In his teaching, Tsuda Itsuo sensei insisted on visualisation which, linked to breathing, is a means of discovering the path of ki no nagare, the flow of ki. Breathing and visualisation are tools for deepening our perception of this flow and taking advantage of its benefits in everyday life.
Imagination or visualisation
Imagination produces no tangible results other than disillusionment and disappointment when you return to reality. Visualisation, on the other hand, is not a mental process, a kind of wandering of the mind, but involves the whole body. Few people can tell the difference until they have experienced the two processes separately and verified their reality. Visualisation is both action and non-action, anticipating and waiting for the right moment. It requires the utmost relaxation and concentration, but there is no difficulty in finding them because visualisation is based on the felt foundation of experienced unity.
Every culture develops its own understanding of the world, its own philosophy. Over the centuries, our Western culture has developed an analytical approach, leading to great precision and attention to detail. This interesting approach is clearly visible in science and technology, but also in martial arts. This quest for precision is also what drives human beings to excel, to become better at their discipline, as some top-level practitioners have already shown us. At that stage, it is not just about the detail of the gesture, it is also about understanding how the human being works, both physically and psychologically. Although important and necessary, it is the same direction, when becoming exclusive, which prevents us from reaching unity; if detail and control become too present, we lose the whole and in particular the perception of the flow of ki.
Others, such as Japanese culture, also pay great attention to detail, but have retained a more present conception of the links between living things and therefore of the whole. In his book Jamais seul [Never Alone], biologist Marc-André Selosse proposes a change of perspective on this subject: we have now broadened our understanding of living things with the notions of extended phenotypes or ‘holobionts’. But M.-A. Selosse goes even further, saying that we can see the world as an ‘ocean of microbes’ where larger, multi-cellular structures are “floating”’ 1 (plants, animals), and also have the ecologist’s vision of an ‘ocean of interactions’ where ‘[e]ach “organism” (this is also true of each microbe) is a node in a colossal network of interactions. The ecologist sees living organisms as this network, where what we call organisms are in fact no more than points between which these interactions are articulated.’ 2
M.-A. Selosse notes that this is a vision of the world already held by certain non-Western cultures, which ‘have a perception more focused on interactions and incorporate us into a whole with what surrounds us. […] [p]erhaps it is time to get rid of the avatars that Western individualism projects onto our biological… and everyday worldview. Western science has transposed a philosophy based on the individual into a biology based on the organism: beyond the successes achieved, the real breakthrough would now be to restore interaction to its central place.’ 3
Ki no nagare, which translates as flow, circulation of ki, is perhaps one way of understanding this ocean of interactions. I believe that the essence of Aikido lies in the physical, tangible understanding of this notion of the flow of ki. Because even a very small river can give a large river a different direction. Who is at the origin of the change, who acts on the other? It can take years, even centuries, to resolve such a question.
Breathing and visualisation are tools that enable us to deepen our perception of this circulation.
The Art of Non-Acting
Through an art such as Aikido, we can experience this sensation of ki no nagare in a very concrete and subtle way, and gradually discover that ki no nagare goes hand in hand with the spirit of Non-doing. You position yourself while accepting “to go with it”, without deciding to influence the direction in a voluntarist way, all while remaining a strong centre well in its place, without boasting nor taking advantage of the situation. This is the position of the “wise man” in the Taoist sense, as evoked by Zhuangzi in the story of the swimmer at the Lüliang Falls who maintained himself perfectly in a place where no animal could swim and who explained: ‘I let myself be caught up by the whirlpools and lifted up by the updraft, I follow the movements of the water without acting on my own behalf.’ 4Wei wu wei, literally “acting in non-acting”, is based on the sensation of flow, interaction or ki no nagare.
It is perhaps driven by an indefinable inner sensation, and because we have sensed this direction that we have chosen the path of Aikido, whatever our past life which, depending on circumstances, may have been different or even the opposite. Aikido opens up a different perspective to those who ask questions about their surroundings and their day-to-day lives.
Yet there are moments when everything stops, regardless of our daily routine. It is when everything comes to a halt that we sometimes become aware of ourselves, of who we really are and of certain faculties that are now discredited in so-called modern society. It can be an incident, an accident that happens unexpectedly, a fight, an emotional shock that we had not foreseen and that could turn out badly, or a twist of fate that strikes us and that we do not understand at all. And then you get the feeling that everything is falling apart, that nothing is worth anything any more, that all your efforts are pointless, futile and derisory. This can be the start of a deep depression, which some people only come out of with medical help.
But it can also be the starting point for a different direction in our lives, like a step backwards that will take us forward. And it was this kind of change of direction that I personally realised when I met my sensei, Tsuda Itsuo.
My experience over the years has shown me that by practising seriously, on a daily basis, doors opened and infinitely precise sensations guided me towards dimensions that I did not know about, or that I had forgotten – like many of us – from my childhood, or that I was no longer able to feel.
Intuition is one of these discoveries, and visualisation is its vehicle and its driving force. Not the perception of something becoming or some kind of premonition, but rather the perception of the relations between things; unchanging at times, if not hidden, at least invisible without this state of sensitivity.
Through an art such as Aikido, we can experience this sensation of ki no nagare very concretely and finely.
Conscious visualisation
Harmonising with your partner is obviously an essential part of Aikido practice, but Tsuda sensei‘s teaching took us much further. His insistence on making us work on visualisation every morning, despite our difficulties and laziness, gradually produced results for those who wanted to continue along this path. I remember once, during Kokyu Hō, I found myself trapped in the shoulders against a formidable partner who was determined not to let go; to be more specific, without any aggressiveness but with implacable determination. Suddenly, without my having seen or heard anything, I noticed that my partner lifted himself off the ground and fell back to my side without me having to make the slightest effort. I turned around and Tsuda sensei was standing behind me, looking as if nothing had happened and smiling mockingly, revealing a hint of irony. During his demonstrations, he never hesitated to make us feel how difficult, if not impossible, it was to resist this flow, as powerful as it was gentle, that he managed to bring out during the technique, leaving us both amazed and amused. Many times I felt like a child playing with his grandfather.
The beauty of visualisation is that it can begin consciously as a daily task and then move on to the unconscious level, sometimes very quickly, even if not permanently. The advantage of using visualisation is that by allowing the ki to flow in a direction other than the one blocked by the opponent, we find ourselves in a state of non-combativeness, non-aggressiveness and the desire to merge with the other person. It is perhaps here, in this territory with no map nor landmark, but which is nonetheless very concrete, that we will find the roots of the universal love of which O Sensei speaks.
Drawing by Ueshiba Morihei sensei representing his inner Aikido landscape and given by himself to Tsuda sensei
Here is a passage from one of Tsuda sensei’s books which I find enlightening and significant in terms of the development he sought to encourage in his students:
‘We often talk in Aikido about the flow of ki, ki no nagare, which psychologically speaking would correspond to visualisation. But the flow of ki has a content that is richer and more concrete than visualisation. It involves the idea that something actually comes out of the body, hands or eyes to trace the path we will then follow. Hence it eliminates the absolute separation between what is inside and what is outside.
Truth to tell, isn’t such a separation a fictitious idea invented for intellectual convenience? A human being cannot live for even a moment completely separated from the outside.
It also establishes the extension of the voluntary system outside of the conventional framework of the voluntary muscles. If there were no flow of ki, Aikido would simply be a kind of exercise or a dance.
The difficulty in this matter is that the flow of ki is unseen, whereas you can feel and verify the existence of muscles, for example.’ 5
‘Given that the flow of ki implies movement in space and also in time, it can take a premonitory appearance. Mr Ueshiba used to say that he saw the image of his opponents falling before it happened. It would be at once prescient and controlled. This remark leads us to the revolutionary idea that one can act upon the future with certainty, and it comes at the very moment when science, abdicating its absolutism, admits uncertainty as a rigorous truth. With the flow of ki, the future may become as concrete as the present.
Neither the flow of ki nor the ability to anticipate the future are the exclusive preserve of Aikido. On a more general level, they can exist in everyone. If I take a pencil from the table, there is flow of ki to the pencil. Let’s say that the flow of ki in this action is not very intense. It does not engage my whole person. In times where occupations were more traditional and less cluttered with innovations, this natural ability was more intense. All the same, there was more concentration in the accomplishment of an act. There was joy and disappointment because there was a real sense of anticipation. Today, with advances in technology and the more highly developed economic environment, we do not know where we stand. Perhaps the occupation you learn now will no longer be valid in years to come. Youth is flooded with possibilities to choose from, but none of these are stable. Young people are on the lookout for all sorts of things, without being able to fully engage in anything.’ 6
Tsuda sensei was above all an intellectual in the best sense of the word, a philosopher of the older generation who, thanks to his clear view of the society around him, was not content to criticise or praise it, but knew how to find the substance of the questions and make connections, both between ancient civilisations, their cultures and customs, and with examples of what he observed in his own time, following the thread that he himself had found thanks to his masters, both Eastern and Western.
Curious about everything he sensed would be useful to his teaching, he found examples that used to speak to us and that still do when we reread his books, such as his interest in the work of Constantin Stanislavsky7 whose teaching, based on the emotional relationship and the actors’ own experience, influenced the famous New York Actor Studio course run by Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan, and which Tsuda sensei found significant in terms of his conception and understanding of the message he was trying to convey. This allowed him to be exhaustive, and even lapidary in this sentence about visualisation as seen by the director:
‘[He] put to good use the effects for the actor of recreating a psychological situation.
If the situation created is perfectly accepted and carried out, there is flow of ki. Whether the gesture is performed with an intense visualisation of the situation or a head full of abstract ideas, hypotheses or theories, the gesture is the same but the result is not the same. This is what makes the difference between the actor and the ham.’ 8
We offer here to the reader the text of a talk given by Manon Soavi at the High-Alsace University’s Research Institute in European Language and Literature1 as part of the European Ecofeminisms seminar held on 14 and 15 November 2024.
One afternoon of the conference was devoted to author Françoise d’Eaubonne. Her son Vincent first presented a paper entitled The Place of the Body in the Life and Work of Françoise d’Eaubonne. This was followed by Manon Soavi’s speech drawing a link between the urgent need expressed by d’Eaubonne to reconnect with our bodies in order to overcome the dualistic patriarchal ideology and the proposition of an emancipatory self-practice coming from Tsuda Itsuo‘s philosophy of Non-Doing.
The afternoon continued with a screening of Manon Aubel‘s film Françoise d’Eaubonne, an Ecofeminist Epic1 and a round-table discussion with the participants.
Speech by Manon Soavi
Tsuda Itsuo was a Japanese writer born in 1914. He studied sinology with Marcel Granet and sociology with Marcel Mauss at the Sorbonne University in the 1930s. He strove tirelessly for freedom and took an interest in his Japanese culture, the relationship with the body and ancient Chinese thought. He is the author of ten books in French, published by Le Courrier du Livre (Paris), [all of which have been translated into English]. His philosophy of Non-Doing combines anarchist thinking with a subtle understanding of the Tao.
We are going to see how this philosophy resonates with ecofeminism, not by its label, but by its very nature.
D’Eaubonne‘s programmatic phrase ‘We have to lose our heads so as to inhabit our bodies’4 will serve as my starting point. What Françoise d’Eaubonne and Tsuda Itsuo had in common was their belief that emancipation required the integration of other patterns5 of thought in order to break out of dualism, and that the body was essential to this process.
Criticising and proposing other possibilities
As Vincent d’Eaubonne has shown, the body was a central subject in the life and thought of Françoise d’Eaubonne. Ahead of the feminism of her time and without yielding to any essentialism, she pointed to the primary role of the body in the mechanisms of domination and the urgent need to reappropriate it as a condition for liberation.
Critical of dualist thinking, like all ecofeminist women, Françoise d’Eaubonne emphasises that the materiality of the body, mired in the living, brings us back to our nature. It prevents us from looking at nature as an object. The body is a source of freedom and allows us to take hold of reality. Françoise d’Eaubonne warns of the worsening taming of the body, which can even disappear with virtualisation.
To tear oneself away from the body, to deny the living within us, is the appalling development against which she challenged us back in 1998 in Virtual and Domination6. As the paroxysm of the culture of distancing, the reign of the virtual is going to overturn man’s relationship with the world and perhaps cause an internal collapse by affecting the perceptible difference between the real and the virtual.
For her, this difference ‘can only be re-established by the old formula, the proof of the pudding is that you eat it, for the day when the first drug addict in the cybernetic labyrinth is found dead of hunger in his cabin, wearing the smile of the satiated of the imaginary.’7
For d’Eaubonne it is clear that the mind cannot survive healthily in the face of the annihilation of its senses, with the absence of touch8 and de-realisation. The loss of the locomotor, sensitive body, replaced by ‘a body hybridised with micro-processors and medical nano-machines, will lead to a significant decline in vitality’. While every innovation is frightening, none has ever had such a profound effect on human beings, and the enslavement of the virtual is of an unprecedented nature.
On the one hand, Françoise d’Eaubonne is sounding the alarm, but on the other she is also shaking up the socio-political framework that structures and determines what can and cannot be said to be a subject, what is perceived as sensitive, vital and intelligent and what is not. Frameworks of experience inscribed in our institutions, our perceptions, our bodies and our narratives. Through her writing, d’Eaubonne brings to light another, reunified world where dualisms and exploitation no longer apply.
In The Satellite of the Almond9, the first volume of her Losange Trilogy10, she shifts the centre of subject and object using the story of the exploration of an uninhabited planet that turns out to literally BE a body. Blurring the boundary between explorer and planet11. It is through their bodies that a fusion of carnal, rhythmic sensibility will take place between them.
In the next volume – The Shepherdesses of the Apocalypse12 – d’Eaubonne describes the beginnings of Anima, the civilisation of women. In the text, she weaves together nature and humanity, using plant vocabulary to describe women’s societies: ‘Everything sprouted, grew, leafed through in the women’s groups, communities and communes. Everything was rustling, speeches, quarrels, murmurs, comments and songs, and the Revolution was working with little noise and great clatter, sounding like a tree full of creaks and birds’. Further on, the sequence of bagpipes, seagulls and heather underlines the continuity between the human and non-human worlds13.
Very lucid, d’Eaubonne also describes the failure of the avant-garde‘s revolutionary action. In The Shepherdesses she writes of this failure that, in any case, ‘their liberation could only be intimate’14. It could not be achieved from the outside, by force or revolutionary theory. Only life experiences can change the intimate dimension of our bodies and our actions.
Remedying distance: I feel, therefore I am
How can we touch this dimension? This was also a crucial question for Tsuda Itsuo. For him, as for d’Eaubonne, we need to unlock the internal structures that have underpinned our ways of being and acting for centuries. By relying on other thought patterns and on the body.
According to researcher Barbara Glowczewski, myths and rituals are not symbolic. People act with these patterns. For the aborigines, the dream is a rhizomatic becoming, a ‘concept to think about’15. This is what d’Eaubonne does through her writing.
She points to us an essential key in the passage from The Shepherdesses where we witness the rebirth of a unified, cyclical world: ‘animal cries were born with the same timidity, far away, isolated, coming closer: “I’m here!”’16
This is a key. This ‘I am here’ neutralises the ‘I think, therefore I am’. This historically dated conception of man surrounded by objects, reified animals and an exploitable landscape.
But there are other conceptions of the world. Diverse cultures with common modes of existence that escape utilitarianism, the abstract universal and the human/environment divide. They are organic and unique. Action finds its reasons and purposes in the interiority of situations. Anthropologist Rodolpho Kush, who studied the indigenous cultures of South America, calls them the Cultures of Estar Siendo, Being There17.
On the other side of the Pacific, Japanese ecologist Imanishi Kinji identifies a similar notion with Ba 場, There or Being there18. It is a founding concept of Japanese culture that can be found in many aspects, including the word baai 場合19, to be somewhere, in the flesh, on a particular occasion. Geographer Augustin Berque18, Imanishi‘s translator, calls this situational ontology being-thereness21.
Imanishi also insists on the fact that living beings link what they are and where they are. And that it is through sensation, through intuition, that we can grasp the commonality of the human and non-human worlds. This is also reflected in Chinese writing. The ideogram Sei生, life, is not a concept, it is a trace that evokes perception. The sensation you get when you see a bud and feel that you yourself are alive within life on earth. Imanishi used to say: ‘I feel, therefore I am’.
This pattern reintegrates us into the earthly world, living among the living. Now, how can we act without falling back into the dualistic pattern? Ancient China provides us with another very interesting pattern: the 無爲 Wu-wei, Non-Doing. We shall see that this has nothing to do with withdrawal from collective action or any individualistic meditative stance.
Sabotaging Cartesian thinking: Non-Doing
Ursula Le Guin wrote: ‘All I’m trying to do is figure out how to put an obstacle in the way’22. Our mental structure, deformed by Cartesianism and dualism, cannot free itself from its straitjacket. That is why we have to put obstacles in the way. This is the aim of Tsuda Itsuo when he declares ‘Even if I do not think, I AM’23 Following the example of Tchouang-tseu, to provoke a collapse of logic in order to allow another understanding to emerge.
In Chinese and Japanese culture, there are techniques for hacking your brain. Short-circuiting the will to make way for a deeper, more connected intelligence. Practices such as Zen, calligraphy, martial arts, etc., aim to use bodily techniques to encourage the abandonment of calculating thought in order to allow Wu-wei (Non-doing) to emerge.
This is the meaning of the calligraphy Naka, the target. It represents bow, arrow, target and archer all in the same unit. Here thought and action are one. Non-doing is therefore a mode of activity24 in which action and speech are highly effective, precisely because of the absence of intentionality.
The ancient tales of Europe also used symbols to teach us how to find the right way to act. Whether it is kissing a frog, listening to the words of a fox, or waiting for the night to bring advice. It is all about letting go, clearing the air to listen and enter into the flow.
In the same way, Japanese craftsmen co-produce objects with living materials: iron, earth, water and fire. The craftsman is grateful for the unexpected turn his creation takes. So the act is no longer the result of ONE will, ONE subject. It is a multiplicity that expresses itself.
This pattern takes us away from colonial action, from DOING, from the engineer advocating abstract and external solutions to situations. The Kogi people suggested this situational Non-action by proposing the reintroduction of the tapir in Brazil rather than spending millions of dollars restoring primeval forests. Tapirs eat the fruit and make their droppings where there are no fruit trees, thus ‘planting’ the forest. Acting in/with the web of the world.
Native sciences in symbiosis have always existed. Just as animals and plants have always acted in ways that we have probably only glimpsed.
Here, with our urbanised and fragmented lifestyles, one way of entering these paradigms in concrete terms is to rediscover our bodies in everyday practices. To listen to our own involuntary resources, to reactivate our senses and to begin to re-establish a relationship between a rehabilitated wild way of thinking and a relativised learned way of thinking.
Emancipating self-practices
Marcel Mauss pointed out that the body is not only an expression of ourselves, but also of a cultural conception, social organisation and systems of representation of the world25. Social training and our alienation are therefore inscribed in our bodies.
In the East, body and mind are not separate, so philosophy and practice are inseparable. For Tsuda Itsuo, Aikido and Katsugen undo are part of the path of the philosophy of the Non-Doing. They are practices of emancipation in which we experience a gap between our habits and their recalibration.
It is through sensitive touch and movement that we experience a different kind of relationship, one which involves neither speech nor vision. We rediscover ‘knowledge about ourselves’ and ‘practices of ourselves’ that involve both the individual and the collective.
Seen in this perspective, Aikido is not about learning to fight and destroy. It is a study, through the body, of the possibilities of relating to others, despite and with conflict. To re-establish balance within ourselves, and within relationships.
Faced with the domestication of women and what Elsa Dorlin calls the ‘factory of disarmed bodies’26, d’Eaubonne emphasised the importance of reclaiming the ability to react. As an Aikido teacher, I join d’Eaubonne‘s call to rediscover ‘the ignored, repressed attitudes that frighten us so, the simplest fighting positions of the body’27.
The generation paradigm
Philosopher Émilie Hache28 underlines a very important point: extractivist industrial societies no longer show any concern for generation, i. e. the reproduction of conditions of existence. Historically replaced by the idea of Providence. A world created once and for all, no longer needing to be perpetuated on a daily basis. Generation is a total social phenomenon, concerning the perpetuation of humans, the clan, relationships with ancestors and the living amongst whom we live.
I would add that our societies no longer show any concern for the vital capacities of human (re)generation. The machine vision of a fragmented body leads us to think that we can wear out our bodies like we wear out a bicycle. From time to time, you have to apply the brakes and change pieces. Except that biological processes and metabolism do not at all respond in the same way as these mechanical processes, to which they have too often been compared.
Vital processes regenerate themselves and return to equilibrium on a daily basis if given the chance. But involuntary movement is repressed. The rigid body has difficulty reacting, keeping its balance and recovering from fatigue. As ecofeminist Ariel Salleh puts it: ‘Sensitivity to the flows of nature is lost when knowledge insists on the precise operations that need to be carried out to transform nature’29.
Conversely, in the paradigm of generation, human life is part of a holistic vision. Vernacular practices take care of internal resources, i. e. the innate ability to balance through the involuntary movement of the body on a daily basis.
The practice of Katsugen Undo, which is a kind of involuntary gymnastics, is part of this paradigm. It is the manifestation of the internal work that humans already possess, but which in our modern world needs a space-time to make room for the expression of the activity of the living within us.
Of course, it is not a question of miracle recipes, but of taking into account practices that balance and emancipate over the long term.
Conclusion
To conclude, when Françoise d’Eaubonne wrote ‘We have to lose our heads so as to inhabit our bodies’, she was expressing her radicalism. Refuse rather than continue. Lose our head if we have to rather than maintain patriarchal dualism. And then build something else, here and now.
I find in her the same integrity and determination that my parents had. In their case, it was because of their refusal to perpetuate the educational formatting that my sisters and I never went to school. Libertarian dojos were born out of their refusal to accept existing social relationships.
Most of them are urban, self-managed, egalitarian and subsidy-free. Where women are in the majority. Dojos made up of resourcefulness and tenacity over the last 40 years. Like the ZADs, they are breaking with neoliberal individualism as much as with the old forms of protest. They are places and practices from which changes affecting the individual and the collective can emerge.
The point is not to ape unhistorical practices, outside their own cultures. As Anna Tsing writes in The Mushroom at the End of the World30, ‘the ruins are closing in and encircling us on all sides, from industrial sites to devastated natural landscapes’. However, ‘the mistake would be to believe that we are content to survive in them, for it is also in these ruins, these margins, that life is sometimes more lively, more intense.’31
Indeed, these practices originated in Japan, in the ruins of the Second World War. They are a resurgent rhizome, an update of ancient vernacular wisdom. It is through the power of the use that people make of them to live out other possibilities here and now that they become strategic practices of resistance-creation that are profoundly ecofeminist.
[In English in the text – the footnote explains the French use.] Term used in the human sciences: simplified model of a structure of individual or collective behaviour (psychological, sociological, linguistic). Synonyms: template, schema.
Baai 場合, lit. an agreement (ai 合い) of different there (ba 場)
Augustin Berque, ‘Fûdo and Edo—a note on Watsuji’s nipponity’, Feb. 2023 (contribution to an upcoming collective book on Watsuji, coordinated by Hans Peter Liederbach)
[Fr.: y-présence. English translation by Berque himself (personal communication)]
“Non-fighting” is not the same as refusing to fight, in the same way that “non-doing” is never the same as “doing-nothing”. Understanding life in its most unusual, most upsetting, most incongruous and sometimes apparently most incomprehensible manifestations is perhaps the real fight to be carried.
