Aikijutsu and Jujutsu: A psychological and philosophical differentiation

First, the theorem.

A million years ago, the world's first identifiable hominid sat down and ate his meal. He then hit the world's second Homo erectus on the head with a rock and took his food. And thus, with the crushing of a mere 800 cc of brain tissue, came ego, self, and the concept of self dominating not-self.

During the next million years or so, the theory of personal conflict changed but little: direct application of force to yield direct, immediate, and personally beneficial results. Somewhere and somewhen, however, some unknown person came up with a new idea: apply the force indirectly and wait a bit for the results. While this required both patience and rational thought, it also resulted in what is now referred to as more bang for the buck: a small input of energy could, properly applied, yield rather spectacular results.

Initial successes lead to further research.

The major difficulty with this new methodology was that it was so darned difficult. While a simple thump on the head with a blunt instrument worked quite nicely in the direct method, a lot more precision was required when applying force indirectly. Still, over the centuries and the millennia, probably more by chance than by design, some successes were achieved. And, in comparison with the older, direct, methods of applying force, these new indirect techniques must have seemed almost magical.

Although many indirect techniques, which I will henceforth refer to as jūjutsu, undoubtedly predate written history, extensive research into how they worked and how to make them work better had to wait for an established and relatively peaceful social structure to develop. This delay was not caused by lack of time, nor was it due to a lack of need: modern studies indicate that, in a typical hunting-gathering culture, the average work week for a man is only seven hours, and an active warrior will obviously need all the advantage he can get.

So, if the delay in technical development was not due to lack of time or lack of need, just what did cause it? With civilization comes production and, in a peaceful civilization, there is a significant increase in both the quantity and diversity of things produced. Concurrently, with new and better things available, comes a desire to own the most and the best of the new things. This desire created a new definition of the word status.

In a young and violent culture, status is achieved by force of arms. Age also has status because it indicates a person who was able to survive longer than most. As the culture becomes more civilized, the engineer moves to the front: new things are in demand and he is the person who creates them. Finally, as the culture stabilizes, both the soldier and the engineer come to be regarded as little more than servants: it is no longer the producer or the protector, but the owner who assumes social prominence.

Although the teachings of Confucius and Lao Tsu undeniably played a major role in the Japanese preference for jūjutsu-type arts over the striking arts of China and Okinawa, the social structure of the Tokugawa period also must have had an equally significant influence.

It has been said that, "The study of history is largely the study of military history," and nowhere is this truer than for Japan. There have always been warriors, and there have been more than a few warrior governments. Japan, however, had almost five centuries of intense warrior influence, followed by almost three centuries of warrior domination. This resulted in the profession of arms becoming, both de facto and de jure, an elite social caste.

Status demands protection which, if the status is to be maintained, must be done in a stately manner. The common people hit, therefore hitting was not for the samurai; they required a method that elevated them from the masses. The techniques of jūjutsu provided this because, as has been mentioned, when properly applied they seemed almost magical, with the obvious inference that the person using the techniques was a superior being.

The Tokugawa Bakufu gave warriors both the time and the social need to develop such arts, and the results were beyond their imaginings.

Sophistication of technique leads to effortless control.

Legend has it that Shinra Saburō Minamoto Yoshimitsu (1057-1127), the younger brother of Minamoto Yoshiie, studied the bodies of war dead in order to learn the secrets of atemi and kansetsu waza. Legend also states that Yoshimitsu was enlightened by observing a spider binding its prey in silk.

His teachings were passed down through the Takeda branch of the Minamoto family, and formed the core of what we now know as aikidō. Please note that what was passed down was not just a set of techniques. Equally, if not more, important was the methodology: proper technique is derived from scientific research. Jūjutsu techniques were existent before the time of Yoshimitsu, and they continued to exist and develop after his death. Yet, in no other combat art are fundamental principles of joint manipulation studied as deeply as they are in the traditional art of the Takeda house. While other ryū may be satisfied with a successful technique done with proper form, the Takeda art has an inherited tradition of scientific research. And research they did. For seven hundred years, countless students of the art took each technique apart and studied its components in minute detail. The results were best described by Ueshiba Morihei, when talking about the Daitō-ryū: "Its techniques are many and the theory is deep."

In the human body there are a finite number of muscles and a finite number of muscle-bone linkages, which create a finite system of levers. It is obvious, therefore, that there must be certain directions in which a human body is incapable of directing any significant amount of force. Researchers soon discovered that, by applying energy in these directions, they could control a person with a minimal amount of strength. Going even further, they found that in certain configurations a person's own body weight could supply enough energy to pin him, which led to the branch of jūjutsu known as kage-osae, shadow pins.

