Henbo Journal

I had promised some time ago to write a text about the term DO – the last grapheme in the name of my favorite martial art. I had a very big interest to write it ever since I announced it, but the more I thought what to write the more I realized that it’s not going to be a simple thing to do. I will try to write it now even though I still haven’t got the full picture about everything that needs to be said on this subject.

I will begin with the origin of the word, of course. The Japanese took it from the Chinese not changing the grapheme at all, but they changed the pronunciation, which with the Chinese sounds as TAO (or DAO). The grapheme TAO - 道 is compiled from two more: 首 = head and 辶= walk. So without any double or multiple meanings TAO simply means “WAY” or if you like “A MAIN WAY”. In English with the addition of a determiner (article) we would get a very appropriate translation - “THE /di/ WAY”, distinguishing it from some other, any other ways.

In the philosophical teachings in China this term exists for a very long time, but the first study of the term was made in the book “Tao Te Ching” (the book about Tao and Te) from Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu’s understanding of TAO is almost identical with what his Hellenic contemporaries understood as LOGOS. Both TAO and LOGOS have the same meaning, and freely speaking the meaning is: the way that the existence is arranged. It is the principle which holds the universe together; the thing which is in every matter as a law; a law above every law.

The Christian teachings reveal to us that this LOGOS is actually Jesus Christ, The Savior, The Son of God, The Word of God. Through this teaching we have a word in our Macedonian language for LOGOS i.e. TAO as well and that is SLOVO.

With this kind of meaning, in ours but even more in the Greek language we encounter adding LOGOS at the end of some words such as: biology , cardiology, ecology, archeology astrology and many more.

We can make analogy with the usage of it in the Japaneese language also. When we need to name a process which concerns it self with the discovery of the essence, the sole core itself of the things - the word DO is added, very similar if not the same, with the suffixes –logia (in Greek), and –logy (in English). In our Macedonian language this suffix is most commonly translated as “science about…”. Nowadays, we have accepted to think that the terms science and art are different and even opposite things, but I think that in the past these words were not so different in their meaning. I would say that they are like “variations of the same thing”. And if we think about them carefully we can experience them as not so different also now.

The Japanese words “Sado” (The art of the tea), “Kado” (the art of arranging flowers), and “Judo” (The art of fighting with bare hands) are good examples of the different levels at wich the term DO is used and usually translated in English as – The art of….

So, I leave to you to translate “Aikido” yourselves, having in mind the explanation of AIKI from the previously posted texts.

(Continuation of the previous text)

If we replace the name of the Japanese castle Daito with the name of a Macedonian town for example Berovo, the whole lose translation of “Daito Ryu Aiki Jujutsu” would be “Berovo School of Force-harmonizing Art of Fighting with Bare Hands”. I know that it sound funny to you as it does to me, but imagine that when Japanese says it, he understands it exactly like that. Not a single word from this long name is an exotic foreign word for him, neither some kind of a generally accepted internationalism; it is only a simple generic name which directly explains what it refers to.

The translation of the Japanese “kanji” monograms (graphemes) is not a simple thing to do. The term Jujutsu (柔術) is a good example; If we translate it literary, we would get: JU(柔) = GENTLE and JUTSU(術) = ART - and what we have is: “Gentle Art”. But, is it an appropriate translation. No, not really. It takes a wider knowledge of the language and of the Japanese culture in general, to “capture” the meaning of a grapheme in a certain combination. In this case “gentle” signifies that the art is WITHOUT USE OF WEAPONS, and not simply “gentle” according to our understanding of the word! Next, in this context “art” refers to martial art and it turns out that JUJUTSU actually means MARTIAL ART OF FIGHTING WITH BARE HANDS. (that jujutsu is not called jiujitsu or something like that, you can read a full analysis here)

Let’s go back to AIKI, this great discovery in the martial arts, about which I started writing in the previous text. The founder of aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, learned this principle from his teacher, Sokaku Takeda through the learning of Daito ryu Aiki Jujutsu. Surely, you have already noticed in the example above, that I have translated AIKI as “force-harmonizing”, that is, “force-harmonization”.

As a reminder:
AI = harmonization,
KI = energy

Someone may make a remark that this kind of free translation is too banal, especially when it comes to the word KI (氣).

