The Aiki Academy

I’m over-generalizing now, but many females, after a life-time of being conditioned to submit and defer, find it hard to feel very sure about their personal power. They find the language of attack and defense intimidating. They find it very difficult, at least in the beginning of their aikido training, to move freely. They feel clumsy having to tumble and they may give up before they learn that aikido is a joy.

Women bring their inhibitions onto the training mat with them. They seem to find it hard to let go of the awkwardness that a male-dominated society has encouraged so many of them to feel. Men bring their inhibitions onto the mat too, of course, and this doesn’t help either. These inhibitions are of a different sort, though. They may, for example, bring their ideas of male dominance into the training hall with them. They my try and police on the mat the sort of power they have in society at large. Letting that inhibition go can be very difficult for them.

Some of these men can find the liberating effect aikido has on female students too much to take. They start attacking too hard, ostensibly to help their female partners to respond more positively, but really to intimidate them. They often aren’t even aware of what they’re doing. The females in the class will know though, – often painfully so.

Males like this don’t want to think of females as equals. They’re threatened by the democratic way in which aikido gives everyone the chance to be truly free and strong. The “ukemi” these men give can be competitive and awkward and down-right unhelpful to female partners.

The existence of sexism in aikido is hardly surprising. Male domination is universal. In principle aikido should have nothing to do with sexist discrimination at all. In practice men are often highly discriminatory which is why an awareness of the pervasiveness of sexism is necessary to give aikido students the best chance possible to confront it in a constructive way.

The issue of sexism is compounded by that of homophobia. Aggressively heterosexual aikido students can feel disconcerted or threatened, for example, by partners who are homosexual, whether they are female or male. In principle there is only the training. In practice personal prejudice can make training very difficult for all concerned. Combating discrimination is no easier in aikido than it is in daily life. Unlike daily life, however, aikido does provide regular practice in loving- kindness. This is notably better than regular practice in more-of-the-same, but like all practice, it takes time.

Ikkyo

“Ikkyo” is the name for the “first” form in aikido. It is the first of five different pinning movements, though all these pins are related, they have the same feeling, that of going inside a partner’s movement and following it through to its natural conclusion. “Ikkyo” is used, like all aikido, to find the feeling of “ki”. This is the Japanese word for the energy flow of the universe.
The sapling oak
in single stroke
falls to the sword
The conquistadore’s pride
on the rising tide
goes down with his hoard
(from the captain’s door
the gold coins pour
in sparkling showers,
falling to the white sand floor
to lie like flowers)
The same force
that does these deeds
gives the gods their powers
The same force
feeds the seeds
atop their green towers