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“One Arm Dangling and Standing Waiting” by Nev Sagiba
Pseudo-aikido is identifiable by the ineptness of its practitioners, something which waving a camera around, hot music, drums and grass growing introductions cannot hide. It impresses no one but those who know better, and that negatively.
Sizzle does not win fights, nor enable survival against serious odds. Skill does.
Skill cannot be faked, and at best, any attempt to do so is worse than amateurish. It is suicidal.
Remember the good ol’ Chinese Fung-ku movies where someone would punch the air (out of the maai) and the other guy would rush in to “block” it? What on earth for? Why on earth block anything?
“Modern aikido” has become too self-excusing. Many schools do not even know what the basic techniques are or have a name for them. They “flow.” And well they may. Among each other. Because any real attacker would have other plans.
If you wake up, it will be in a hospital. But the DO NOT BLAME AIKIDO. That’s not where the fault lies, but rather in the fact hat you have been deceived and have allowed yourself to be deceived by the unscrupulous posing as proponents of Aikido. Or simply deceived yourself because you live in fear of death and lack the backbone to admit it.
If your attacks are weak you are practicing nothing more than dancing. Real attacks will not be weak. In any case Aikido cannot function without strong ki to harmonise. Without strong ki you will necessarily and obviously have to revert to initiating atemi waza.
If you are an “accomplished martial artist” but only in the confines of your own dojo with people half your size and have no clue how you would fare in reality, well may you dream on, but the awakening, when it comes, will be a cruel one.
Ballet like attacks, aside from being funny to look at, are also stupid in the extreme.
Flinging yourself around in the fakest of ukemi in order to make an incompetent look good, deceives no one, but yourself. And sometimes the incompetent you are propping up.
If you don’t know what covering up means, or how to, what the **** are you doing playing at being a “martial artist?”
Standing waiting and posing for an attacker to reach you is another sign of inaptitude, dullness of mind and combative incompetence. You wait, you die.
Does no one read O’Sensei’s exacting references to moving whole body, intercepting, irimi-tenkan, etc.? Do you watch the movies with him in them for mere entertainment?
And then there are the excuses. Holes in doughnut theories and fairy tales and “we train for spiritual reasons.” Meaning exactly what? If someone can DEFINE this bullshit and make sense of it, I’m willing to listen.
I will not dignify the politico players, as they are not worthy of anyone’s undersoles. They just want to collect money by dishonest means and have no moral worth.
So what are we doing people, when we mimic small cuttings from Shinto rituals we do not understand, when we poorly mimic Japanese language we don’t understand, and when we pose and carry on?
On the other hand, it IS POSSIBLE to actually learn AIKIDO. This is achieved by carefully studying and regularly practicing the basics with progressively increasing real intention.
It’s a question of backbone and integrity.
If a builder builds you a house, you expect it to stand and not collapse on you. His “spirituality” is not your concern.
His integrity and skill ARE.
You expect the car manufacturers to build you a machine which is reliable and safe. You expect the butcher, baker, grocery and fruit and vegetables to be clean, safe, nutritious and good for you and not toxic. And so on.
Budo is no different. Unless you have successfully served in an industry that SERVES society with skill to prevent and mitigate emergency; and in this case particularly violence, and yet you presume such titles as “sensei,” “shihan,” “gohan” and other fancifully invented nonsense, YOU ARE IN FACT A FRAUD!
There is no field so full of fools and frauds, thugs and deceivers, incompetents and snake oil salesmen than that of so called “martial arts.”
This is because the average person fears what they do not understand and are easily deceived by smoke and mirrors.
Certificates, coloured cloth and lineages mean nothing when you’ve never cut your teeth and proven your mettle in the litmus test. Live action.
So then you should call you pseudo-budo, ballet, dance, yoga, light cardio, sandplay… anything but “martial.”
There are more than too many liars and cheats in the world who prostitute the appearance of something and market bells, whistles and shadows for an illicit buck.
