Abtract: Wherein it is sort of explained, by variously tortuous contrivances, that time is both friend and enemy to the more demanding martial arts.
Martial arts change over time. They might even be said to evolve or, more precisely, be evolved. One might reasonably assume that, being refined by generation after generation of martial artists would make them ‘better’ martial arts. He might also assume that ‘worse’ martial arts would, in time, be supplanted by ‘better’ ones. He will wonder why his chosen ‘superior’ martial art is not embraced by everyone - or even the majority - and may even begin to doubt its worthiness on that basis.
Yet not even the natural world, unforgiving and selective as it is, progresses like that. Over millions of years, beautiful and grand life-forms have evolved, then died out, usually to be replaced by ‘lesser’ beings, such as the rat-like proto-mammals that took over from the dinosaurs. You may favour the falcon and the butterfly for their beauty or majesty, but it is the pigeon and the mosquito who will better endure coming environmental change. Being more resilient and, arguably, better adapted, does this make them ‘better’ in an absolute sense? It might be said that they are not, as their strength is based heavily on dependence on man: mosquitos would diminish in number should they not be able to feed on the teeming billions of man and his livestock (all buoyed on the artificial excess of modern agriculture), and pigeons would not have the urban habitats to which they are so well adapted due to their cliff-dwelling, omnivorous ancestry. Conversely, both falcons and butterflies would certainly benefit from the extinction of man. ‘Better’ is, by itself, a very conditional term.
How, then, do we define what makes a martial art ‘better’ than another martial art? By martial effectiveness? By martial effectiveness after a few months of training? By martial effectiveness following decades of training? By how much spiritual fulfilment it provides? By how it instructs responsibility and discipline? By benefits to health that it might provide? By its suitability to competitive sporting events? By how it continues and honours a particular culture’s traditions? By its ethicality? By how painful it is to practise? By how comfortable? A practitioner of any particular art will likely consider some of these criteria important – even vital – but may well sneer at others and the martial arts they embody. Such pride runs a very real danger of being an arrogant irrelevance and blinding the martial artist to his own flaws and those of his art.
Depending on the practitioners’ definition of ‘better’ and depending on the environment in which they are developed, all manner of martial arts can coexist in their respective niches, just as various life-forms with completely different survival strategies can evolve in the same ecosystem; worthiness is measured many different ways, at least in times of peace. If he wishes his art to grow and evolve into something ‘better’ the artist should focus inward. He should know and consider the strengths and flaws of his art and his practice thereof. He should further have a clear idea of what he wants his art to accomplish, and decide quite arbitrarily for himself what ‘better’ means, either by choosing a martial art that embodies it, or forging his own.
So, what are the principles we hold important, at least as defined by the art we practice? The clearest answer lies in the rather unique paradox in ‘Aikido’.
‘Aikido’ is itself a young art (albeit having very long roots), with less than a century under its belt, but has in that time achieved great popularity and has diversified into numerous variants. Some appear to encourage unrealistic, ritualized interactions and hence become sloppy and ineffective. Some have gone down the other road of becoming competitive sports, which, while it may arguably help prevent degradation of combat effectiveness, rather impressively seems to manage the feat of going against both O-Sensei’s pacifist principles AND old-fashioned Bushido regard for the arts of warfare as things too serious to be reduced to ‘games’. In both kinds, as the years have slipped by something appears to have been lost, but perhaps this is simply a natural consequence of the aspirations of the ‘Aikido’ being collectively too far beyond the usual limits of human ambition.
For contrast, there are other, more focused martial arts (such as Karate), which are far more suitable to developing a high degree of practical martial effectiveness in the modern world, some of which (such as Krav Maga) have been pieced together in an even shorter amount of time than ‘Aikido’. Such arts serve their purposes very well, a high level of mastery still takes great discipline and dedication, and they have an admirable purity of design that the wise might not belittle, but rather learn something from. However, the founding and evolution of ‘Aikido’ has not beaten such an easy path for its disciples, having embraced values other than mere simple martial effectiveness. Perhaps even more dishearteningly, while it was made as what appears to be a compromise between self-defence, respect for Japanese tradition and – ostensibly a paradox – the defence of one’s opponent, this did not intend this to mean that practitioners could sacrifice any amount of dedication to one aspect for another.
In Bushido as it developed in late middle ages Japan, the narrow, if gifted, specialist was not held in as high regard as a masterful generalist – it is easy enough to become good at one thing, but to be in one way superior and in another inferior was still to be inferior. A very similar ideal was developing in Europe at around the same time that Bushido was finding its final and most ‘perfect’ form in Japan: that of the ‘Uomo Universale’, which we today call the ‘Renaissance Man’. As one such masterful individual, Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72), said, “A man can do all things if he will”.
But will he? And if he will, can he really?
That’s a difficult question for most mortals honestly to answer. However, it appears sometimes to be possible to ‘cheat’ by reducing several things to one. We’ve all heard the phrase “The Sword that Spares”, as juxtaposed with “The Sword that Slays” as a metaphor for Aikido’s development and distinction from older Bushido. However, is it possible to make the metaphor a reality without blunting the sword?
One of the fundamental principles of ‘Aikido’ is blending with one’s opponent’s attacking energy and absorbing it to turn it against him or dissipating it in a way that protects both the attacker and defender from harm. Thus two aims are achieved by mastery of a single principle – that of blending. If a practitioner should focus on mastering this, he would advance both in balance without compromise to either. Not only that, but the principles actually appear to give each other strength rather than impede each other.
Of course and again, things aren’t quite as simple as one would like them to be and it must be noted that learning to harmonise with an opponent isn’t in and of itself an easy thing to learn to do. But the principle remains that there is usually a way for those who look hard enough and, though it may sound cheesy, the sky is only the limit to those who lack the imagination to dream of enormous rockets. Those who came before us have made remarkable breakthrough and refinements and come closer to their ideals, making Aiki what it is today, mostly for the ‘better’ as we define it. Maybe even we beginners shall do our part, in time, and by increments great and small bring whatever goals seemed unattainable into reach.
If we lose sight of our goals, however, time can become the enemy and slowly but very surely, generation by generation, undo the focused work of those who came before us. If we are not watchful, nature will take us where she will, not where we will. Heck, give it a few years of arbitrary and undirected leadership, and we’ll be playing in the International Aiki-ball League! With stylishly torn gis wrapped in coloured belts! For money! Weapons will, of course, be disallowed on health and safety grounds! The school will have a rotating leadership won by excellence in quarterly dance-offs! And we’ll bow only to Funk! It could happen. And who’s to say it’s wrong but we?
