguchi and his band relied upon the assistance of Japanese already in the area to arrange things with various warlords. In this they became the pawns of both the Japanese, who were generally agents of Japan's Black Dragon Society seeking to gain a foothold in China for Japan, and the warlords themselves. They made it to Mongolia, but were there double-crossed by one of the warlords. They were arrested, and sentenced to execution. Although the Chinese probably never intended to carry out the execution, no one told the prisoners that. They were released to a Japanese envoy only after they had been brought before the firing squad.

What is notable about this adventure for Ueshiba is that this is when he reportedly first developed what might be called "super-human powers." The journey across China to Mongolia was long, and certainly not easy. To add to the difficulties of bad or no roads, and negotiating with each successive warlord as they crossed his territory, they were frequently attacked by bandits. On one of these occasions, Ueshiba claimed to have developed the power to see the path of someone's intentions. Whenever someone was going to fire a gun, he would see a ball of light shoot out from the gun just before the trigger was pulled. Stevens (1987, 32) quotes Ueshiba in an oft repeated story;

As we neared Baian Dalai we were trapped in a valley and showered with bullets. Miraculously, I could sense the direction of the projectiles-beams of light indicated their paths of flight-and I was able to dodge the bullets. The ability to sense an attack is what the ancient masters of the martial arts meant by "anticipation." If one's mind is steady and pure, one can immediately perceive aggression and counter it-that, I realized, is the essence of aiki.

Upon returning to Japan, Ueshiba continued his life at Ayabe, soaking up more and more of Deguchi's mystical teachings, both about kotodama, and the meanings hidden within the ancient writings of Kojiki. These would greatly color his teachings later on, particularly after World War II.

In 1925, Ueshiba was challenged to a duel by a naval officer and high ranking kendo (Japanese style swordfighting) practitioner. For a martial artist to be challenged in this way was very common at this time, and Ueshiba regularly faced such challenges. Following this duel however, Ueshiba had an intense mystical experience. Ueshiba went into his garden to wash off the sweat from the duel, and get a drink. Stevens (1987, 32; see also Stone and Meyer 1995, 5; and Saotome 1993, 10) gives the most detailed account of this incident:

Suddenly Morihei started to tremble and he felt immobilized. The ground beneath his feet began to shake, and he was bathed with rays of pure light streaming down from heaven. A golden mist engulfed his body, causing his petty conceit to vanish, and he himself assumed the form of a Golden Being. Morihei perceived the inner workings of the cosmos and further perceived that "I am the Universe." The barrier between the material, hidden, and divine worlds crumbled; simultaneously Morihei verified that the heart of budo was not contention but rather love, a love that fosters and protects all things.

In addition, according to Stevens, Ueshiba's "sixth sense of anticipation was completely developed, and he was now invincible as a martial artist" (Stevens 1987, 33). It is true that after this event, Ueshiba was undefeated. Of course, prior to this, the only serious defeat he had suffered was at the hands of Takeda Sokaku.

Ueshiba's skill as a martial artist became more widely known, as he began training some members of the local military as well as the Oomoto-kyo members. This drew the notice of high-ranking members of the Imperial Army and Navy. In the late 1920s he was repeatedly invited to Tokyo to give demonstrations to high-ranking military personnel. He was also invited to move to Tokyo and open a dojo there. Finally, in 1929, with the blessings of Deguchi, he accepted an invitation and sponsorship from Admiral Takeshita Isamu.

Deguchi felt that Ueshiba's evolving martial art would be his means of teaching peace, brotherhood, love, and the importance of art in religion. He told Ueshiba "Budo will be your yusai, a practice to manifest the divine" (Stevens 1987, 37). This separation from Deguchi was very fortunate for Ueshiba. Oomoto-kyo was beginning to do things that would eventually lead to its near destruction. Oomoto-kyo began training a militia, stockpiling arms, and Deguchi started dressing like the emperor. In 1935 the Japanese police raided the Ayabe and Kamaeoka headquarters of Oomoto-kyo and arrested all of the leading members of the sect, including Deguchi, who was imprisoned and not released until 1942.

Although Ueshiba had maintained very close ties with Oomoto-kyo and Deguchi, he was not arrested in the nation-wide sweep of Oomoto-kyo members. His martial arts instruction had brought him in contact with a great many influential people in the Japanese military and national police. On the day of the sweep, Ueshiba was among those sought by the national police headquarters in Tokyo, but he was in Osaka teaching at the local police station. The chief-of-police in Osaka, Tomita Kenji, had Ueshiba sent to Sonezake, whose chief-of-police hid Ueshiba in his own house. Meanwhile they stalled those in Tokyo who wanted him, while Ueshiba's supporters in the military pulled strings to get him off the list of the wanted, on the grounds that he was too important as a military asset to arrest merely because of some connections to a discredited religious organization.

Throughout the thirties, Ueshiba taught his martial art, which by this time he was calling "aiki-budo." Ueshiba was teaching at his home dojo in Tokyo, in Takeda for Oomoto-kyo, the Toyama Military Academy, the Naval Academy, the Military Staff College, and the Military Police Academy, in addition to training trips to Manchuria for the military there. He became very well connected, teaching leaders of both the civilian government and the military. His students even included the Prime Minister, Admiral Tojo.

In 1942, however, Ueshiba retired and withdrew to the country-side of Iwama, in Ibaragi prefecture, where he had acquired about 17 acres of farmland, a good-sized lot in Japan. Ueshiba felt that

The military is dominated by reckless fools ignorant of statesmanship and religious ideals who slaughter innocent citizens indiscriminately and destroy everything in their path. They act in total contradiction to God's will, and they will surely come to a sorry end. True budo is to nourish life and foster peace, love, and respect, not to blast the world to pieces with weapons. (Stevens 1987, 47)

The farm in Iwama did not have a house, so Ueshiba bought a farmer's shed and had it converted into a house for himself and his wife. His circumstances in Iwama were considerably different from those in Tokyo. In Iwama he was just another farmer. This suited Ueshiba quite well since he was able to live a life that accorded with his religious ideals. The dojo in Tokyo he left in the hands of his son Kisshomaru. In Iwama Ueshiba was able to rest, train, and farm. He was also able to build the Aiki Shrine.

Japan is dotted with small shrines built to honor and venerate any one of the yaoyoruzu kami-literally the "eight million gods and spirits." These shrines can be so small they fit on a small pedestal by the side of the road or as large as the massive complexes in Ise and Kumano. The Aiki Shrine in Iwama is small, but still large enough to have a small outer building to accompany and guard the tiny inner shrine where the gods dwell. There the 42 guardian deities of Aikido are enshrined as well as the Great Spirit of Aiki. Here Ueshiba prayed, and in the dojo he built next to the shrine he practiced, preserving his Aikido throughout World War II and during the years of the Occupation when all martial arts practice was banned by the Americans. Out in the countryside, far from the eyes of the authorities, Ueshiba was able to continue practicing and teaching Aikido without interruption.

In 1948, soon after the ban on the practice of martial arts was lifted, the Aikikai (Aikido Association) was established, with headquarters in Tokyo. Ueshiba stayed in Iwama practicing Aikido, and the meditation and purification rites of Oomoto-kyo. From about 1950 on, Ueshiba began traveling and teaching throughout Japan again. It was at this time that he began to emphasize the philosophical and spiritual aspects of Aikido more and more. It is this version of Aikido that most Westerners are familiar with.

Aikido began to spread internationally in 1953. Members of Hawaii's Japanese-American community had seen Aikido while stationed in Japan during the Occupation, and petitioned the Aikikai to send an instructor to Hawaii to teach. Then head instructor at the Hombu (headquarters) Dojo, Tohei Koichi, was sent to Hawaii to teach for several months. The people he was instructing there were already generally accomplished martial artists in Judo, kendo and karate. From this time on, Tohei made annual trips to Hawaii to teach and conduct rank testing.