A gi, a hakama, accoutrements, do not make you a teacher. Their significance is wasted on pretenders.
Only skill gained in experience and the clear thinking it brings, and ongoing study of the subject you propose, serve as a qualification of merit.
And as a SERVANT of those you presume to teach, you ought to have something of value to impart. Not just rote you copied from someone without thinking, or got out of a book or something.
Budo is the stopping of aggression.
There is no more responsibility more sacred, more potent, more loaded with the immensity of sacred trust than the PROTECTION OF LIFE.
See to it then that you are in fact capable. Otherwise leave for other pastures and other arts more fitting of your stature and measure of courage and integrity.
And leave the Budo to those who can.
Otherwise keep training but stop pretending to have all the answers. No Budo, Aikido included, is set in concrete but is a Path of Endless Discovery.
Every true teacher of stature, Morihei Ueshiba included, have made the request that those who follow in that Path, improve with authentic discovery, what they left behind.
“What I have done, you can do greater,” and, “Please take what I have left behind and continue this process of discovery…” etc.
Let us then continue to discover together with the humility that is due.
And when the call to arms comes and it is time to protect everything we all cherish, then we’ll see what you are really made of.
Even better, don’t wait. There are numerous, non-military as well as military career paths that require courage, backbone, integrity and applied Aikido attitudes and which will serve to uplift society and our world. Some pay well too. You will be earning it.
If your Budo is increasing your clarity and perspective, you will increase in harmony both inner and outer in all your relationships. If on the other hand it is adding to your delusions, this too will be noticeable; more so by the feedback than your own evaluations.
It is very hard to be objective about oneself. The fruit of your actions define you. The trail you leave and whether it is one of increased suffering or upliftment.
The litmus test is in the capability of serving for uplift in the face of adversity.
» Next: Brian Kagen pick: “Daniel Wescott on Kimusubi (freeform aikido)”
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Posted by Nev Sagiba on Nov 1st, 2008: Contributed (post a comment)
Reader Comments
Bruce Cooke writes:
Great stuff. Many forget that Aikido is a martial art. There are spiritual and physical benefits for sure, but these should occur as a biproduct of martial study and application and not the primary emphasis.
Wagner Bull writes:
In the past I also thought something similar to Sagiba Sensei, but with time and age, I changed my point of view.
Aikido in fact as O Sensei saw it, was a way to purify the 5 senses and the mind in order to grasp reality. Aikido goes beyond regular budo. Aikido is a spiritual budo in order to make people be able to understand the laws that governs the universe and in reverberating with living fully and happily. One can learn this is many ways.
There are people that can train strong, and in a figthting environment but there are those that can not. Modern Aikido is a attempt to make something that everybody can train and benefit from the ideas of purification and getting in tune with “kannagara”, (God, Big Nature, (Daishizen) proposed by O Sensei. We train the body, when we practice Aikido, but in fact we are training our spirit.
Maybe Sagiba Sensei, cannot train Aikido without under the possibility of a strong and real attack, but this does not mean that a 70 year old woman, that never practiced sports before cannot practice Aikido in a more “gentle” environment and learn the essence of the art in the same way. Presently I think she can and should. The same happens with younger people with different backgrounds. I have never met anyone or any teacher that really mastered Aikido 100%. Even O Sensei said that he had not year mastered Aikido, so , if we would demand perfection all teachers would be frauds, and of course it is not like that.
O Sensei said that if he had to compare himself to someone he would prefer to try to copy the gods, and that the water that would follow from the mountain would speak more truth than the one coming from the mouth of any man.
The difference between a good Aikido teacher and a bad Aikido teacher, is that the first really is doing his best to improve his students, and the bad ones are those that want just to explore people or to satisfy their egos or to get their money. In this way, I agree there is a big difference in dojos. But it has nothing to do with technical ability or knowledge. One can teach and learn in different stages, there are those that is better to start in the elementary school and some that they must go to the university otherwise they would learn nothing. Each one must look for his best place in the moment. To put a student of elementary school in the university is a mistake and vice versa.
