Kaze Uta Budo Kai Forum Archive

Are there any such things as kata in aikido? Of course there are – it’s a silly question, but if you take it that aikido is the invention of M. Ueshiba, then originally, surprisingly No.
Nor were there names of waza. That just knocked me over when I first learned of it. Ueshiba didn’t call kotegaeshi, kotegaeshi he just called it aikido. He didn’t call irirminage , irirminage, just aikido. No names at all – Just Undifferentiated Aiki. The flow of the moment did this, so he did that, and there you have it, just AIKIDO, expressing itself through him in a multitude of ways. He didn’t teach techniques, he just taught aikido.
There were just actions and reactions -- the expression of what he did from the general principles he embodied. Whtever he did--whatever stuff happened was aikido. No organizing structures, no teaching devices like kihon, katas or the like. Everything was Henka; everything was just variations on the general themes. And he made that work—and work well – he was the top of the heap ultimate martial artist of his time and place. And he was tested—tested like no one else I’ve learned of since— shinken shobu--tested with live steel and if the legends are right, bullets too. Bullets may be a bit far, there might be some smoke and mirrors showmanship here, but nonetheless it is pretty well known that he took on all comers, judo, kendo, sumo you name it—he was unrivaled by all accounts, both armed and unarmed.
Names of techniques and katas and such came later. Much later. Had to be introduced by a whole other crowd. Gave students and teachers something to hang on to conceptually. Made for a simpler (and paradoxically in some ways more complex) learning experience. Of course some of that structure probably harkens back to the aiki predecessor, Daito Ryu—but I have to think that there is a substantive difference here. If Ueshiba was just teaching Daito Ryu, then why go to the trouble to found his own thing? There is certainly lots of Daito Ryu stuff in his work but I would argue that he wasn’t just reinterpreting Daito ryu cirruculumn. His was a unique new expression in martial arts that had a unique aims and purposes. Once we're in AIKIDO, we’re just not in Kansas anymore-- it just aint old Takeda’s world at all.
Ueshiba’s expression was something new, creative and inspiring—and originally undifferenetiated.
Thats still a shocker to someone who has inherited a very systematized, rationalized, kata oriented approach to aikido-- it bakes my noodle, in a good way-- I find it fascinating to consider AIKI from this completely different angle; and incidentally, from here to notice that the Rational approach sort of marginalizes the Founder even as it extols his genius—His Undifferentiated Aiki becomes somehow “less than” our better thought out new fangled systematized ideas— in some ways he is either held up as a god like figure, whom none can replicate (not good for research purposes-- replicable results matter) or he is diminshed/dismissed as an anachronistic spiritual mystic of some sort; while we are modern and better educated, logical , and consequently better equipped to teach the Founder’s art ...
Oh really?
Are we really more efficient teachers than Ueshiba? Yea right. Like he really had trouble teaching guys like Tomiki or Mochizuki or Shioda—Come again? Our rationalist fantasy of superiority just allows us permission to deviate from the course.
Still, this reflex away from the mysterious and mystical toward the system of education is natural, evolutionary perhaps. We don't all have to become spiritually endowed in order to realize benefits form aikido training, but I think what may get lost in such a move (the move toward making the mystery intelligible and known) is a sort of reification, ossifying the fluid concepts of AIKI into “known entities” and then promptly getting stuck on them. There is a beautiful fluidity and power in the undifferentiated and maybe in time we approach it in toshu randori if we’re lucky. But even then it does require that we let go of our knowing and understanding and more pointedly learn to operate out of that part of ourselves that remains undifferentiated too. The old zen proverb says, "to study the way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self..." Its not too scary. Just forget your self a little and turn loose and let the undifferentiated aiki flow through you, and see what happens.

Good article! Ueshiba was definitely a intuitive-type aiki guy, a non-kata guy. Remember that quote - something along the lines of...

"Whenever I move around, that's aikido."

And I agree that it's bad to marginalize the founder, but I'm not sure I agree that Ueshiba had no problem teaching Tomiki et al. If Morihei's teaching method was sufficient or superior, would Tomiki have ever done his own thing? Maybe or maybe not.

Also, I can't remember my sources, but I've read in more than one book/interview, etc... That the founder's students more often than not, didn't know what the hell he was ever talking about. They say he spoke in esoteric spiritual terms that none of his modern students understood. (now that I think about that more, it might have been Terry Dobson that said that - not sure)

anyway, interesting.

not saying there werent snags in transmission -- i agree that students had a tough time with his non-method methodology-- i remember something about Ueshiba telling Tomiki that to understand him he would have to convert to Omotokyo and that though he did not convert, Tomiki did read up on the Omoto literature so as to get the gist-- Seems to have worked.

Would students have rathered that he explained everything thus and so -- probably, but would it have produced the results he was after? maybe not-- he wasnt preaching a dogma but opening a gate--in an experiantial framework, incoprehensible talk is sometimes just what the student needs, otherwise how do you get unstuck from fixation on particular ideas?
aikido as koan...

I got this quote from Kevin Anderson's website:

"There is no set form in Aikido. There is no set form, it is the study of the spirit. One must not get caught up in set form, because in doing so, one is unable to perform the function sensitively. In Aikido, first we begin with the cleansing of the ki of one's soul. Following this, the rebuilding of one's spirit is essential. Through the physical body, the performance of kata is that of haku (the lower self). We study kon (the higher self/the spirit). We must advance by harmoniously uniting the higher and lower selves. The higher self must make use of the lower self." - Ueshiba Morihei

I interpret this to mean that the kata is a vessel which may contain aiki. The form must be prepared, but in themselves the techniques are much the same as in jujutsu, or okinawa-te, or chin-na, etc. There are only so many ways the human body can be manipulated. What makes aikido different is the essence, how the techniques are done. If uke resists, it makes the technique stronger, that's how you know it is being done with aiki not force. Our job is to teach the essence within the forms.

In randori, after about 10 years, your hands just naturally find the grips, and techniques just happen more and more, rather than being planned. The body, the lower self, starts to give way to the spirit in a martial sense. Even with kyu grades, though, we have to focus on the timing, the rhythm, sensing when uke is moving and in what direction. The kihon tend to be body principles that allow this, eg, unbendable arm, hand in center, moving the center, cocked wrist, same hand-same foot, keeping maai, metsuke, zanshin.

Ueshiba's juku was kind of a "graduate school" for budo. No one got in unless they were recommended, and most were at least sandan Judo, or jujutsu or karate or Sumo or kendo. They all knew how to throw a punch and grapple and use a sword. When Tomiki started teaching in post-WWII universities, the kids had no background, so he had to find a way to generate martial skills from the ground up. Hence the kata.

We still have that nowadays - people don't know kotegaeshi. We try to teach both inner and outer skills at once, in a structure designed so that each supports and complements the other. Both can be learned quickly, according to one's skills, but you also find people who have done Aikido for decades and are terrific at simulating Aikido. "It's not that Aikido doesn't work, it's just rarely been tried." You could consider that at first there are kata, then there aren't. The Aikido is not in the kata, unless you put it there.