Around this time, another of Ueshiba's pre-Occupation students started his own Aikido organization. Shioda Gozo founded Yoshinkan Aikido in the early fifties, with the blessings of Ueshiba and the Aikikai. Yoshinkan was the first major off-shoot from Ueshiba's Aikido. It is a very hard-hitting style of Aikido, and has been adopted by the National Police Agency in Japan as one of its official arts. While it teaches the philosophy of aiki (harmonious energy), it doesn't focus on the spiritual aspects that Ueshiba began to heavily emphasize in the post-war era. To this day, the Aikikai and Yoshinkan maintain a friendly relationship. The same cannot be said for later off-shoots.

Tohei continued to make regular overseas teaching trips, and foreigners in Japan began to discover and study Aikido on their own. By the early 1960s there were a number of experienced aikidoka (Aikido practitioners) with black belt ranks in Hawaii. Some of these moved to California in the early 1960s and began teaching Aikido there. At this time, Tohei Koichi was the only contact with Aikido for people in America. Ueshiba was just a legend.

Technically, what Tohei was teaching was the same as what Ueshiba was teaching. Tohei had a different emphasis however. Where Ueshiba's emphasis was on the harmony, the ai portion of Aikido, Tohei's emphasis was on the ki. Tohei had been a member of Jukukai, which taught meditation, chanting and rituals for developing one's ki, and Tohei was teaching Aikido as a means to develop one's ki. There was some disagreement about Tohei's teachings within the Aikikai.

Aikido After Ueshiba

When Ueshiba died in 1969, Tohei was the Chief Instructor at the Hombu Dojo in Tokyo, and the only official tenth dan (tenth degree black belt), a rank indicating complete mastery of the art. Ueshiba's son and heir, Kisshomaru, did not approve of Tohei's non-standard teachings and began putting pressure on him to stop teaching them.

This situation created a great deal of stress within the Aikikai, and as Chie Nakane says in Japanese Society, "the sudden removal of the leader is a severe blow, and automatically brings a 'household rebellion' (the Japanese term for an internal struggle)" (Nakane 1971, 46). As Nakane describes, in Japan there are no strong horizontal ties within an organization; the strong ties that hold an organization together are all vertical, elder to junior, ties. When Ueshiba died, it was inevitable that there be some sort of split between the Ueshiba's immediate subordinates. All of the top instructors at the Hombu Dojo had their ties directly to the senior Ueshiba, and only Tohei was teaching anything very different from the others.

Therefore, when this struggle began, Tohei had few supporters within the Aikikai; his loyal students were mostly in the classes outside the Aikikai. On the other hand, Kisshomaru was teaching Aikido very much as his father had taught it, he was one of the most senior instructors in Aikido, and he had the influence of Japan's tradition of patrilineal inheritance. Thus within a few years, Tohei was functionally ostracized by the Aikikai, although not outright expelled. This is a common way of dealing with problems in Japan. The Japanese seek to avoid face-to-face conflict, so the preferred means of getting rid of someone is to make life so uncomfortable that they leave, and this is what Tohei did.

This caused a major rift in international Aikido, although it is doubtful anyone in the Aikikai realized that this would happen. It is even less likely that they would have done anything differently if they had realized.5 Within Japan, the only people who followed Tohei when he left the Aikikai to found his own organization and style of Aikido were his own direct students, most of whom also took part in his ki development classes outside the Aikikai. It was outside of Japan that Tohei had most of his devoted students. Frank Doran says:

Aikido in the United States was primarily influenced, if not totally influenced, by Tohei Sensei. . . . There wasn't much talk of O-Sensei.6 The teachers were all talking about Tohei, which I don't think was a deliberate fault. They all talked with pride about their teacher, who was Tohei. . . . It wasn't just Tohei; it was just Tohei if you were in the United States. (Stone and Meyer 1995, 136)

Tohei formed his own Aikido organization in 1974, when he formally resigned from the Aikikai. He called his style of Aikido Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido, "Aikido with Body and Mind Integration," and his organization is called The Ki Society in English. When he formed this organization, he asked all of the dojos that he had started in the United States to split with the Aikikai as well. Many of them did. This was the real beginning of the splintering of Aikido. Since this split, Tohei has developed a large international organization for the investigation of ki and the promotion of his style of Aikido based just outside of Tokyo. His headquarters is said to be the largest dojo in the world.

>From this initial split in Japan have come most of the splinter groups in America. The largest of these is the American branch of Tohei's Ki Society, which teaches what it calls Ki Aikido, and Ki Atsu Therapy, a therapy system developed by Tohei that involves the manipulation of a bodies ki energy, and the direct application of ki by a therapist. The emphasis is on ki as an important form of natural energy, how to develop and make use of it.

Next in size is probably Seidokan Aikido, founded by one of Tohei's disciples about ten years after the split with the Aikikai. Rod Kobayashi, a Hawaiian born Japanese-American, split with Tohei's Ki Society because he felt there had been a reduction in the amount of Aikido as a martial art being taught in Ki Society dojos, and he felt that it was important to maintain that part of Aikido.7 He formed Seidokan Aikido in the early 1980s. He sought and received the approval and recognition of Doshu Kisshomaru for his new organization, which emphasizes using the techniques of Aikido to teach what his calls "the aiki attitude."

There have been a number of other splits from the Ki Society. Of those about which I have been able to gather any information, they generally seem to be moving back towards the Aikikai in an attempt to balance the ki teachings and much softer, less combative style of Aikido practice of the Ki Society with the much harder and more martial aspects of traditional Aikido. The Ki Society had been moving away from the more combat oriented style of Aikido to a softer, less martial style, and many of those who have left it feel that it is important to maintain the strong martial effectiveness of their Aikido practice.

There are also a number of Aikido organizations that are not affiliated with any of the traditional organizations. These include Suenaka-Ha Tetsugaku-ho Aikido, another off-shoot from the Ki Society, and Jiyushinkai, an off-shoot of Tomiki-Ryu Aikido. There are also numerous unaffiliated, independent dojos. These dojos are generally run by black belts who have become disgusted with the politics in the existing organizations, and who do not want to start another organization.

Within the United States are also several Aikikai affiliated organizations headed by various rival Japanese shihan (master instructors) from the Aikikai, who often have difficulty dealing with each other, for the same sociological reasons that forced Tohei out of the Aikikai. These organizations, while not giving each other's ranks very much respect, all respect Aikikai ranks and recognize Ueshiba Kisshomaru as Doshu (Leader of the Way), and world-wide head of Aikido.

In addition, Yoshinkan Aikido has numerous representatives teaching in the United States, both Japanese and American, and several splinter organizations. One in the Midwest is headed by Kushida Sensei in Michigan. Like the Ki Society and Aikikai split, Kushida's Yoshokai was started after Shioda Gozo, founder of Yoshinkai, died, and there was a disagreement over how the organization would be run.

There have been numerous splits within the world Aikido community, and some of these splits are quite acrimonious. Despite this acrimony at the international level, within the United States, the general attitude is one of openness and cooperation. Rather than compete with each other, the various styles more often work together. When high ranking teachers from Japan give seminars in the United States, though the seminars are usually sponsored by one style, practitioners of any style are welcome to attend.