Practising Aikido and returning to the origins of being
This article is difficult for me, because I was originally a fighter who, thanks to the practice of Aikido and Katsugen undo, now aspires only to “non-fighting”. Revolted since my early teens by the conditions and solutions proposed by society, my path could have been very different had I not crossed that of my master: Tsuda Itsuo. It took me seven years to have defused within me what would only have brought me to my doom. After that, a few decades were enough to respond to my inner demand and strengthen the direction I had begun to take. I then found a personal antithetical response through the work of emancipation and release of the people who come to practise in our School. Allowing everyone to rediscover their inner strength, as opposed to reinforcing all their acquired tendencies, which are merely the result of an underlying education orchestrated by a world that makes us believe in our weakness, that accustoms us to fear and thereby pushes us into submission.
If our art were some mere “self-defence”, I would not have practised it for so long, I would not have got up at the crack of dawn every morning, for nearly fifty years, to go to the dojo. I have not sacrificed anything for this, but I have not let anything divert me from this direction. Aikido is a ‘total social fact’ in the sense that Marcel Mauss understood it. It has led me to deepen my own understanding in many ways. It has driven me to fight against the injustice suffered by individuals of all genders, through the normalisation of bodies that have become rigid and blocked, and through a return to the truth of inner strength which is only waiting to emerge once more. Stepping outside the box to show its falseness. Proposing self-management of groups in dojos, the independence of individuals, the power of the encounter between beings rather than incomprehension or manipulation: these are both the conditions and the answers to be provided.
Any fight can be legitimised on the basis of a theory or ideology, but its effects and consequences must be measured in each situation. The end does not justify the means. Too many fights have been lost by those who had won them, this even if they did so rightly, because the means were unjustifiable in the face of life. The violence done to human beings in an unjust society provokes a fight, and the response is very often a rightful conflict, a struggle against adversity. However, the struggle is not meant to be a violent fight, but a fight without a struggle is doomed to failure. The revolt against injustice of all kinds, whether individual or collective, must pass through our sensitivity and empathy, and be nourished by them. If it leads us to fight, how can we refuse it? It is rather to the form that we are due to pay attention. Thus shall we be able to practise “non-fighting” and act in Non-Doing.
A solution: co-evolution and possible symbiosis
On an individual level, we need to put an end to the reasoning that legitimises everything by relying excessively and exclusively on Darwin’s all-too-famous ‘struggle for life’. In the 19th century already, when scientific knowledge of how the body works was still in its infancy, libertarian theorist Prince Kropotkin, without denying the theory of evolution in its entirety, pointed out that the best-adapted species are not necessarily the most aggressive, but can be the most social and the most supportive. This theory, incidentally, will get a confirmation in this beginning of the 21st century in researcher Marc-André Selosse’s writings about biodiversity, microbiota and symbiosis. Darwinism has been the justification used since the 19th century to stifle social revolt, legitimise the exploitation of human beings, establish patriarchy on pseudo-scientific grounds and ultimately destroy the planet in the name of immediate profit. Dutch-American primatologist Frans de Wall, who has studied the feeling of empathy in animals, concludes that social Darwinism ‘is an abusive interpretation: yes, competition is important in nature but, as we have seen, that’s not all.’ ‘We are also programmed to be empathetic, to resonate with the emotions of others.’1 For me, promoting life at both individual and collective levels and using an art like Aikido to spread the possible enrichment of humanity along the path towards which our masters guided us is more than just a task – it is rather a conviction.
The push of the bokken
Legitimate defence
Before addressing the issue of legitimate defence, it is important to reflect on our humanity, our ancestral animality, our primitive reactions which are often antithetical, and above all on our instinct for life which overrides our reflex for death. Sometimes, very simply, the instinct to survive is enough to wake us up from the numbness caused by our fear of what surrounds us. To carry out this reflection, we cannot be satisfied with an overview of general thinking, nor can we look around us for either answers or examples. If our reflection, our thought is meant to be intelligent, it must delve into the very depths of our being in order to find answers that will always be relative, never definitive, and in motion so to say, because the elements at our disposal are both numerous and contradictory, theoretical, legislative and even religious. They have their purpose in different societies, different times, and we cannot disregard them with a stroke of the pen or adopt one on superficial grounds. That is what makes the art of Aikido so precious: an art which leads us both physically and spiritually.
Encouraging life at both individual and collective levels
An adequate response
The nature within us needs answers, and these answers must be right and clear. They must be unambiguous and no more problematic than the question itself, nor engender further misunderstandings in an outburst of resentment. The situation that leads to the fight already favours, if we understand it, our giving it a right answer. It is our attitude in life that is our starting point, and this is why practising Aikido is so important. It is not just about training to fight, but rather about finding the sensation of the living down in all aspects of everyday life. Life is not a long, tranquil river, nor is the world an amusement park. Injustice and violence are present, and no one can ignore them. Even if the result of conditioning or fear of the future, closing our eyes to what surrounds us would only be childish self-centredness or cynical egotism. I cannot see fighting only as an individual or collective solution, but much more as a sane demand for health, for intelligence of the world and as a search for unification, pacification, return to unity.
Constant vigilance is not permanent tension (work by Shunsō H.)
Is relaxation a necessity in fight?
Relaxation is not an option, nor is it a tactic or a subterfuge for victory, but more simply the result of a state of being. It cannot be acquired but can rather be discovered by following a path of simplicity and sincerity. It is a way of life when body and spirit are “finally” in harmony. It is this return to the deepest nature of ourselves that must occur when we have rid ourselves of what encumbers us, of what shackles us, of what obstructs the clear vision we could have if we were freer. Aikido is the royal path to achieving this, Tsuda sensei called it ‘The path of less’,2 as opposed to the path of acquisition, which creates tension and conflict. It is a new basis that takes us back to our early childhood while not being childish,3 with, on the other hand, the strength of age, experience and perhaps a little of that wisdom brought by our art.
A poem like the one I found in Utomag magazine is sometimes better than a long argument:
“Fighting”
Being always ready
Observing in a diffuse way
Not acting unnecessarily
Acting at the right moment
In a relaxed body ready to pounce
This is very clear with cats:
Constant vigilance is not permanent tension
On the contrary, they are capable of great relaxation
Their bodies are supple, ready to tense up for action,
and then, to relax again
Their aggressiveness, deployed when necessary, is matched only by their voluptuousness, used without moderation
Should we condemn them for one or the other?
Should they give up one or the other?
No
Because they act in total harmony with their function as animals: to be
There is nothing constructed or thought out about this
They are, they live, they protect their integrity, their territory.
They won’t be aggressive for the sake of being aggressive, just as they won’t not be aggressive on principle
Fighting is a means of self-preservation, not an end in itself.
If it is, it may be that the instinct for self-preservation has been touched.
Sometimes, preserving oneself means not fighting
But not fighting must never mean renouncing oneself, one’s ability to preserve oneself.
Article by Régis Soavi published in January 2025 in Self & Dragon Spécial Aikido n° 20.
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Notes :
interview of Frans de Waal by Natalie Levisalles (in French) published online on 11 March 2010 on French journal Libération website
[see also Tsuda Itsuo, The Path of Less, Chap. XX, 2014, Yume Editions (Paris) (Translator’s note)]
[see also: ‘Aikido for me is an art of becoming a child again. The difference between being a child and doing Aikido is that a bit of order is introduced therein. In children, there is not much separation between thought and action. It is not the same with adults. It takes art to become a child without being childish.’ (The Path of Less, op. cit., Chap. XVIII, p. 175) or yet ‘[Tsuda Sensei] often said that through breathing “Aikido is an art of becoming children again… without being childish”.’ (Tsuda Itsuo, Heart of Pure Sky, ‘Excerpt from Bushido’, Yume Editions, 2025, p. 179) (Translator’s note)]
Estelle Soavi, Utomag N° 23 (in French, available online), February 2024, « Le combat » [‘The Fight’], p. 14
While the West has almost entirely converted to the shower, despite the importance the bath has had over the centuries, the East and in particular Japan seems to be taking the same direction. In spite of a renewed interest due to a fashion that has touched the young Japanese, it turns out that the elderly are, almost solely, the only people who retain an attachment to what could be called “an ancestral way of life”. In Seitai, what makes the bath special is that Noguchi Haruchika sensei had made it one of the elements of the terrain normalisation and it was part of the training for the uchi deshi.
Bain public Futarishizuka Hakuun. Photo Paul Bernas
Tsuda Itsuo senseï
It is Tsuda Itsuo sensei who, thanks to his books and especially in his fourth volume entitled One, introduced the Seitai hot bath practice in Europe as soon as the early seventies. A seitai technician, who had studied and worked with Noguchi Haruchika sensei during more than twenty years, he started as soon as he arrived from Japan to make known what he translated by the Regenerating Movement: Katsugen Undo.
It was already a bit of a revolution to make a little group of French and Swiss people experience this “exercise of the involuntary system”, to have them admit that it was possible to practice – as he recommended – ‘with no knowledge, no technic, no aim’, but Tsuda sensei did not stop there. He started a long work of education, but also of clarification, which encouraged students to think and experiment by themselves instead of following beaten tracks, ideas or protocols. At the beginning, to concretise this immense work, he published booklets of a few photocopied pages which we used to call “Mr Tsuda‘s notebooks”. It is these notebooks, which we would discover more or less every month, which later became the chapters of his books.
It is on the occasion of a Regenerating Movement workshop, during one of his conferences he would call ‘little causeries,’ that he started to talk about the hot bath. We had no idea of what he taught us, many of us visualized something that was closer to a sauna or hammam. As usual with what he would make us discover, it took him years to get his message through. To admit that a bath did not merely consist in washing oneself to be clean but could have other qualities, as well as other consequences, did not appear to us, young French people, as something obvious.
The bath in daily life
‘Seitai, the normal terrain, means that we constantly maintain the feeling of well-being we have after a hot bath’ 1Tsuda sensei used to tell us. To apprehend Seitai, I therefore had to discover this sensation, keystone of the understanding, and this would at least pass through the discovery of the hot bath!
In Europe, there are no or very few Sento2, Ofuro3, and even less Onsen4, and discovering the Japanese hot bath was already not a simple thing, but understanding what makes the Seitai bath something special, that turned out to be a challenge. In order to have the chance to be introduced with simplicity to the art of the hot bath, one needs to know someone who has already had the opportunity not only to discover it, for instance during a stay in Japan, but also and especially to have made it a daily practice.
What difference is there between a “normal” bath and the hot bath, in particular in Seitai? In the West the purpose of the bath is often washing, or, at best, relaxation, rarely is it precise regarding temperature, but in general it is rather mild and one can lounge in it and stay in the water for a rather long time. In this kind of bath, the water cools down rather quickly of course, but this is not a problem because at the moment when we find it too lukewarm we get out of the bath and that’s it. One of the basic elements to understand the Seitai vision of the bath is obviously the hot bath as it is practised in Japan, and for a Japanese it is way much simpler from the beginning. But this is not enough because the Seitai bath has many specificities which distinguish it from the traditional Japanese bath. Noguchi sensei himself often regretted the lack of understanding his students would show when he gave conferences about the Seitai bath in which he explained its purposes and beneficial effects.
An abyss of details, particularities, divide these two ways of taking the bath. The preparation of the Seitai hot bath requires an attention, which we – many of us – have lost the habit of exerting, and which, for what concerns us, does not usually apply to the bath anyway. The concentration required for its preparation can from the start discourage many people who are no longer accustomed to making use of this capacity outside their work, or who only resort to it during their youth when they are studying. Many students show a lot of enthusiasm at the beginning, but they rapidly get tired of the repetitive aspect and often quickly find another topic of interest that better satisfies their superficial and light side, acquired in a world that often favours this aspect only.
The bath – user guide
It is almost impossible in France to have a ready for use bathtub, always full with lukewarm water, that we would only need to warm up, as it exists in Japan. The first move therefore consists in filling it with hot water, and according to the room temperature, the tension, the tiredness we feel, the atmosphere of the house, the quantity will differ to allow us, after adding a little cold water, to obtain the desired temperature. We do not a priori and peremptorily adjust the thermostat according to an idea or a protocol. The bath temperature is never an objective value. Although it is measurable, it still remains entirely subjective and depends on each person’s feeling, on their own perception when they enter the bath. It is a knowledge that expresses itself in the form of sensations, that builds up, and develops gradually as one discovers what the hot bath is. The first times, if only as a security measure not to risk burning oneself, it is necessary to dip a hand into the water to feel if the temperature suits us, but it is extremely difficult to know, even approximately, if it is right or not, the main thing, which is experience, is lacking. If one is not accompanied in this discovery it turns out rather difficult and often, the first times, the bath is somehow a failure, even though it was pleasurable, it relaxed us, refreshed us, and even invigorated us.
Tsuda Itsuo dans le bain
Temperature!
It is the first information we look for as a neophyte and I was no exception. In addition Tsuda sensei carefully avoided making it easy for us, he would simply write:
‘The sensation of heat differs according to the individual,’ 5
‘The hot bath causes the blood channelled to the brain to flow to other parts of the body, but the effects can be risky for Europeans, who are not used to it.’ 6
‘The bath thermometer, even if it is true and accurate, has the following defects: the temperature rises quickly but falls slowly; it only shows the temperature of one area of the bath. There is nothing better than a good sensitive hand.’ 7
‘What a lot of harm I would cause if, for example, I declared it essential to take the bath at such-and-such a temperature! We are flooded by rubbish science that removes any chance we have of exercising our ability to focus our attention and to feel.’ 8
My personal bath temperature is generally around 43°C to 44°C though it can, sometimes, still vary by 1 to 2 degrees higher or lower depending on the day. This, I could observe over the years when I was still a neophyte, because I would control each bath with one of the thermometers I had tested. I kept the one that seemed the most accurate and the closest to my sensation. I continued to verify the accuracy of my sensation with respect to the bath heat during almost twenty years, among other things by measuring the bath temperature when I considered that it was ready, that there was nothing to add, neither hot nor cold water. Even today each time I need to do a “technical bath” for someone of my family, I am particularly careful both to the temperature and to the way to enter or get out, as well as to the duration. For this, only one instrument, the concentration nourished by the sensation which is itself fostered by experience.
Experience
It is in the last two chapters of his ninth book Facing Science that Tsuda Itsuo sensei reports in a few lines one of the conversations I had with him about the Seitai hot bath before publishing two of my letters on the topic. The title of these chapters ‘Experience is the mother of intuition’ had at that time touched me very much and I am still moved and grateful for the trust he expressed towards me given the few words he wrote as a header and at the end of the text9.
Entering “this world of the hot bath” has not been simple and it would be too long to explain here all the processes, the experimentations, as well as the verifications I made during this period of time, on the way to enter, the moment to get out, as well as to find the right temperature, the one that fitted my body temperature at a given moment, and what the consequences were on my organism, my sensibility.
The starting point of my research on this path consisted in finding the way to stimulate my organism, so as to allow it to normalize. The hot bath belongs to the techniques used in Seitai to make the body’s terrain become more sensitive. I therefore started as an autodidact, and mainly on myself, by following the few observations and recommendations from Tsuda sensei. I needed a bit more than three years taking the bath every day, this means it was necessary to prepare about a thousand two hundred baths, not counting those I prepared for my partner, before reaching something convincing, something that allowed me to verify by myself that what I discovered was reliable, and that I could rely on my sensations, on my intuition. Sensei’s reactions and reflexions, which he made about the anecdotes I would tell him on this matter, in the morning or when I was driving him home after the aikido session, were particularly valuable to me. In this way I could check that it was valid and my master, Tsuda Itsuo confirmed to me his attachment to the development of this research by publishing these few lines on my experience in 1983.
Children
I had practised the Regenerating Movement and Aikido with Tsuda sensei for almost ten years, and my sensitivity had developed a lot, when Manon my first daughter was born. Thanks to my experience with the bath, I was ready to accompany her for her first bath after birth. Tsuda sensei writes about this:
‘The first bath after birth should be regulated according to the temperature of the mother’s womb, to which the newborn had been accustomed, so we begin at 37 degrees and go up to 38 degrees. The temperature can be increased by another half degree. We need to be careful not to clean the vernix all at once, that is, the layer of fat that covers the baby, for it continues to protect him after birth. It is better for it to disappear by itself after a week of soap-free baths, without too much washing.’ 10
I accompanied her as I later did for my other children, until their adolescence, an age when, having acquired the capacity through daily experience, they started to prepare their bath by themselves and for themselves. It is essential in Seitai, when one wants to use the hot bath, to do it in the respect of the biological speed of the individual, and especially of course for a child. Tsuda sensei explained to us that Noguchi Haruchika sensei, to solve the problems when his children were too nervous, anxious, had a cold or had to go through an infant disease, used the variation and modulation of the bath temperature, its duration, as well as the way to enter into the water. This is of utmost importance in the case of babies, hence Tsuda sensei explained:
‘What matters is not so much the bath temperature as how to dip the body in the bath. The decisive moment is when the baby is put in the hot water, because one is making use of the reaction of the musculature, produced by the body temperature change in moving from the open air to the bath water. The body contracts temporarily on contact with hot water and gradually expands. We must choose the precise moment, when induced relaxation is not yet complete so that contraction resumes, to take the baby out of the bath.’ 11
The vocation of Seitai is to allow individuals to live fully without having to worry about their health, to go through diseases, life accidents, to react in an adequate manner to all that directly or indirectly touches us. Restoring the body’s good condition, recovering a good sensitivity, all this starts early, very early. Acting so that children, as soon as they are born, can maintain the balance in the functioning of their body is not an easy task, the Seitai hot bath if correctly used can be of great help for parents who already know it for themselves and have understood how to use it.
‘The principal aim of using the bath with babies is to consume their excess energy. We think of feeding a baby but rarely think of making him consume his excess energy; it is almost as if he were a bag and all we need to do is fill it with good things. As babies do not have sufficiently developed motor systems, they cannot expend their energy with body movement alone. Excess nutrition causes them to stagnate. There is nothing better than a hot bath to eliminate stagnancies and reactivate the baby’s body.
Therefore, the hot bath is a kind of gymnastics that affects the entire being, rather than a cleansing of the body.’ 12
Without a personal research in this domain it is impossible to understand what I am talking about, the concrete sensation of the bath itself, as well as the after-bath sensation, will always be missing. This knowledge cannot be only theoretical, else one could say this would correspond to knowing all about swimming without ever dipping a foot into the water, and intending to teach other people to swim.
In Seitai, to each situation corresponds a precise bath, if we are very tired, if we have eaten or drunk too much, if we are chilled or have caught a cold. There is no user guide, it all depends on the age, health state, the period we are going through and a thousand other details, all of which have their importance. In Seitai, there is no science of the general but only a science of the particular, Sensei would tell us.
Quiétude intérieure. Calligraphie de Itsuo Tsuda
A vademecum for the bath
Once again there is no manual that would allow to take the bath with 100 % guaranteed results, with complete safety and impeccable reliability. It all depends on they way to prepare it and on the state of mind. If one is presumptuous, or absent-minded, better not to try, else it is at your own risk! It is almost impossible and even dangerous to give advice to someone who is not used to the bath. It is most often the less competent persons who try to teach the hot bath “vademecum”. Presenting themselves as knowledgeable they discuss their ideas on the topic article after article, or on the social networks, give recipes supposed to solve all health issues, all difficulties. They even indicate all the so-called precautions that have to be taken with “The Hot Bath”, unfortunately forgetting most of the time some notions of utmost importance. The consequences can be serious, and accidents, even not severe, can sometimes turn out worrying for people who have no habit of the hot bath. Yet, it is most of the time a matter of having a bit of common sense and not playing the jack-of-all-trades or the careless pretentious.
The foot-bath
There are a lot of technical baths in Seitai: the leg-bath, the bath in case of food poisoning, the bath to eliminate an excess of alcoholic drink, the bath in case of brain fatigue, the bath to balance the baby’s nutrition, etc.
Here is an example of technical bath which Tsuda Sensei revealed to us with the purpose to allow us an approach of this know-how:
‘Foot-baths, whose principle I have explained, are starting to become widely used among practitioners. It is a matter of soaking your feet to above ankle depth in a bath that is 2 degrees warmer than a usual bath, which makes it unbearably hot for a normal body. After two minutes, we take our feet out and dry them. They have become red. When a person has a cold, one foot remains pale. We re-soak it in the bath, adding hot water before, until it also turns red.’ 13
When you read it for the first time you may think that the aim of the technique is to cure the cold whereas once more, according to the Seitai approach, it is a matter of stimulating the body to go through the cold, speeding up the bodily reactions so that you get out of the cold stronger and in better health when it is finished. This technique seems very simple, but if you reread the short text with care before starting you will realize that, though it is precise, there are a lot of unknown details which are far from trivial and require some thought before you make the attempt. Nevertheless you will realize later, after having made a lot of experiences, that it is not so complicated when sensitivity is our guide.
Régis Soavi en conférence
Seitai, a special understanding of hygiene
The vision Seitai has of hygiene is indeed different but more modern from a certain point of view, in spite of its anteriority, than the one disseminated in most media. A conception of cleanliness which meets not only ecology but also the leading studies on symbiosis, like those collected by M.-A. Selosse, which have led him to the notion of “clean filth”. Here are two extracts:
‘The reconciliation with the microbial world flies in the face of our codes of cleanliness.’ And offends ‘education and good manners. But here cleanliness (a social code) no longer overlaps hygiene (the medical practice which optimizes health). Yesterday, one thought wrongly that there was no hygiene without sterilization, which led to a counter-productive vision of cleanliness regarding diseases related to modernity like diabetes, overweight, allergies.’ 14
‘The hygienist theory then encounters the notion of “clean filth”: a certain degree of contamination is necessary for a good development and a good functioning of the immune system.’ 15
The hot bath in the first place affects the skin. It is important to realize that the skin is the largest organ of the human body, it accounts for 16% of its total weight, it is not just ‘a kind of leathery bag that contains the body’ 16, a mere shell with a complex makeup, it interacts with the environment and has vital functions.
The epidermis includes immune cells and that’s where you find the cutaneous microbiota, filled with billions of micro-organisms. The hot water stimulates the immune system of the skin without attacking it with etching or bactericidal reagents like those in shower gels or other detersive soaps. The heat stimulates sweating so much so that we even sweat in water, which facilitates the activity of the autonomic nervous system and the elimination of toxins and other impurities through the sweat ducts. Facilitating discharge through sweating also eliminates bacterial macerations and therefore unpleasant body odours.
Modern living conditions – work, transport, excessive mediatisation, thus stress of all kinds – cause tensions in individuals which are prone to make everybody sick. The suggested answer is often medicalisation. Against sleeplessness sleeping pills are proposed, against nervousness tranquilisers, to deal with apathy stimulant drugs, with depression euphoriants, etc. The hot bath as Seitai understands it is not a cure-all, it is an opportunity to regulate the body, a tool to retrieve one’s balance, one’s autonomy, thanks to the relaxation and at the same time the stimulation of the whole body. The well-being that one then feels comes from the relaxation brought by the energy circulating afresh, and from the clarity of mind one feels because the “head” is cleared of the concerns which accumulate in everyday life. One then discovers what it means “the sensation of after the hot bath” of which Noguchi Haruchika sensei and Tsuda sensei would talk, this sensation being one of the keys, one of the impalpable but major instruments for who wants to have an approach not only intellectual but more concrete and practical of Seitai.