A Sensei is a practitioner not a perfect master. The difference between him and his students is just that he has more time of practice, more experience, but sensei and students are in fact studying and learning together in a cooperative attitude. The sensei is more a leader then a master. He invites his students to follow a way that he is going through and that he believes with all sincerity. If he likes to use drums, tvs, music, meditations, clap hands, orientalism, etc., and there are people that like his choice, that is fine. IF this all helps and motivates then to go on, fine!!!
Everybody is free to follow and do what he feels what is good for him. How can I know what it is best to other people if sometimes, I cannot even chose what is better to myself?
Who knows Aikido? Who knows the truth?
We are all beginners…….what in fact we need is good luck to knock in the good door according to our present conditions… and that it will be opened to us!.
Of course honesty and integrity is a must in any dojo, but not methods of training as much different the best in order more people can chose what it is more fitting to then in a present moment.
Wagner Bull
jen smith writes:
Well, I can’t begin to tell you the serendipity of this post. In an essence, for me, the conundrum goes backwards. Perhaps, though, that is better.
Having tested my mettle through out my own life on several accounts: street fighting, illness fighting, protection of others, service of a higher/ life sacrificing order, and on.. I find it more and more difficult to communicate to my students that their opinions are not experience. That simply judging others will not protect themselves and that , all in all, if they don’t like heavy contact then they are lying to themselves. Lying because they have never had to confront truth .Lying to themselves that by holding experiences out they are winning over them…….So I offer strong aikido like I was given. Maybe even a more violent brand, if that confession has any nobility at all. I’ve thought about this for a long time.
In the dojo we train hard. I am a self-professed ‘hard-ass’ and I’ve had the great wonder of training without the opportunity for much self-deceit.
john writes:
Wow!!
What a great dichotomy
Bruce writes “There are spiritual and physical benefits for sure, but these should occur as a biproduct of martial study and application and not the primary emphasis.”
And right after him Wagner goes for the spiritual pursuit of Aikido.
After World War 2 into the fifties, sixties what was O’Sensei’s purpose? Was it t to spread a kick ass martial art, a spiritual budo, or something else?
Clearly it was O’Sensei’s martial ability that gave him the platform and connections to speak and be heard. But to follow O’Sensei into the spiritual realm do you even need to know how to block a punch at all?
Thanks guys.
nev writes:
Thanks all for the valuable feedback and great commentary.
It’s good to hear that at least some people feel strongly about honesty in training.
Whether you train hard or soft, the essential requirement is to train honestly.
And then take the benefits so distilled out of the dojo into life.
It’s about improving instead of merely setting out to prove ego.
As the old guy said, “These play things of the dojo (techniques) are steppingstones to something greater…”
When in the service of life, you’ve looked death in the face, perhaps then that word “spiritual” will have more meaning than a trendy fad blindly followed and reinforced by endorphins.
Clarity of mind enables life navigation.
Thanks for being engaged.
It is truly appreciated.
John,
If you imagine “spiritual” is some kind of effete vacation wallowing in a comfort zone, you are in error. The battles get greater and the rigors and responsibilities multiply exponentially. You will need to know much more than how to deal with a punch.
Dealing with punches is the kindergarten. But essential training.
Denial and avoiding facing up to facts is self-delusion and self-delusion is not spirituality.
That’s why its usually warriors and not monks who gain some measure of that much-maligned term “enlightenment.”
It’s about integrity, honesty and backbone, something not found in fancy robes and different ways of posing and pretending.
The nature of Budo is not merely a set of conceptual ideas about something, but rather, whole-person understanding based on experience gained in practice.