This attitude is strikingly different from attitudes often encountered in Japan, where membership in one style can make it impossible to practice in dojos of a different, but related style. This difference seems to be directly related to what is generally considered to be Aikido's most attractive feature for Americans, its non-confrontational philosophy emphasizing harmony. This is popularly seen as being the attraction for Americans since the 1960s and the counter-culture. This philosophical emphasis allows people to study combat skills without compromising personal beliefs. It blends well with modern ideas about living in harmony with the environment and with non-violence beliefs. The idea of harmony with the universe complements the environmentalist ideal of living in harmony with nature. At the same time Aikido's technical syllabus emphasizing controlling techniques rather than striking, enables people opposed to violence ro learn self-defense skills without compromising their personal beliefs. Aikido's growth may well be a mirror of the growth of these ideals thorough American society.

In Aikido as a spiritual/religious practice, the most fundamental sources of guidance are the writings of the founder of Aikido. Many of these have been translated into English, primarily by John Stevens, a high ranking American Aikido practitioner and professor of Buddhist Studies at Tohoku Fukushi College in Sendai, Japan. Stevens' translations of Ueshiba's writings, and his own books on Aikido, represent an important literary source for American students of Aikido. His compilations, The Essence of Aikido: The Spiritual Teachings of Morihei Ueshiba, and The Art of Peace, as well as his translation of Ueshiba's pre-war book Budo, are the primary source of Ueshiba's writings for the non-Japanese reading American.

However, Ueshiba's writings represent only a tiny portion of what has been written about Aikido. Writing about Aikido is growing industry, with two major magazines, and numerous new books about Aikido published annually. These writings touch on every aspect of Aikido, from simple technical manuals describing the techniques of Aikido to complex theories for the application of Aikido in psychological practice to books explicating the spiritual and religious significance of Aikido.

After examining the writings of Ueshiba, I will look at three other books on Aikido. First will be Aikido and the Harmony of Nature, by Ueshiba's student, Mitsugi Saotome (1993). This book looks at the spiritual, religious and philosophical implications of Ueshiba's teachings. The second book is the only English language book-length biography of Ueshiba to date, Abundant Peace, by John Stevens (1987). Last, Aikido in America, a collection of interviews with leading American practitioners of Aikido, put together by John Stone and Ron Meyer (1995) will be discussed.

Ueshiba's Writings

The Art of Peace is a collection of doka or teaching poems written by Ueshiba to illustrate particular points and lessons within Aikido. The Essence of Aikido covers a much broader field. The book is divided into five chapters. The first chapter presents the cosmology of Ueshiba. This cosmology is essentially that of Deguchi,

and is a rich blend of ancient Shinto mythology and Oomoto-kyo kotodama theory. The second chapter is a collection of doka, translated and presented side-by-side with the original Japanese. The third chapter is a collection of Ueshiba's calligraphy, some of it straightforward, some of it dealing with the spiritual aspects of Ueshiba's beliefs. The fourth chapter explains something of Ueshiba's beliefs concerning misogi, and is filled with pictures of Ueshiba performing various acts of misogi, including training under a cold mountain waterfall. The final chapter consists of photographs of Ueshiba practicing the core of his teachings, the techniques of Aikido.

Ueshiba's kotodama theory basically holds that sound is at the heart of creation, that certain "seed" sounds are fundamental to the creation of the universe, and that the proper use of these sounds can transform the world. The essential sound is "su." "Su" is the first sound of creation, and all sounds, and everything else in creation emanates from it. "Su" expands outward to form/become the five vowel sounds of Japanese, a, i, u, e, and o.

The kotodama theory is not, in my experience, part of Aikido in the United States; it does not seem to have made the cultural leap. This is not surprising considering that it is based upon obscure Oomoto-kyo teachings, and most of Ueshiba's disciples were not members of Oomoto-kyo. They would listen to his kotodama lectures, but were not interested in them. The only place I have found anything connected to this is that in Seidokan dojos, where, when practicing misogi breathing, the sound of your exhalation should be a long, drawn-out "su."

This kotodama theory translates the sounds into Shinto mythology, with different sounds and sound combinations representing various Shinto deities from the Kojiki. These deities are utterly unknown to most modern Japanese, which only serves to make the theories that much more impenetrable for modern Japanese, to say nothing of non-Japanese.

Of far more importance for Americans are Ueshiba's doka, or as Stevens colorfully, and accurately, calls them "Songs of the Path" (Ueshiba 1993, 39). Ueshiba's doka range from seemingly simple descriptions of Aikido technique, to deeply symbolic descriptions of reality. Quoting from the preface of one of Ueshiba's Japanese collections:

Those who train in Aikido must never forget that the teaching has to be forged in one's very body. Always keep in mind the Divine workings of creation, from beginning to end, and ceaselessly learn from the gods. Make the entire universe your dojo. This is the great meaning of Budo. (Ueshiba 1993, 39)

For Ueshiba, the practice of Aikido, like the practice of any art for a member of Oomoto-kyo, was a means of promoting the Divine within oneself, and ultimately a means for achieving unification with the Divine.

Many of Ueshiba's doka were lessons of strategy and technique. Others were lessons about the mystical and spiritual side of Aikido, and how Aikido relates to God and the Divine. The examples below show how Ueshiba viewed the connection between his religion and Aikido.

The Divine Will
Permeating body and soul
is the blade of Aiki:
Polish it, make it shine
throughout this world of ours!
(Ueshiba 1993, 41)

Aiki-[its mysteries]
can never be encompassed
by the brush or by the mouth.
Do not rely on words to grasp it,
attain enlightenment through practice!
(Ueshiba 1993, 41)

Protecting the Way
of gods and buddhas
in this world of ours:
The techniques of Aiki
are the law of kusanagi.
(Ueshiba 1993, 45)

The following doka augments the holy purpose above with a divine origin.

Taught to us by the gods,
the grand design of the Path
follows the Divine:
The Path of Aiki [is the work of the]
Angel of Purification
(Ueshiba 1993, 45)

Techniques of purification
taught by futomani
and the gods.
Aiki[do] was established
by the Divine.
(Ueshiba 1993, 55)

Master the Divine
Techniques of Aiki
and no foe
will dare
to challenge you.
(Ueshiba 1993, 74)

Foster and polish
the warrior spirit
while serving in the world;
illuminate the Path in accordance
with the Divine Will.
(Ueshiba 1993, 61)

A warrior receives
the gift of life
and establishes life everywhere;
Love is life, the essence
of the divine Plan.
(Ueshiba 1993, 62)

Steadfast and sure,
animating the cosmos-
the Sword of [Aiki].
Deep learning and Bu[do], the double-edged
instrument of the gods' grand design.
(Ueshiba 1993, 63)

True Victory is Self Victory!
Harmonize yourself with the
Divine Parent Mind-
salvation lives right within
your own body and soul!
(Ueshiba 1993, 64)

Many of the above doka set forth Aikido as a form a misogi. It might therefore be useful to look at what Ueshiba had to say about misogi. He commented on it by saying:

In short, misogi is a washing away of all defilements, a removal of all obstacles, a separation from disorder, an abstention from negative thoughts, a radiant state of unadorned purity, the accomplishment of all things, a condition of lofty virtue, and a spotless environment. In misogi one returns to the very beginning, where there is no differentiation between oneself and the universe. (Ueshiba 1993, 98)

This is a very clear description of what misogi's purpose and goals were for Ueshiba. Misogi practices are Shinto in nature and origin. Through the practice of various misogi exercises, one gradually purifies oneself, thereby drawing closer to the kami. The first part of the description, ending with "a radiant state of purity" is a classic description of the state attained through misogi. The second half is a very concise description of the goals of Oomoto-kyo, the transformation of the world and unification with the divine.