KI is really the hardest term to translate, because the meaning that it conveys is not exact, more over, through time many different meanings were attached to it.
I am not going to try to make detailed analysis of the term KI since it would be time and space consuming. I’m just going to state a few things that will lead you to the complexity of this term. Firstly, it derives from China (there known as CHI), and it denotes “universal life-moving force or energy”. The Japanese took the monogram (grapheme) and the pronunciation with slight insignificant changes, but the meaning remained the same. It should be known that the Chinese them selves, and the Japanese after them had different philosophers with different opinions about the meaning of KI, but let’s say that the one I stated is most widely spread. If we leave the philosophers for a moment and take a look at the ordinary use of this term, we would refer to etymology again. Etymologically (in Chinese language), the word KI (氣) is consisted from two other words – “steam” (气) and “rice” (米), and it signifies the steam that is coming of the warm cooked rice. I think that the “true” meaning should be found somewhere between the steam of the cooked rice and the universal life moving force or energy.

Now, do you remember the line: to use the energy of the opponent? As much as we broaden the discussion about KI, we would be immediately grounded by only one combat situation in which the opponent is determined not to give up. With this “reminder” the middle age Japanese warriors, in their own everyday life used the term KI in a strictly set field, the battle field. In combat, the attacker strikes with force which is sensed by one of the five basic senses - the touch sense, and in most of the cases results with pain. That is why the translation of AIKI was written as “force harmonizing”. It is true that this kind of translation doesn’t comprise all the aspects of AIKI, the reason being that the term AI is with various meanings, too. That term, as I already said, stands for “harmony”, but it contains meanings such as: coordination, joining together, equalization, incorporation… All of this is implied.

AIKI underwent different interpretations and mystifications from different reasons. Even during the creation of aikido, the influence from Shinto sect Oomoto kyo, in which Morihei Ueshiba was an active member and a close friend of it’s leader Onisaburo Deguchi, had a great role in the interpretations of AIKI which Morihei explained in different occasions. Some one may even say that Morihei was with his head in the sky in relation to his interpretation of “AIKI”, but we definitely can’t say the same for his teacher, Sokaku Takeda. He had a direct experience of battles and warfare and he never mystified anything, which could be at the expense of the sanity and would have caused him an injury or even cost him his life! I am not saying that he didn’t have his believes and ways to explain something that he didn’t know, but the direct experience helped him learn this things directly on the sensory level.

At last, let me try to explain more perceptibly what “to use the energy of the opponent” means. I will take for an example one attack which consists of some kind of swing with the arm in order to strike. That arm has certain force since it has mass and acceleration, and the force has two characteristics: intensity and direction. We have studied in school on physics how we can affect a certain force. In intensity it can be either amplified or weakened. It can be amplified indefinitely (of course, only in non existing ideal circumstances), and it can be weakened to nullification. The influence is being made with an outside force which in relation to the first one, can come from different directions, and that is the second way to influence the force i.e. to influence the direction.

Therefore, we can react on the hand which has an aim to strike in a few ways:

1. to block it (to nullify the force)
2. to avoid it and let it hit an “empty space”
3. to redirect it (to affect an outside force regarding its direction and intensity)
4. to do none of the above, but to “follow” it through space with (or without) touch, but certainly without any affect on it

NOW, this last one is AIKI !

To follow all the movements of the attacker with precision measured in micrometers and in doing so not to have any affect on him/her directly (using force) but indirectly- to provoke his/her next movement with exact positioning, THAT is AIKI! To merge with the movements of the attacker as if you have became his/her “shadow” moving together with him/her, THAT’S AIKI! Being in harmony with him/her, not trying to push or pull in any moment – THAT’S AIKI! When a skier is flexibly adjusting him self to the uneven terrain – that is also AIKI! When the basketball players are trying to score without personal faults, coordinating their movements with everything on the court, that’s AIKI also.

The mental attitude, emotional direction and readiness, the ego, the level of vanity, calmness etc. are all conditions which are very important in a battle, and can also be applicable when we are talking about AIKI because AIKI can be found in any of them. Because:

AIKI IS A PRINCIPLE OF ACTING!

AND AIKIDO IS THE WAY OF USING THAT PRINCIPLE!

Both in a fight and in any other given situation.

If we talk about aikido as a martial art that we can practise, besides the fact that we must know what AIKI means in first place, we should be also aware that practising this principle is an ideal to which we strive, and that strive, that effort, that way – we call AIKIDO.

Is it hard to learn aikido? It is VERY hard, but that’s exactly why it is a challenge to me, and practicing it, a pleasure!

(In the next text more about DO)

Ten years ago I read essays from the German philosopher Martin Heidegger and I discovered the incredibly great importance of the meaning of the words. I believe that that recognition purified my thought. Since than when I come across a certain new term, or an already known one and interesting to me, without hesitation I look for its etymology! Because in that way I can UNDERSTAND it and not only learn it by heart.