Effortless control leads to extension of mind.

The physiological ramifications of this advanced form of combat are obvious: due to the minimal strength involved, an elderly daimyō could physically control a young warrior, which resulted in a boost to the daimyō's status. The fact that it took years of practice to develop the precision necessary to execute one of these techniques, thereby making them impossible for younger warriors even if they knew the physical principles involved, further enhanced the daimyō's status.

But, on the road to technical perfection, an interesting thing happened. Once the person's body became capable of executing a technique with little or no effort, he discovered that there was a proportional decrease in the amount of mental effort involved. And, freed to think about other things, he found that concentrating his attention beyond his opponent, instead of on him, generated an even more powerful technique.

An interesting side effect of this ki-nobashi, extension of spirit, was its effect upon the opponent: Being effortlessly controlled by a person who did not even deign to notice the attack tends to crush the spirit, which, in turn, further increased the effectiveness of the technique.

This situation was called aiki-jūjutsu. As the word aiki (合気) may be literally translated as joining-spirits, the use of this term indicated that the spirit of the attacker and defender had merged, not with equality, but with a complete domination of the attacker's mind by the defender. The defender was no longer content to control an opponent's body; he now sought to control his spirit as well. This was exactly what a person in authority needed if he wished to remain in authority.

Note that the extension of mind marks the first clear point of differentiation between aikijutsu and jūjutsu: as long as the mind is concerned with the technique or its effect upon the attacker, one is operating at a jūjutsu level.

Extension of mind leads to selflessness.

One's ego, that repository of the myriad elements of personality which create the image of self, forms a central point in most people's existence. Every action, be it responsive or spontaneous, is generated from this point. This is due to the fact that the vast majority of people never truly think about anything but themselves, making their every action and reaction a function of self-interest. When the mind is set free with ki-nobashi, however, it loses its awareness of self. This creates a selfless being, one who acts objectively, according to situational requirements, instead of subjectively, in accordance with his personal opinions about the situation. The resultant mental state is known as mushin.

A zen koan, known by most Westerners, asks: "If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is there to hear it, is there a noise?" Applying the same format to the concept of self-generated selflessness, one might ask: "If you exist, but don't notice it, are you still there?" Advanced practitioners of aiki-jūjutsu would answer with a resounding "No!" because they have experienced the momentary amnesia that is common to advanced practitioners of all arts: when a technique is done to near perfection, even if by accident, there is invariably a loss of self-awareness.

Selflessness as void.

When you have a something, then take it away, you are left with a void. And, if being controlled by a person who didn't seem to notice the attack was demoralizing, attacking a person who somehow seemed to spiritually evaporate was even more crushing. Much as if reaching for the step that wasn't there at the top of a darkened stairway, one seems to almost fall into the technique. The result is what is commonly referred to as the aikidō giggle: the attacker is so frustrated that he is torn between laughing and crying, and so does a strange combination of both.

In maps of yore, one could frequently find legends stating "And here there be dragons". Researches into the void found something similar.

From the void, power.

Self-awareness invariably results in self-knowledge. This knowledge may be sub-conscious but, because of it, a person will always have a perceived set of limitations. And, because he thinks that he knows what he can do, he will not attempt to exceed these limits.

For a selfless being, however, there are no such constraints and, as a result, the energy production seems limitless. This new power source was named kokyū-chikara, breath power, because it seemed as if the practitioner was inhaling power from some mysterious source, power far beyond what his physical body seemed capable of producing.

As one moves up nature's food chain, concentration of energy becomes more intense. This is why an herbivore must spend all day grazing, while a carnivore can eat once or twice a week. The Japanese refer to this life force, existing in all living things, as ki. When ki becomes concentrated in one being to a degree far beyond the accepted norm, it is known as kiai (気合). One should note that ai, the conjunctive stem of the verb au, does not mean "to join" in this case: when used in the second position of a compound word, ai becomes an emphatic marker. Kiai, therefore, should be translated as "spirit!", not "spirit-joined".

Now there comes a something both strange and seemingly contradictory: selfless awareness of self. When a selfless being can become aware of power that appears to be both selfless and unlimited, his total attitude toward life will be modified. How is this awareness possible? The answer, of course, lies in the concept of ultimate reality, the formless form of Taoist thought. This is not a rational knowledge, something that may be expressed in words and measured. It is the irrational awareness of zen, the understanding of "the sound of one hand clapping".

