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Aikido is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as “the Way of unifying life energy” or as “the Way of harmonious spirit.” Ueshiba’s goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury.
Aikido is performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on. This requires very little physical energy, as the aikidÅka leads the attacker’s momentum using entering and turning movements.
Formosa Neijia writes about the future of Aikido.
A while back I saw some research that Pat over at Mokuren Dojo had done. He had discovered that web searches for the term aikido were going down every year and those associated with MMA and BJJ were going up every year. This caused him to speculate about the future of traditional arts.
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As I wrote earlier this year, the future of MMA is to become a “traditional art”–not vice-versa. Unless guns and knives (the tools of honest self-defense) suddenly become scarce, marketing considerations will continue to outweigh “practical” ones.
It is interesting to compare the varying implementations of popular martial theories. Of course, everyone believes they are using the minimum effort to achieve the maximum result. Yet Reiki and Aikido rely heavily on external force, while Qigong and Taiji build up the practitioner’s personal reserves. Which is “more traditional”?
How can we even begin to consider the 80-year-old martial art of Aikido as “traditional”, measured against the thousand-year history of personal combat? Kumar told me, “anything less than 100 years old is just a fad” :)
At one time, every martial art was the new thing on the block. I’ve often wondered, when does the new upstart become traditional?