When it comes to foreign terms, this method becomes complicated, but almost without exceptions, it provides good results.

What does AIKIDO (合気道) mean?

In almost every encyclopedia you can see that the usual translation of this Japanese term with three monograms is:

• 合 – harmony
• 気 – energy
• 道 – way

The first two monograms together give the meaning of the term, and the third monogram – DO is here to complete the term and to make it a whole. A whole whose meaning I will lay out here.

At first, a short history: Were does AIKI come from? The ancestors of the people who are making Toyota now, as I already mentioned, had different preoccupations in the middle ages. The warfare, of course, was not only present with these people – it was present allover the world, but their attitude towards it was indeed a unique one. After all, their culture, which throughout the time produced their mentality, was characterized by a specifically LARGE dedication towards any activity or phenomenon. This kind of attention, which we, in all our not enlightened nature and superficiality, can call it over an “extremism in attention about details”, they had it also in their attitude towards warfare. Actually, I should say that they had it in a large amount especially towards warfare, because it was always life or death question with them.

We all know that to enter a battle with an aim to destroy the opponent, sole strength is not enough, but the middle aged Japanese went as far as possible in learning the details of fighting, for their time. Notes had been preserved from the school of the Takeda clan about the dissection of human corpses so that they could get to know the human body and its weaknesses better. So, in order to be more efficient, they spread their knowledge in the area of medicine. And without further ado, you can already see that they approached this with an outmost seriousness.

They developed extraordinary skills of fighting and warfare by getting to know the abilities and weaknesses of the human body. But, as it can happen everywhere, in Japan also, not everyone is genius, so great discoveries are rare. One of these great discoveries in the area of martial art is the AIKI principle. The discovery of this principle can not be assigned to anyone in particular and although the Japanese would certainly want to, it can not be assigned to them in general, because they learned from the Chinese, who are far older culture then the Japanese (the same principle is used in the Chinese martial art TAI CHI CHUAN). May as it is, it had been written, in the clan Takeda, that the principle Teijun created the martial art which he called AIKI JUJUTSU, and than, it got the name DAITO RYU AIKI JUJUTSU, because of the castle Daito.

Now, what is this principle, which I say is a great discovery, characterized by? We have all heard about “using the strength of the opponent” but, few of us had given it a thought about what exactly does it mean, and even fewer had understood it, through personal experience!

To be continued …

One of the generally accepted wrong recognitions of aikido in my country is connected with its name, i.e. the adding of the adjective “traditional”. When I tell someone that I am practicing aikido, almost without exceptions I get the question “traditional or real?” Eh, that’s when the explaining begins.

In one of my previous texts I have written where the usage of the adjective traditional comes from, and that it appeared in our country with a sole purpose – to qualify the aikido as something old and maybe out rivaled and that the “real” aikido is not aikido at all.

But let us first see what does exactly “traditional” i.e. “tradition” means. Maybe we have never thought of it, but the word tradition comes from the Latin word “traditio” which means “to hand down” or “to hand over”, in our case – to hand over something trough a period of time.

Tradition is something that is handed over from generation to generation through a longer period of time. And let me emphasize it that I don’t have anything against the tradition at all. On the contrary, I think that it is exceptionally useful. I am only against the labeling of the aikido with a purpose of diminishing its value, when used with this intention.

For the sake of the truth, the aikido can not be called traditional because it has appeared in the twenties of the 20th century, but on the other hand it has so many traditions, as from the martial arts and from the philosophical thought of the far east, implemented in it. Let’s see , in short, where aikido comes from.
In the middle ages, in Japan, there were feudal lords who fought against each other. Samurai, for whom fighting meant sense of existence, took part in these battles. There were numerous samurai clans and in each of them fighting of any kind was taught: with bare hands, with weapons, with the use of horses etc.

It is important to stress that there weren’t different martial arts but only different schools in which fighting and warfare were thought thoroughly. The art of warfare had a clear aim - to destroy the opponent, and there wasn’t any room for “rules” or “styles”. Everything was allowed!

With the social changes came the end of the feudal era and with that the existence of the professional soldiers - samurai and the schools that created them became senseless. At that time the martial arts which are know to us: karate, judo, kendo, kyudo etc., were created.

Aikido was created among the last ones or precisely in 1942(3) when it was and officially recognized by the Japanese official organs. The name of the man who created it is Morihei Ueshiba (植芝 盛平).