As for Aikido and misogi, Ueshiba said:

Train sincerely in Aikido and evil thoughts and deeds will naturally disappear. Daily training in Aikido allows your inner divinity to shine brighter and brighter. Do not concern yourself with the right and wrong of others. Do not be calculating or act unnaturally. Keep your heart set on Aikido, and do not criticize other teachers or traditions. Aikido embraces all and purifies everything. (Ueshiba 1993, 99)

Clearly Ueshiba saw Aikido practice as a form of misogi. The practice of Aikido is a means of growing closer to and becoming one with God or the gods, improving oneself, and transforming the world. That these are also the goals of Oomoto-kyo is not coincidental. One of the reasons for practicing the arts in Oomoto-kyo is to manifest the divine within oneself. Ueshiba's martial art was intended to allow one to not only manifest the divine, but also purify oneself to make it easier to manifest and become one with the divine.

It is also worth noting that Ueshiba's Aikido and Oomoto-kyo had no real philosophical differences. Here is the basic teaching of Oomoto-kyo:

God is spirit abiding in everything in the universe and man is the governor of the world.

Where god and man unite, there follow unbounded power and authority.

(Oomoto Headquarters 1935, 55)

In Ueshiba's writings that have been translated into English thus far, the particular deity or deities who inspired Aikido are not specified. I suspect that this is a very important feature of Aikido. Its lessons are meant to be religious ones, but which religion, and which god(s), it is teaching us about is never made clear, so that Aikido can quite easily be something different for every person who comes to it. The practitioners of Aikido have to fill in the specifics of Aikido's lessons for themselves, individually. A few can't be bothered with it at all. For them, learning how to fight is enough. Most people who stick with Aikido for any length of time though, fill in the details of Ueshiba's lessons with material from their own background. A member of a missionary church said that God uses people for his own ends, so God could very well have inspired Ueshiba. For many, as one person put it, "there is nothing in Aikido that conflicts with the Bible." The very vagueness of Aikido's written teachings is their strength, for the open spaces can be filled with whatever the student feels most comfortable with.

Aikido and the Harmony of Nature

Mitsugi Saotome is a direct student of Ueshiba who moved to the United States in the 1970s. Now married to an American, he teaches Aikido full-time and has written several books about Aikido besides Aikido and the Harmony of Nature (1993).

Several themes emerge from Aikido and the Harmony of Nature: that Ueshiba was both enlightened and inspired by Kami; that there is no separation between self, other, individual, the universe, and God; that Aikido is a true expression of the movement of energy in the cosmos; and that through the practice of Aikido anyone can achieve unity with the universe.

On page 15 Saotome quotes Ueshiba as saying about Aikido:

It was born through the order of Kami that I only followed and conveyed to others. Aiki is the Way of Kami. It is to be a part of the laws of the universe. It is the source of the principles of life. The history of Aikido begins with the origin of the universe. Do you think a human being could possibly have created these laws? The shrewdness of human intelligence is not enough to understand this. (Saotome 1993, 15)

Another recurring theme, and one which is suggested by the second half of the title, The Harmony of the Universe, is a somewhat sketchy monism. "The Creator and creation are one, not separate, and we are not apart from the perfect rhythm that is an expression of Holy Wisdom" (Saotome 1993, 22). This monism is an important part of Saotome's teaching, because his goal is total unification with the creator. "To truly become one with the Creator and experience satori, we must follow the laws of nature and purify the body, the heart, the spirit, even our physical surroundings" (Saotome 1993, 29). This theme of purification and unification is repeated again and again throughout the book, and Aikido is presented as the means of achieving this unity. This is most concisely stated in what Saotome calls "The Five Principles of Aikido" on page 17.

1. Aikido is the path that joins all paths of the universe throughout eternity; it is the Universal Mind that contains all things and unifies all things.

2. Aikido is the truth taught by the universe and must be applied to our lives on this earth.

3. Aikido is the principle and the path that join humanity with the Universal Consciousness.

4. Aikido will come to completion when each individual, following his or her true path, becomes one with the universe.

5. Aikido is the path of strength and compassion that leads to the infinite perfection and ever-increasing glory of God.

This succinctly describes what Saotome is saying about Aikido throughout the book. When Saotome isn't reiterating and expanding upon these points, he is describing the necessity of purification, of misogi, for achieving unity with the universe. On page 29 he gives a detailed description of misogi, and of Aikido as a form of purification. He also talks about Ueshiba's efforts to purify himself several times throughout the book, and he reinforces this by emphasizing the importance of Ueshiba's being pure when he achieved enlightenment.

Aikido and the Harmony of Nature talks about Aikido from a number of different angles, always emphasizing the transcendent nature of Aikido. The examples I have given here are hardly the only examples of these points in the book. Rather, they are examples of the basic themes of the book. Ueshiba achieved enlightenment through his own great efforts, and that God granted him the insight necessary to create Aikido: that there really is no separation between God and man and the Universe, all are really one; and that Aikido is the means of coming to perfect harmony with God and the Universe. This certainly meets the requirements of Spiro's definition of religion (Spiro 1966, 96), as well as providing support for the argument that Aikido practice is a religious ritual under the Lawson-McCauley theory of religious ritual (to be described below).

Abundant Peace

John Stevens is an American practitioner of Aikido who now lives in Japan, although he makes frequent trips to the United States to conduct Aikido seminars. He holds a sixth dan rank in Aikido. John Stevens has written numerous books on Aikido, ranging from purely technical manuals to books that focus on the religious and spiritual teachings of Aikido. Here I will focus on just one of his books, his biography of Ueshiba, the only book-length biography of Ueshiba available in English. Nearly every book about Aikido printed in English contains at least a brief account of Ueshiba's life, particularly his learning Daito Ryu, his ability to dodge bullets by dodging flashes of light representing the gunman's intentions, and his enlightenment and subsequent invincibility.

Stevens' book is the only lengthy account of Ueshiba's life. He breaks his account into three general sections. The first deals with Ueshiba "The Man," the second with "The Martial Artist," and the third with Ueshiba's philosophical and spiritual teachings, "The Message." What Stevens has to say in "The Message" is very much the same as the other writings looked at above, so it is the first two sections that are of interest here.

"The Man" and "The Martial Artist" contain the biographical information. The basic facts of Ueshiba's life were recounted above, but what is interesting here is how the documentable facts of Ueshiba's life have been mixed with undocumented stories about Ueshiba's powers and abilities. While Ueshiba's training in various martial arts is quite well documented in the form of contracts and dojo records, and his primary enlightenment experience is recorded in numerous brief biographies, including those written by his son, Stevens' biography includes numerous undocumented stories of Ueshiba performing fantastic feats of strength and skill, as well as stories of Ueshiba demonstrating powers of clairvoyance. Stevens even alleges that Ueshiba prophesied his own return after his death. This is the only place in which I have found this prophecy however.

Stevens recounts numerous stories of Ueshiba possessing of super-human powers. He includes a second story about Ueshiba being able to dodge bullets (Stevens 1987, 35). He also recounts several popular stories of Ueshiba anticipating attacks while the attacker is only thinking about attacking him. These stories lend to the super-human aura that popularly surrounds Ueshiba, and a number of them have entered into the popular dojo mythology about Ueshiba, i.e., that he could never be surprised, that he was not only unbeaten but unbeatable, that he knew what other people were thinking, and that he threw people without touching them.

What is perhaps most striking about Stevens' writing is the unabashed awe and reverence he piles upon Ueshiba. When mentioning some training in a style vaguely associated with some ninja schools, Stevens writes:

Ninjitsu is the antithesis of Aikido. It is an art based on stealth, deception, and dirty tricks; yet even with their reliance on the vaunted "techniques of invisibility" and an arsenal of exotic weapons, none of the famous ninja of the past could have stood a chance against the divine techniques of Morihei, formulated in accordance with the principles of love and harmony. (Stevens 1987, 71)

This degree of credibility and raw, unvarnished hero-worship is further brought out in the opening paragraph of the section on Ueshiba, "The Martial Artist." Stevens writes:

Morihei was undoubtedly the greatest martial artist who ever lived. Even if we accept every exploit of all the legendary warriors, East and West, as being literally true, none of those accomplishments can be compared to Morihei's documented ability to disarm any attacker, throw a dozen men simultaneously, and down and pin opponents without touching them, recorded scores of times in photographs, on film, and by personal testimony.

