AIKIDÔ

Aikidô is a Japanese martial art whose roots lie in the distant past but which emerged as new in the twentieth century.

Many activities held to be necessary in a traditional society
-as were the martial arts - have largely disappeared with the passage of time or have been transformed into games or sports in a lay society such as our own. Sometimes, however, the content that lies at the base of those techniques and arts continues to exist and can be verified (that is ascertained and tested) even at the present day, to the point where the search for that truth can be called (spiritual) Way, a term present in the dô character of the word aikidô. It is for this reason that aikidô rejects sports matches and indeed all other forms of competition.

It can be said in brief that aikidô aims to compact body and mind, not by acting on one or the other separately but on their fundamental nexus; that imagination (close to Dante’s "alta fantasia" and therefore not to be confused with reverie) which in aikidô is developed through exercises in breathing, in visualisation and vibrations, sound or silent. Once the imagination has been fortified, the body is perceived as a projection of one’s own will, and at that point the link between the two entities can be said to be solidly formed. Body and mind united operate in aikidô applying all their energy along lines of continuity that assume the form of spirals (with the sucking power of a whirlwind), arcs of circles (following the impetuous movement of the point of a sword that strikes the target) or straight lines (like the trajectory of a dart or any other object that moves with vehemence and without the least deviation).

In parallel there is the technical training aimed at confronting a vast range of attacks, prevalently rotating the body round the backbone and moving forward so as to end up behind the aggressor’s shoulders, in one case or the other terminating the action with immobilisation or a throw. But all that is not sufficient.

In fact a real clash imposed by real cases has two important qualities that each personal defensive action must keep in mind. On the one hand, the evolution of the clash is always unknown and therefore improvised, so that there is absolutely no way of addressing it in its details; on the other, a reaction appropriate to an aggression is almost impossible because, being a response, it would certainly be late, and therefore one has to be capable of perceiving the threat before it materialises. To do so, one has to hone one’s sensitivity to the maximum.

A refined quality of perception can be obtained after breaking all the bonds that constrain mind and body and that can be truncated practising on the one hand seated meditation (anjôdaza) and on the other exercises of relaxation and muscle stretching. One thus acquires a spontaneous flow of personal motor expression, that does not in any way conflict with naturalness of gestures and whose number therefore cannot but vary in an undefined mode, forcing the conclusion that the techniques of aikidô are unlimited. Furthermore, one attains a sort of isolation of the mind from the greater part of physical impressions and even from one’s own person understood as specific individuality, with suspension of the normal separation between oneself and the landscape all around. One thus attains a state of consciousness that is without thoughts and emotions and makes it possible to centre oneself in the middle of one’s abdomen (a mental and physical condition often compared to the reflection of the moon in water).

This must have been the psychophysical state of those who, in the distant past, achieved victory in mortal combat with the sword. And this is also the psychophysical state that aikidô today invites us to forge within ourselves, an invitation also addressed to those who simply aspire to emerge the victor from aggression in the streets - which is obviously not the most important victory that this martial discipline offers to those who dedicate themselves to it with perseverance.

In fact the "true victory is that over ourselves", to express it in the words that Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969), founder of aikidô, was accustomed to repeat.

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