The hot bath in everyday life
The hot bath is always a huge pleasure, everyone in the family expects it, when the time comes, no one would want to skip it, much to the contrary, the opportunity is so great and yet so simple, to relax, to recover after the fatigue and the tensions which are hard to escape from during the day. The children are never reluctant at taking it, all the more so if they know it since birth, but whatever one may think, it is more than a daily habit, for them too it is part of a rebalancing moment which they intuitively feel.
The bath often becomes an axis in the family life, a moment unlike any other thanks to which everybody gets together for this activity regardless of age or occupations. It is for example around bath time that rituals are renewed, as well as a certain type of communication between parents and children; it’s a moment when they can get together outside social contingencies imposed by society and its codes.
The bath is generally prepared in the evening, without haste, and everybody after washing comes to dive into the hot water. The ones to go first will be those who take it the hottest, for it is easier to cool the water than to warm it in the present conditions of Western urban life. Yet each person has her own suitable bath temperature, which is different from that of the others, even if the difference is very small, a few tenth of a degree sometimes, but the satisfaction of this need of the body that we feel requires an adjustment which is very precise, though subjective. Since the temperature of the water tends to decrease, one often has to warm the bath in order to get the satisfaction.
Sometimes also at the end of one’s bath, one gets out and adds some burning hot water which is mixed in the bathtub to prepare a “reactivation:” as the body has cooled down, when you get into the water again, the difference of temperature between the air and the water which the skin feels is all the greater, one stays just a few minutes and one comes out of the water again.
This method is well known in Seitai because it stimulates the organism much more and it can be used to help the body go through an illness or a little accident of daily life. Still, it is better not to do too many reactivations and not too hot ones, because if one thinks that in this way the reactions will be stronger and therefore more efficient, this is a mistake. Too much power often impairs the strength of the reaction that we had hoped for and it sometimes turns it into an opposite reaction. Everyone already knows his own habits, his own tendencies regarding the heat of the bath, but one is sometimes surprised by the bath one has prepared for oneself. That is why it can happen that even afterwards one should think to oneself: ‘ah, but today I really felt like a much hotter bath’ or ‘it’s strange but I need a relaxing bath these days, I take it really mild.’
Studying Seitai
The art of the bath was part of the study of Seitai for Noguchi sensei’s uchi deshi. The student had to prepare his master’s bath so that it was ready when he would come back after his trips, lectures or encounters outside home. This does not seem so difficult if one does not know the conditions the student had to face.
First he did not know when Noguchi sensei would come back from the visits he made in town because his hours were never the same, he did not know either if his day had been difficult or rather pleasant and so if he was tired, tense or relaxed. He had to anticipate the moment when he would be back to have time to prepare the bath, which in particular required at the time to fuel a wood stove especially designed to warm the water and bring it to the right temperature. He had to guess in what mood he would be, with no information at all, to know what the temperature of the water was without a thermometer. How could he manage?
Should he wait until Noguchi came back and talk with him?
Explain to him that the conditions he demanded were inhumane?
Appeal to the uchi deshi union, if such a thing existed?
Or give up everything “because it was too hard”?
All these reactions would be perfectly understandable, especially if you know what Noguchi sensei’s final recommendation was: the most difficult, the worst from a certain point of view, the student did not have the right to touch the bath water, even with the tip of a finger. That was so whatever the difficulties, the conditions, the need to check etc.
What was left for him to do? One single solution to continue on this path: use and develop his intuition.
‘The art of the hot bath in Seitai’, an article by Régis Soavi published in October 2021 in Yashima #13.
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Notes:
Tsuda Itsuo, One, Chap. XIV, Yume Editions, 2017, p. 105 (1st ed. in French, 1978, pub. Le Courrier du Livre (Paris), p. 103)
Japanese public bath
Refers to the Japanese bath but also to the bath tub
Japanese hot-spring bath
Tsuda Itsuo, One, ibid., pp. 104–105 (1st ed., p. 103)
Ibid., p. 106 (1st ed., p. 104)
Ibid., p. 109 (1st ed., p. 107)
Ibid., p. 105 (1st ed., p. 103)
Tsuda Itsuo, Facing Science, Chap. XIX & XX, Yume Editions, 2023, pp. 145–158 (1st ed. in French, 1983, pub. Le Courrier du Livre (Paris), pp. 140–152)
Marc-André Selosse, « L’Homme augmenté… grâce aux microbiotes » [‘Humans augmented… thanks to microbiota’], Pour la science Hors-Série [For Science Special Issue] n° 105 (pp. 58–65, available online), Nov.–Dec. 2019, p. 62
Marc-André Selosse, Jamais seul [Never Alone], pub. Actes Sud (Arles, France), June 2017, p. 186
Noguchi Haruchika, Colds and their benefits, Zensei Publishing Company, 1986, p. 105 (available online). (Compiled and translated from edited transcripts of lectures delivered in the 1960s.)
In the first part of this article on Niten ichi ryū, we traced bujutsuka and martial arts researcher Hirakami Nobuyuki’s investigation into Musashi’s art. His work on the almost extinct lineages of Niten Ichi ryū led him to discover the Iori lineage, which had preserved some characteristics typical of the koryūs of the Edo period. This discovery, which shook him up, led him to a better understanding of the kyokugi (lit. prowess, performance, art, ability), the potential of Musashi’s art. The very “Edo-Style” peculiarities of Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū make sense in a given martial system, in line with its era. We will now discuss some examples of these peculiarities.
Aikimitsu sensei, kamae of Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū.
Uchitachi is the teacher
In a koryū, unlike in modern budōs, uchitachi – the one who attacks (uke we would say in Aikido) – has a teaching role. It is essential that they give the right intensity and control the speed and rhythm of the kata. They must adapt their attack to the abilities of shitachi (tori in Aikido), who is in the process of learning. Gradually, uchitachi will modulate their attack to help the beginner to progress, to challenge her/him or to help the beginner work on a particular aspect. This role is therefore played by the teacher or an experienced student.
This is why, whenever Hirakami came to Akimitsu sensei’s dojo to practise Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū, the latter, despite being 92 years old, always put on a keikogi and practised directly with him. This way of doing things is the essence of the transmission from master to student in the koryūs (this has also been maintained in the Niten Ichi ryū lineages that were modernised after the war).
Tatsuzawa sensei teaching Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū
Omote – Ura
Just as characteristically, Hirakami discovered that in Ioriden each kata has two faces, an omote face and an ura face. Again, the meaning is different from Aikido, where this distinction roughly refers to going in front of or behind uke. In the Edo style of traditional koryūs, the omote katas refer to a basic version of the kata that it is essential for beginners to master. It is also this version that will be used in public demonstrations. In a context where it was vital for each school to keep its secrets, the omote kata was very useful. Sometimes, final cuts were added in order to blur the audience’s memory. Since it is easier for the brain to remember the beginning and end of a sequence, this made it possible to hide the decisive technique in the middle. At the same time, omote katas give the students the key principles, they do not actually hide them – they are, as Ellis Amdur would say, ‘hidden in plain sight’ 1.
The ura face in Japan means what is inside, behind, but also what is not directly visible. It touches on all aspects of Japanese culture: architecture, art, combat, human relationships, etc. For katas, the ura form can be a more pragmatic version or one with variations that are sometimes minor, sometimes quite significant. While the omote kata sets out the principles, the ura kata gives the keys to “open the door”. In fact, this is very much part of the ancient Japanese cosmovision since there is no black without white, no negative without positive, no yin without yang. It is a dynamic tension between two poles that nourish each other.
Again, the riai of the katas – their principles – are best understood when there are both omote and ura versions. In Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū, there are five two-sword omote katas and their five ura counterparts – so are there for the one-sword katas.
Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū places great importance on breathing. This is worked on through the five breathing exercises performed with the two swords and through rei – the salute. Each kata begins and ends with a particular way of doing the salute, working on the opening of the body at shoulder height and the suppleness of the wrists. While it is clear that the art of swordsmanship is often about breaking the rhythm, seizing the breath to get out of sync with it, to be able to do this you have to start by harmonising yourself. And to get in synchrony with the other, breathing is the key.
Maintaining calm breathing in order to maintain a certain inner calm, even in the face of a blade, was of course a crucial point. Breathing is the royal road to refocusing and staying clear-headed, not to mention all the benefits that a number of physical practices also make use of. So it makes sense in this martial tradition to have explicit exercises and postures that allow you to work on breathing and coordination.
Akimitsu sensei, aged 92, Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū
Transmitting with images
Lastly, the names of the Ioriden katas were also more classical, more in the style of ancient koryūs. Hirakami explains that, in the Santo-ha lineage, the names of the two-sword katas are simply the names of the starting guards (Chūdan 中段, Jōdan 上段, Gedan 下段…) whereas in the Iori lineage the names are more typical of koryūs in the sense that they are evocative. They evoke an action, an impression, the names speak through images – as in Zenga where the calligraphy evokes a poem, a kōan, a story that carries a teaching. The names of the katas in the Ioriden branch, for example, are In-bakusatsu (yin deadly coil) or Tenchi-gamae (heaven and earth guard). These are evocations, they are not literal. The same phenomenon can be seen in the names of the techniques of modern budōs such as Aikido, Judo or Karate compared to the names of the jūjutsu katas of the koryūs. We find more poetic names such as ‘taming the wild horse’, ‘blowing the ash’ or ‘stopping the ogre’ (examples taken from the Bushūden Kiraku ryū).
Tokitsu Kenji also wondered about names and how they changed from one school to another:
‘Why is it that when you go from one school to another, the same technique will have different names? The difference comes from the way the first master of the school visualized the technique in relation to an image. Some names can be more poetic, others more descriptive, but always the words convey an image. The use of ideograms can serve as a camouflage when the richness of an image conceals the precise meaning behind the ambiguity of multiple meanings. By following the threads that bind the specific quality of the image with the meaning of the ideograms that make up a name, the adept can grasp something that has a profound significance for his practice.
In the practice of the warriors, the value of a technique lay not only in knowing how to do it. As long as there was no name associated with a technique, it did not really exist and was not learned. Thus often the final part of a transmission consisted in learning the name of the technique that was considered the most important […]. The word seems to have had a mythical and even magical sense for the warriors of the seventeenth century.’ 2
Unanswered questions
To conclude this “investigation”, let us remember that the vitality of an art lies in this tension between evolution and tradition. For Hirakami sensei, it was thanks to his research into these ancient forms that the riai of this martial tradition became apparent and finally the depth of the kyokugi of Musashi ryū became more obvious to him.
Ultimately, koryūs take us on a journey that interweaves the life of a people and their culture, the jolts of history and the efforts to both preserve a martial tradition and keep it alive in a world very different from the one in which it was born. Evolution is inevitable, and at the same time a thorough understanding of the past is necessary. It is, of course, a question without a definitive answer, almost a kōan that each generation has to face.
It is therefore up to each follower to play their part in the chain of transmission, to rekindle the fire back from the embers and not just to honour the ashes. Today, it is up to us to continue this transmission, listening to the traditions while taking inspiration from this beautiful phrase by Jean Jaurès, which inspired our title, taken from a speech in 1910:
‘the true way to honour [the past] or to respect it is not to turn towards the extinct centuries to contemplate a long chain of ghosts: the true way to respect the past is to continue, towards the future, the work of the living forces that, in the past, laboured.’ 3
Throughout their history, all martial traditions have been caught in the tension between evolving to adapt to the world and preserving their past skills. It is actually thanks to the alternation between these two poles that a tradition can continue; followers themselves are divided between those who modernise and those who delve into the origins. We need to get rid of any idea of hierarchy between them in order to appreciate the necessary work that each follower brings to this dynamic.
An example of this can be found in Western music with the research carried out in the 1990s by certain musicians on the manufacturing of instruments during the Baroque period. Their research led to a qualitative rediscovery of a repertoire that had been neglected because it was difficult to perform correctly on 20th-century instruments. Other musicians, on the other hand, such as Beethoven and Liszt, pushed the limits of the instruments of their time and led piano makers to modify their instruments, thus giving birth to the piano of today.
Miyamoto Musashi was one of those who, in order to create his two-sword school, modernised a martial tradition by ‘a reorganization of existing knowledge of technique’ 1 coming from his familial jitte2 school and own fighting experience. For us, this development is a thing of the past. A past that, on the one hand, we must keep alive through practice and, on the other hand, is nourished by the qualitative rediscoveries of certain researchers. The aim of this research is to provide a better understanding of the riai of a given martial tradition – that is, of the coherence of its principles. With the developments and contributions of each generation, one sometimes tends to lose sight of the riai. This is precisely why there are times when some adepts turn to the past to rediscover the roots of a school’s principles. This is the kind of work we want to discuss in this article on Musashi’s two-sword school.
Of course, the legacy of Miyamoto Musashi – like, incidentally, the legacy of Aikido itself – is historically controversial, with each branch claiming to be more authentic, more important, more realistic, and so on. In the same way that each of Ueshiba O Sensei’s disciples received his teaching at a different point in the master’s evolution and passed it on in their own way, so Musashi’s disciples received and passed on things that were similar but over the years became different. Once again, instead of looking for a hierarchy between these schools, these branches, instead of looking for a single truth, we can choose to nourish ourselves with the completeness that these differences bring in order to make Musashi’s art something alive.
When we were lucky enough to start studying Musashi ryū with Tatsuzawa sensei more than fifteen years ago, we knew almost nothing about the world of ancient Japanese schools. We had already been practising Aikido for about ten years, but we did not know what we were getting into, because these schools are not just a repertoire of ancient techniques and archaic weapons, they refer to a universe, a culture, a “cosmovision” you might say.
Tatsuzawa Sensei is Professor Emeritus of International Space Law and Vice Rector of Kyoto Ritsumeikan University. Descendant from a samurai family, he studied his family school, Jigo ryū, from an early age, before becoming a 10th master of Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū and the 19th master of Bushūden Kiraku ryū. The latter is a 500-year-old koryū that includes jūjutsu, iai, nagamaki, bō, tessen, kusarigama, kusari-fundo, yari and chigiriki. A martial tradition rich in around 180 katas, which represent a genuine dive into feudal Japan.
As a 10th generation master of Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū, Tatsuzawa sensei teaches several branches of what is known as Musashi ryū: Sakonden Niten Ichi ryū, Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū and Santo-ha Niten Ichi ryū. These three branches correspond to three periods in Musashi’s life: Sakonden in his youth, Ioriden in his middle age and Santo-ha at the end of his life. In the Musashi ryū, this ensemble forms a curriculum based on the traditional system of transmission by levels – Shoden, Chūden, Okuden. Each level allows you to deepen your understanding of Musashi ryū by discovering a branch and its specificities (without confusing them).
Tatsuzawa sensei explained that his own master, Hirakami Nobuyuki sensei, had carried out extensive research since the 1970s to find the forgotten traces left by various students of Musashi, which had finally enabled him to gain a better understanding of the power of Musashi’s kyokugi (lit. prowess, performance, art, ability).
Tatsusawa sensei, Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū
Miyamoto Musashi
Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1642) is an almost legendary figure in Japanese popular culture. He lived at a turning point in the history of his country, at the beginning of the Edo period. Japan was emerging from feudal warfare and beginning to stabilise around a strong power, but also a very rigid social structure. Tokitsu Kenji, in the research book he dedicated to him, says: ‘Because of the extension of his art into so many domains and the way in which he explored the limits of the knowledge of his time, Miyamoto Musashi reminds us of Leonardo da Vinci’3. Indeed, Musashi was also a painter, a sculptor, a calligrapher, and left a written work that occupies an important place in the history of the Japanese sword. He wrote several treatises on strategy, the most famous of which is Gorin no sho [The book of five rings], a compendium of the art of the sword and a treatise on strategy.
Living at the beginning of the Edo period, before the Tokugawa family’s policy of closing and stabilising Japan, Musashi also seems to have been a pivotal figure, the bearer of very ancient martial traditions and at the same time aware of his posterity and of a very different future, where some guidance would be needed. ‘[The strategy of combat] as well as reflection on it constitutes the basic background of Musashi’s life and conferred on it several dimensions. It was his constant reaching toward creating an expression of his art in writing that gives a unique quality to Musashi’s work.’ 4
Hirakami5 Nobuyuki has been researching the martial arts and the history of science and technology in the Edo period6 since the 1970s, and is passionate about the various schools of Miyamoto Musashi’s successors. He recalls his early days when he was already practising kendo: ‘The first person to teach me Santo-ha Niten Ichi ryū was Komatsu Nobuo Sensei in Kobe, who lived near my parents’ house. I rode my bike there and we’d train at his house and in the park next door’.
Hirakami sensei was already a practitioner of two other koryū (old schools), Jigen ryū and Shibukawa ryū, so he was very intrigued by the fact that there were so few katas in the transmission he received from Santo-ha Niten Ichi ryū. Although it is true that Musashi was critical of schools that accumulated many different techniques, five katas still seemed very few to him. He felt that he lacked the elements to understand this martial tradition in more detail, which led him to look further afield.
The School of the End of Musashi’s Life: Santo-ha Niten Ichi ryū
The Santo-ha Niten Ichi ryū branch is transmitted by the students of Musashi’s last years and is the most widespread today. Hirakami had the opportunity to meet a shihan of this school, Inamura Kiyoshi, who had studied with Aoki Kikuo Hisakatsu before the war. He had therefore benefited from the transmission of Santo-ha Niten Ichi ryū forms that were prior to post-war modernisations and dated back to the end of the Meiji era. Again, there were only five two-sword katas, but Hirakami learned from him that the tradition of the twelve one-sword katas had been added after Musashi whereas the katas with only one kodachi (short sword) had been added by Aoki Sensei after the Second World War.
This encounter gave Hirakami a better understanding of the ancient forms of the Musashi tradition. The forms of the Meiji era were different from those developed after the war. By comparing both, he was able to see the additions and modifications made in the post-war techniques of the Santo-ha Niten Ichi ryū. The discovery that there were other, older forms was a first step in his research that encouraged him to continue.
The school of Musashi’s maturity: Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū
In the course of his research into the art of Musashi swordsmanship, one lineage in particular caught his attention. It was in a Kendo Nihon magazine special issue on Musashi that Hirakami discovered the existence of a living successor to the Miyamoto Iori lineage in Tokyo. A line passed on by Aoki Jôzaemon7, who had studied with a middle-aged Musashi. From then on, Hirakami went from surprise to surprise:
‘I checked the registers and, to my great surprise, there was indeed an heir in Setagaya (a district of Tokyo), as indicated in the old registers. What was even more surprising was that Akimitsu Shikou Sensei was 92 years old and still practising.
When I met him, I found that he had a clear mind and was able to perform katas with ease. But he had practically no students. He and only one other student were able to perform the kata of Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū. This student was the famous kendoka Kosan Yanagiya (master of traditional and sports Kendo, declared Japan’s Living National Treasure as a master of Rakugo8).
Thus and to my great surprise, Akimitsu sensei called Kosan Yanagiya and gave me a demonstration of all the Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū katas.
When I saw these katas I was surprised again. First of all because the katas were not performed with a wooden sword but with a fukuroshinai and the forearm was protected with leather.
Secondly, the katas were completely different from the Santo-ha Niten Ichi ryū, in terms of style, technique and spirit. It was a very particular and direct technique.
These katas, handed down from generation to generation, had a unique style and atmosphere that could not be found in Santo-ha Niten Ichi ryū. I was fascinated and wanted to learn this unique form at any cost. Akimitsu Sensei told me that he would be happy to accept my request for initiation and that I could come at any time.’ 9
Akimitsu Shikō sensei, aged 92, and Yanagiya Kosan
Note by the way that the use of fukuroshinai did not originate in Musashi’s time, but was a later development10. Here again we find the tension between preservation and innovation. Practising with fukuroshinai, although a modern contribution, allows us to get closer to the real fighting distances, something the bokken does not really allow; it also allows us to strike genuinely, without fear of injuring or killing our partner. What we have here is a pedagogical choice made by the masters of this lineage.
The School of Musashi’s Youth: Sakonden Niten Ichi ryū
Continuing his research into the lines of transmission, Hirakami was fortunate enough to find a copy of a historical document on Musashi’s swordsmanship, dating from his youth. It was a book called Niten ryū Kenjutsu Tetsugisho: inside it was clearly written ‘Niten Ichi ryū’ and it also contained a copy of Gorin no sho. What was original was that the book contained a description of nine two-sword katas with very detailed commentary. Hirakami then realised that it was a document containing specific technical forms passed down through the lineage of Fujimoto Sakon from the Owari region.
The content was fairly easy to understand, although very different from that of the Niten Ichi ryū transmitted in modern times – yet with possible overlaps with current katas transmitted in other lineages. The restoration of these katas took Hirakami several years and, after several unsuccessful attempts, nine katas were restored: five omote katas and four ura katas.
The “Edo” style
What Hirakami sensei observed as a result of his research was that these Iori and Sakon lineages had characteristics that he recognised as typical of the koryū of the Edo period, characteristics that have more or less been lost in modern budō such as Judo, Karate-do and Aikido. These characteristics were not kept in the creation of modern budō because they did not correspond to the Western “cosmovision” imported after the Meiji Restoration and reinforced even further after the war. Budōs were then built mainly on the model of Western sports. They were rationalised in terms of names, katas and dan systems. In the same way that modern Western architecture imposed itself on the building of hospitals, schools, airports, etc., this way of “managing” in a systematic way imposed itself on traditional martial arts.
In order to survive in a new world, on the ruins of ancient Japan, the transmission of the Musashi schools modernised by distancing itself from certain traditions, although none of these branches became a sport for all that. Nevertheless, they have also moved away from the “cosmovision” of the time which supported their transmission and allowed a better understanding of the set of principles that irrigated a particular martial tradition.
This is why it was so important for Hirakami to have access to the Meiji style of the Santo-ha lineage, the first step in understanding the kyokugi, the potential of this art. Going back even further allowed him to discover that the lineage had retained some very Edo-style peculiarities, peculiarities that make sense in a martial system linked to its era. In the second part of this article we will look at some of these specific features of Ioriden Niten Ichi ryū.
Hirakami Nobuyuki is a bujutsuka and master of several koryū. His research into the martial arts has been published in specialist magazines and books, including: Gokui Sōden [Secret transmissions], vol. 1 & 2, 1993 & 1994.
Articles on this research, in Japanese, can be consulted on his website.
Tokitsu Kenji also mentions Aoki Jôzaemon in his book Miyamoto Musashi (op. cit.), p. ?? (French: p. 255)
Rakugo (落語, literally “story with a punchline”) is a form of humorous Japanese literary entertainment from the early Edo period (1603-1868). Rakugo is said to have originated in the comic stories told by Buddhist monks. At first, rakugo was performed in the street or in private. At the end of the 18th century, theatres were built exclusively for this performance. The storyteller, kneeling in seiza, uses a paper fan and sometimes a cotton hand towel as props. These were used to represent a paintbrush, a sake jug, a sword, a letter, and so on. There is no scenery or music. [Footnote added by the authors.]
[Actually, this recent article by Ellis Amdur dates the use of fukuroshinai to at least 1563, during a duel between Shinkage ryū founder Kamiizumi Ise-no-kami Hidetsuna and a certain Yagyū Munetoshi. (Translator’s note)]
Mystification is the result obtained by someone who uses mystery to deceive others.
Mystique or mysticism has to do with mysteries, hidden or secret things. The term is mainly used in the spiritual domain, to describe inner experiences of contact or communication with a transcendent reality that cannot be discerned by the common sense.