Aikido is Budo. Budo is the art of stopping conflict. Before you can develop such skill, you must necessarily come to terms with, and understand the reality and the nature of conflict. Attacks in training have to be as real as you can safely deliver them, otherwise you will learn nothing more than how to dance.
Keep well,
Nev
john writes:
Hi Nev
glad to see we agree that blocking punches is the kindergarden of life.
“spiritual” a vacation in the comfort zone? Hardly
More an issue of integrity in every aspect of our lives.
Still frankly I would love to have gotten a chance to discuss with O’Sensei what he saw as the connection between his martial training & his “spiritual/religious” training in shingon & omoto.
Keep training & turning up the heat.
nev writes:
Hi John,
It’s interesting how much wavelength there is between Aikidoka who train but have never met.
I think O’Sensei left us the connection in the working tools of Aikido basics, the foundations, as passed on by good teachers and which he topped with, “Practicing the waza with integrity is sufficient if doing the other practices is not your thing,” and “Find out yourself. Practice!”
There’s numerous of his other quotations to be found in AJ archives and some other sources where he tries to define the connection.
Notwithstanding, I believe each Aikidoka can best discover through personal experience as a result of training.
Thanks again for your feedback and keep well.
Nev
Henry Ellis writes:
Hi Nev
Excellent article, not the kind of stuff that most Aikidoka wish to read or hear, but clear and to the point. It is so rare to read an article where the author is prepared to be so direct.
I for one really did appreciate the positive content of your article.
In the 1950’s Kenshiro Abbe Sensei would often say
” No matter your pretence, you are what you are and nothing more ! ”
Henry Ellis
Al Montemar writes:
Nev,
Great Article!
I only wish there were more Aikido Students who train properly instead of the current alternative. It gets really old hearing excuses like, “you’re not harmonizing,” or “you’re not blending,” whenever a yudansha doesn’t have the quality of technique to get me to fall and too large an ego to listen to any feedback so he could throw me properly.
Again, great article, thanks!
Taras writes:
Dear Nev,
I consider your article to be quite interesting and honest. And though I don’t really agree with everything you say in it, at least not 100%, I would like to ask you and other aikidoka a question that goes a bit beyond the idea.
It’s not something that requires a universal answer since things are just too individual in each particular case (the relativity law seems to pervade the universe :)), yet I will try to ask:
Do you allow a thought that certain individuals (!not me!) may have a NATURAL ability to be just FASTER and MORE ACCURATE than aikidoka who’ve spent years of honest training in a serious dojo? Aiki waza or no aiki waza.
Would that be a case of a bujutsuka versus a (gendai)budoka?
This is not an attempt to say that aikido is this or that, I really like it (just as I like Daito-ryu). It’s just something that MAY happen in real situations, right?
I’m sorry if my knowledge is not broad enough. Anyway I would be grateful to hear your point of view on this no matter how fantastically impossible my question sounds.
Thank you very much,
Taras
Aikido Yoshinkan background
Mo Khan writes:
Nev, thanks for expounding on your philosophy. I see many mentions of O’Sensei here as if Aikido begins and ends with the man himself. Ask yourself, did he invent Budo? Or is Aikido an expression of Budo? And what do we truly know of the man? Unlike most weekend samurai, Morihei Ueshiba devoted his life to both Budo and Spiritual practice simultaneously, and it took this dedication to obtain mastery in both. The Spiritual practice gave him a sense of faith and peace, both critical to courage, but let’s not be fooled into thinking that his practice of Budo was spiritual. It was not. It was first and foremost rigorous and true martial application.
My belief is that both spirituality and Budo are seperate paths that affect one another, and only come together when both courage and skill are required when facing uncertainty. The common link to both is in the promotion of Balance. Can a person fake balance? Maybe in the lame dojo’s where fools are deluded into thinking they are acquiring skill by the mimicked application of technique. Are they balanced? Have they taken the balance of the uke? I have news…the emperor has no clothes. Most of these fools are neither spiritual, nor are they capable of handling a genuine attack at full intensity and speed as administered by a less than cooperative uke outside the dojo. I have practiced with them for 2 years. All they offered me for my initial 2 years of practice were poor, impractical technique. It has taken another 3 years to unlearn this.
