The History of Ki in Asian Martial Arts: From Shamanism to Stress Management

Nowadays, large corporations include stress busting techniques derived from ancient systems as part of everyday stress management practice.

While the rattles, totems and drums of the traditional shaman may be an anachronism today, many of the characteristics and skills of the shaman are still very much in demand. From the charismatic motivational speaker at corporate events, to the Feng Shui consultant helping to construct a modern office block, ancient beliefs still influence the modern world.


What is Qigong?

Ki (Chi in Chinese), according to the Yi Jing (Book of Changes 1122 B.C.) is the life force that enables all life in the universe to function. The ‘gong’ element is simply the practical skills and knowledge developed by practitioners over time and passed from master to student down through the ages. Typically, Qigong (pronounced chee-gung) is used to gather and store Ki to promote health, to channel and direct the Ki energy for the purpose of healing, and promote spiritual growth and enlightenment for the individual practitioner.

Qigong consists of a series, or sets, of exercises emphasising posture, movement, breathing and visualisation carried out in a meditative and relaxed manner. The movements are slow and graceful and take considerable practice to perfect.

Historical Background of Ki Arts

Selling Water by the River: An Eastern Paradigm Shift

Eastern traditions have a unique way of understanding the movement of energy, which Western traditions have difficulty in accommodating within their rationalist world view.

There is a story in Zen literature of two people meeting by the banks of a river. One is a passing traveller, and the other is a Zen master. When the traveller asked what he was doing, the Zen master replied: “selling water by the river”.


Training The Vital Centre

Teaching the power of Ki is like this. Ki is everywhere and freely available. A teacher cannot give Ki to someone. One has it already, but normally one is unaware of its potential. Training in Aikido is a way to unlock this potential, and to make one more consciously aware of what it is to be fully human and alive.

Zen training and Aikido share a common purpose: the realisation of one’s ‘true nature’. Both are vehicles to attain this end; and although the forms of training may differ in some important respects, there are some common features.

The most relevant, in the context of Aikido, is the cultivation of mind body development that in the Zen tradition leads to the growth of ‘Jiriki’ (concentrative or spiritual power), and in Budo terms is simply called Ki. In Japan the colloquialism ‘training the belly’ generically refers to the martial arts, and reflects the belief that Ki is stored in an area of the lower abdomen, the seika tanden.

It is through the cultivation of ‘Jiriki’ that one can develop insight into one’s ‘true nature’. Implicit within all of the Arts of Japan is the Zen principle of ‘original mind’, or ‘true nature’. This is the belief that each one of us already has a higher nature that can be realised through the practice of mind body development. Aikido is a form of mind body development.

Definitions and Limitations

But here caution is required, definitions cannot be relied upon to provide too much in the way of explanation. In fact, over reliance on them can easily lead one astray. They can become so general, or so abstract, that they become either meaningless, or inaccessibly esoteric. The kanji, or written character for Ki, for example, is defined in Japanese dictionaries as:

Ki - Breath with rice; breathing rice; steaming rice.

Other definitions describe Ki as the generative life force of Heaven and Earth that governs reproduction. While the first definition is obviously analogous - Ki is like rice, and without it there would be no life - the second is too general.

Ki appears to be a kind of life force. A fuller account of Ki would involve going into the complexities of ancient Chinese cosmology, Taoism and Buddhism, and fascinating though this may be it will not aid practical understanding.

Founder of Aikido

The founder of Aikido peppered his training lectures with aspects of Shinto shamanism that few, if any, could really understand. Yamaoka Tesshu, the renowned Japanese Sword, Zen and Calligraphy Master said, “In order to understand if the water is hot or cold, first you must taste it”. The emphasis here is on personal experience - feeling what it is actually like. Ki can be taught and understood as a ‘feeling’, and can be experienced by anyone regardless of gender, race, age or physical disposition. Read More

What is Aikido?

When I went to Japan in 2007, I learned that one must find one’s own way in Aikido, regardless of style, affiliation, or teacher. Two teachers confirmed this, one ancient (85), and one relatively modern (53), each separately affirming what the other said without any collusion and without ever having met. I did not ask them a direct question, but they seemed to know what I was looking for.

Now it makes much more sense than it did at the time – I seem to learn the important things by a sort of slow release process, in contrast with my cultural disposition and desire for everything right now. My own few students are always (the few that I have) asking questions about things that they will not be able to understand for a while, but this seems too patronising to say to them, so I try my best to answer their questions in the full knowledge that it won’t help them. When they do understand, they will not even remember what I said.