Although such statements may sound like some form of escapist, pseudo-philosophical, jargon, an attempt to imbue physical abilities with mystical connotations by using language alien to an average person, and then further glamorize them by suggesting that the listener will come to understand the meaning after sufficient study, one must not forget the tradition of scientific research that forms the core of the Takeda art. So, while the explanation may sound rather esoteric, the results met the criteria for scientific fact in that they were both repeatable and measureable.

Power begets kiai which begets aiki.

The universe is measured in terms of cause and effect. Within the universe of personal combat, this cause and effect began with a simple thump on the head and ends with aiki. Takeda Sōgaku Minamoto Masayoshi (1860-1943) described it with these words: "Aiki is the art of defeating an opponent with a single glance."

When a person has progressed up the ladder, from jūjutsu to aiki-jūjutsu to aiki-jutsu, he develops an aura, an aura of selfless power that seems to stop an attack at conception. Although this is not something that may be scientifically measured, it is an ability developed by scientific methods and, once felt, is not to be discounted. On the receiving end, to be aiki-ed, as the old scrolls are wont to say, is a devastating experience. One starts by confronting another person but, as soon as the fist is raised, the person seems to change into a strange but powerful void, and that still small voice whispers, "...and here there be dragons."

The moral dilemma.

The concept of aiki as an ultimate goal of physical training is not limited to the Daitō-ryū and its derivatives; it is shared, or at least recognized, by many other arts, especially those specializing in the sword. It is, however, only within the hijutsu of the Takeda family that a methodology for its development and implementation has been so rigorously pursued.

While the results of such training were of inestimable value in the preservation of a military dictatorship, a society in which members of the ruling caste has the power of life and death over members of lower classes and a measurable percentage of the population were not even classified as human beings, such raw and seemingly unlimited energy posed a moral dilemma in the 20th century. Although an objective analysis leads to the undeniable conclusion that a person faced with such a philosophical conflict has not mastered aiki—by definition, a selfless person is immoral because moral action is dependent upon an awareness of how one's actions effect others—the fact remains that certain individuals progressed far enough along the road to aiki to be disturbed by what the art was creating. The most widely known person of this genre was Ueshiba Morihei (1883-1969).

Ueshiba was a man of tremendous physical strength which, combined with his knowledge of the Daitō-ryū, a system of combat claiming a heritage as illustrious as any ryū in the nation, led to his being invited to teach at the Ōmoto temple by Deguchi Ōnisaburō. The fact that Ueshiba's teachings were to be used as the basis for a private army to further the religion is immaterial: Constant daily contact resulted in Ueshiba becoming profoundly influenced by the new religion. And, as the Ōmoto-kyō was based on a philosophy that utopia is coming soon, it had an irresistible effect on a member of a farming family. As a result, its teachings were soon combined with those of the Takeda tradition, resulting in a new art that advocated the seemingly contradictory concepts of selfless power combined with universal morality. The goal of Ueshiba-ha Aikidō became a molding of individual action into harmony with a utopian ideal, rather than the traditional concept of domination of one's surroundings. Aikidō, therefore, may be viewed as a fundamental restructuring: the psychological power of the pure art is restricted and then redirected towards a new goal, a goal of elevating the status of an entire society rather than that of an individual.

While Aikidō is undoubtedly far superior to pure aiki-jutsu from a moral viewpoint, it is inherently limited and such a limitation is chafing to some people. True, there are many who choose to follow the original path simply because it is older, confusing age with quality. Yet there are others who find that the sensation of ultimate power is an aphrodisiac simply too strong to resist. And, lest one be tempted to condemn the immorality of aiki as socially destructive, the fact that the penultimate aiki technique consists of doing nothing and thereby forcing an attacker to do nothing should not be forgotten.

The endless path.

The journey is a long one, from basic jūjutsu to the ethereal realm of pure aiki, yet it is a road oft traveled. Some people never make it past the primitive stage of a thump on the head, while others take a few faltering steps and lose their way. But the magic remains. A magic that, once experienced even for a fleeting moment, traps an individual in a silken web.

Where does it end? That is something that everyone must discover for himself. Those who have not arrived have yet to see the goal, and those who are there are lost.

One would imagine that the ultimate technique of a perfect master of aiki would be to stand beneath a machine-driven sword and be cut down, and not care about his death. But, one would find it difficult to imagine a human being capable of delivering the cut.

The End