O-sensei, a mystic!
No one can deny that O-sensei was a mystic; even so, was he a mystifier? His life, his fame during his lifetime, his now historic fights – notably against a Sumotori or against martial arts masters –, his teaching, the testimony of his students, all tend to prove the opposite. Many uchi deshi recounted how O-sensei managed to squeeze through the crowds in the middle of Japan’s overcrowded train stations, such as in Tokyo during rush hours. What was his secret, despite his advanced age? Practising an art like ours does not just give you strength and endurance, that is what you get after a few years of effort, and I would even say that it only lasts for a while, because as you get older it becomes difficult to rely on that alone. However, there is one area that I think is important to understand and to experiment with, and that is working through what is directly experienced and felt, from the very beginning.
The space, the Ma, must become something tangible, because it is a reality that is not theoretical, technical or mental. Rather it is like a protective sphere that adapts to all circumstances, far from being a cloak of invisibility or an indestructible armour, it moves with us, it is both fluid and very resistant, it contracts, expands or retracts as needed and independently of our conscious or voluntary capacity. It is not an infallible safety, but in many cases it can save our lives or at least prevent the worst. Too often, it has been turned into a mystical value, when it is only the result of a passionate and enthusiastic captivating work. It is a reality that we must never give up on, right from the start, no matter how unattainable it may seem. If there is one essential guideline that Aikido teaches us, it is not to oppose others head-on, to avoid direct confrontation whenever possible, and to use it only as a last resort.
The work that needs to be done is up to each of us, whether physical or philosophical.
Is Yin and Yang a trickery?
The Tao is not just an Eastern understanding of the world, but much rather an ancestral intuitive intelligence. It is intimately known to many people, and artists, poets, painters and others have sometimes been able to communicate to us in their own way the essence of the forces that animate it. Painter Kandinsky, although a modern European artist, was able to find the words that, even though referring to a work of art, speak to us as practitioners and allow us to visualise Yin and Yang:
‘As everything external also contains an inner meaning (more or less noticeable), every form also has its inner substance[…].
Form, therefore, is the outward expression of its inner meaning. […]
Therefore, it is evident that forms of harmony reflect in a corresponding vibration on the human soul.’ 1
It is through understanding Yin and Yang that we can see certain functions of the body and its movement more clearly, to put it simply, understand how it all works. Here is an approach that might help to clarify what I am talking about: the outer envelope of our body as a whole is Yang, and therefore the inside is Yin, as a whole as well. The physical aspect, the luminous side of people, their social aspect as well as the way they present themselves, communicate and relate to others, all tend to be Yang if there are no distortions. The inside, understood not only from an organic point of view but also from a psychic and energetic point of view, is Yin. There is, of course, no real separation between the two, but the complementary aspect leads to observe that it is Yin that feeds Yang, just as it is breathing in that allows breathing out and therefore action. Yin supports Yang, giving it its fullness; the strength of the body comes from the strength of Yin and is manifested through Yang.
All the strength of Yin needs an envelope, however malleable it may be from within, this envelope must also be able to harden in order to contain this force and at the same time prepare it to react, to act. If the power of the Yin is not contained, if it has no way of centering itself – because it would then be boundless and therefore without reference points – it runs the risk of dispersing without bearing any fruit. If the Yang is undernourished because of the poverty of the Yin, which is struggling to regenerate itself, or because of a separation between Yin and Yang caused by the internal hardening of the “wall” which both separates and unites them, then action becomes impossible.
As always, it is the balance between the two that makes them a single force. An imbalance in favour of one or the other creates the conditions for a general imbalance, which is the origin of numerous pathologies of varying degrees of severity, and of the inability to provide correct and rapid responses to all physical, psychological or simply energetic and therefore functional problems.
‘Every form also has its inner substance[…]. Form, therefore, is the outward expression of its inner meaning.’ (Kandinsky)
A healthy mind in a healthy body
An organism that reacts with flexibility and efficiency in all circumstances, whether in the face of human or microbial aggression, is an ideal to which we can adhere, or at any rate which deserves to be pursued. Aikido in our School, through the quality of its preparation at the beginning of the session based on breathing, as well as the way in which things happen during the session, helps to awaken the body as a whole.
To start with, the simple fact of breathing more deeply, concentrating our breath in the lower abdomen, and allowing this natural ability to develop at its own pace, increases the oxygenation of the brain and therefore improves the functioning of the cells and the communication between them. From there to saying that we become more intelligent is a step I do not want to take, because intelligence depends on many factors and is difficult to measure, even with today’s scientific methods. I would prefer to classify intelligence as a quality of the human brain, the use of which is sometimes surprising. But if each of us simply notices that they move better, think better and faster, that it becomes more difficult to deceive or trick them with tempting proposals or arguments based on fallacious reasoning due to lack of reflection, that is already a big step. It can also be in part a way out, even a relative one, from the world of stupidity and falsehood that rules our planet.
Discovering for ourselves; experience rather than belief
When it comes to strength, we tend to talk and see things in terms of quantity, rather than quality. As a martial arts enthusiast, I remember that at the very beginning of the craze in the late 1960s and in the 1970s, we eagerly consulted articles explaining how to achieve maximum effectiveness with minimum muscular strength. How, thanks to speed, positioning, posture, technicality, and also muscular strength, which was not the most important thing, but had to be present and, above all, well directed, we could achieve results that could be astonishing. In Karate, Kung-fu, Jiu-jitsu or any other martial art, there were plenty of examples.
These magazines mentioned all sorts of oriental meditations that could give incredible abilities to those who practised them. Although very often grossly exaggerated, the core truth of techniques, postures or meditations is now being recognised, analysed and theorised by researchers in mathematics, the humanities and cognitive sciences. This recognition, even if in the interest of doing justice to these practices, remains purely intellectual. Instead of leading to concrete physical research and allowing everyone to benefit from it, it provokes weariness or a mental over-heating, which risks rendering useless the efforts made by some practitioners to follow a slightly different path with the help of able and wise teachers.
It is through experience in practice that we discover what no text could have given us. Ancient texts, and sometimes even more recent ones, have an undeniable value, and often serve as a guide or reveal our discoveries afterwards. Their ability to put into words, to explain what we have felt, to reveal an experience that “speaks” to us, can be a precious help. What would I have done had I not been guided by the books and calligraphies, kinds of koans, of my master Tsuda Itsuo?
Making “ONE” with the utmost simplicity.
Promoting quality rather than quantity
We live in a world where the accumulation of goods, commodities, knowledge and security is the rule. Thanks to artificial intelligence (A. I.), we are presented with an “augmented human”, as in the transhumanist project. Is it because today’s human beings can no longer find their way, because values have changed? Or because, disillusioned with their immediate and global environment, they no longer have a taste for anything but the superficial and have lost both the sense of and interest in the slow and the profound? Already at the end of the last century, in the 1980s, conductor Sergiu Celibidache, during a conducting course in Paris that I was fortunate enough to attend, complained that there were no longer any great symphonic movements written in a “largo” tempo: ‘everything has become faster’, he said.
Aikido has preserved from the past the values of humanity, respect for others and sensitivity, making it a quality tool for rediscovering what makes human beings sensitive and not robots. However perfected it may be, this “augmented human” will at best be a pale imitation, a substitute for what each of us can be and above all of what we can become.
Rebellion is not denial
Rebellion is an act of health both for our physical body and for our mind. Its salutary importance should not be overlooked. If we practise an art like ours, it is not by chance. If the intelligence of this “discipline” has appeared to us, it is because something in us was ready, even if we did not know it – by which I mean: even if we were not aware of it. If we trust the reactions of our physical body instead of being afraid of them, we can start again to understand the logic of its reactions. Again, this is not about old wives’ beliefs, about going backwards, about obscurantism. It is a question of another kind of knowledge, one that is known to everyone, but not recognised in its fullness because it is disturbing.
When there is an infection, an illness, or any other dysfunction that obviously bothers us, our body spontaneously rebels, trying in every way to solve the problem, to regain the lost balance. It raises its temperature, calls on its reserve weapons such as antibodies of all kinds, as well as on its friends with whom it is in symbiosis – antibiotic-producing bacteria, macrophage viruses, and so on. This healthy revolt can sometimes turn out to be violent and rapid, but in reality most of the time it starts very gently, slowly, we may not even notice it at first. Other times it is resolved before we are aware of the reaction, and here again it all depends on the state of the body, and despite everything it may be necessary to support the nature that is working within us. Here, everyone takes responsibility. If you have been capable of taking care of your body, letting it work on all the little problems without forcing it, leaving it free to express itself as it wishes, not much will be needed to give it a helping hand; sometimes all you need is a bit of rest, or the occasional help of competent people. It is upstream that we need to consider what is going on in our bodies; a healthy reflection on life, its movements and its nature can only do good.
What is fascinating about Aikido is to rediscover the traces left by our old masters, to see how each of them made this art their own, to create their own life. There is no point in copying them, it is better to learn from their postures and their writings. Find companions who can help you practise in a healthy way, where your intuition is awakened, where your body becomes as supple, agile and fearless as it was in childhood, and where you regain what you should never have lost: a certain valour.
Aikido is not a trampoline on which one exhausts oneself jumping, constantly perfecting one’s technique, but always falling back to the same spot due to gravity. It is a formidable path where the difficulties are proportioned by the very nature of the path, by our abilities at the time, by our perseverance and our sincerity. Doors open which lead us to a finer awareness and sometimes even to a jubilant state when the sensations that run through us become “ONE”2 with our physical performance devoid of all pretension but close to the maximum simplicity. As I saw the joy and ease with which certain teachers practised, and the results of the research and simplicity of many of the masters I knew, my desire to reach their level, or at least to come close to it in this life, grew.
The old masters, each with their own method, guided us towards what we are deep within ourselves. But the work that needs to be done is up to each of us, be it physical or philosophical. Everything always depends on us, even if we have been deceived by false prophets or boastful charlatans who are ready to do anything for the crumbs of power they can get from their deceptions. If we look at the achievements left by our predecessors on this path, if we know how to use their teachings, if we know how to recognise them without making idols or saints of them, we will see that the path, however arduous and obscure, is not so difficult. A lifetime is not enough to discover it, but life is enough by itself if you live it to the full.
Régis Soavi
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Article by Régis Soavi published in July 2022 in Self & Dragon Spécial Aikido n° 10.
I started Judo-jujitsu, as it was called at the time, in 1962 and our teacher presented it to us as “the way of suppleness”, the use of the opponent’s strength. I was nearly twelve years old and I loved the techniques, the imbalance, the falls, which could also be a way of overcoming the technique we had undergone. Our instructor used to talk to us about hara, posture, and we knew that he himself was learning Aikido and that he had the rank of “black skirt”, which was very impressive for us. The events of 1968 turned me towards street fighting techniques, kobudō, and different tactics. However, in 1972 I wanted to take up judo again, and I signed up with Plée sensei on rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève. You could practise judo, karate or aikido for the price of a single membership fee, which was ideal for training. But judo had changed: weight categories, working on a special to win a fight – I was very disappointed. One evening after the session I stayed to watch Aikido, Maroteaux sensei was leading the session and I was immediately won over.
In Aikido I have found much more than an art, I have found a very rich “Path” which, like any other path, only needs to be explored further. Each day’s session allows me to discover a new aspect, to feel that I can go much further, that I am just on the edge of something much broader, as if an ocean were opening up before me. Beyond the pleasure I get from it, I think it is important to bear witness to its existence.
Which aspect speaks to you most: martial, mystical, health, spirituality?
There is no separation for me between all these things, they are interdependent.
Why are you creating dojos rather than practising in gymnasiums?
I understand your question, it would be so much easier to use existing facilities – nothing to do, not even cleaning, everything would be taken care of by the management. We would be entitled to complain if it is not clean enough, to grumble if something is not right, and in any case we would just be temporary passers-by. For me, on the other hand, the dojo is of crucial importance. Firstly, because it is a dedicated place and therefore provides a different atmosphere, free from the constraints of the authorities, a place where you feel at home, where you have the freedom to organise yourself as you wish, where you are responsible for everything that happens. Being put into this situation is what makes us understand what a dojo is, it changes the game, it allows a practice that goes beyond training and leads individuals towards autonomy and responsibility. But the main reason is that from the perspective of KI the place becomes charged, in the same way as an old house, an ancient theatre or certain temples. This charge allows us to feel that another world is possible, even within the one we live in.
You set up several dojos and other venues as soon as the 80s. The Floreal Garden1 – a place for children –, then several painting workshops, as well as a music school – Music in the bushes2. Why all these places? What do they have in common?
My desire has always been to encourage the freedom of bodies and minds, with the aim of bringing them together. To be successful, this work requires a very broad vision, free of ideology, free of mind-numbing systems, free of competition, always in search of sensitivity – which seems to have become a disease or a defect in our society – and spontaneity – among other things. To create a kindergarten to provide the basis for an education in freedom, thereby encouraging non-schooling; to create “painting-expression workshops”3 in the spirit of Arno Stern’s work, which are like bubbles and liberate human beings from the neurotic sclerosis that surrounds them; to give adults and children the chance to develop a passion for music – particularly classical music – thanks to a notation known as “plain music”4, which allows them to play immediately and to discover the pleasure of playing without having to endure the rigidification of the mind and body organised by the specialists of music theory and music teaching in general. All in the service of the human being and the possibility of harmonious development of body and mind.
Régis Soavi has been teaching every morning for over forty years. Tenshin Dojo, Paris
You cultivate a position of non-master, do you not? By being both the sensei, the one who shows the way, the one who takes responsibility for teaching, and at the same time an ordinary member of the association, who takes part in the day-to-day tasks and worries as much about the heating as about a leak or DIY.
I can see that you understand my position very well. This attitude is a necessity for me, there is no question of me losing myself, abused by a false power that I would have acquired by taking advantage of subterfuges and pretence but which would flatter my ego. My search in this direction stems from Non-Doing and concerns all aspects of my life. It is and has been a long and hazardous process, ‘without fixed reference’ as Tsuda sensei wrote5. This orientation is an instrument, an essential tool to enable the members of the associations to move towards their own freedom, their own autonomy through the activity in the dojo. To sum up my thoughts, I would like to quote a 19th century philosopher whom I have appreciated for a very long time and whose importance has always seemed to me to be undervalued in our society:
‘No man can recognize his own human worth, nor in consequence realize his full development, if he does not recognize the worth of his fellow men, and in co-operation with them, realize his own development through them. No man can emancipate himself, unless at the same time he emancipates those around him. My freedom is the freedom of all; for I am not really free – free not only in thought, but in deed – if my freedom and my right do not find their confirmation and sanction in the liberty and right of all men my equals.’ 6
What was Tsuda Itsuo like and what struck you about him?
He was a man of great simplicity and at the same time great finesse. The fact that he also spoke and wrote French perfectly allowed us to communicate in a way that I could not find anywhere else with a Japanese master. He was also an intellectual in the best sense of the word; his knowledge of the East and the West enabled him to get across a certain type of message about the body and freedom of thought, particularly in his books, which is still unequalled today. He met Ueshiba Morihei in 1955 as Nocquet sensei’s translator and began practising in 1959, when he was already forty-five. He was his student for ten years, but as he was already a Seitai practitioner and translated O-sensei’s words for French and American foreigners, he was able to grasp the depth of what he said as well as the importance of posture, mind and above all breath (Ki) in the first part of Aikido, which seems to have been forgotten today – to my great sadness.
How can one find the balance between teaching and personal practice?
Quite simply, I have been practising Aikido for fifty years, every morning at 6.45am for an hour and a half, 365 days a year. Of course, I also practise Katsugen Undo (which Tsuda sensei translated as Regenerative Movement) there too – I could say – every day, if only, at the very least, through the Seitai hot bath7. As far as teaching goes, I have workshops about once a month, whether in Paris, Toulouse, Milan or Rome.
Have there been any changes in your practice or teaching?
Of course! How could it be otherwise? If we practise sincerely, the practice extends to all aspects of our lives. I find it hard to understand people who have given up or go in search of other arts because they find Aikido repetitive. Is life, when fully lived, repetitive? Every moment of my practice provokes changes, evolutions and even upheavals that have led me to question myself and go deeper. This is what gives me joy in my Aikido practice. Even the most difficult moments, and perhaps those more than others, have been vectors of transformation and enrichment.
Your master, Tsuda Itsuo, once gave you a koan, did he not?
Yes, but I find it difficult to tell the exact circumstances. First of all, I must explain that Tsuda sensei knew how to talk to people’s subconscious. Whenever he did this, it was a way of giving them a helping hand, but he hardly ever spoke about it. He said that Noguchi sensei did it routinely because it was part of the Seitai techniques. One day, following a discussion, he said to me ‘Bon courage’, a fairly banal phrase, but the tone he used, obviously relying on the ‘breathing intermission’, overwhelmed me and made me react, giving me an inner strength I had not suspected.
Another time it was more important because it was then that he gave me the koan. As I was telling him about my difficulties with work (how to earn a living for my family and myself, etc.) and how to find a way to continue practising, or even to set up a dojo since I was going to leave Paris for a few years and be 800 kms away, he began by explaining to me that in the Rinzai Zen school (I had just read The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-chi8 and he knew it) the master gives his disciples koans they have to solve. Suddenly he said to me ‘Impossible’, ‘here you go’! Then he left quickly, leaving me stunned and completely dumbfounded. I have to say that at first I thought it was absurd and ridiculous. He had already given me a direction for my practice some time before, when he specifically chose the calligraphy entitled MU9 as a gift from my Parisian students. But this time I was shocked, I did not understand. Mu seemed to me a real koan, already known, listed, acceptable, but ‘impossible’ did not make sense. Why say that to me? It was over the years that the ‘answer’ became obvious.
What role does Katsugen Undo play in your practice?
Oh, it is of prime importance, but to answer your question, here is an anecdote. We were at a restaurant with Tsuda sensei, when Noguchi Hirochika – Noguchi sensei’s first son – who was sitting next to me suddenly asked me: ‘Katsugen Undo, what does it mean to you?’ My answer was as immediate as it was spontaneous: ‘It is the minimum’, I replied, and I have not changed my opinion since. Tsuda sensei really liked this answer and he used it in some of his lectures during workshops. The ‘minimum’ to maintain balance, to allow our involuntary system to function correctly so that we no longer need to worry about our health, no longer need to be afraid of illness.
Does Aikido without Katsugen Undo make sense to you?
Yes, of course, although it all depends on how you practise. It is just a shame not to take advantage of what can make us independent, of what can awaken our intuition, our attention, our ability to concentrate and free our mind.
You have been contributing to Dragon Magazine for many years now. What do you get out of it?
It allows me to get a message across and at the same time forces me to be as clear as possible about the teaching of my master Tsuda sensei, and therefore about our school. It is also a way of stepping out of the shadows while keeping things simple, without advertising or making a fuss. The fact that I regularly read articles by my contemporaries as well as young teachers brings me a lot and allows me to see and understand the different directions in which Aikido is heading and their reasons for being, even when I do not agree with them.
Is writing important in Budō?
Writing is always important because it is one of the bases of communication – ‘words fly away, but the written letter remains’. However, without real practice there is a risk that it will remain in the realm of ideas and only satisfy the intellect, in which case the target is missed.
Have other masters also left their mark on you?
I am lucky enough to belong to an era when it was possible to meet a large number of first-generation sensei. The 70s were very rich in this respect, and we went from training course to training course, listening attentively to their words and postures to get the best out of what each of them had to offer. I would therefore like to express my gratitude to all those who taught me, my master Tsuda Itsuo sensei, Noro Masamichi sensei, Tamura Nobuyoshi sensei, André Nocquet sensei, as well as those I had the opportunity to meet. I prefer to mention them in alphabetical order so as not to suggest anything about the importance they have had on my practice: Hikitsuchi Michio sensei, Kobayashi Hirokazu sensei, Shirata Rinjiro sensei, Sugano Seiichi sensei, Ueshiba Kisshomaru sensei, as well as – although I have never practised Karate – Kase Taiji sensei, or Mochizuki Hiroo sensei whom I met thanks to Tsuda sensei and who left an indelible mark on me. I cannot forget Rolland Maroteaux sensei, who was my first Aikido teacher and who introduced me to my main mentor: Tsuda Itsuo sensei.
Régis Soavi
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Interwiew with Régis Soavi published in April 2023 in Self & Dragon Spécial Aikido n° 13.
Notes :
[French: Le Jardin Floréal. The premisses of this Toulousian association, which was closed, were brought to life again in 2018 by Association The Edge of the Forest (Fr: La Lisière)].
[French: La Musique Buissonnière. “The bushes” refer to the off-road (buissonnier) places where children who used to play truant preferred to go for their learning – probably a preference for the shade and berries over the chairs and chalks. L’école buissonnière (lit. “off-road school”) translates as “truancy from school”.]
[Many English versions of the Rinzai-roku are available on the above link (French 1st ed.: Les Entretiens de Lin-tsi, Paul Demiéville, 1972, pub. Fayard (Paris))]
“nothing” or “non-existence”, a term used in Taoism to express emptiness
All aikidoka have heard of Ma ai, because it is one of the foundations of our practice. Unfortunately, talking about it and living it are two very different things. As it is known in all martial arts, it is easy to find numerous references to it.You can conceive this idea intellectually, you can write about it and develop a whole discourse about it, but “nothing beats experience”, as my master Tsuda Itsuo used to tell us.1
I will try, therefore, to explain the inexplicable through concrete examples or situations.Read more →
‘“Whether they are one or many does not matter, I put them all in my belly,” said O sensei’. With these words1Tsuda Itsuo sensei once answered2 one of my many questions about the practice, especially how to defend oneself against several partners.
Magic or simplicity
As a young aikidoka, I tried to drink from all available sources, and my references were Nocquet sensei, Tamura sensei and Noro sensei. But of course I also found them in the one I felt closest to: Tsuda sensei. In the early seventies, we were very fond of anecdotes about the martial arts, the great historical masters, and especially O-sensei Ueshiba Morihei. We would also go to buy the “super 8” films that were available in that temple that was the martial arts shop on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève (in Paris), fascinated as we were by the prowess of this great master. Although profoundly materialistic, I was not far from believing in something magical, in extraordinary powers granted to some beings more than to others. Tsuda Itsuo brought me back down to earth, because what he was showing us was very simple, but even so, it was still completely incomprehensible. I was already familiar with the techniques he showed us, but he did them with such simplicity and ease that it disturbed me, and only strengthened my desire to continue practising in order to discover the “secrets” that enabled him to do what he did.
His leitmotiv: breathing
The aim of group training is to lead us in the direction of Non-Doing.
When he spoke of breathing he meant the word KI, that was the translation he chose to express this “non-concept” that is so common, and so immediately understandable in Japan, but so difficult to grasp in the West. He explained that, when uniting your breathing with your partner or partners, you can achieve primordial unity. The breath becomes the physical support, the concrete act, that makes it possible to unite with others. It acts physically as a kind of gentle constraint on the partners’ bodies. We all know what I am talking about, it is absolutely no mystery. There are people who are able to make others feel uncomfortable, others who know how to impose themselves, impose their breathing, sometimes leaving the person they are talking to unable to utter a word. In martial arts – and this is particularly evident in the art of swordsmanship –, it is a matter of desynchronising breathing in order to surprise and destabilise the opponent. In many cases, the crucial moment is when the beginning of the opponent’s inhalation coincides with the end of the other’s inhalation, in other words the beginning of the exhalation. It is during this interval between inhalation and exhalation that you strike. This moment, known as “the breathing intermission”, is the ideal time to use your physical strength in a fight and defeat your opponent. In Aikido, however, the same moment is used to enter into the partner’s breath, into this path which is the path of harmony, where the aim is to unify the breaths and reach a common breath.