How did Morihei become invincible? (Stevens 1987, 67)

It is this belief in Ueshiba's transcendent powers that shows Stevens' Aikido as being religious in quality, for it clearly meets Spiro's definition, with two super-human agents: Ueshiba and the divinity which inspired him, the "Great Spirit of Aiki" (Stevens 1987, 81).

Aikido in America

Aikido in America is a collection of interviews with some of the leading American Aikidoists of the early 1990s. Most of the book is not about Ueshiba or the belief in the super-human within the Aikido community. Much of what the interviewees discuss has to do with the development of Aikido in the United States, historical discussions of who taught whom, and how different people came to practice Aikido or why they ended up teaching the particular flavor of Aikido that they do.

Terry Dobson is quoted saying:

Aikido is not a religion. That's what's so devilish about Aikido. It deals with these primary forces but leaves pretty much all the detail work up to you. O-Sensei said, "Aikido leads religion to completion," which I always found and still find a very impenetrable statement. (Stone and Meyer 1995, 34)

There are interviews with 13 leaders of Aikido in America, two of whom have since died. The book is divided into three sections. The first section is called "The Disciples," and deals with people who trained with Ueshiba in Japan. The second section, "The Teachers," deals with people who have led a great deal of the teaching of Aikido in America, but who do not necessarily have any training with Ueshiba. The last section is called "The Innovators," and deals with people who have taken Aikido in new directions in America.

For the purposes of this research, the first section is of the most interest, although nearly every interview deals with the spiritual side of Aikido at some point. The most interesting interviews are the first seven or so, and especially the first four, which are the group titled "The Disciples." All of these interviews focus a lot of time on what Aikido is.

None of these interviews even begins to suggest that the center of Aikido is a set of martial techniques. The techniques are only ever mentioned as means of illustrating a non-technical point. The spiritual focus is very strong, and very imprecise. Yin/yang theory is talked about quite a bit by Mary Heiny, and all of them talk about the same spirit of love that Ueshiba did. Interestingly, none of them talk about God or gods much. The major super-human agent found in these interviews is Ueshiba, and in some of the other interviews, Tohei. Ueshiba's incredible technique and ability, and Tohei's ki powers.

Aikido as a means of spiritual development is the real theme of all of these interviews, and they reflect strongly the ideas about spiritual development found in Ueshiba's doka. The ideas of love and universal harmony, and Aikido as a means of helping people develop themselves are repeated again and again. In fact, the technical side of Aikido is strongly downplayed, to the point of making simple technical development seem to be the antithesis of the goal of real Aikido. Ueshiba is quoted saying, "You know, I didn't really understand Aikido until I was in my seventies, and I didn't have my strength to rely on" (Stone and Meyer 1995, 87). And Mary Heiny talks about one day coming in and not being interested in throwing her partner strongly, but instead being fascinated with the process, the flow of energy involved (Stone and Meyer 1995, 127).

Each of the interviews deals with the spiritual/religious aspects of Aikido in some way. The ideas of universal harmony and love are frequently mentioned, and several of the interviewees, particularly Robert Nadeau (Stone and Meyer 1995, 57-81), George Simcox (Stone and Meyer 1995, 171-189), and Wendy Palmer (Stone and Meyer 1995, 261-289), spend a great deal of time talking about how Aikido teaches practitioners about the energy of the universe, sometimes referred to as ki, and how Aikido teaches them to align themselves with this energy and to work with it.

The view of Aikido in North America presented by Aikido in America is a general one. The various teachers each present their own ideas about Aikido, and the many facets of Aikido quickly become apparent. Veiws range from the very technically oriented, which is most often mentioned with something just a shade above derision, to Aikido which is totally focused upon developing people and the world, and everything in between. The world of Aikido is one of great diversity, within which there is room for polishing all of the different facets of Aikido, with each dojo and each practitioner choosing which facets will be their specific focus.

In the course of researching this subject, 33 individual interviews were carried out with current practitioners of Aikido. These interviews were conducted face to face with the researcher. Because the researcher is an active martial artist himself, and usually took part in practice at the various Aikido dojos where subjects were recruited, the interviewer was generally regarded as either a participant or at least a very knowledgeable outsider from a related discipline.

For this reason the research would have to be classified as that of a participant observer. It should be noted that being a participant in a martial arts dojo presents certain dangers to the researcher. Practicing a martial art means the active practice of techniques used to subdue, injure, maim, and sometimes kill people. In an Aikido dojo these techniques are practiced by having one person act as the aggressor, called uke (meaning receiver). This person receives the technique of the individual who is practicing, called shite.8 These techniques can be quite dangerous to both uke

and shite. They are dangerous to shite if shite fails to dodge or redirect uke's attack, and dangerous to uke if shite applies a technique too vigorously or if uke fails to flow with shite's technique smoothly. It is worth noting that the researcher injured himself in the last manner, spraining his wrist. While this injury was a hindrance to actually practicing, it was also seen as an indication of the researcher's sincerity by others in the dojos where he was practicing.

In order to protect the anonymity of the interview subjects, and because of the small size of the Aikido population in the Midwestern region, the styles of the individual practitioners will not be given with their other data, nor will the individual's rank. Particularly with higher ranking members of the Aikido community, little more than an individual's rank, style and general location would be necessary to identify that individual.

Most of the interviews took place in the actual dojos where the subjects train, usually before or after practice. Several interviews took place in my car while the subjects and I were waiting for an instructor to arrive and unlock the dojo. A few of the interviews took place in restaurants or coffee shops because the dojo was unavailable. It is worth noting that the interviews in the dojos were certainly the most relaxed, with both the interviewer and the subject generally lounging on the padded floor in a very informal manner.

Surprisingly, while several individuals declined to be interviewed, most often they did so with obvious regret, declining due their inability to find the time necessary. Only one individual declined to be interviewed because of discomfort with the subject of the interview. While this might seem anomalous, within the various martial arts it is not surprising. Reputable martial arts instructors generally encourage people to find an art that suits them. It is not unusual for people to try an art, and if they don't particularly like it, to move on. Anyone very uncomfortable with the teachings of Aikido would more than likely either move to an Aikido dojo that ignores those areas that trouble them, or move on to another style. If a student wanted a technically similar style they could choose an aiki-jutsu school, or a traditional jujutsu style. For these reasons, the researcher was not surprised to find that no one was hostile to the teachings of Aikido.

The sample was chosen from volunteers at dojos in the Midwest. The Midwest region was chosen because it was accessible by car from a research base at Western Michigan University. The individuals interviewed were all volunteers chosen because they represented a broad range of ages and experience within the Aikido community.

The interviews were conducted in dojos from four different styles of Aikido, representing the three main lineages of Aikido today. The styles were Aikikai, representing the main line currently headed by Kisshomaru Ueshiba, Yoshinkan and Yoshokai, representing the Yoshinkan line founded by Gozo Shioda, and the Seidokan branch of the line founded by Koichi Tohei. It is hoped that by interviewing subjects from the three main lines of Aikido that a fairly accurate view of the beliefs concerning Aikido in America can be presented.

Of the 33 subjects interviewed, 4 were female and 29 were male. Although all interviews were voluntary, this does reflect the general ratio of women to men in the dojos, at least on those nights the researcher was in attendance. The practitioners of the martial arts are overwhelmingly male, with a small, but usually very dedicated percentage of women. I suspect it is the unusual dedication required of women practitioners to put up with the overwhelmingly macho aura of the martial arts that causes the women to make up a much higher percentage of the yudansha (dan rank holder, dan is better known in the United States as a "black belt") than their overall numbers would cause one to expect. Of the interview subjects, one of the women holds a third dan, another a second dan, and a third holds dan rank in several martial arts outside of Aikido, and will be ready for her first dan test in Aikido in a year or two.