Today, myself and one of the posters on this blog are banned from most Aikido dancing schools because we expose their fraud. The look of disbelief when they can neither move us, take our balance or immobilize us is priceless.
Where I think I disagree with some of the comments here are in relation to the conspiracy theories. I truly believe that most so-called Aikidoka are more deluded than dishonest. I can’t blame the widespread skepticism of Aikido as a practical martial art. In my school, we have had mma, muiy thai, tae kwon do, karate practitioners come in, get their asses kicked and they never return. I myself left a mainstream Aikido school because I realized the practice was both impractical and false. Thankfully today, I am acquiring the skill to handle real attacks with and without weapons. As a consequence, I am acquiring greater balance, presence of mind and confidence.
Thanks to my teacher and the real masters who came before him.
nev writes:
I don’t have the answers folks. But I do like to prod people to question and offer feedback because unless one questions, the search for answers cannot begin.
I’m heartened by all the responses though. A good open discussion is a good thing. I’m learning from your feedback. As in training we can all gain from each other’s views. Thank you all.
Taras, The paradigm Ueshiba was trying to restore goes back to Origins. It’s not a question of this versus that, but of are you prepared to spend your life becoming the best that you can possibly be, develop immense levels of skill and then sacrifice your life to protect LIFE and all that is best in it? Or at least put yourself in a position of high risk to serve life? Or in a key position that will bring about much good despite the fact you risk being misunderstood?
What is today touted as “aikido” is usually just the entry level, the first door, warmups that may lead to the GREAT AIKIDO that protects the Universe and the Life that’s in it. Difficult to put in words but I hope you catch the gist.
Mo Khan, You said it. And what’s the next step? When nobody can beat you in reasonably predictable settings, what do you do then? Where do you go from there?
O’Sensei was one of many before him who arrived at the point where the big “so what?” then hit him.
The question is this: Where do we go from that point?
It’s not commonly known but Buddha was another invincible warrior before he went searching for more.
What is the next paradigm shift?
Jer writes:
I have noticed that dojos which don’t teach Aiki-Ken or teach it poorly have weak Aikido. It’s almost as if the spirit of Aikido is captured right there in this training for me. Perhaps I ought to say Budo since I am referring to the martial way of Aikido. O’Sensei himself has said to train with the feeling of Ken in all your Aikido. I believe I have a small grasp on what he means here.
Aiki-Ken works on so many levels for me. It brings to the mats the vital energy that can be very unsettling in the beginning. Death is literally staring in your face if you treat the Ken as a live blade which you should at all times. From this many things spawn and one’s technique seems to be decisive, confident and centred.
Perhaps this is what separates the Aikido that appears “flowery,” light and low key from that which has a sense of urgency or decisiveness.
My 2 cents.
nev writes:
Jer, RIGHT ON!!!
That’s a long discussion, but even better essential training. Without weapons, particularly blades, Aikido dies and becomes dance. Despite any pundits who say otherwise, that’s how AIKI was born. And that’s how it is developed. That’s how it starts to make sense. And when it saves your life in a situation where the attacker is armed and you have to move to live, not mere sport, it seals the deal and proves the efficaciousness of Aikido-Aikijutsu above all other arts.
D Dangerfield writes:
Mr Sagiba seems to have much to say about many things. Researching his website/s reveals no clearly stated biography with his teachers, years of training in Aikido and Japanese weapons arts etc (the areas in which he professes his expertise. People may be more considerate of his thoughts were they to see evidence of them in action in his video clip/s and to gain a sense from the biography of the training and experiences through which these skills and strong opinions were forged.