Practise with one partner as if there were several
Inner calm begins with knowing the techniques well.
In the beginning it is easier to practise with only one partner, but it is important not to become fixated on him or her, to remain available for other interventions. This availability is achieved through inner calm, which begins with knowing the techniques well and not panicking. Even so, it will take a few years to become calm in such circumstances, which is why you should not wait to start working in this direction. I would say that, for me, practising with several partners, more than a performance to be executed, represents a pedagogical orientation. Aikido is a whole, you cannot cut it into slices. It is a global approach to teaching, not a school type of teaching validated by grades and exams. Whenever there is an odd number of people in the group, we can take advantage of this to work in threes, but this will not be enough to acquire the right reflexes and the right attitude to adopt. Whenever the group allows it, i. e. when there are not too many differences in level, you can get everyone to practise in groups of three or even four partners.When both partners seize Tori together, and with both hands, it is Tori’s technique and ability to concentrate the power in the hara through breathing that will be decisive; the suppleness of the arms and shoulders will allow the energy, the ki, to circulate to the fingertips, and to spurt out beyond them, causing the partners to fall to the tatami. However, when working with alternating attacks, the greatest difficulty lies not in the execution of the techniques, but rather in Uke’s role.
Too often Uke does not know how to behave and waits for their turn to attack. My teaching also consists of showing how to position oneself, how to find the angle of attack; in this case I play Uke’s role, exactly as in the old koryū. I show how to turn around Tori, how to feel the flaws in their breathing, in their posture, and how Tori can use one partner against the other, I do this slowly so that Tori does not really feel attacked, but rather disturbed in their habits, in their mobility or in their inability to move in harmony. The forms of the attack must be very clear; the aim is not to demonstrate the other person’s weakness but to allow them to feel what is happening around them without having to look or fidget, but rather to develop their sensory capacity. They must not become attached to the constraints imposed by each seizure but, on the contrary, realise that these constraints can be an opportunity to go beyond the situation, even a godsend.
The value of moving
Movement takes on a very special value when there are several people around us. If you watch the traffic on a motorway at rush hour from the top of a bridge overlooking it, you will be amazed at how vehicles brush pass each other, overtake each other, slow down, speed up and even change lanes in a kind of ballet that is not controlled by any higher authority but, in truth, by each individual driver. You might expect to see a lot of accidents, or at least sheet metal crumpling in the space of a few minutes, yet that is not the case – everything goes smoothly. Of course there are accidents, but very few compared to what we can imagine or see from our observatory.
If you practise with several partners with the same level of concentration, attention and respect for each other as you would when driving a vehicle of any kind, because it is our body – and not an extension of our body’s consciousness, as can be the case with a car – it becomes much easier. I will say it again: it is necessary to have a good technique, not to be afraid of what is happening, but to be calm and confident, while being alert and aware of what is happening around us. The difference with the example I have just given is that the partners are trying to touch us, hit us or stop us, unlike the cars, which are avoiding each other. Just like the car, for example – which through anthropotechnics becomes like an extension of our body, whose dimensions we are aware of to the centimetre, even to the millimetre – it is now a question of seizing the opportunity to feel our sphere, no longer as a dream, an idea, a fantasy, an imagination or an esoteric delirium invented out of the blue by some magician or charlatan, but rather as a concrete reality accessible to everyone, since we are already capable of doing this in the car if we pay enough attention.
Then it is a matter of playing with this sensation, this expansion: as soon as the spheres brush against each other, they expand, retract, move constantly, responding to needs without having to resort to the voluntary system. It is the work of the involuntary, the spontaneous, as if the movements were done by themselves, precisely and with ease. It is then that one enters the practice of Non-Doing, the famous non-action, the Chinese Wu-Wei, it is then that what seemed mythical becomes reality. The aim of training with several partners is to lead us towards Non-Doing. This practice can take place in the middle of a crowd, in a department store on sale day, or on a more everyday basis in the metro for city dwellers. The game is to feel how to move, how to get around, how to manage to pass through the empty spaces between people.
O-sensei was a master also in the art of moving through crowds. His uchi deshi used to complain that they could not keep up with him in the middle of the crowd, when they had to take the metro to accompany him to a demonstration or when they had to take the train with him. Although they were young and vigorous, they had enormous difficulty moving through the crowds at the station, whereas he, who was very old and rather frail at the end of his life, was able to weave his way through the crowd with surprising speed.
The aim is to unify the breaths and reach a common breath.
Recreating a space around you
The art of blending into the crowd, of going unnoticed, can be a natural disposition, or a deformation – sometimes due to trauma – that leads to suffering: to be the person who is unseen, the one who is unnoticed, who becomes invisible. But it can also be an art, and it seems that O-sensei Ueshiba Morihei has excelled here as well. Sometimes it is necessary to melt away, to blend into a crowd for example, to fade into the background to go unnoticed. In this case, our sphere becomes transparent, but at the same time it remains very present, coherent, stable and powerful. It creates an empty space around the person that is difficult to cross, making it difficult to attack or even approach.
I had the opportunity to experience this during demonstrations with my master Tsuda sensei, but I think this was even more striking after the sessions, when we would have coffee or tea together in the dojo just outside the changing rooms where we could manage to clear a small area. There was a big low table and we would all sit around it, more or less huddled together, except for sensei. There was always a space on either side that seemed impassable, and it was not just respect that prevented us from sitting there. There was a very concrete, very real emptiness, solid as a rock. Tsuda sensei never seemed to pay any attention to it; he drank his coffee, chatted, told stories and then, after some half an hour or more, got up and left. But the emptiness remained: even if we sometimes stayed a little longer, no one occupied the empty seat, something remained there. This is what I call the art of creating an impassable space around oneself, an art that can hardly be practised, rather it is a skill that emerges naturally, that emerges when one becomes independent, autonomous, when one has passed the first stage of apprenticeship, or when the need arises.
The one and the multiple
The problem is not the number of attacks, but our ability to remain calm in all circumstances. Who can claim this, and is it not a myth? If the attacks are conventional or planned in advance, like a kind of ballet, one steps outside the pedagogical role of Aikido. It will be nothing more than the repetition of gestures that can admittedly be refined or made more aesthetic, but without depth. It will be a performance that, however professional, however admirable, will no longer be about Aikido, which, in my opinion, will have lost its value of profoundly changing the human being.
Article by Régis Soavi published in January 2021 in Self et Dragon Spécial Aikido n° 4.
(Translator’s) Notes: see also, by Tsuda Itsuo (Yume Editions):
‘Ueshiba. “I do not look others in the eyes; I do not look at their technique, their manner. I put them all in my belly. Since they are in my belly, I do not need to fight with them.’ (The Dialogue of Silence, Chap. XI, 2018, p. 94)
‘this is what Master Ueshiba said: “when there are a lot of people it doesn’t matter, I put them all in my belly”.’ (Heart of Pure Sky, ‘La Matinée des autres’, 2025, p. ???) ]
Tension and relaxation are the two most visible aspects of the human inner movement; like yin and yang they may follow one another, intertwine or overlap, but they are never totally separate despite the intensity of the reactions they provoke.
Our world offers us reasons for tension every day, which in itself is not to be condemned, as it is more often an involuntary function, even a defence reflex in the face of adversity. Human beings have a thousand reasons to tense up, but the tension that seeks to relieve itself very often provokes aggressive attitudes that lead to a snowball effect. It is then difficult to bring a little relaxation to resolve the situation. We try to get relaxation from voluntary processes, but very often it is even worse and the situation escalates. The more you try to relax, the more you reason, the more the tension increases – an escalation that seems to never end.
Exhaling at the solar plexus during a Katsugen undo session at Tsuda sensei’s dojo
Involuntary
Tension is merely a response to a given situation. If the response is appropriate, everything is fine. But very often it carries us to something we do not want and causes us to exceed the limits acceptable to others. At other times it causes blockages that make it impossible – or at least difficult – to resolve a fear or an internal conflict. In these cases, obtaining relaxation often results from a voluntary effort, rigorous training, a conscious overcoming of the situation.
In contrast to the search for control through willpower, Seitai has a relatively simple yet common-sense view of body movement, and I have often heard Tsuda sensei expound it during his conferences. In his book The Dialogue of Silence, he sums up Noguchi sensei’s thoughts on health in one sentence:
‘“A healthy body is elastic.”
This can result in considerable muscle amplitude, in other words, a considerable difference in muscles between the state of contraction and the state of relaxation. A healthy body is comparable to a new elastic band that lengthens and shortens easily.
This elasticity decreases with age. When muscular amplitude diminishes to zero, one ceases to live.
So death does not happen abruptly. We approach death through a gradual loss of elasticity.’ 1
‘When a movement is performed normally, the muscular contraction should stop after use of the muscle to make way for relaxation. If the stiffening persists in the parts in question, it is because the movement is poorly executed. This remark applies to all movements performed by the body. The ideal of Seitai is to maintain muscle amplitude to the maximum, that is, the gap between contraction and relaxation.’ 2
Encouraging relaxation during immobilisation
Is tensionless something inhuman?
There are adages that give food for thought, like this one: ‘Only the wise man, like a living Buddha, remains even-tempered at all times and assumes a tranquil posture that reflects the most perfect relaxation’. Is this true or is it, as usual, a misunderstood idea, a message that loses all its value because of its simplistic reduction? And who can make such a claim?
Martial arts practitioners are often looking for ways to remain calm, not to be overcome by fear, whatever the circumstances. Meditation as well as exercises designed for this purpose can lead us to some kind of serenity but, when you find yourself unexpectedly in a difficult situation, most often everything flies out of control, “one goes to pieces”.
Staying Cool
How do you stay calm and peaceful when a situation becomes perilous? The answer depends of course on the situation itself, but above all on the person’s Taiheki (postural tendencies) and therefore on their posture and their body’s capacity for movement. What is called Taiheki is the visible expression of the polarisation of vital energy at a particular location in the body, most usually an area including the Koshi and one or more vertebrae. This obviously has an influence on bodily habits and therefore can cause blockages as well as greater ease of movement, and affect the speed with which you take action.
Faced with a given situation, a certain type of practitioner will only be able to find relaxation through action: a blockage of energy in the third lumbar vertebra forces them to twist and act in order to spend it, whatever the consequences. Once the problem has been solved, even if they realise they have acted foolishly, they will relax.
Another one needs to think before she acts, she knows techniques to protect herself in the event of danger, but when she is actually in the situation she moves away from the scene – if she can – to remain a spectator. This detachment enables her to think critically and make objective judgements. Her energy is blocked at the first lumbar and third cervical vertebrae; it tends to rise to the brain but cannot easily flow back down. She relaxes because she is satisfied when she finds the theoretical solution.
Yet another one will be an excellent practitioner, a sportsman in great shape, but for him relaxation comes when he has calculated his shot well. He is ready and knows how to react, his techniques are sure and he dominates the situation. His energy is concentrated in the fifth lumbar vertebra, which pushes him forward.
“Solfège”, relaxation exercise before practice
Balance
Whatever our posture, our agility, our difficulties or our blockages, what we seek in our daily lives to maintain our fitness – and therefore our health – is balance, the ability to tense up when we need to and to remain relaxed when it is no longer necessary. The capacity for tension is favoured by relaxation, which acts as a regulator of human health. It is the alternation of tension and relaxation, fullness and emptiness that governs everyone’s life. It is our involuntary system – when in good working order and therefore capable of reacting – that will give the right answers to all the circumstances that may arise, because intuition – as philosopher Henri Bergson declared3 – is ‘a consciousness more and more wide awake and luminous’ and, when properly awakened, is the indisputable judge of the situation.
If we are interested in the inner development of the individual, the practice of Aikido leads us – and I dare say even forces us – to have a non-dualistic vision and understanding of the world in which we live. It allows us to rediscover the profound meaning of Tao as unity, to experience yin and yang as non-separate forces that run through the body. Whether we are contracting or relaxing, we can feel these forces as currents, biological flows carried by the muscular networks and animated by what we find difficult to define, but which each of us knows and recognises. All that remains then is to guide them so that they harmonise us and our partners in every movement and every technique.
‘Humanity probably began with such an intensity of life, as well as a large gap between tension and relaxation, between the concentration of energy and its dispersion, to be able to make its way with nothing but intuition. With the development of intelligence, intuition withdrew, giving way to logical, rational explanation and the imperative of order. The use of crutches multiplied.’ 4
“Back to back”, relaxation exercise at the end of the session
Exhaling
All Aikido sessions in our School begin with a breathing practice and, even more precisely, with a deep breathing exercise that was taught to Tsuda sensei by Seitai master Noguchi Haruchika sensei and integrated into this first part one performs alone albeit at the same rhythm as the others; a part that was very important to O sensei, that he practised every morning and that, despite the transmission by Tsuda sensei, Tamura sensei and many others, has disappeared from most dojos; a part that was forgotten for lack of knowledge or understanding, because it was very often mistakenly equated with a religious rite or a sports warm-up, when in fact it was a Misogi – in other words, a ritual of purification, of union with nature and at the same time of realising oneself as being part of a whole, of being both the whole and the part, without distinction.
The Seitai exercise works like this: seated in seiza, on your heels, you place your hands at the level of your solar plexus and, pressing lightly, you bend forward until you touch the tatamis, exhaling with your mouth wide open but relaxed, somehow a little like a child being ‘speechless’ in front of an unexpected gift. You then straighten up with the inhalation. This is in fact a kind of artificially induced yawn – because, as we all know, you cannot yawn voluntarily or even on command. Even if it is not spontaneous, this yawn has a profound effect on the parasympathetic system and causes a relaxation that can last for a long time or, at least for a beginner, for the duration of the session. You do this exercise three times in a row, quite leisurely, before continuing with the breathing practice, which will be punctuated by the alternation between inhaling and exhaling.
It is the amplitude of the breathing, and the fact of remaining concentrated on this act, that allows relaxation to follow tension, creates that possibility of not remaining in one or other of these states that block our actions and reactions, because of too much unspent energy or a lack of reactivity due to flaccidity.
Aikido loses its identity without relaxation
No need to look backward far away: if Aikido has had its moment of glory as a martial art, it is due more to the relaxed way in which our masters taught, the beauty of their gestures and the simplicity of their behaviour, from which the effectiveness that fascinated us when we were beginning flowed obviously. It was this attitude that touched us, much more than the tension, the abrupt or even violent gestures, or the aggression that manifests itself in many aspects of our social world or in war practices.
I believe it vital not to forget our roots, nor to deny what has always been part of the teaching of our art, but on the contrary to understand its importance, its power and its finesse. To guide new people, the generation of millennials, like the elders of the previous century, by modestly offering them what we have been able to discover and experience: the result of a practice that is as gentle and supple as it is intensive at times, but always in search of an understanding of the other, of a fusion of sensibilities, of relaxation, in order to always foster life.
This is the path I follow, this is the path of our School, this is the path taught to me by my master Tsuda Itsuo. This is the path that allows us to be in this world while living in another. This is how I can make my own the aphorism of philosopher Raoul Vaneigem:
‘In the irrepressible desire to live, the laws of a world that is not mine are dissolved and abolished.’ 5
From September 2023, in the Itsuo Tsuda School dojos in Paris, Toulouse and Milan, in addition to the daily sessions, a weekly Aikido session will be reserved exclusively for women.
A session for women, run by women, led by women
Perhaps it is important to make it clear from the beginning that this is not a new version of Aikido, or even a softer Aikido, and certainly not “women’s Aikido”, but “chosen non-mixed Aikido”, conceived as an act of “empowerment”.
In principle, it is not aimed at female practitioners who already know our School and who already come to the other sessions, although they are welcome to be Senpai or to help newcomers discover the practice. The aim is to allow new participants to practise Aikido in a way that respects their diversity, and thus to have a different vision from those spread by the various media, which all too often seek sensationalism, exaggeration and even vulgarity. We have all heard the words of a companion or friend who, after hearing us talk about Aikido, has said “no, no, it is not for me, it is too violent” or “it is a man’s thing”. Today, we need to present Aikido as a realistic way to allow women to rediscover “a self-confidence” that is often altered by the dominant atmosphere in the martial arts, and to assert themselves not as a separate community, but rather as a group that emancipates itself – a group that leaves behind a certain type of social relationship in order to try to find, find again or continue the path, “the way” – that is endlessly to be rediscovered – towards a simpler, more peaceful and thus more real humanity.
Proposing a separate session for women in a martial art as specifically recognised as Aikido is nothing revolutionary or new to us, as women have always been numerous and very often the majority in the Itsuo Tsuda School. But there is the danger that creating an additional session of this type will be so misunderstood by a large proportion of both male and female practitioners, whatever school they come from, that this innovation will be seen as awkward, disruptive, pointless and therefore counterproductive. I am afraid that this misunderstanding will not be limited to those involved in our art, because I am already hearing a lot of criticism, both in form and in content, which would have its own raison d’être if today’s world were really what it claims to be and not what it really is. In my opinion, this approach has become even more necessary in the twenty-first century than in previous centuries, simply because of the ideological modernisation of the mind, which would have us believe in a new, more equal normality when it is, in fact, nothing more than the reification of the old world.
When Barbara Glowczewski writes about the Australian Aborigines, she gives us the reasons for this need for “entre-soi” 1, which, in my opinion, has always existed, even if it has been hindered or disguised so as to persist despite societal disapproval: ‘If this demand for an “entre-soi” exists, it is because historically there has been a disappropriation, a dispossession of what belonged to them, or rather of what signalled their belonging, both in terms of knowledge and in terms of the land, they have developed over centuries, even millennia.’ 2
That says it all.
Why have I kindled and determinedly supported this project?
Perhaps because, since I have been practising martial arts for 60 years and Aikido in particular for 50 years, I have always been interested in the Yin side, which is so important in our art as an intrinsic part of the whole and which is so often belittled – just as the Ura side has often been devalued in favour of the Omote, seemingly so much brighter and therefore wrongly considered stronger, more “valid” in a scale of values that has been distorted for centuries.
Perhaps these aspects represent what I lacked or, rather, what I had difficulty developing naturally in me within this very Yang society, and which the teachings of my master Tsuda Itsuo urged me to seek out, to rediscover within myself. Surely it is also what I imagined I had to suppress or at least moderate in order to survive and try to live as I thought I wanted to, as society suggested. It is also thanks to my personal family life, with all its richness and above all its radicalism in relation to the social world, that I have been able to find my way into this universe, too often ignored by half of humanity, which is the world of the feminine – a world that is neither totally Yin, as some would have us believe at first sight, nor devoid of Yang, quite the contrary.
As for Tsuda sensei’s Aikido, it allowed me to grasp another dimension that went far beyond what I had been able to perceive in my initial approach to the martial arts. Already in 1982, for that matter, Tsuda Itsuo presciently wrote: ‘Aikido, conceived as a sacred movement by Mr Ueshiba, is disappearing to make way for athletic Aikido, a combat sport, more in accordance with the demands of civilised people.’ 3 He had this way of touching our sensitive points often with just a few words, of opening doors in our minds to make us (his students) reflect on the concrete, on everyday life.
An art that emancipates
Getting off the well-trodden beaten track, ploughed by the ploughshare of conventions and the heavy wagons ballasted with prefabricated ideas is, to be sure, a difficult job but this job is more than necessary.
The time has now come to step out of line, to take advantage of a state of consciousness that has emerged in the West thanks to the feminist movement, thus echoing the demands of previous generations, before new ideologues in the service of power – or rather the powers – confuse everything that is true in this emergence with a supposedly innovative discourse, recycling old worn-out refrains, mixing them when necessary with the ideas in vogue, at best thinking they are doing the right thing, at worst acting as lackeys of the dominant ideologies.
If Aikido is an art that emancipates the individual – and this is its main raison d’être in our School –, then it is necessary, indeed imperative, to open our eyes to the world around us. This emancipation, however, must not be limited. Even if it is sometimes painful to look things in the face, it is always very healthy to do so.
Observing our art being without any heirs and the consequent lack of interest it seems to arouse among teenagers and young adults – and very notoriously in half of humanity (the female world) – has become a matter of fact for a great number of male and female martial arts teachers. The most common response to recruiting new practitioners is to offer demonstrations of effectiveness and comparative trails between different trends, schools or different arts, or even to mix techniques from all over the world in order to create a melting pot that will – so we think – appeal to as many people as possible! What if the problem was not there? What if it was not at all where we are vainly digging and striving for a solution?
An emancipated person is an autonomous, independent, free person: this is the direction of our research. By creating spaces of freedom, places that are different by their very nature, we can make it possible for conditions that allow for the fulfilment of being to be put in place in a truly autonomous way. Dojos are such places. But who knows that?! The fear of finding the same conditions as in everything that surrounds them and “discreetly” oppresses them does not encourage women to enter one of our dojos to see what really happens there, disillusioned as they are by the unsuccessful attempts they have already experienced or by the falsehood of the often soothing, albeit socially acceptable, discourses. It seems to me that we need to create situations along the lines of American affirmative action, which I believe is wrongly translated [in French] as “positive discrimination”, and which was made possible by J. F. Kennedy’s initiative at the beginning of the 1960s. A new situation, a positioning of the dojos that allows women who, although attracted to the martial arts, do not want to face sexism once again (even if it is unintentional and kind). Allowing them to try – because they have their own relationship with their bodies, different from that of men, which for once will not be reproached or accepted in a condescending way – to find pleasure as well as efficiency through physical development in the movements, stability and balance in the harmonisation of breathing without ambiguity or complacency. As there is no competition, they can discover the full potential of their “being”, of the totality of their body and mind in an environment made safe by the non-mixed aspect. The martial side, which is not forgotten either, will allow them to rediscover their abilities and confidence in the face of adversity in a world dominated by masculine power.
Kᴜɴɪɢᴏsʜɪ Takako (国越 孝子)
An art which emancipates itself
Since Louise Michel and her fellow sisters during the Paris Commune, and even before them, since Olympe de Gouge at the dawn of the French Revolution, women have been calling for Liberty, Equality and Fraternity (or Sorority) for all without ever finding it, except for a few rare historical moments, and even then in a very relative way.
Now, what if Aikido were this driving lever that could change our society, the instrument that, by freeing itself from habits, preconceived ideas and the accoutrements that have been added to it, could once again become – or at least come closer to – the ideals of its founder Ueshiba Morihei, who saw the world as one big family?
O sensei insisted on the importance of the balance between Yin and Yang, on their alternation within Unity. Tsuda sensei always talked about Ka Mi breathing, which also alternates between breathing in and breathing out within Life. In both examples, they were actually talking about Tao, One. To return to this search for unity rather than separation, it is sometimes necessary to take a step back – as any good sociologist would do – to analyse what has brought Aikido to the impasse it is in today, when in the 1960s and 1970s it was considered to be one of the most important martial arts, both from a philosophical point of view and in terms of its physical aspects, accessible to all and everyone, regardless of age or physical form.
Tsuda sensei, like all of O-sensei’s students, had his own – very special somewhat – way of communicating what he had seen and understood in his master’s teaching. From the beginning, his research was directed towards Non-Doing. Not a young man – he was forty-five when he began practising Aikido with Master Ueshiba –, he discovered something that young Uchi-Deshi could not see or understand, as Tamura sensei explains so well4. In fact, Tsuda sensei did not teach, he passed on to us what he had discovered with the masters he knew, including Ueshiba sensei, Noguchi sensei and Marcel Granet and Marcel Mauss. This transmission made a deep impression on me and has been the guiding principle of my teaching over the years. It has enabled me to speak to both men and women, regardless of gender, age, level, physical ability, difficulty or even disability. It has also been an opportunity for me to improve my teaching and to insist on certain aspects in order to move towards the freedom and autonomy of the individual.