The interview subjects ranged quite widely in age and experience in Aikido. The youngest person interviewed was 18 and had just 2.5 years of experience in Aikido. The oldest person interviewed was 58 years old, and had started Aikido 7 years earlier. There were 6 people in the 18-29 range, 12 in the 30-39 range, 10 in the 40-49 range, and 5 in the 50-59 range. There were no subjects over the age of 58. It should be mentioned that there were people practicing in the dojos who were younger than 18 and older than 58.

The average length of time practicing Aikido was 7 years, with the shortest time being 1.5 years, and the longest 23 years. Six people had at least 10 years of active Aikido experience, and 16 people had from 5-9 years of experience in Aikido. The remaining 11 had from 1.5-4 years of experience, including one person who did not give his length of time practicing Aikido, but because of his low rank the researcher believes he could not have more than 2 years of experience.

The subjects ranged in rank from gokyu, or fifth level below shodan (beginning step), or 1st degree black belt , to yondan, or fourth degree black belt. Rank directly reflects the length of time one has practiced, as the first requirement to be met for promotion is a certain number of hours practiced. The time required per promotion varies somewhat from style to style, but all styles require progressively greater periods of time in a rank before one can be promoted to the next rank. So while only 30 hours of practice may be required for promotion from rokyu to gokyu, hundreds of hours will be required for each promotion beyond shodan. In addition to sheer time spent practicing, one must also show the requisite skill level for the rank one is testing for.

Thus an individual's rank in Aikido represents both the amount of time one has been practicing and the level of skill achieved. Among the subjects, there were two yondans (fourth degree black belts), 3 sandans (third degree), 2 nidans (second degree), and 7 shodans. The yondans had been practicing Aikido for 23 and 19 years, while the sandans had 14, 9 and 8 years of experience, the nidans had 9 and 5 years experience, and shodans ranged from 2.5 to 17 years of experience. It should be noted that promotions do not automatically occur when an individual has sufficient time and skill. One must apply for the rank and take a test that consists primarily of a formal demonstration of techniques. The shodan with only 2.5 years of experience, and the shodan with 17 years experience show the variance in promotion speed quite well. Shodan after only 2.5 years is very fast; the individual would have had to practice at every opportunity, and have tested at the very earliest possible moment. The shodan with 17 years of experience represents the other extreme, of one who practices but does not pursue rank.

Among the 19 subjects with kyu (below black belt) ranks, this variation is also evident. One man with bad knees continues to practice after 11 years, although because of his knees, he will probably never be able to take the test for shodan. Another student has reached ikkyu (last kyu rank before shodan) after only two years. It has been the researcher's observation in the other martial arts in which he is active that younger participants tend to seek rank as quickly as they can get it, while older participants are more interested in simply practicing.

The variety of religious backgrounds among the subjects was surprising because of the preponderance of subjects who had been raised Catholic. Out of 33 interview subjects, fully 19 were raised Catholic. The researcher thought perhaps this indicated that Aikido held some special attraction for people who were raised Catholic. However, after noting that ten of these subjects came from the same dojo, the researcher asked informally about this at the dojo, and was told that this was not surprising because the area where the dojo is located is overwhelmingly Catholic. The rest of the subjects showed a wider distribution with three raised Lutheran, two Episcopalian, two with no religious background, one Church of Christ, one Congregational, one Reformed Jew, one Sunni Moslem, and one Methodist.

The majority of subjects who were raised Catholic did not carry their Catholicism over to their current religious practice. The most common answer to the question "What is your current religious practice?" was "None" with 13. The other answers included: seven who were Catholics of varying degrees of activity, three non-denominational Christians, two atheists, one Reformed Jew, one Sunni Moslem, one Lutheran. The remaining four respondents included one who described himself as "open-minded," one who has had a near-death experience and is quite idiosyncratic, one best described as a pantheist, and one who takes a supermarket approach to religion, trying a lot of different things and taking what he likes from each. Interestingly, one of the respondents said that he had "a financial relationship" with the church his wife and son attend, and two others also said that they attend churches with their spouses and children although they do not believe in the teachings of those institutions.

It should be noted that this is only what people answered when queried directly about their current religious practice. As will be shown later, most of the people who responded "None" in actuality do have religious beliefs and practices; it is simply that these do not fit into any of the current, popular religious categories in the United States. Many of these people expressed a belief in divine inspiration, which, under Spiro's definition, is clearly an expression of religious knowledge.

When the subjects were queried about their reasons for starting Aikido practice, a number of different answers were given, none of them having anything to do with religion. The closest any came were a number of subjects who said they started Aikido because they liked the philosophy. The reasons given for starting Aikido broke down into a few general categories: (a) became interested after watching someone practice Aikido (8), (b) proficient in another martial art and decided to try Aikido or add Aikido to their skills (9), (c) a general interest in learning martial arts (7), (d) exercise (4), (e) self-defense (3), (f) looking for something to do with free time (3), (g) other (2).

It had been expected that the philosophy and spirituality of Aikido would be one of the primary things that initially attracted people to Aikido. It turned out that very few of the subjects knew anything about the philosophy of Aikido before they first encountered it. Only four of the subjects made any mention of the philosophy or spirituality of Aikido when describing why they started Aikido. The researcher suspects that these were important issues for more than just the four who mentioned them, but not in the sense of being explicitly aware of the philosophy.

Karate is easily the most common image of martial arts in America. Those people who became interested in Aikido after seeing it practiced, and the martial artists who started practicing it to balance their other martial arts skills, were attracted by the technical expression of Aikido techniques which focus on blending and controlling rather than striking and breaking. This is different from becoming interested in Aikido because of its stated philosophy of harmony.

Subjects were also asked if their reasons for practicing Aikido had changed since they started. Two-thirds of the subjects said their reasons for practicing had changed in some way. They described a broad variety of ways in which their reasons for practicing had changed, and here the philosophical and religious aspects of Aikido become important.

Subjects' reasons for their continued practice of Aikido were far less specific than were their reasons for starting. Frequently they gave a group of reasons for continuing, and although their original reasons usually remained, most often they had become secondary to the subjects' main reasons for continuing. The most common reason given for their continued practice of Aikido was for self-improvement/self-development, with eight people giving some version of this as a reason for continuing. It is probable that the two people who gave spiritual reasons for continuing also fall into this category, because whenever "spiritual" came up in the course of an interview, it seemed to indicate something done to make one a better person, as opposed to "religion" which was seen as an organized and dogmatic activity. This would bring the number of people practicing Aikido as a form of self-improvement to ten.

The next most common reason given was the philosophy of Aikido. Six subjects gave this as one of their reasons for continuing to practice Aikido. The philosophy of Aikido is not a clear-cut, secular oriented philosophy however. Aikido's philosophy presupposes a very Japanese world-view, without clear absolutes. It is one in which social harmony and avoiding direct conflict are put at a premium. Ueshiba's Aikido teaches one to apply these ideas to physical conflict. In an American dojo, the ideas of harmony and conflict avoidance are first encountered in the physical technique, and then expanded to once again apply to social situations.

Four subjects also mentioned that the social aspects of practice were a big part of why they continued to practice Aikido. It is the researcher's opinion that social involvement is a strong motivation for many other subjects as well. In the course of the interviews, the social side of the Aikido dojo came up quite often, but almost always outside of the discussion about why people practice Aikido. One very typical example came right at the end of an interview. The subject had been asked if there was anything he wanted to add that we had not discussed. His first comment was "I have lots of fun down here." He talked about the camaraderie of the dojo, and his very last comment was "And I like the bar-b-ques in the summertime."