As for the content of this particular article, it appears to be rather single dimensional and takes no account of the continuum that is life. In an aggressively stated opinion, Mr Sagiba says “… Budo is the stopping of aggression.” Poignantly he then goes on to urge us to “… Otherwise keep training but stop pretending to have all the answers.”
Finally Mr Sagiba reminds us “…There is no field so full of fools and frauds, thugs and deceivers, incompetents and snake oil salesmen than that of so called “martial arts.”
Mo Khan writes:
Nev, as to your question of what comes next, I personally believe that the Japanese paradigm of Shu Ha Ri affords the answer. I am sure you are familiar with this, but it’s bears mentioning to answer your question in a qualified manner.
In the first stage Shu, as students, we try our best to learn what is taught us and simply obey the instructions as given accepting the faults in execution because we are still as yet learning. It is here that learning from a true master is important.
Ha, is the stage where the techniques are executed more or less without conscious control and we start to do them in a more fluid manner, and our own unique way of doing them begins to manifest.
Ri, the third stage is where the paradigm question comes into play. At this stage, we have mastered the basics, can demonstrate them in a test or circumstantially. Our unconscious choice and variation of a technique, and hence self expression becomes manifest. The next paradigm in other words would be our own personal version of Aikido as a natural extension of ourselves. All great masters of the past had their own unique expression of Aikido: Tadashe Abe, Kenshiro Abe, Nakazano, Tohei, Noro etc. I submit therefore that there is no one Aikido, or Budo for that matter. Our transcendance and expression of Aikido is an ever evolving expression of ourselves as we change.
nev writes:
I meant, what comes after ri? Or what does ri lead to or support?
Mo Khan writes:
Exactly what you are doing Nev, teaching others to discern between truth and falsehood and raising awareness for those like us who are as yet still learning the basics. Thanks for sharing your valued perspective.
Wagner Bull writes:
What about read what O Sensei said:
Book : “The secrets teachings of Aikido” page 48, Kodansha First edition:
“Aikido must function in harmony with the dictates of heaven. Physical Budo never leads to perfection, and brute strengh has limited aplicatons. True Budo is the clarification of all the dimensions of matter and spirit;It generates a robust, pure and indestructible energy; In Aikido , first we must know ourselves; next we must know that all elements of the universal are contained withing us; then we must discern the true nature of the cosmos. Do this, understand the laws of nature, and you will be radiant, able to execute marvelous techniques. Upon reflection , we can see that Aikido is the source of Japanese Budo, following and iluminating universal principles”
Wagner Bull
bruce baker writes:
Nov 2nd, 2008 at 4:25 am
Nev is right, you cannot get lost in the mindset that what you do in the training hall makes you a fighter because every time you do that in real life … out comes the book of dirty tricks to thwart everything you have been training to overcome in your training hall.
Coming to grips with death, with your ego, with the fact that every time you are caught in violence you could lose …. are as much embracing the fear in your mind as it is overcoming all the emotions and thoughts that inhibit you from realizing why you have chosen to do Aikido as PART of your training regimen. JUST like nature, or even the car you drive, Aikido is a part of the whole that makes up what you need to be that person you are trying to be.
To be not afraid, to be a fighter, to be a winner, to be a someone who can go out in the world and have a better than a 50/50 chance of success. And yet … the true purpose of our existence is to discover and leave some of that discovery for others to expand upon generation after generation after generation.
What? YOU thought being alive was about you? Get a clue! For one minute in a 24 hour day it is about you, but the rest of the day …. NOT!
I am not so politically correct as Nev and maybe not as polite, but when you get older, maybe encountering a deteriorating disease as I have, seeing less time ahead than behind and death/fear as something that must be embraced mentally/ emotionally as the inevitable fear that everything you think you knew means nothing, maybe you too will write words that seem to mean nothing.
Until one day, down the road, you read the words again and realize …. DAMN … Nev Sagiba was right!