My career in the martial arts started in 1964 with irony.
One’s personal interpretation of and skill at the art also had an effect on the resulting “Hardness” or “Softness”.
Yet a technical direction in each art seems to contradict the philosophical route each prefers.
Karate is often seen as an aggressive art; Aiki is seen as a defensive art.
You do not choose a peaceful harmony if that is your only choice! Similarly, there are challenges within the martial arts community which must be met one way or another: with resistance or with acceptance.
Many martial artists are unnecessarily critical of each other, perhaps showing a lack of confidence in their own art, or, more precisely, in themselves.
You can see this in the letter section of any martial arts magazine in any given month.
Some who may appear uncritical politically, perpetrate a watered-down version of a martial art, inflate their credentials, make false claims about their history, abilities, etc.
When these people present themselves in the martial arts, it is like a challenge not only to the livelihood of hardworking legitimately qualified martial artists, but more fundamentally to the reputation of the martial arts in general.
If one takes the more tolerant Aiki approach, one sees the quality and benefits of martial arts study gradually being eroded and the meaning of a black belt becoming ludicrous.
Great masters of the martial arts, notably Funakoshi, Kano and Ueshiba intended the study of their art to be a method of improving the individual so as to eventually influence society.
I think the masters of the previous era might accept a small variation to their theme of peace and harmony through the martial arts: the martial arts provide one method by which paradox can be studied and eventually resolved.
The martial arts are a relatively insignificant sub-culture in a world of political extremists, religious paradigms, and self-improvement methods.
As a whole, one cannot say that the very study of any martial art makes one a better person or improves society directly or indirectly.
Rather, martial arts offer one method for personal challenge and self-discovery through which time mastery can be attained.
Major philosophical changes have come from the influence of methods and experiences of much less significance than the martial arts.
Ultimately, paradoxes reduce to “What Should Be vs. What Is.” Either we are logically stumped because our reasoning, although faultless, is confronted with an equally faultless yet opposite reasoning, or we are ethically confounded because our ideals, no matter how carefully parallel to apparent human nature, always seem to be frustrated by those who take advantage of them What Should Be vs. What Is: is it the ultimate paradox or is it just a larger cousin of the little ironies we face every day? In the martial arts such frustrating questions do not occur to the everyday practitioner.
“What Is” in the martial arts is, for the most part, short term students studying a catalogue of physical movements in order to feel better about themselves.
“What Should Be”, at least to this author, is that students become artists, who during the years of mastering their art, confront the ironies and seeming paradoxes and use these confrontations to master themselves and the living of their lives.
How does one resolve the paradox of What Is vs. What Should Be in the martial arts? By helping create a path for some of the short term students to become long term students, for some of those studying physical movements to stumble into the grotto of intellectual and emotional self-development.
Find Aikido in your local area
