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People are more important than places
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26 août 2007

Angry White Pyjamas

I feel I should write something explaining why I’ve chosen to practise Aikido.

The credit mostly goes to Bert for passing me “angry white pyjamas”, the book by Robert Twigger. The book tells the tale of his time in Japan, aimlessly drifting from one useless job to another. With incentive from his room-mates he one day decides to practise a martial to discipline himself and chooses Aikido. He rapidly becomes obsessed with budo mentality and technique, and decides the only way he can truly experience aikido is if he signs up for the 11 month senshusei intensive training course with the Japanese riot police. The course consists of four hours of training, five days a week, in addition to dojo-cleaning duties, special training weekends and demonstrations. The training is rigorous, sometimes agonizing. The intensity with which they practise is vividly described in book, but beyond that are lessons of discipline and respect, and many interesting thoughts and observations on mid-nineties Japan. The frank and honest description of the sport attracted me. It wasn’t the usual advertisement-ish description we get for martial arts; it was a difficult, frustrating and demoralizing experience.

Now… As to what Aikido is ! I have trouble explaining, and I'm not too sure yet. It was developed in the late nineteenth century but derives from many samurai moves and rules. There are many traditions in martial arts that are explained by Samurai heritage. No techniques are offensive, that is part of the philosophy of the art, however the techniques mostly comprise wrist, arm, and joint locks which are meant to be very painful. Just like in judo most techniques blend into the attacker’s motion and redirect his momentum before rendering him harmless. Also, when countering an attack one must retreat but embrace it and move in. Not out.  Here is a short demonstration :

In Japanese Aikido is written合気道.  means « way »,  so litterally aikido is “the way of the aiki”. As far as I know  is pronounced hé in Chinese and is a musical note; whereas  is the traditional kanji for  which is used for air, gases, angriness. So according to my insignificant knowledge of Chinese 合気道 would signify the way of the angry musical note. Hence, 合気 doesn't make sense in Chinese... This is why I turned to wikipedia to grasp the Japanese meaning:

**opening wikiquote**

- ai – joining

- ki - spirit

The kanji for "ai" represents a pot with a lid on it. Hence, "ai" symbolizes to two things fitting together. Aiki should not be confused with "wa" which refers to harmony. The kanji for "ki" represents a boiling pot filled with rice. Hence, "ki" symbolizes energy. (See the qi main article for further information). Thus aiki's meaning is to fit, join or combine energy. However, care must be taken about the absolute meanings of words when discussing concepts derived from other cultures and expressed in different languages. This is particularly true when the words we use today have been derived from symbols, in this case Chinese and Japanese kanji, which represent ideas rather than literal translations of the components. Historical use of a term can influence meanings and be passed down by those wishing to illustrate ideas with the best word or phrase available to them. In this way, there may be a divergence of the meaning between arts or schools within the same art. The characters "ai" and "ki" have translations to many different English words.

**closing wikiquote**

As you can imagine I've been told and I believe the teachings of Aikido are much wider than just self defense. Particularly in the branch of Aikikai, which is what we practise. The objective is to know and develop our bodies and minds through discipline, technique and respect. As least that is how I feel. There are many rules in the dojo but besides the sensei, all the students are equal. This is something I appreciate, so far I've practised with a black belt and a brown belt, as well as people with completely different shape and girth as my own. I honestly have many more things to say, but I don’t feel like writing any more today. I’ll stop here.

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