That particular dojo had evolved into something more than just a place where people studied Aikido. It had become a strong social group as well. The members often went out to see the latest martial arts movies as a dojo. All of the other dojos where I conducted interviews had evolved into social groups to one degree or another. This seems to be a generally unrecognized, or at least unspoken reason for practicing Aikido. The members of the dojo become friends, beyond just practice partners. This is true of every dojo I have practiced at. At one dojo, members will go out to a bar after practice, at another they hold regular dojo meetings over dinner. In other words, what begins as exercise, self-defense training or a philosophical interest, frequently develops into a social activity as well, adding another reason to continue practicing.

Dimensions of Aikido

In this section, several general areas of inquiry into the beliefs and practices surrounding Aikido will be looked at in order to facilitate the examination of the variety of views found within in the Aikido community. A multi-dimensional approach has been selected so that various aspects of Aikido can be examined separately, without losing their connections to Aikido as a whole.

The dimensions to be examined are; the sacred narratives, doctrines, ethics, social aspects, ritual aspects, and Aikido in life. Sacred Narratives will deal with practitioners' views regarding the fact that Ueshiba always attributed his abilities and the origin and creation of Aikido to divine inspiration, and individuals' attitudes regarding this.

The section pertaining to the doctrines of Aikido will deal with what are the doctrinal aspects of Aikido: the focus on harmony, blending, non-confrontation, and loving protection. These ideas may be said to make up the core of Aikido thought and transcend any divisions between the various branches of Aikido.

The ethics of Aikido will look at how these doctrines are interpreted as functioning in the dojo and in everyday life. How do practitioners perceive the ideas of harmony, blending, and non-confrontation as functioning and directing their actions both inside and outside the dojo?

The social aspects of Aikido will look at how Aikido practitioners interact inside and outside the dojo.

Ritual aspects of Aikido include the various rituals involved in entering and exiting the dojo, the opening and closing of practice, the various rituals found in some dojos during practice, and the ritual of practice itself. The variety of beliefs held by practitioners regarding these rituals will be looked at. The technical practice of Aikido will also be examined here.

The last dimension to be looked at will be "Aikido in Life." This will deal with how Aikido affects peoples lives outside the dojo, as well as with what parts of Aikido people find themselves taking home with them when they leave the dojo.

The Sacred Narratives of Aikido

The sacred narratives of Aikido include a variety of materials, not all of which are strictly narratives. First, there are the stories told about Ueshiba himself, that he could sense others' intentions to attack or that he could anticipate attacks so well that no one could even touch him. These are included in the writings of his uchi deshi, among whom is his son and successor, Kisshomaru Ueshiba. And there are Ueshiba's own writings, many of which deal with the relationship between Aikido and the kami. The ideas in the body of written Aikido thought form a clear continuum, from Ueshiba's writings, through those of Americans who have never visited Japan.

All of this rather large collection of writings provide the sources for the sacred narratives of Aikido. Informants showed a tremendous degree of variation in their knowledge of these narratives. Some of them were very familiar with all of the numerous sources of information on Ueshiba and Aikido, and read everything they could find about Aikido. Others knew very little, perhaps only what they had heard talked about in the dojo before and after practice.

It is important to emphasize that the focus of Aikido is the practice, not the literature and the stories. That Aikido is about practice is a point strongly stressed in Aikido literature, but even more so by the fact that the literature of Aikido is almost totally ignored in most dojos. If one is interested in these things, it is up to the individual student to find them out for him or her self. Almost all of the informants had at least some knowledge of these narratives however. What is interesting is how so many different views of them are able to exist within the same art, often even within the same dojo.

The variety of responses to the question "Do you believe, as is often recounted by his [Ueshiba Morihei's] biographers, that he knew other people's intentions, particularly regarding possible attacks?" was quite varied. Some simply said that "yes I do," others gave very qualified "yes" answers, and still others explained why they don't believe that.

Thirteen subjects gave nearly unqualified "yes" answers to the above question. This represents approximately 40% of those surveyed. Additionally, 15 people gave qualified answers. The qualifications nearly all had the same basic idea that Ueshiba could indeed read people's intentions, particularly intentions to attack, but that this is not a super-human skill. Particular variations on this idea ranged from one informant who feels that Ueshiba was simply about as highly advanced in these things as is possible for a human, to another who felt that this is one of the things Aikido is supposed to teach.

Finally, five informants gave unequivocal "no" answers, and one person declined to give a yes or no answer, saying instead "I don't know."

All told, 85% of the respondents indicated some measure of belief in the idea that Ueshiba could tell others intentions. Nearly half of these indicated that they believed this was an ability that transcended those of normal people. The rest provided a variety of natural explanations for this ability.

The subjects' feelings about whether or not Ueshiba was divinely inspired also showed a great deal of variety. Some people clearly said yes, others said yes, but placed the divine inspiration within their own religious system, and still others qualified their "yes" by saying that they believe divine inspiration is a fairly common thing happening frequently to people who are artistic or otherwise creative. People who said no gave a variety of reasons for saying this, and two people said they didn't know if he was divinely inspired or not.

Eighteen informants, fully 54% of those interviewed, said that they believe, or they believe it is possible, that Ueshiba was divinely inspired. Two of those who expressed this however were very clear in stating that they believe that this was from a Christian point of view. It is seems likely that a higher number of subjects felt this way, but did not express it, taking their religious point of view for granted.

This shows a degree of elasticity of belief that the researcher had not expected. It had been expected that subjects would divide into two, fairly clear groups. Instead the results show an incredible degree of shading, with some who do not subscribe to a traditional Judeo-Christian cosmology believing Ueshiba was divinely inspired, as well as a devout member of a missionary church also seeing it as reasonable that Ueshiba was divinely inspired.

In every case, those who hold these beliefs practice side-by-side with others who did not believe, in any way, that Ueshiba was divinely inspired.

It was interesting that all of these different answers could exist side-by-side in the same dojo without any conflict. This is an example of one aspect of Aikido that sets it apart from much of religious practice in the United States. In the mainstream American Protestant and Catholic traditions, statements of faith have always been touchstones of religion. The creeds of the Catholic and mainline churches are statements of what beliefs are required to be accepted as a member of the church. In the more recently established churches, especially within the fundamentalist and conservative Christian communities, declarations, or witnessing, of one's faith in Christ are de rigueur.

Within the Aikido community, statements of belief about Aikido count for very little. What is important is that one practices, and does so regularly. Practicing in Aikido requires something more than simple attendance. It requires physical exertion and physical sacrifice. It is pretty much a given that anyone who practices Aikido will eventually be injured in practice. This is an accepted part of Aikido. People who do not practice regularly will never be fully accepted within the community.

Spoken words count for very little in any of the Japanese martial arts. The researcher can testify that it is quite possible to go entire classes without any conversation between practitioners, the only words spoken being those to count off repetitions of warm up exercises and to tell people to start and stop. This holds true for Aikido as well.

In such an atmosphere then, the only things that really count are that one comes to practice, and one puts forth sincere effort. This includes practicing as much as one is able when injured (which the researcher did after spraining a wrist), and if one is unable to practice because of an injury, coming to practice to watch from the sidelines. This level of dedication is not in any way uncommon.

This means of judging the community represents a radical departure from traditional American religion. It also makes it much more comfortable for people with, for example, radically different views on the founder and the creation of Aikido to practice together than American churches make it for people from very different religious views to worship together.

This is the crux of the situation with the sacred narratives of Aikido. While they do exist, they are not overly important for the Aikido community. Even having any direct knowledge of them is not important. It is entirely possible for someone to achieve a high rank in Aikido without reading any of the Aikido literature cited here. In Aikido the only statement of faith that really counts is the statement made by your presence at practice on a regular basis.

