Philosophy of The

Defense of Aikido

As a self-defense art, aikido reconizes that one individual attacked by another has the right to defend him   against the aggression(s). But how will he defend himself? This will depend upon the degre of his personal development. If he is still on a primitive level- mentally and/or physically- he will react wildly to the aggression and often ineffectively; from the depths of his lack of preparation, he may clumsily inflict whatever damage he can upon his aggressor(s). Or if skilled in one of the more deadly self-defense arts, he may cold-bloodedly proceed to seriously injured if not actually kill his attacker.

However, by using aikido properly, it can neutralize the aggression swiftly and cleanly with demonstradable control over all the aspect of the aggression. Another words, the effectiveness self-defense will becomes possible without inflicting any serious injury, or no injury at all upon an aggressor.

Aikido says you should and must defend yourself, and supplies you with and extensive practice that will enable you to do so with optimum effciency. But aikido also says that you must be responsible for not inflicting any unnecessary damage upon your attacker. The aggressor is still acting upon a lower level. You aspire to a superior level where your proven ability, well-eared self-confidence, and refinement of technique, will allow you to defend yourself without resorting to the brutal methods so often taught as legitimate means of self-defense.

            This is definately more difficult and therefore more sophisticated concepted of self-defense, and the correlative control which must be developed in order to concretely achives such aims in the practice of combat, becomes the testing ground for the developed aikido personalities and the evidence of it's existence.

The "Centre" and "Ki"

            Westward from the Orient have come many tales of strange forms of power- of strength like that of "massed wind or water" sweeping everything away before it. This power has been called by many names, but the one that appears most often in this accounts, espacially in Japan, is ki and to be the seat of that power is referred as hara, or Centre. Almost all of the martail arts at some point in their developement  mention this power and the various means by which it may developed. It is heldto be "Intrinsic Energy" or "Inner Energy"  and possessed by everyone although developed conciously by only a few.

The seat of this energy, the hara, or Centre, is a point approximately two inches below the navel. This corresponds roughly to the physical balance point of a man's anatomy which we in the West call his center of gravity. In aikido, the emphisis upon this balance point and this Inner Energy is the very core and lodestone of the method. By far the most serious obstacle to any disccussion of the particular strength referred to in aikido as ki is the strict division which   Western terminology