Aikido is about overcoming conflict: ai-nuke, it is about understanding how to deal with problems in society. Tsuda sensei writes: ‘Master Ueshiba’s Aikido, from what I sensed, was completely filled with that spirit of ai-nuke, which he called “non-resistance”. After his death, this spirit disappeared, only the technique remained. Aikido originally meant the path of coordination for ki. Understood in this sense, it is not an art of combat. When coordination is established, the opponent ceases to be the opponent.’ 5. It is up to each and every one of us to take control of this instrument, because it is in our hands that it can become truly effective, not through speeches but by serving as an example of the possibilities within our reach. By opening our bodies, we open our eyes to reality. Now or never, it is up to us teachers to allow our art, meant to be more clear-sighted, to be the art that surpasses the ancient arts, drawing on its origins, which are not to be denied but understood as the – certainly archaic – a bygone era.
By creating the necessary conditions to enable women to reclaim, at least in our School, what has eluded them and been missing for so many centuries, we are creating a context, an environment, an indispensable atmosphere, an essential framework, so that this work of reconquest can be accomplished. In a way, these dedicated sessions are merely a way of creating a situation of rebalancing that should extend to all areas, in the martial arts as well as outside in society, and primarily to every aspect of daily life. Kᴜɴɪɢᴏsʜɪ Takako sensei, one of the few female students at the Kobukan Dojo, recalled these words from O sensei: ‘Whether you practice the tea ceremony or the flower arrangement, there are points in common with Aikido, since the whole world (Tenchi) is made up of movement and calm, light and shadow. If everything moved and changed then everything would be complete chaos, right?’ 6
‘Aikido: an art which emancipates people, an art which emancipates itself’, an article by Régis Soavi published in April 2023 in Self et Dragon Spécial Aikido n° 15.
Notes:
[Editor’s note: The entre-soi (trans. lit.: between oneself) is the situation in which one is alone with one’s fellow human beings.]
interview of Kᴜɴɪɢᴏsʜɪ Takako by Stanley Pʀᴀɴɪɴ made on 26 Aug. 1981, ‘The Dainty Lady Who Lit Up Morihei Ueshiba’s Kobukan Dojo’, Aiki News n° 47, April 1982 (excerpt available online – at the very end)
Shisei is the reflection of the soul as well as the health of the body, both physical and psychological. It is the indisputable detector of a state, permanent or temporary, for those who know how to read the posture in the expression of its manifestation of life. ‘[P]osture is the product of unconscious movement.’ 1
Posture and involuntary
Modern scientific research has shown that, apart from problems of body or mental structure, illness or age, posture is most often the result of education and the efforts we make to adapt to our cultural and social environment. It is therefore through a mixture of the voluntary and the involuntary that we achieve the posture we desire. We must realise that, unless we become rigid, the involuntary, whatever we call it (unconscious, subconscious or autonomous nervous system), always takes precedence over the voluntary. However, it is often difficult for us to accept this, to be fully aware of it. The proof of our lack of understanding is our desire to correct our posture using the voluntary system, in the hope of compensating for a lack, an indisposition, personal suffering or for all sorts of other reasons, each of which has its own value in our eyes.
Our involuntary system is at the service of the life that works within each of us. It is there, among other things, to correct our postural difficulties and to help us maintain as natural a balance as possible so that life can continue within us. And this, sometimes, even at the cost of pain or deformity, if we resist its regulatory impulses and persist in refusing to let go, thus stiffening ourselves by fighting against it. It is therefore important to stimulate this involuntary system through exercises that, instead of endangering it or trying to dominate it, give it the freedom to do its job and bring us back into balance whenever necessary.
Katsugen Undo, introduced in France under the name of Regenerating Movement by Tsuda Itsuo sensei in the early 1970s, was exactly the answer that many of us martial arts practitioners were already looking for at that time to improve our posture. Of course, this was not the only method that existed, and some found in various disciplines or therapies means that allowed them to move forward without harm. But it was obviously not within everyone’s reach, either financially or in terms of the commitment it required in continuity, endurance or time.
Tsuda Itsuo introduced Katsugen Undo to France in the early 1970s.
This method of activating the involuntary, Katsugen Undo, discovered by Noguchi Haruchika sensei, has been practised by thousands of Japanese people for over half a century. Because of its simplicity, its philosophy and the very low cost of initiation and membership, not only it is an activity that is not only accessible to everyone but, above all, it is of great help to everyone thanks to its ability to solve numerous postural problems by activating the involuntary system. It is an opportunity for anyone who wishes to find their own independent path to health. A large number of researchers, doctors and shiatsuka who had focused their research on the benefits of a flexible, strong and healthy posture, leading individuals towards autonomy and independence in the management of their own health, visited Noguchi sensei to make contact and exchange their points of view and even their techniques, such as Moshe Feldenkrais, whose method is well known in France, or Kishi sensei, who developed his own technique under the name of Sei-ki.
Breath
Not so long ago, a mirror was placed in front of the mouth of a dying person in order to determine whether there was still a little life left or whether death had already come. This method, although primitive, gave an indication, albeit a relative one, but it clearly showed the importance attached to breath, to respiration, and thus to this manifestation of the life of the person in front of whom it was placed. Today, the mirror is no longer enough, we test brain activity in the hope of not being mistaken about the person’s ability to return to a normal life, in any case we have applied the imposed protocol, we have put the machines into operation, so we are legally protected. Breath, however, is something very different from lung breathing, because it carries a much greater energy, although few people are aware of this or recognise it.
Breath is the food of the posture, simply because of its internal composition, the visible and invisible elements it carries. Who can believe in a strong posture, in the real power of a person, when you can see that their breathing is blocked? You will not expand your breath with exercises, these will – perhaps – simply free the psyche, calm the spirit, so that the Ki can circulate freely again in this finally tension-free body.
Posture: personal well-being
The search for a posture at all costs entails risks for the body, especially when the proposed techniques include exercises designed to stiffen it in order to conform to an idea of the body publicised today by social networks. Images and representations play an increasingly important role in everyday life, to the detriment of a simple reality that is considered unattractive. The postures that emerge from the presence of the Old Masters are less and less attractive, because they are too often misunderstood and seem to be hidden from most people. It is only after many years of practice that the inner eyes open to reveal to us what we might have seen, had we not been blinded by the spectacle of the world.
When Tsuda sensei writes to give us a better understanding of O-sensei Ueshiba, he always does so in a special way, and it seems important to me to find the testimonies of masters who, like him, knew the founder of Aikido:
‘Through my contact with him, which lasted for over ten years, I acquired an image of him that differed completely from the commonly accepted image of an athlete.
[…]
I never saw him do the slightest muscle-strengthening type of exercise in all the time that I knew him. However, I often saw him do the norito, a ritual incantation, which put him in communication with the gods. It was a religious practice unrelated to sports or athletics.
One day when I was visiting him in Iwama, at his country retreat, he said: “Between fifty and sixty, I had extraordinary strength. Now I don’t have much strength any more, and it is already difficult even to carry a bucket of water. On the other hand, I understand Aikido much better than I did then.”
Who in the West would accept the idea of an athlete who no longer has physical strength, who spends his day in religious practice and who, nevertheless, is capable of extraordinary feats? In any case, I saw no inconsistency, and accepted him as he was. I was fascinated by his posture, his gait. With him, everything was natural, simple, without the slightest unnecessary gesture, without ostentation or pride. All around him I sensed an entire (albeit invisible) landscape of serenity and fulfilment. I, an uncouth clown, could not resist the pleasure of seeing him every morning, and I rose at four o’clock for ten years, until his death.
He swept away all my petty cares about social life.’ 2
Régis Soavi, reciting the norito at the start of the session.
The Center
A good balance, a good Shisei, requires a good, well-positioned centre, but how do you find it, maintain it and keep it? Tsuda sensei recounts3 that during the meditation that O sensei called “Ka-Mi” (meditation practised standing at the beginning of the session), he would say to his students: Ame-tsuchi no hajime “put yourself at the beginning of the Universe”. Today, it has become very difficult to propose such an image, which runs the risk of not being understood, or of being understood only literally, which amounts to a purely mental understanding when this is something completely different. Only experience can lead us to the realisation of this centre. We must go to the heart of our sensibility, be without thought, be truly present “here and now”. Science has broken this simple relationship with our environment, with what we can feel, we no longer even know who we are or where we are.
It seems to me that there was a time when the human being did not ask themselves any more questions about their position in the universe than were necessary for them to live their daily life. Space, planets and constellations were of little importance, except for what directly affected their daily life, agriculture, the weather, the movement of animals and their reproductive cycles. The knowledge of astrology was aimed at the human being and what was around them. Where they were became the centre of their life and therefore of their universe. It was thanks to this that they felt part of a world, “their world, their cosmos”. Science has expanded our concept and perception of the universe, which is all well and good, but the result is a destabilisation of our reality.
The living being felt themselves at the centre of the planet, “their earth’, wherever they were, wherever they lived. Then came the onset of mental disorganisation. Although it was necessary for them to escape the religious oppression of the Middle Ages, it came as a shock, followed by upheavals that were to become increasingly disturbing. First they were taught that the Earth was round like a ball, then that it revolved around an axis, then that it revolved around the Sun and finally that the Sun was at the centre of the solar system. The human being then found themselves off-centre, no longer the centre of a universe but cast outwards. As if that was not enough, they learnt that the solar system was part of a gigantic galaxy, the Milky Way, a white trail that they could see in their sky, that the solar system itself was in competition with other solar systems, black holes and so on. But here again they found that they were not the centre of this galaxy, but rather on one of its outer edges, a sort of horn of stars in a distant periphery. Even more recently, it was discovered that this galaxy is almost nothing compared to the billions of billions of billions of galaxies that are known, or simply guessed at, or conceptualised through the art of mathematics. The human thing has found itself very small, insignificant even in the face of all that surrounds it.
The question remains: how to find, to retrieve your centre in these conditions?
Ameno-minaka-nushi
At the beginning of the Aikido session, right after the funakogi undo, the “rowing movement” as O sensei’s young students called it, comes a kind of meditation in movement, but very slow at first, tama-no-hireburi “the vibration of the soul”. It is practised with the hands clasped, in front of the Hara, the left hand on top of the right. The hands are made to vibrate, not excessively, but regularly. One of the peculiarities of this meditation is that it should be done during a single inhalation, which should be very, very slow. This exercise should be repeated three times, each time slightly accelerating the rhythm of the vibration. It was just before this practice that O sensei would make evocations, invoking aloud the names of the Kami that Tsuda sensei passed on to us in the last years of his life. For me, it is like a crack, a small space, a small opening, and at the same time it is a direction, a door and a key that allows me to re-centre myself. Every morning during pratice, it allows me to sneak into what, despite everything, I am aware can be “a risk”. The risk of falling into a parallel mental universe, a kind of schizophrenia or mystical vortex from which it is difficult to escape. However, one need only keep a cool head, physical and mental lucidity, in order to remain present to oneself.
O-Sensei used Shinto rituals as a kind of transposition of his sensations – in the same way as a writer, musician or painter transposes their sensations when composing a work, or introduces us to a world of their own. In Shinto, Ameno-minaka-nushi is considered to be the Kami Centre of the Universe, and is the first evocation. Then it is the turn of Kuni-toko-tachi, Eternal Earth, the materialisation of the world – as a human being, as a practitioner, we take shape, we realise matter, what we are so to speak, almost flesh and blood. Last, Amaterasu-o-mi-kami presents herself to our consciousness, and there is no alternative but to accept her. A feminine principle, Amaterasu is the4Kami Sun, both life and the stimulus of life, creation. Between each moment of vibration, the vibration continues, nothing stops, the rhythm of the oar movements, funakogi undo, accelerates from slow to medium-fast to very fast. Tsuda Itsuo sensei explained that this rhythm reminded him of the recitation of the Noh which he had studied for almost twenty-five years, and in which there are three different rhythms that follow each other: Jo, Ha and Kyu5. For us Europeans, we can, for example, evoke the musical rhythms of largo, andante, then presto, prestissimo. Tsuda sensei gives us some indications of his own understanding of O-Sensei’s invocations:
‘1) Wake-mitama (emanation): All beings are emanations of a Whole, of Ame-no-minaka-nushi, of the central God. We are all God himself in our essence. Basically, we identify with the central God.
In religions of revelation like Christianity or Islam, the divine essence belongs exclusively to one being. All the others are a flock of sheep who need a pastor or spiritual guide.
2) Kotodama (vibrations): The whole Universe is conceived as filled with sensations of vibrations.’ 6
Ueshiba: a simple posture, without the slightest unnecessary gesture.
The reflection of the soul
Our mental state can only be reflected in our posture, no matter what theory, perhaps, we made our own. Everyone’s posture is influenced by the moment one is experiencing, by the people around us, our immediate or distant surroundings – in fact, by all internal and external circumstances. Our ability to maintain a correct posture, capable of reacting, is nevertheless something that can be worked on and give good results if we do not go against what is good for the body and what we are deep inside ourselves.
‘O humble flower standing in the corner of a wall,
‘Mirror’, an article by Régis Soavi published in April 2024 in Self et Dragon Spécial Aikido n° 17.
Tsuda Itsuo, Heart of Pure Sky (posthumous work), ‘Interviews with Master Tsuda […] on France Culture Radio’, ‘Broadcast no. 2’, 2025???, Yume Editions
Tsuda Itsuo, The Dialogue of Silence, Chap. XI, Yume Editions, 2018, p. 90 (1st ed. in French: 1979, Le Courrier du Livre (Paris), pp. 75–76)
See for instance Tsuda Itsuo, The Science of the Particular, Chap. XVIII, 2015, Yume Editions, p. 148, or (same author & publisher) The Way of the Gods, chap. XIII, 2021, p. 101 (1st ed. in French: 1976, p. 132; 1982, p. 96)
[Translator’s note: In French, ‘Sun’ is a masculine word but the author uses here the feminine determinant ‘la’ and emphasises the gender contrast (using a capital letter, bold font and quotation marks). We chose to render this emphasis slightly earlier on ‘herself’.]
[Translator’s note: We chose to stick to the French quoted by the author so as to keep the resonance with what he wrote just above. As for the original Chinese poem, it might possibly be n° 33 in the collection 清水 Spring Water (available online): 墙角的花！ 你孤芳自赏时，天地便小了. The English translation given in the same collection reads: ‘O flower in the corner of the wall, / Your fragrance is for yourself. / You are too much alone. / But in gazing upon you / Heaven and earth become small.’]
When we try to unbalance a person we know instinctively where we must touch, be it physically or psychologically. In most cases, we must reach the person’s centre in order to weaken them or make them vulnerable.
The vision of Seitai
It is hard to reach the centre of the partner’s sphere when the rim is powerful because all actions seem to bounce off the surface or slip as if on a smooth layer, elastic and capable of deforming itself without losing its density, therefore without being penetrated nor reached in any way. Everything depends on the way each of the partners will know how to use their central energy, their ki, and will succeed in doing so, be it in the role of Tori as well as in that of Uke.
Needless to say that other factors just as important, like determination, the urge to win, form an integral part of this sphere and can change the outcome, because ki is not an energy, that is to say, a kind of electricity or magnetism, as Western people are used to consider it nowadays. Ki is the result of multifactorial components which, having taken a certain form, becomes tangible even if it is hardly analysable and nearly unmeasurable except through its effects.
In all cases, one of the core elements of the action carried out will be the posture; not only the physical posture, but its energy balance, its tensions, coagulations, the areas where they are stuck, imprisoned, along with its relations – as well positive as negative – with the rest of the body and the resulting consequences. A science of human behaviour based on physical observation, sensitivity to the flows that go through the body and anatomical knowledge is of prime importance when needed in the practice of quite a lot of occupations. All the same, even for a dilettante or an amateur, such a science can help us understand those around us or get out of trouble when necessary.
One of the goals of that science – Seitai – is to gain a better understanding of human beings in their movement in general and unconscious movement in particular. It is a high-quality instrument which has already provided evidence of its value in Japan as well as in Europe and can be hardly neglected when we practice a martial art. Though it had been taught in France for over a decade by Tsuda sensei through the practice of Katsugen Undo, his conferences and the publication of his books, the ignorance of Seitai originator Noguchi sensei’s work in Western countries was a hindrance to its diffusion.
Today, Seitai calls for more recognition, in order to enable anyone taking interest in it to find elements that will bring them a better understanding, at least theoretical. It is thus important that Seitai becomes known to be better understood and accepted. That is why, from time to time, I modestly give to interested people a few indications, especially on Taihekis, which present – even if in a somewhat caricatural manner – a kind of charting of the human territory as regards ki, its circulation as well as its passageways, bridges, entry and exit points, etc.
One can better understand Taihekis and Seitai by practising Katsugen Undo, which is at the basis of the return to the physical balance and sensitivity that are required to approach this field of knowledge in a practical way. One can also, at least intellectually, go straight to the information source, by reading or rereading the books Tsuda sensei wrote in French – the basic principle being summarised in this “definition” he himself used to give:
‘The aim of Seitai is to regulate the circuit of vital energy, which is polarised in each individual, and thus to normalize the person’s sensitivity.
The philosophy underlying Seitai is based on the principle that a human being is an indivisible Whole, which distinguishes it clearly from the Western science of the human, founded on an analytical principle.’ 1
Letting the right action emerge
An athletic body
Some people have a body with harmonious proportions, large and square shoulders, long legs, they look extremely steady, for many people they represent an example of the ideal human being – woman or man. But if we observe their behaviour just as they move, they tend to lean forward (this is one of the characteristics of type 5 people, who belong to the “pulmonary” or “forwards-backwards” group).
As a consequence, when they have to bend, they propel their behind backward and sometimes press their hands on their knees to compensate. We can easily recognise them because, even motionless, they often cross hands in their back in order to remain balanced; this is not a habit, it is a need for rebalancing. This is clearly the sign of a pelvis which lacks balance and solidity, the centre, the Hara remains vulnerable despite all the efforts. During an encounter or a training, it is yet enough, if we have taken the time to observe properly, to take advantage of the moment when the partner is moving – and thus leaning forward – to enter under the third point of the belly, about two fingers under the navel, and suck them or let them slide above us, regardless of the chosen technique.
This sounds simple when we read it but, though this is only one aspect of things, discovering and understanding postures are probably among the elements that have the greatest importance. At the beginning, during the learning phase of martial arts, some knowledge is needed to be able to perform the techniques on a concrete level; nevertheless it is through a training based on sensation and breathing that we acquire the ability to seize the right moment and be “in it”. Moreover, the work of observing partners, if we know about postures, can only be good for us; it can be a decisive plus in the case of a competition or if we have to determine whether there is real danger or merely intimidation.
Feeling the lines of equilibrium
Sumotoris
Sumotoris, with their corpulence, their very low posture, the way they move, seem to be ideal examples of stability and balance, at least physically. Though their training emphasises certain tendencies they already have and reinforces their abilities in the direction of solidity, it might deform others for the sake of prospective success.
Anyway, from the point of view of Taihekis, they cannot escape their basic tendency. Of course there are Sumotoris of all types, but some tendencies, some Taihekis are more represented than others. In the case of Sumotoris belonging to the vertical2 groups, there are few of type 1 because this kind of deformation quickly causes their elimination. The reason is that from their very early age they turn out to be quite incompetent, even when they are strong physically they are very easily destabilised. The main cause of this lies in the way they approach action. They always follow an idea of a preconceived fight or they follow their perception of the fight as it progresses, and thus they are always late and surprised by the action of their opponent.
On the other hand, type 2 sumotoris, when they have observed their opponents’ most recent fights properly, when they are well guided, can define a strategy which, if not disturbed by imponderables, can lead them to victory. They have an excellent knowledge of physiology and body anatomy as well motionless as in motion, which enables them when they want to unbalance their opponent to do it with best chance of success, because the ground has been well prepared at least theoretically. They also rely on the logic and thinking stemming from the previous fights because this is what guides them – rarely sensation or intuition. Once they have become Yokozunas, they retire and dedicate themselves to writing books, articles about their life, their training, or else use their reputation in order to support righteous deeds, etc.
Sumo. Photo by Yann Allegret, passage from Dohyô.
Twisting for winning
For some people, unbalancing means winning, by charging and then taking advantage thanks to a direct frontal attack. It seems to be the best solution if not the only possibility occurring to their mind, and in no case can they resist it. These persons always ready to fight, to react, are generally very physical in their reactions. When they react with attacks or psychological replies, for instance little insidious sentences, one can easily see that they twist, their pelvis no longer being in the same direction than the central line of their face. One can also notice that, in order to prepare for immediate action, their body shows a torsion that strengthens their fulcrums. This torsion, when permanent, is an obstacle to free movement for the person who has it and must bear it. If one fails to normalise it, a way out could be managing to use it, say, in a work or an activity that requires a good sense of competition. The people with this type of deformation suffer the consequences in spite of themselves. They show an almost permanent tension and therefore a lot of difficulties to relax and take their time. This leads to difficult relationships with others because they eternally feel in competition.
Having a knowledge of Seitai and more precisely of Taihekis enables us to understand this type of behavioural tendencies better. It makes it possible to know when and how to take action without falling into the trap of rivalry that these people try to set up around themselves in order to prepare for defence and consequently to attack. Individuals of this kind belong to the “twisted” group and everything is based on their having unconsciously a sensation of great weakness that they will never admit. Basically they feel in danger permanently, that is why they consider the best defence to be immediate attack, because it surprises the opponent and is meant to leave no occasion for reply.
Ueshiba Morihei O-sensei, destabilising through the gaze
An archetype of the human being
Sometimes, a little sentence or a few well-placed words can change a situation – for better or for worse. If one can breathe deeply and concentrate ki in the lower abdomen, by taking action at the right moment one can bring down a whole building and transform what seemed to be an impregnable fortress into a funfair cardboard-paste decor. Abdominal respiration is part of the secrets available to all practitioners provided they direct their attention to it and keep training in that direction. According to Seitai, people whose energy naturally concentrates in the lower part of the body, at the risk of coagulating in absence of normalisation, are classified either in so-called “twisted” group (mainly3 type 7) or in the “pelvic” group.
I would like to elaborate on those within this group (type 9 people4) who have a tendency to close the pelvis – namely the area at the level of the iliac bones – because they represent a tendency which, for Tsuda sensei, stands at the origin of humanity. In these historically very distant times, survival from a physical perspective was paramount but sensitivity as well as intuition were also indispensable qualities. These qualities, precisely, enable type 9 people to be one step ahead of others in case of danger because their intuition makes them feel whether they should answer an act of threat or if it is merely a provocation, moreover they know whether this provocation will be followed by an action or if it will deflate at the slightest breeze.
‘Intuition cannot be replaced by either knowledge or intelligence. Intuition does not generalize. In many cases, it is knowledge and intelligence which distort intuition.’ 5
A person of this type being present in a human group never leaves anyone indifferent, even if one is unable to know or perceive easily why that is so. These persons behave in a way that sometimes surprises most people, either because of their rigidity – for they can very easily become dig in their heels – or because of their concentration power which is most unusual in our world where dispersion and superficiality are the norm.