Aikido is made up of two elements, and not three, as is commonly supposed in translation – ai-ki-do. It is ‘aiki – do’. The two elements are confusingly both separate and unified simultaneously. They are not, in the language beloved of sociologists and psychobabblists ‘interdependent’, or ‘symbiotic’, or any other pseudo- scientific or pseudo-ancient term.

In a sense, the way that the terms have been used from 1969 onwards pretty much sum up the history of Aikido. While O Sensei wasn’t much bothered about what it was called, he agreed to settle on the name Aikido - it seemed reasonable at the time.

At the time of the big schism - two guys arguing about the one thing - the agreement was to go their separate ways with their separate understanding. The ai – ki – do side, almost sounding like the tapping of a sculptor wielding a chisel, was castigated by the other ki side as being stiff and unyielding. The ki side talked about aikido as soft, smooth and flowing, and this seemed so ethereal to the other side that as realists, with the true blood connection, they had to question its authenticity. What developed subsequently was a marketing war, and as we know some you win, some you lose.

But aiki was really the thing, but only one could use the term and you had to practice for ever before anyone would reveal it to you. The ki crowd were teaching aiki too, but they called it ki, because it was different? Again you had to practice for ever to understand it, because it was claimed that no one could understand it?

(As a side note, we now know that aiki was being taught by other schools not connected to Aikido, so there’s really no foundation for treating it as exclusively the possession of anyone style within Aikido)

So there you have it, the over simplified history of Aikido: two groups of people arguing about the same thing, which neither could understand, and even if they did, were not going to tell anyone about it unless they knew them for at least a whole lifetime. And people wonder why no one takes Aikido seriously!

Hara and Aikido - by Alister Gillies

Is Aikido a relatively modern martial art that tacitly acknowledges links with its Koryu (Japanese Classical Budo Arts) antecedents? Or is Aikido a form of Haragei - the cultivation and development of Hara in the activity of Aikido? These are important questions: how individuals or groups define themselves determines their disposition and character - “man construes himself, and disposes himself accordingly.”

If Aikido is construed as Haragei, then it is possible to locate it firmly within a broad cultural tradition that encapsulates both modern Aikido, Koryu arts, Zen training and many other art forms that have no direct martial application. If Aikido is viewed as something other, separated out from its cultural source, then problems of definition and distinctions between styles are naturally bound to arise. This might go some way to explain why there is such a lack of consensus about what Aikido is, and why there seems to be endless political disputes within and between different factions.

There are many arts in Japan, each very different from the other. They coexist without too much fractiousness because they all have a common purpose, albeit expressed in different forms, and with different conventions and rituals. Loosely, they are “belly arts”, or Haragei – the cultivation of Hara in a chosen activity. This could be tea, theatre, flower arranging, archery, and so on.

The test of whether something is Haragei or not is determined, amongst other things, by its longevity – does it stand the test of time? Does it function as a way of enriching one’s life in the present; is it meaningful and rewarding in itself; and does it extend beyond itself and filter into one’s daily life and society at large?

The ‘Way of harmony and Peace’ as envisaged by the founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, is a far cry from the reality of Aikido as it is today. There are ‘styles’ of Aikido that look backwards to a definitive form that was sculpted in the past, and there are other, more forward looking approaches, that see the art as evolving continuously.

In between these extremes there are many different shades and complexions. It might be argued - and it often is - that there are common principles that draw the disparate strands of Aikido together. But these, too, are open to interpretation.


Cultural Roots of Haragei

Typically, Haragei arts have the following in common: a reliance on direct oral transmission and practical example from master to student. The bulk of developmental work, in terms of making progress, requires a prodigious commitment from the student. Teachers do not inculcate in the pedagogical style that we are accustomed to in the west, they facilitate and guide. The student is responsible almost entirely for their own learning.

As a Haragei art Aikido, from this phenomenological perspective, partakes of and contributes to a shared Japanese cultural world view. It is a view that has its own particular units of meaning, and can only be fully understood with reference to that system of meaning. To understand this requires doing, rather than intellectualising. One’s ethnicity or cultural origin is not relevant in a form of teaching that seeks to elicit an apprehension of the universal nature of man through activity.


Inside Out?

This learning model, as a result of its opacity, has presented many difficulties for Aikido teachers from the west. Although there are exceptions, many occidental teachers have attempted to transcribe traditional Japanese teaching methods within a rational framework, emphasizing the ‘laws of physics’, ‘force vectors’, ‘mechanics’, and so on.

In so doing, there is a danger that the ‘baby may have been thrown out with the bath water’. While this kind of explanation of Aikido techniques may be clearer to the intellect, it unfortunately remains true that you cannot defend yourself with an explanation: “when pointing at the moon, do not mistake the finger for the moon”, a Zen proverb admonishes.