The Doctrine of Aikido

This is an unexpectedly difficult thing to describe because although there are literally dozens of books on Aikido, and hundreds of local dojo newsletters published in English every year, the real doctrine of Aikido is not contained in words. In fact, over and over in the interview process, I was told that words cannot accurately describe Aikido. The true doctrine of Aikido is contained within, and explicated by, the practice of Aikido in the dojo. Written words are considered warped, pale reflections of Aikido, at best. Photographs probably have a higher standing for explaining the doctrine of Aikido than do words. But the only thing that can really make clear the doctrine of Aikido is practice.

This goes back to the point made above, that statements of faith really don't count for anything in the Aikido community, and that what is important is that one practices. The basic ideas of Aikido can be talked and written about, but they do not become truly clear and apparent until one begins practicing the techniques of Aikido. Ueshiba, his numerous uchi-deshi, and countless other Aikido practitioners have written about the core ideas of Aikido: Harmony, Non-aggression, Not opposing directly, Redirecting rather than blocking, Loving protection of all things. But in an Aikido dojo, these essential doctrines of Aikido are not talked about. They are practiced in the most physical way possible. One person is told to hit another person. The supposed victim is not to try to stop the attack. Rather they are to blend with it, redirect it, and take control of the other person. Non-confrontation, harmonizing, redirecting, lovingly protecting the aggressor from unnecessary injury. These lessons become vividly real when not learning them means something different than getting one wrong on a multiple-choice test. Here, if you get one wrong, you are liable to get one in the nose as well.

Many of the techniques cannot be done unless the attack is strong and sincere. This means that if you don't blend with an attack fast enough, the aggressor cannot stop the attack in time to avoid hitting you in the face! This gives the lessons of Aikido a concreteness that mere words cannot convey. It also means that all of the doctrines of Aikido are practical, rather than theoretical.

Unfortunately, one side effect of this tremendous concreteness is that it can be very difficult to explain the doctrines of Aikido to anyone who has not practiced it. The ideas come off sounding wishy-washy when merely talked about without the experience of practice.

It can probably be most accurately said that the doctrine of Aikido is contained in Ikkyo, Nikkyo, Sankyo, Yonkyo, Gokyo, Shihonage, and the other techniques of Aikido. This doctrine is very stable within the Aikido community. All of the various Aikido dojos the researcher practiced at train the same techniques. Each teacher may approach them a little differently, but Ikkyo is always a straight arm lock, and Nikkyo is always a coiled arm and wrist lock. Sankyo is always a straight wrist lock, and Yonkyo, Gokyo and the others never vary in their most basic forms. What is the doctrine of Aikido is how the techniques are arrived at, and how they are applied.

The Ethics of Aikido

The ethics of Aikido reflect the country and culture of Aikido's origin quite clearly. Rather than being hard and fast absolute rules of the "this is sinful, this is good" sort, they are situational. The basic ethic of Aikido is the application of its doctrines in situations outside the dojo, and this is not limited to those occasions when someone is attacking you.

This ethic focuses on universal caring, harmony in relationships, and avoiding confrontations through the application of the principles taught in the physical techniques. In discussions, don't disagree outright. Let your partner overextend his argument, then draw him around to your point of view. By being more aware of people's feelings and attitudes, one can foresee conflicts before they arise, and take steps to defuse or redirect the situation.

If one fails in applying Aikido to a situation, it is not a cause for reprobation, but rather an indication that one needs to continue training, so that one will more fully understand the principles, and be able to apply them more appropriately in the future.

Specific rules are unheard of. This is likely to be because specific rules would not allow the flexibility to deal with all of life's possible situations in a harmonious manner. Inflexibility breeds confrontation and dissent, so specific ethical rules would necessarily cause one to act in a manner contrary to the doctrines of Aikido.

The Social Aspects of Aikido

Aikido is an unavoidably social activity. Even for high-ranking exponents, a partner is required for practice. Practice brings together a group of people on a regular basis, and these people spend the practice in intimate contact with each other. This high degree of physical intimacy, and the required trust that your training partners are not going to injure you, help to foster a sense of camaraderie among the members of a dojo.

This sense of camaraderie is developed into a sense of community in a number of ways. Aikido dojos, unlike many dojos of the more well known Tae Kwon Do, are rarely business ventures, and even when teaching the martial arts is the instructors' primary means of support, no one has ever gotten rich as an Aikido Sensei. In the course of this research, only one instructor was encountered whose primary source of income was teaching the martial arts, and he had to teach several other martial arts besides Aikido to enable him to make a living at it.

The fact that the vast majority of dojos are not businesses is part of what causes the dojos to develop into strong communities. Every member of a dojo must be mobilized to take care of and maintain the dojo. This holds true whether the dojo has its own permanent building, or the dojo exists in borrowed space only during practices.

In a permanent dojo, the members of the dojo have to do all of the cleaning and maintenance of the dojo, from sweeping the mats before practice, to taking out the garbage, to washing the bathrooms, to fixing the roof when it leaks. Everyone in the dojo helps out with something. Not everyone will do every task, but each member of the dojo is expected to find some way to contribute to the running of the dojo.

At dojos that exist only during practice, and are used for other purposes, the members of the dojo have other tasks to share in. The mats for practice must be put down and taken up before and after every class. If there is a shomen, it too must be assembled and disassembled for every class. In addition there are the arrangements to be made concerning the use of the practice space.

While every dojo has a head instructor, with the exception of the extremely rare dojo that has a professional instructor, the teaching duties are also shared among the students at both permanent and floating dojos. Anyone who has achieved the rank of shodan (first-degree black belt) can expect to be asked to teach occasionally. As one moves up in rank, one can expect to be asked to handle more teaching duties.

All of these shared responsibilities serve to develop a strong sense of community within individual dojos. In addition, the fact that practicing any martial art is a fairly rare phenomenon in the United States adds to the sense of community. What people are doing in Aikido may well seem bizarre to those who do not engage in martial arts. Studying how to fight is not a common thing, and the entertainment media have consistently presented martial artists as unbeatable warriors when compared with non-martial artists. This has created a mystique around all of the martial arts, not just Aikido, and martial artists, while not encouraging this mystique, and often trying to deflate it, at least as frequently enjoy it.

Another point which bears upon many aspects of being a martial artist, is that all martial artists, not just Aikidoists, practice something that is almost impossible to share with those who lack experience with the martial arts. The only people who understand many of the things one does are other martial artists. This tends to bring the members of a dojo together also. The shared intensity of practice, the shared experiences of being injured and coming back for more, and the simple fact that after a martial artist achieves a degree of confidence in their skill, they no longer react to pressure and aggressive behavior in the same way those without such martial arts training do. This last is a tremendous sense of empowerment. These things also help to create a sense of a unique community.

The above reasons combine to produce a social group. One subject said:

I'm here. I go to work. I'm here five or six days a week. There's not much outside. This is my social life. And it's very nice, because there are really, really nice people here.

It's like a second home for most of the people that come here. Because of Sensei's sense of family, everybody supports everybody else.

All of these things combine to make martial artists in general, and Aikidoists in particular, feel that they are members of a unique group. This feeling of being different from the average crowd reinforces itself, and is reinforced by non-martial artists who will joke about being intimidated, or the martial artist's ability to "take them apart." Particularly for people who did not perceive themselves as being physically powerful before they started a martial art, this is a heady drug, and serves to strengthen their feelings towards their dojo social group.

The Ritual Aspects of Aikido

Aikido is something that is practiced. This is a point that cannot be made too strongly. There are no statements of belief, no creeds to be recited. While there is a large and rapidly expandin