‘When they concentrate, they do not concentrate just a part of their physical or mental functions. They concentrate their whole being.’ 6
Their concentration can be perceived through the intensity of their gaze, which is already extremely destabilising in itself; we need only see again the few movies that we know about O-sensei – who belonged himself to type 9 – to be persuaded.
The posture of Sumotoris when about to fight is highly suitable for a type 9 person since ‘[t]here is a big difference whether the pelvis is open or closed with the persons of this type. They can squat right down without raising their heels off the ground, and can stay in this position for a long time: it is their position of relaxation. When they stand up, the weight shifts from the outer edges of the feet to the root of the big toes. This is their position of tension.’ 7
Sensitivity and intuition
Aikido leads us to stability and balance. Although by means of different exercises, Seitai also appears as a way following the same direction. The combination of both – Aikido as a martial art and Seitai through Katsugen Undo as proposed by Tsuda sensei – has allowed our School to continue in this direction, back to simple yet essential sensitivity, in a world being more about insensitivity and stiffening for sake of protectiveness. Only by recovering our intuition and getting our receptivity active again can we be actors of our life.
In our everyday lives it is often difficult to take the time. Take the time to go to the dojo, to practice, to breathe. Take the time to let other types of relationships with the world and another inner power than the one given by money or domination develop. Sometimes we have read articles and books, we have listened to very interesting speeches on body practices as means of emancipation, on dojos as tools to discover relationships of mutual aid, a way of “commoning”, other ways of acting, possibilities of feeling “Non-doing” as a regime of action etc. But… But we lack time. One session per week, sometimes two. Although the dojo is open every day, the world grabs us as soon as we set foot outside the dojo. Problems and small worries monopolize us. Work, children, debts, the car, the ecological disaster, wars, taxes… we feel swallowed up.
Sometimes we are also in small groups, few in number, dojos that are still fragile and it is difficult to really feel other ways of doing things. The way of acting and thinking of our society constantly invites itself to the dojo, often due to the lack of experience of those who make the group. Or it is theoretical rigidity that reigns, controlling the slightest sweep and thus losing the basic idea of a rediscovery of freedom. The momentum runs out of steam. What’s the point, we don’t have time. We lack time.
Of course, we lack it because we do not take it. We do not “stop” time. It is precisely to “stop time” that a workshop like our school’s summer workshop was born. Stop the race, at least for a few moments and “lose our heads so as to inhabit our bodies” as Françoise d’Eaubonne wrote1.
Mas-d’Azil, the meeting
The first summer workshop of our school was born in July 1985, when Régis Soavi created with a few students a first dojo in Toulouse. The walls were not even finished yet, the ceiling was not painted, and yet, they were already practicing. They were only a dozen on the tatami for this workshop, coming from Toulouse, Paris and Milan. Two other summer workshops will follow in Toulouse, in 86 and 87.
The first summer workshop, 1985, in Toulouse. Walls and ceilings are not finished.Régis Soavi in Toulouse in 1985.1987 summer workshop, Toulouse
However, being in the city, the lack of accommodation, the stifling heat, all of this did not make the situation ideal. Régis Soavi and his partner Tatiana are then about to go in search of a “place” in the countryside to organize a summer workshop there.
They take their car and set off on the roads of Ariège, acting as they were used to with the situationist drift, which they practiced in Paris for ten years. They also act according to the mode of action of Non-doing, where it is a question of orienting oneself in a direction and perceiving how “something” reacts. What some also call “situational action”, that is to say, in perfect alignment with the present moment. To do this, we must let go of our “reason”. Accept and act in a “flow” if we wish. This is illustrated by the famous story of the swimmer of Zhuangzi:
‘Confucius admired the Lü-leang Falls. The water fell from a height of three hundred feet and then rushed down foaming for forty leagues. Neither turtles nor crocodiles could stay there, but Confucius saw a man swimming there. He thought it was an unfortunate man seeking death and told his disciples to go along the bank to come to his aid.
But a few hundred paces further on, the man came out of the water and, his hair disheveled, began to walk along the bank singing.
Confucius caught up with him and questioned him: “I took you for a ghost, but up close, you look like a living person. Tell me: do you have a method for staying afloat like that?”
— “No,” replied the man, “I don’t. I started from the given, I developed a natural and I reached necessity. I let myself be caught up in the whirlpools and rise up in the ascending current, I follow the movements of the water without acting on my own account.
— What do you mean by: starting from the given, developing a natural, reaching necessity?” asked Confucius.
The man replied: “I was born in these hills and felt at home there: that is the given. I grew up in the water and gradually felt at ease there: that is the natural. I do not know why I act as I do: that is the necessity.” ’ 2
Sinologist Billeter comments on this passage (which speaks of acting in Non-doing, of course) by noting that ‘The art consists of drawing on these data, of developing through exercise a naturalness that allows one to respond to the currents and whirlpools of water, in other words, to act in a necessary way, and to be free by this very necessity. There is no doubt that these currents and whirlpools are not only those of water. They are all the forces that act within a reality in perpetual transformation, outside of us as well as within us.’ 3
Developing a naturalness that allows one to follow the currents and whirlpools while going in the direction one wants is something that needs to be practiced, as the swimmer says. By practicing with one’s body and also by agreeing to “follow” rather than “choose”.
After three weeks of searching the region, Régis and Tatiana realize that they cannot find the right place. They are staying at the campsite with their two little girls and things are starting to get long, so they decide to go back to Toulouse. On the morning of their departure, Régis has a coffee at the village bar and the owner tells him about Mas-d’Azil, advising him to go and see this village.
So they decide to make one last visit, on the day of their departure. When they arrive at Mas-d’Azil, they realize that this village, less than ten kilometres from where they have been camping for three weeks, they have already been there ten years earlier.
Mas-d’Azil, the cave is at the back on the leftMas-d’Azil
Ten years ago, while returning from Spain, Régis and Tatiana had noticed the circular flight of a bird of prey in the sky, which had been “following” them for a while. As they continued on their way, they saw the raptor land on a signpost at the intersection of a road: “Le Mas-d’Azil”. They had then taken this road, intrigued, which had brought them to a village, enclosed in a rocky relief at the foot of the Pyrenees, crossed by a tumultuous river and dominated by a very beautiful prehistoric cave.
The prehistoric cave of Mas-d’AzilThe river crosses the cave
That day, ten years later, Régis and Tatania encounter the same village with astonishment! From there on things go very quickly, in two hours the municipal officials welcome the idea of a workshop with open arms. Although small in size, the village is a cantonal capital, it has a gymnasium, two hotels, a campsite, a post office, shops and at the time a furniture factory still in business.
It will also turn out that Mas-d’Azil has a long history of resistance, in addition to being a high place of prehistory (which gives its name to an era: the Azilian). After the Reformation, it served as a refuge for Protestants. Protestant resistance lasted there for more than a hundred years. The most famous event was the month-long siege and the fierce resistance that the city put up against the royal army of Louis XIII, a thousand against fifteen thousand. But nestled in the rocky relief and protected by solid battlements, the inhabitants, despite many deaths, defeated the army and its cannons.
The siege and battle of Mas-d’Azil
Even today, although the number of inhabitants has fallen with the rural exodus of the twentieth century, it is a place where many of those called “neorurals” meet and settle. Kokopeli, an environmental association that distributes royalty-free and reproducible seeds, with the aim of preserving seed and vegetable biodiversity, is also established there.
Mas-d’Azil is not the perfect place, it does not meet a specification, but it is here.
A transformation
From 1988, the summer workshop took place in the municipal gymnasium. For the first workshop, there were only about fifteen participants. The facilities were fairly minimal.
The gymnasium was little equipped at the beginningA fairly old gymnasium
But as the years went by, the participants, including Régis Soavi, carried out work, developments and improvements. The number of participants increased, to around a hundred today.
The fifteen or so people who voluntarily arrive a week in advance to prepare for the workshop temporarily set a square of tatami in order to practice in the morning during the preparation week. However, for the moment it is “just” tatami in the middle of a gymnasium. The idea is to transform this place into a dojo for the first day of the workshop.
Régis Soavi describes this transformation as follows: ‘When we arrive, nothing is ready. Everything has to be done.
The gym as we find it every year
The gym is dirty, there are tags, broken windows. But since people are used to practicing in a dojo, they want to recreate dojo. Master Ueshiba said: “where I am, there is dojo”. For that, we need tatami, it has to be clean. That is why a certain number of people come a week in advance, erase the tags, repair, repaint. We go and get the tatami by truck. People do all this because they are interested, they want the workshop to be pleasant, for there to be a certain atmosphere. It is a whole bunch of little details, we put curtains, a coat rack here, we have to screw there. It takes a whole week to install everything.
And so, for the first session of the workshop. Now, it is ready.
Now we can devote ourselves, concentrate on the practices (Aikido and Katsugen undo), for 15 days. But all this agitation is needed before, this bubbling, this pressure too, and finally everything is ready.
We are ready.
The dojo is ready
This is how we recreate “dojo”, the sacralised space. The sacred is not the religious, it is something we feel with the body. It is very clear. When we arrive at the beginning of the week, it is a mere gym with wall bars, equipment, concrete on the ground. During a week, through our preparation activity, we bring ki, ki, yet more ki. Thus at some point it “becomes” a sacred space. But it is we ourselves who bring the sacred into the place.
Besides, it is not because we would have a magnificent wooden dojo, with a Japanese bridge and bamboo in front of the door, that it would necessarily be a sacred space. It could just be an artificial space.’ 4
Régis Soavi, demonstration during an Aikido session, summer workshop
The summer workshop: the irreversible ephemeral
The summer workshop is therefore a bit like an interlude. A moment when time stops and when time stretches at the same time. We live it and it changes something in us. This is why we can say that the summer workshop is not intended to make another world emerge, but rather to directly experience another relationship with the world. An experience which, even if ephemeral, is no less irreversible. Everyone remains free about what to do with this experience.
Régis Soavi : ‘During the workshop too, everything is organized by the practitioners themselves, breakfasts together, cleaning, we are close to what was done in Japan with the Uchideshi, the boarding students who took care of everything. It is a bit like this state of mind. There is no one paid, there is no staff. We are not in an administrative organization. Everyone gives the best of themselves. It allows, as in the dojos throughout the year, to deploy one’s abilities or, sometimes, to discover them. There are a good number of people who arrived at the dojo and did not know how to hammer a nail. As soon as something was asked, it was “whoa! We need to sweep, I don’t know how to sweep! Make coffee, I don’t know how to make coffee! How do you do it?”
Little by little, they discover the pleasure of doing things by themselves, of being capable. Some have discovered abilities that they did not suspect they had. We discover this because there is this collective daily life, as in the dojos, which is a little different from daily life at home, it is a “collective home”.’ 5
It is therefore through concrete experimentation, in the situation, that we experiment another way of being and interacting. Because subverting our way of making society means attacking a whole that makes a system. As Miguel Benasayag describes it, it is first of all ‘a social organization, an economic project, a myth, which configures a type of relationship to the world, to oneself, to one’s body, a certain way of desiring, loving, evaluating one’s life…’ It is also ‘attacking a very concrete system, which can be summarized by the image of the modern European city with its walls, its relationships to space and time, its modes of circulation, work, commerce, which again induce a certain way of feeling, thinking and acting, and whose influence goes beyond the strictly urban perimeter.’ 6
Creating another situation means very concretely allowing another way of being in the world to emerge. In our society we tend to think that a situation is determined by an external perimeter, in the case of the summer workshop we could say: the number of days, the number of sessions, the number of people, the geographical location etc. However, according to philosopher Miguel Benasayag, taking up Rodolpho Kush, a situation is characterized first as an intensity. Taking the example of the forest, he explains that what makes a forest is not the perimeter, the number of trees etc. What makes a forest is an intensity: the trees, the animals, the mosses, the drops of water, the mushrooms and he points out that intensity attracts what feeds it… To paraphrase this example I will also say that the summer workshop is an intensity. An intensity made of the place, of the people who meet, who organize themselves, who practice, of the bodies that move, of the practice of yuki etc.
Beginning of the Katsugen undo session (Regenerative Movement)
Françoise d’Eaubonne wrote in a letter: ‘We have to lose our heads so as to inhabit our bodies’. Itsuo Tsuda said: ‘empty your head’. The summer workshop is this intensity where at a certain point, fatigue helping, the work of the involuntary in the body is done more deeply, the “head” finally lets go a little. Leaving a little free rein to the needs of the body, to its involuntary movement. Inhabiting one’s body leads to another way of feeling, thinking and acting. The predominance is no longer in the external principles of modernity (rationality, progress, utilitarianism, abstract universalism), we return to the dimension of immediate and unreflective knowledge of ourselves.
Régis Soavi : ‘For people who are arriving for the first time, a workshop is a first step. We rediscover that our body moves and that it moves involuntarily. It has nothing to do with a workshop where we would go to recharge our batteries to better start again. No. It is a start. Then it is a regular practice. In the dojos we practice Katsugen undo (Regenerative Movement) two to three times a week, we can also practice alone at home. But we have to re-train this involuntary system that we have blocked a lot.’
‘The summer workshop is also a mix, there are people from all over Europe, we discover people through the practice of Aikido and Katsugen undo. Through sensation.
It moves a lot! Some meet people, they arrive alone and leave in two! Some arrive in two and leave alone! Because sometimes it highlights problems that were kept under wraps. We tried to hold on, to silence, but now with the workshop, with the practice of Katsugen undo which awakens our body, we clearly feel that it is no longer possible to hold. When the will to control finally lets go, it emerges, that is all. What is unbearable is finally felt as such. But somehow, it is a liberation. Katsugen undo is a liberation, nothing else.’ 7
Understanding Riai means going beyond technical correspondences and leaving behind the world of separation. It means accepting to rediscover the unity of being so as to feel life manifesting throughout our bodies.
Yes, Riai exists, I’ve met it
To really understand it and feel it in our being, we need to take steps further. We have to go beyond technicality, and not simply reduce ourselves to imitation, while of course respecting those who guided us and brought us the fruits of their own research. When Noro Masamichi sensei created Kinomichi, he revealed more than forty years ago already what he had discovered. He was able to pass it on to his students, this without needing to speak about Riai, because much before already he used to demonstrate its capacities, vigour and finesse in his extraordinary demonstrations that I was lucky enough to see. Tamura Nobuyoshi sensei’s abilities in this field also need no further demonstration. So many others have demonstrated it to us.
Régis Soavi: Making visible the axes of the body that carry the action
Behind the scenes
Whatever our technique, however precise it may be, it depends on a great many elements. First, our mental state before and during the action, as well as our partner’s or opponent’s reactions, our physical condition on the day and, finally, the specific moment – always indefinable. Behind the scenes in our innermost being, so to speak, something is at work of which we are unaware, and even of which we cannot and must not become aware – except in the very moment when it is happening – because there is a great risk of preventing it from manifesting. Solely the people who have accepted to empty their minds of the disruptive noises that clutter it can achieve the unity that is necessary for right action.
When we are empty of all parasitic thought, of all superficial questioning, we are in the natural state of the human being where what can and must arise will be able to use both our potential – which itself will be able to rely on our training – and our everyday life behaviour.
Creating a comparison is dangerous
Seeing the axes of the body that carry the action seems to me the most important “act” for a practitioner, because the lines that define these axes depend on each person, each bodily tendency, and each has its own specificities. The danger of comparison is the risk of focusing on details to the detriment of the overall observation. On the other hand, knowing how to appreciate the true value of a movement, a gesture, whatever the art, enables us to broaden our field of knowledge and, at the same time, our abilities.
Yoseikan Budo is perhaps the art where the reality of Riai was most obvious to me from the start. Created in the late 1960s by Mochizuki Minoru, who was undoubtedly one of the highest-ranking practitioners of several of Japan’s martial arts (Aikido, Jujitsu, Iaido, Judo, Kendo, Karate), Yoseikan Budo is now led by his son Mochizuki Hiroo, who is its Soke. I was lucky enough to meet him in the 1970s, at a demonstration which Tsuda sensei, who had been invited himself, had brought us to. Having practised Judo for over six years, Hakko-ryu Ju-jitsu with Maroteaux sensei and Ju-jitsu from the Jigo ryu school with Tatsuzawa sensei, I immediately appreciated the performance that was given for me to see. The Iaido katas that closed the presentation clearly revealed an understanding of the reality of Riai and highlighted it.
Similarly, I remember seeing a documentary1 in the early 1990s on Tai Chi Chuan, which presented the work of Master Gu Meisheng, and being extremely impressed by his body movements and the way he moved during his demonstrations. I could see very precisely the same body movements as my master Tsuda Itsuo, the techniques were fundamentally different, but both the spirit and that something which inhabited him gave an incredible result: I could see my master alive and yet it was not him. I purchased the video cassette and we watch it in the dojo whenever appropriate, like during our summer workshop.
Comparing the effectiveness of the technique without seeing what is essential in the movement would be a serious mistake. Sometimes, regardless of potential technical skill, it is the mere presence or the determination of the person – in other words, the concentration of Ki (Chi in the Chinese arts) – that will suffice to solve a problem.
KA MI breathing
What lies behind all movement, and what we often do not perceive well enough, is “breathing”. Just as blood circulates through every part of our body, even the smallest, breathing – particularly as oxygenation – also circulates without interruption through every cell. It is the vector of our ability to move, therefore to change your position, and so to react when needed. The visualisation of breathing is the emerging awareness of the reality of Ki. It is very difficult to conceive of Ki, which is in the realm of feeling, and that is why martial arts masters use different methods in their teaching to enable their students to approach this perception. It is especially through the pronunciation of the names Ka and Mi that Tsuda sensei taught us that we can understand the common identity existing between all the techniques and between all the arts. This does not take anything away from the specificity of each technique or art, but opens up a window of understanding.
Tsuda Itsuo: Ka-Mi breathing exercise during breathing practice
Each time you breathe in, you say the word Ka (the Japanese radical for “fire”) mentally, or in a low voice to aid visualisation, and each time you breathe out the word Mi (the Japanese radical for “water”); little by little, you integrate this way of doing things and then visualisation becomes easier and easier. So much that you no longer have to worry about it, except for certain exercises that require greater concentration. It is important to know that visualisation has nothing to do with imagination, because it is an act produced by the concrete action of the koshi, which is in direct contact with reality. Imagination, on the other hand, is a product of the higher areas of the brain, whose aim is to take us into an abstract and therefore fundamentally unreal world.
Thanks to this teaching, it is possible to realise that our perception of time is dilated in this reality that is our everyday life. This is something everyone has experienced at least once, if not many times, in their lives. For example, when you are waiting for a bus that is two minutes late, time seems very long, while an evening with friends has passed before you realise it. But this visualisation technique, which is based on breathing, can reveal much more than these simple observations; it can reveal to us a universe we were previously unaware of. Tsuda sensei described some aspects of this when he wrote in his second book:
‘Time dilatation is the very foundation of Seitai technique. Between exhalation and inhalation, there is a ceasing of respiration, a pause during which a person cannot react in any way. This space, as we may realize, is almost imperceptible ; it seems that the inhale and exhale follow each other with no disruption. But for Noguchi,2 it is like a wide open door.
[…]
Moreover, the break in respiration is the place where any technique really works, be it Judo, Kendo, or Sumo. Inhalation helps muscles to contract, exhalation helps them relax. But during retention, one can neither contract nor relax. If it is after the inhale and before the exhale, try as we might, we remain stiff. We get ourselves carried away over someone’s shoulder, for example.’ 3
It is up to each of us to use this discovery for the well-being of all.
Non-Doing
Why talk about Non-Doing in an article on Riai? Because I think it is one of the most important keys to martial arts practice, and one that is too little known or neglected today, because it escapes the current state of commonly accepted so-called scientific experimentation. This key is considered to be part of the mystical domain, whereas it used to be the basis of ancient teachings and, by the same token, of the knowledge of our masters in many martial arts. All techniques have grown on the basis of the involuntary and often unconscious experience of the human body, regardless of gender, latitude or age. All techniques have been developed and linked together in order to be more effective in the face of adversity. They are all born out of a response to an action, whether it has already begun or is just beginning. Precision comes later, and stems from the axes, the atmosphere, and the will that arises from the encounter, from the danger that is revealed or not, and therefore from necessity.
Aikido is an art of the Non-Doing (so renowned wu-wei in ancient China) and this is what O-sensei passed on during the last ten years of his life – advocating peace and promoting what we today call symbiosis, rather than parasitism and so-called “Struggle for Life” so misunderstood even in Darwin‘s time.
Tsuda sensei, by insisting on people’s capacity for fusion and coordinated breathing, gave us an orientation and made possible this research which some of us are continuing. O-sensei, who no longer had a technique that was really detectable or comprehensible, as the masters who knew him directly in their youth explained to us, guides us in the foreground to move in this direction. If we move away from the idea of efficiency and, by the same token, performance – so dear to our so-called modern or yet civilised society – we will have the possibility to encounter life, and to be able to deploy our capacities, which will then be able to draw on this ancestral knowledge that is all too often devalued.
[Noguchi Haruchika: creator of the Seitai technique and Katsugen undo (Translator’s note)]
Tsuda Itsuo,The Path of Less, Chap. XII, Yume Editions (Paris), 2014, pp. 124–6 (1st ed. in French, 1975, pub. Le Courrier du Livre (Paris), pp. 117–8)
‘That is all the master asks, for his teaching to be stolen; for him, it is extremely simple, but for others, it seems mysterious, incomprehensible, implausible.’ 1
Seeing, feeling
Even if we start Aikido with superficial ideas coming from the world around us, it is important that, little by little, they come closer to reality and become a tool for reclaiming the body – our authentic body.
At each session I conduct, after the first part – which each person does alone but in harmony with the others, and which is essentially based on exercises of Ki circulation –, I begin by demonstrating a technique that, a priori, a large number of practitioners already know. The whole point of the demonstration is to convey a message through the executed movement. A dialogue is being initiated, it is not just a technique, nor even a way of doing things, because each practitioner, depending on their level, attention span and ability at the time, should be able to find what they need to deepen their practice. It is more about transmission than anything else.
I insist on an element – precision, distance, or any other particularity – so that something I want to make concrete is clearly visible and becomes a form that is obvious by its simplicity and so that, through the work and training that follow, the body as a whole no longer has to think but acts naturally, rediscovering its spontaneity.
Calligraphy by Tsuda Itsuo: Chiselling an insect, engraving a flower
Chiselling an insect, engraving a flower
In China there is a common expression, a proverb, which means “easy work” and whose first two ideograms are the same as Tsuda sensei’s calligraphy in small seal style (sigillary): 雕蟲小技 chiselling insect small technique.
This calligraphy (see photo) can therefore express: “Engraving a flower is very easy, as is carving an insect.”
The proverb means anyone can carve or draw a small flower because it is a simple and easy work to carry out, but that consequently points out only great masters can produce a remarkable work. It all depends on the kokyu. Tsuda sensei comments on the meaning of this word in his second book, The Path of Less. It is rare to have so simple and precise a definition that allows us Westerners – at first sight presumably unprepared – to grasp its content:
‘In learning a Japanese art, the question of “kokyu” always arises, strictly speaking, the equivalent of actual respiration. But the word also means to have a knack for doing something, to know the trick. When there is no “kokyu”, we cannot do a thing properly. A cook needs “kokyu” to use his knife well, and a worker his tools. “Kokyu” cannot be explained; it is acquired.
[…]
When we acquire “kokyu” it seems that tools, machines, materials, until then “indomitable”, suddenly become docile and obey our commands with no resistance.