The benefits of explaining Aikido via the ‘rational paradaigm’ approach are immediately apparent from a Western student’s perspective. They naturally feel that they have learned something. This is how they are accustomed to learning. From the Japanese Haragei approach, students who learn in this way have only learned ‘about’ the thing, but not the ‘thing in itself’ – the “dasein” of Aikido, in Husserlian terms. To really learn something from the Haragei view point takes time. How much time? How long is a piece of string?

Haragei is often described in corporate ‘negotiation skills courses’ as a strategy of non verbal communication employed by Japanese corporate executives, with hidden cues and clues that only the initiated can understand. It is much more than this and such narrow definitions can be very misleading. The cultivation of Hara is an integral part of one’s life, not a negotiation tool. If Hara is used in negotiations, it is because Hara is used in one’s life.



Hara: The Vital Centre of Man

In his book Hara: The Vital Centre of Man, philosopher and Zen practitioner Karlfried Graf Dürckheim says that when Haragei is cultivated:

“an all-around transformation of all one’s faculties takes place, unhindered by the limitations of the five senses and the intellect. One perceives reality more sensitively, is able to take in perceptions in a different way, assimilates them and therefore reacts differently and, finally radiates something different…The three fundamental reactions to life and the world—perception, assimilation, and response—change in the direction of an expansion, deepening, and intensifying of the whole personality.”

Dürckheim’s book describes Haragei as a quality of presence in which the sensibility of the belly is fully integrated into any activity, from the subtle ritual of the traditional tea ceremony to the focused intent of an archer drawing their bow, or the graceful stroke of a calligrapher’s brush. It is present in Aikido when the art is cultivated to its optimum level.



Aikido and Haragei

Examples of this kind of highly developed Aikido can be found in old film footage of the founder of Aikido, Kodo Horikawa (Daito Ryu), Noriaki Inoue (Shin Taido), and Gozo Shioda (all former students of Sokaku Takeda) to name but a few. It can also be seen in the Aikido of Yoshinobu Takeda and a few other contemporary teachers. But it is not easily understood.

It often draws negative reactions from Westerners who do not understand what is going on. Typically, they may comment that it’s ‘fake’, ‘contrived’, ‘choreographed’, or that ‘this kind of stuff’ contributes to the perception that Aikido is not a ‘serious martial art’.

On one level, failure to understand the function and purpose of Haragei arts as part of the rich cultural heritage of another country can result in a missed opportunity for our own learning and enrichment. On another, statements uttered from an incomplete understanding of those cultural sources, can present Westerners in a less than flattering light.

This is not so much a problem now as it was in the past, since many younger Japanese do not understand it very well either. The traditional arts in Japan have been in decline for some time, though like everything else this is probably cyclical and the interest may be re-emerging, as exemplified in the growing interest in Akira Hino and Yoshinori Kono.



Teaching and Learning

Within this tradition of Haragei, the emphasis has always been on what D.T. Suzuki described as radical empiricism - find out for yourself! From this point of view, it is not surprising that the Founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba (and other Japanese teachers since his time), did not explain what he was teaching beyond the necessary forms of kata.

Some Japanese teachers, somewhat mystifyingly from a Western perspective, even assert that they will take what they know with them when they die. This is incomprehensible to the average Westerner, and perhaps some modern day Japanese, too. But it is perfectly in line with a mode of teaching in which the student bears most of the weight of the learning process. It can’t be any other way. Haragei is not something a teacher can give to a student.

If one accepts that Aikido has a history, and it undoubtedly has, then it is clear that: Morihei Ueshiba underwent an apprenticeship, drawing his martial skills from a variety of sources and teachers within the world of classical Budo.

Throughout his life Morihei Ueshiba continued to refine and develop those skills, while others took responsibility for the creation of modern Aikido, most notably Kisshomaru Ueshiba and others from Aikikai Hombu, Gozo Shioda, Koichi Tohei and Morihiro Saito. Many other teachers dispersed to other parts of the world to make Aikido what it is today.

Each one of the Founder’s students went on to develop their own style of Aikido that, while sharing the common name Aikido, became quite distinct from one another. It might seem to a beginner approaching Aikido for the first time that the ‘Way of Harmony’ is fraught with contradiction and contention. And they would not be completely wrong. But from the perspective of Haragei it all makes sense – it enfolds unity and diversity within its perspective without contradiction.

“Equality without discrimination is poor equality; discrimination without equality is poor discrimination” - Chinese mirror verse.