Through out his life he studied different schools of martial art, and the biggest impression on him made the martial art taught by Sokaku Takeda (武田 惣角), genuine samurai, who taught the art at the school of his clan, called “Daito ryu aiki jujutsu”. Morihei Ueshiba synthesized all his knowledge of martial arts that he possessed and under the influence of his ideological-religious points of view he created a new martial art which was at first called Aiki-Budo, and than Aikido.

From this, it is clear that aikido has tradition in it, but this doesn’t make it traditional!

In order to make things more clear I will have to dedicate another text to the explanation of the terms that one can come across in the names of the Japanese martial art. The main reason being that I still encounter people who think that jujutsu is called “jiu jitsa” and that it is a different martial art! In Japanese, jujutsu simply means “fighting with bare hands (without weapons)”.

In the introduction I wrote that my goal in this blog is to clear up the prejudice related to aikido. I am not trying to say which martial art is better… I started differentiating Aikido and Real “aikido” so that the readers know what I am talking about. Better or worse martial art… I think that is nonsense. One of our famous taekwondo masters said in one occasion: “… When someone starts to talk about better or worse martial arts you can immediately see that he/she doesn’t know much about it…”

While I was training aikido I realized that it is a martial art which is comprehensive, and I understood the difference between a martial art and a combat sport. I also saw what the form of a given martial art means, how should be recognized its “realistic” characteristics, whether there is any use of it and what kind of usage can be found in it, if there is any of spirituality in it and what kind and so on. I intend to write about all those things, but first I want to lay some sound foundations and some guide lines which will keep me from making new prejudice and to protect me from being misunderstood as much as possible.

Mr. Vracarevic (although not just he) and his martial art can take the credit for the wrong information on aikido which circulate in our country, and that is why they are mentioned here. What he has used in promoting “Real aikido” created bad picture of what aikido really is.

Why was the best card in his propaganda saying how much better was his martial art than the authentic aikido, and why did he have the need to devalue the second, you’ll have to find out on your own, I will not occupy myself with it (at least not in this text)…

I will dedicate the next text to traditional aikido, since in one of the comments to the previous text there was a question about it, and I will partially refer to that comment now: yes I think that turbo folk is “bad” music, but I certainly don’t think that there is anything wrong in some people listening to that music. On the contrary I think that it is much better than to pretend that they like jazz.

Every time someone asks me what aikido is, it is inevitable to explain the differences with another martial art called “Real aikido”. You’ve noticed that I wrote “another martial art”, not style or type of aikido! I was involved in real aikido for some years (I received green belt – 3 kyu) and I acquired enough knowledge to know that Aikido and Real Aikido are two different martial arts, that much different as jazz and turbo folk in music.

But, of course, for an outsider the differences are not noticeable since the formal side of the techniques i.e. the way they appear when applied is the same, or at least very similar. I am sure that in future, although it was starting to slowly happen even while I was training Real aikido, the form will change completely, that is if Real aikido survives at all.

When mr. Ljubomir Vracarevic had decided to create Real aikido, from reasons to which I will refer in another occasion, he named it so for advertising purposes only. Namely, the aikido in the former Yugoslavia at the time was already flourishing with its popularity and it was a great moment to take advantage from it. Adding the adjective “Real”, he started introducing his own martial art as more efficient and more realistic than the authentic aikido. The term “traditional aikido” has its roots from that time and it is related to authentic aikido, and was compiled by the “realists” in order to give the scent of degradation to the “old” compared to the new and efficient Real Aikido.
Without going into analysis of the professionalism and ingenuity of Mr. Vracarevic, I think that to degrade a martial art that has in its roots in the medieval period of Japanese warfare with or without weapons, is at least careless, without any given thought, but the paradox is even greater then that. He encountered aikido in his own country i.e. Serbia (at that time Yugoslavia), through the seminars that were held by a few Japanese masters who were spreading this martial art throughout Europe. Soon after that he created Real aikido, and started talking that the Japanese masters actually doesn’t have the slightest idea what true aikido is. As if he has collected the whole inheritance of knowledge in the area of Japanese martial arts, with only one visit to Japan, and not only that, but better than all Japanese.

But, what Mr. Vracarevic is obviously good at, is marketing, and that is where all his statements and actions come from. Having in mind the target group which are people who “want to learn to fight” and with a predictable level of education, he managed to build an empire which stands on one column - himself. His success is truly great. He forged ahead through the borders of Serbia in the neighboring countries, and as it seems, mostly in our country.

But, the time of deprivation from the criticism towards this issue is over and today the number of people who share my opinion is not small.

Not only that they are different, but without any doubt I claim that Real Aikido is not Aikido at all. I will talk about it in the next text…