Ki, kokyu, respiration, intuition are themes that are pivotal to the arts and crafts of Japan. It constitutes a professional secret, not because people want to keep it like a patent, or a recipe for earning their living, but because it cannot be passed on intellectually. Respiration is the final word, the ultimate secret of learning. Only the best disciples gain access to it, after years of sustained effort.’ 2
The role of the teacher
One of the roles of the teacher – by no means the only one – is to act, among other things, as some kind of conductor. They set the tempo, suggest different ways of interpreting a technique, taking it in a particular direction to bring out its full potential, in the same way that the maestro gives instructions on “how to interpret” a piece of music, by emphasising a note, a series of notes or a particular feature. The teacher, like the conductor, has a very important role to play, and the way they conduct an Aikido session can make it boring or captivating; too fast and without precision, for example, it can miss its objective, even though the intention was good; just as a conductor can derail a very sensitive piece of music if they conduct too harshly. Neither too rigid nor too soft, flexible while convincing, both conductor and teacher give their interpretation of what they have felt, what they have understood of their art, of the music as well as the session being conducted. Another conductor or another teacher will see different things, different accents to bring out, and each will insist on different aspects.
Relationships with musicians and students alike are also decisive. If the conductor is dictatorial, they will not win the support of the people who are supposed to follow them; at best they will obtain a submission that can only render the musical work commonplace or the Aikido class spiritless and joyless. Like the conductor, who should never forget that they are not the composer and that they must respect the work for what it is – or what they think or feel it to be –, the martial arts teacher is not the creator of the art they wish to develop and make known; they are its interpreter, however inspired they may be. Composer Beethoven himself, I believe, used to say that he was simply transcribing the music he heard, which already existed in the universe around him. We are, similarly, only interpreting what O-sensei did, what we know about him, what we were able to perceive from the videos of the time, what various masters were able to pass on to us – and, more specifically, what I personally was able to discover thanks to direct contact with Tsuda sensei over all these years. But O-sensei himself considered his art was given, transmitted to him by something greater than himself, something that he perceived and tried to communicate through his movements, person, words, posture, or quite simply his presence.
The fact remains that each session is a challenge and depends on the atmosphere one has been able to create. The great conductor Sergiu Celibidache believed no matter how many rehearsals, how committed each musician was, how attentive the audience, everything could be put into question at the last moment. The concert, as an ultimate moment of truth, depends on elements that are sometimes unpredictable and which, whether favourable or not, change the course of the event, of the demonstration. The role of the teacher is to enable each student to develop their abilities even beyond what they can conceive or perceive thereof.
Working on the body
It is through sincere work on the body that we can open up our mental structure, alienated by deeply dualistic habits of reasoning and reacting. Demonstrations exist only to show that something is possible and can enable us to change what binds us if we move in a direction with sincerity. The body needs recover its natural base, what it really is deep down, and not be modelled to follow the desires of an era, a fashion, or a self-image pre-printed on a brain that is weakened by its environment. The demonstration of a technique depends on multiple factors that require an ad hoc response and not an unconditional riposte provided for in the nomenclature. It should make it possible for everyone to feel concerned with what is happening in front of them so that they know how to react accordingly, regardless of their environment, but rather by integrating what surrounds them to create a situation that will provide a calm – and, if possible, peaceful – solution to any act that might become unpleasant or even dangerous.
With a beginner, you have to be particularly available
Which partner to use
I have often seen teachers regularly use their best student as their uke. When this choice seems wise for public demonstrations or “open days”, because they are about showing the beauty of the art or its effectiveness – without risk for the partner, who knows how to fall in all circumstances –, it loses its meaning in daily practice where the aim is, I think, quite different. Working with experienced students is often rewarding because of their availability, the quality of their movements or the responsiveness they provide, but the drawback is that they often try to show off their teacher. With a beginner, especially a very beginner for that matter, this is completely different, there is no room for error, you have to be particularly available to this body which is not used to moving, reacting in this situation and which risks hurting itself for nothing. You really need understand, feel the other person, and be able despite it all to pass on the message you want to convey, if you want to enable the learning process and development of the people who come to learn. I have always found it interesting to do my demonstrations with people who are far less advanced, or even complete beginners, for that allows me to show and even demonstrate that adapting to the other person’s body is one of the secrets of the Non-Doing.
The secret of the living
Demonstrations during a session should always be adapted to the type of people present so that they can perceive the circulation of Ki through impregnation, which is way more difficult to achieve when these demonstrations are mediatised. Books containing drawings or photos can only be used as a technical aid or complement that is sometimes essential, but they can be no substitute for in vivo demonstrations. Videos can also be useful to get to know the different schools or the “historical masters”, but also – and perhaps even more so – to give an image of our art and thereby arouse the desire to discover its beauty as well as its effectiveness. Yet, whether in music or in martial arts, the secret lies beyond form or training; in my opinion, it lies rather in the manifestation of the living, which we can only discover through what we have felt in contact with it. An amateur musician can animate a folk ball and enable a whole village to find unity in the pleasure of being together because she or he partakes in the atmosphere. In a dojo, the living – and therefore ki – manifests through what innerly animates the person conducting the session. It is their inner quality that expresses itself in demonstrations, whether fast or slow, powerful or subtle and penetrating. It is the Ki they give off that leads us to start practising Aikido, drives us to continue or sometimes flee the place. Nothing can replace living experience, neither speeches nor smiles nor false pretences. Demonstrations during sessions are for me the ultimate reference, “a moment of truth”.
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Article by Régis Soavi published in Self et Dragon (Spécial Aikido n° 15) in October 2023.
Notes:
Tsuda Itsuo, The Unstable Triangle, Chap. XVIII, Yume Editions (Paris), 2019, p. 136 (1st ed. in French, 1980, pub. Le Courrier du Livre (Paris), p. 132)
Tsuda Itsuo, The Path of Less, Chap. III, Yume Editions (Paris), 2014, pp. 33–34 (1st ed. in French, 1975, pub. Le Courrier du Livre (Paris), p. 31–32)
‘Seitai deals, above all, with the individual in his or her individuality, and not with an average person created out of statistics.
Life itself is invisible, but in manifesting itself in individuals, it creates an infinite variety of different combinations.’1Tsuda Itsuo, The Non-Doing, 2013, Yume Editions, Chap. VII, p. 73. (1st ed. in French, 1973, pub. Le Courrier du Livre (Paris), pp. 68-9.) (Tsuda Itsuo)
Seitai Kyōkai in Tōkyō. Session of Katsugen Undō around 1980.
Seitai 整体, and its corollary Katsugen undō2Katsugen Undō 活元 運動: translated as Regenerating Movement by Tsuda Itsuo., are recognised in Japan since the sixties by the Ministry of Education (today Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) as a movement of education. They are not recognised as a therapy – which would rather be recognised by the Ministry of Health. The ambiguity between the two, however, is still being maintained by a great many of its disclosers.
Since the publication in the seventies of Tsuda Itsuo’s work, Seitai makes many dream among those interested in New Age, Orientalist techniques or else. At times one becomes a technician overnight, at times one adds ‘appealing ingredients’ as Tsuda sensei himself would write. It is time to put things into order, to try and clarify all this, and to that end we need only refer to Tsuda Itsuo’s teaching as well as the original texts from the creator of this teaching, this science of the human being, this philosophy.
Noguchi Haruchika 野口 晴哉 sensei
Noguchi Haruchika sensei (1911–1976), founder of Seitai.
This Japanese man, founder of the Seitai Institute3Seitai Kyōkai 整体 協会., is the author of about thirty books, three of which have been translated into English. He is also the discoverer of the techniques that enable the triggering of the Regenerating Movement as an exercise of the “involuntary system”4More precisely, it is an exercise of the extrapyramidal motor system.. As a young boy, he discovers he has a capacity which he believes unique and “extra-ordinary”: that of “healing people”. He discovers this capacity during the big 1923 earthquake which devastates Tōkyō city, by relieving a female neighbour who suffers from dysentery, simply by putting his hand on her back. Rumour spreads very fast, and people hurry to his parents’ address in order to receive care. All he does is to lay his hands on the people, who go home relieved of their aches. He then starts a career as a healer – he is only twelve years old – and his reputation increases so much that, at the age of fifteen, he opens his first dōjō right in Tōkyō.
But Noguchi sensei wonders: what is the force acting when he lays his hands and why does he alone have this power? Instead of taking advantage of what he thinks to be a gift and collecting the related profits, he searches, asks himself questions, starts studying on his own.
For years, he will look for solutions to problems raised by his clients through the techniques coming from acupuncture of ancient traditional Chinese medicine which he studies with his uncle, from Japanese medicines (kanpō漢方), various shiatsu, kuatsu, and even Western style anatomy, etc. His reputation is so wide that he is known and recognised internationally. For that matter, he will meet later many therapists including some who are already – or will become – well-known, like Oki Masahiro, creator of Oki-dō Yoga, or Kishi Akinobu sensei, creator of Sei-ki Shiatsu, or even, better known in France, Moshé Feldenkrais, with whom he will exchange many times. Yet, he has already understood that this force he feels in himself does not belong to him as an individual, but that it exists in all human beings – that is what he will call later the cohesive force of life.
Seitai: a global view
Régis Soavi
In the fifties, Noguchi sensei changes his orientation completely. Through his practical experience and personal studies, he comes to the conclusion that no healing method can save the human being. He drops therapeutics, conceives the idea of Seitai as well as Katsugen Undō. Back then, he already declares: ‘Health is a natural thing which requires no artificial intervention. Therapeutics reinforces links of dependence. Diseases are not things to be cured, but opportunities to be used in order to activate the organism and restore its equilibrium’ – as many themes he will take up again later in his books5Noguchi Haruchika, Colds and their benefits, Zensei Publishing Company, 1986. (Compiled and translated from edited transcripts of lectures delivered in the 1960s.).. So he decides to stop healing people and spread Katsugen Undō, as well as Yuki6Yuki 愉氣: action of concentrating the attention which activates the individual’s life force., which is not the prerogative of a minority but a human and instinctive act.
The findings of Noguchi Haruchika sensei lead to see Seitai as a philosophy – and thus not as a therapy – and he himself would define it as such in his books7Noguchi Haruchika, Order, Spontaneity and the Body, Zensei Publishing Company, 1984. (1st ed. in Japanese, 1976.). This does not mean that what he was doing and teaching did not have consequences on health, quite the opposite since his field of competence was in the service of persons and consisted in enabling individuals to live fully. Despite this, a certain number of people, in his time as much as today, were disturbed by such a drastic opinion and this brought about a confusion between fields for those who would see and understand only according to their own opinion. As a result, they favoured the support to people at the cost of the awakening of the being.
The technicity of this very great master was unanimously recognised in Japan, he even had been president of the Manual Therapists Association during the prewar period. But his work, that he would consider an accompaniment, a guide, a Seitai orientation, would go much further than healing people who came to see him; it was rather a matter of enabling each person to retrieve their inner life force – and in this he was incredibly efficient.
He explains that very often it is the Kokoro8Kokoro 心: heart and mind, ability of the man for reasoning, understanding and willing, not opposite to his bodily side, but as what animates it. that is affected, disturbed, and that driving this Kokoro in the right direction is enough for the person to retrieve the health that had been lost. Making Ki flow in the right direction was his favourite technique; this may seem rather easy, but reality is quite different. One does not become a Seitai guide overnight, it is not about trying to stimulate an area or another using conjuring tricks but about understanding, feeling where the problem comes from in order to allow Ki to flow in the right direction and make life work. Noguchi sensei had an extraordinary intuition and the quality of his sensations, the sharpness of his observation made him a really remarkable person – and even one whom some of his contemporaries would consider formidable in some respects because of his extreme perspicacity.
Tsuda Itsuo (19141984). He introduced Seitai in Europe in the 70s after having been studying with Noguchi sensei for twenty years.
A dream
Health has become a technological dream. From the 19th century concept, summarized so well by Jules Romain in his play Knock, according to which every healthy person is considered as a person unaware that they are sick, we have shifted into the 20th century concept which claimed it would eradicate diseases thanks to pharmaceutical chemistry and rays. As for the 21st century, it proposes to solve all problems with genetics or transhumanism.
The analysis claims to become more and more thorough, we have shifted from dissection to sequencing. By cutting up the human being into increasingly smaller pieces, down to cells and now genes and even smaller, we are losing sight of the whole, we are moving away from the notion of the individual (from the Latin individuum: what is indivisible) and, as a curious consequence, we are compelled to treat the human being in general and no longer in particular. The human being appears like a collection of parts. Each part of the body has its own specialist, including the psyche of course, and all these specialists take care of their clients’ symptoms. For ideological or even religious reasons, when the expected result is lacking with classical medicine, we turn to what are called alternative medicines. These can be ancestral methods of great value as well as small fiddles. We can find around us lots of recipes promulgated on the internet, and forwarded by our friends and acquaintances, each thinking they have the solution to all our problems of health, energy, or simply to an ordinary disorder.
The symptom
We persist in removing the symptom, because it is the symptom that disturbs us. Of course, we cannot deny its importance, it is the sign, often the indicator, of a problem that had not yet been perceived. But it is also and above all the expression of the work done by our organism to solve this difficulty. Often, body problems are misunderstood and we want to solve them as fast as possible without really seeking the root cause. We need only make the symptom disappear to satisfy everyone, to think we are cured, even though most of the time we have simply put the problem aside and, even sometimes, prevented the body from reacting.
The body has its reasons that reason does not know
Noguchi Hirochika, Seitai founder’s elder son, with Régis Soavi, during his visit in Paris in November 1981
There is no perfect nor immutable body, the body moves continuously from the outside as well as from the inside, life itself wants it so. But we really must take into account that this movement or rather these movements come also as a result of our corporal tendencies, themselves resulting from our birth, genes, as well as from the way we use our body through work, sports, martial arts, thus in general through every activity, whatever. For instance, a recurring phenomenon in martial arts and more generally in sports is to feel pain in one or both knees. The most common answer to it would be to treat pain where it occurs, anaesthetize it, prevent swelling, etc. Actually, in such a case as in so many others, one is just forgetting or even denying that this is a natural response of the body to a much broader issue, a posture problem or a misuse of the body.
Noguchi Haruchika left us a most precious tool which enables better understanding of human beings according to the polarization of energy (Ki) in the different regions of the body. This tool, the Taiheki9Taiheki 体癖: corporal habits. concept, makes possible for us to perceive the individual through their unconscious movement according to their corporal habits and what results from them. Noguchi sensei used an animal-type comparison system designed in his early researches as a careful observation of human movement, which he reduced for purpose of teaching to six groups comprising as a whole twelve main tendencies. Each of the five first groups is in relation to a lumbar vertebra and a corporal system (urinary, pelvic, pulmonary, etc.) while the last one rather describes a general state of the body.These tendencies, resulting from ki coagulation and stagnation, are caused by the stiffening or flabbiness of the body when it can no longer regenerate, recover from the fatigues imposed on it.
Let us take an example so as to make things concrete: many persons tend to lean more on one leg rather than on the other. This tendency may result, among other things, either from what is known in Seitai as lateralism, or from torsion, which like other corporal deformations are absolutely involuntary, just being the result, the response of the body trying to maintain its equilibrium.
In the case of a torsion, the support leg is used to prepare to spring, to attack or to defend oneself – in any case to win. If lateralism is involved, we are rather dealing with a condition resulting from digestive or sentimental tendencies with a deformation occurring at the second lumbar level, a condition inclining to concert, to diplomacy. In both examples, the same leg will be used as a supporting point, thus constantly bearing most of the weight and so getting tired and tending to wear out more and become rigid. This dissymmetry affects the whole body and, obviously in the first place, particularly the spinal column. Through swelling resulting from a liquid supply, or through pain, even often through both reactions, the body tries to relieve the knee that bears the heaviest tribute, preventing us from using it until healing is completed, that is, the whole body equilibrium is restored. If this development is impeded through bringing down the swelling and removing the pain, the body, which has become insensitive, will go on leaning on the same side and the situation will get worse. The body will try by all means to retrieve its equilibrium, first by renewing the knee problems as soon as sensitivity has been recovered there, then gradually the hips will start compensating the lack of flexibility and finally it will be the back, that is the spinal column, with all the resulting consequences one may imagine.
Is back pain not considered the most common problem in our civilization, maybe even as “the evil of the century”? Is bearing pain silently to be taken as the solution to it? This is not the point of view of Seitai but, on the other hand, preserving balance from the beginning, from birth, consists in accepting little disturbances and guiding in daily life the body in the right direction, day after day. If one has ignored the manifestations of one’s own body, it becomes necessary to go through a corporal relearning, a slow but deep equilibrium restoration. If, on the other hand, one does not accept one’s own body’s work, one will then have to accept progressive desensitization, progressive stiffening and its consequences: some sort of Robotization or weakening and inability to react.
To live Seitai
According to Noguchi sensei, beginning to take care of children at birth was already late. The months of pregnancy, the delivery, the first cares given to the baby were fully part of his concern about the child’s future life as well. In his books, Tsuda Itsuo sensei provides us with many indications about pregnancy, delivery, breastfeeding, nutrition, weaning, first steps, etc., particularly in volume four entitled One. Seitai does not set rules to be followed in every occurrence, it is not about figuring out the right solution to the problems of early childhood, childhood, or adolescence, as in childcare or pedagogy books. Seitai deals with the manifestations of life with no preconception, it here again makes it possible to guide parents while, at the same time, enabling them to develop their intuition thanks to a dialogue in silence with the baby and later with the small child. For those who have not had the chance – or sometimes the possibility – to let their body work according to their own needs, are there still possibilities to retrieve a healthy state? This is where the practice of Katsugen Undō comes in.
It is a most simple practice beginning with an indispensable condition: not to think. Tsuda sensei used to refer to this condition as ‘clearing the head’. In The Science of the Particular, he explains what he means by using this expression:
‘Clear the head! We understand the need for it today, when the head has become a trash bin in which fermentation continues twenty-four hours a day to produce worry about the present and fear of the future.
What do we mean by “clearing the head”? Of course not a comatose state in which consciousness is lost. It is a state in which the consciousness ceases to be disrupted by a stream of ideas. Instead of excessive cerebralisation, life begins to stir in parts of the body that were previously dormant.’10Tsuda Itsuo, The Science of the Particular, 2015, Yume Editions, p. 159. (1st ed. in French, 1976, pub. Le Courrier du Livre (Paris), p. 143.)
The notion of individual in Seitai
For Noguchi H. sensei, there is no human being divided into parts but always a single body.
In the light of the most recent discoveries, one becomes aware, for instance through the fascias theory, of the interaction between the various parts of the body, even when sometimes extremely far from one another. Some of these theories made possible to rehabilitate ancestral techniques from distant countries, which had not so far been understood in their depth and had very often got little respect from Western medical science. Other discoveries, mentioned particularly by M.-A. Selosse in his book Never Alone11Marc-André Selosse, Jamais seul [Never Alone], pub. Actes Sud (Arles, France), June 2017., have emphasized the symbiotic dimension of the individual, the interaction that takes place between bacteria and the body: the human being is no longer considered separate, modern biology gets obvious insight on his nature as a symbiont. Once more – once again should I say –, one is compelled to consider the whole of the individual.
However, in spite of experiencing a time when technologico-scientific discoveries have considerably increased knowledge about human beings, there is little change from the Seitai perspective, they remain the same as sixty or seventy years ago; the causes disturbing them, disturbing their Kokoro are different but human beings themselves have remained the same. Unfortunately, it can be seen that many bodies and minds are more fragile today, when ideologies about health have designed individuals deeply dependent on all kinds of specialists, thus generating a certain type of alienation which might be difficult to understand or analyze by anyone lacking an overview of society. The abyss to the bottom of which we are heading calls for a recovery of everyone at the individual level and this is perhaps where the Seitai orientation may enlighten us: by providing the individual with a unique tool in order to recover their autonomy, to re-appropriate their own life and live it fully. That is why the practice of Katsugen Undō and Yuki are the two activities proposed by the Itsuo Tsuda School – for they are the Alpha and Omega of the practice of Seitai.
More precisely, it is an exercise of the extrapyramidal motor system. ↩︎
5
Noguchi Haruchika, Colds and their benefits, Zensei Publishing Company, 1986. (Compiled and translated from edited transcripts of lectures delivered in the 1960s.). ↩︎
6
Yuki 愉氣: action of concentrating the attention which activates the individual’s life force. ↩︎
7
Noguchi Haruchika, Order, Spontaneity and the Body, Zensei Publishing Company, 1984. (1st ed. in Japanese, 1976.) ↩︎
8
Kokoro 心: heart and mind, ability of the man for reasoning, understanding and willing, not opposite to his bodily side, but as what animates it. ↩︎
Nowadays it seems that the meaning of the word “pride” has become misleadingly loaded, and pride has almost become a major flaw in certain classes of society. The word “proud” is wrongly used to define “someone who believes themselves to be superior to others and shows it by their behaviour”, when in my opinion it is often simply a conceited and unconscious person.
Self-esteem
Self-esteem, which is eminently respectable, is too often confused with vanity which is a form of self-satisfaction that can only harm us. However, someone “who is supposedly aware of his or her limitations and weaknesses, and who shows this through a deliberately modest and self-effacing attitude” can be said to be humble, even if this humility is false and serves only to deceive people around them. The political world has always been full of this kind of usurpation of the terms “humble” or “proud”. Humility implies a societal relationship, it is necessary in relation to others to maintain an external as well as an internal balance, but it must not harm our state of awareness and the force that guides us in our lives.
Self-love
This begins at birth in its natural form called egocentrism and should not be feared despite the recommendations of certain schools of paediatrics or pedagogy, because it is essential to the survival of the little child. Very quickly, the child becomes aware of being and is proud of what they are and of what they can do or say. They participate in the world not as a dependent creature but already as a creator of what surrounds him; for him, the world “belongs to him and they want to enjoy it”. The life force that struggles to be contained in this small body drives them to exercise their abilities in all the opportunities it finds within its reach, and even beyond. If it is not broken by its upbringing, it will retain a sense of what we call self-love, which in my humble opinion is pride. Self-love pushes us to go beyond our abilities, to seek further and deeper, to discover, in order to be proud of ourselves, what fills us with satisfaction and at the same time stimulates the desire to surpass ourselves, a desire that is inherent to all living beings.
To be proud of one’s talents is the opposite of conceit and to be aware of what one is capable of doing is not vanity. Too often I have seen and welcomed people in the dojo who were no longer aware of their real abilities and so invented fictitious ones in order to survive in a world where only the strongest seem to have the upper hand. Broken down, they wait for orders or at least examples to imitate and become what they will never be in reality, but will pretend to be in front of those weaker than themselves.
A humble dojo
It is in one of those old districts of Paris, which has retained a quiet yet popular atmosphere, that, as an old-fashioned Parisian, I am lucky enough to teach every morning.
Tucked away on the first floor of a former industrial building, the Tenshin Dojo is located in the twentieth arrondissement of Paris. You enter through a door that opens onto a small cul-de-sac on one side and a small garden on the other, which you have to cross before climbing the stairs. There are no flashy illuminated signs, no large photos extolling the virtues of the place and offering fitness and/or physical culture and martial arts. Located next to the old petite ceinture (a disused railway that used to encircle Paris), very close to one of those railway bridges that almost no longer exist, it has the charm of those hidden places you like to discover when you go for a walk in the city on a strike day or on a holiday when the city is deserted. When you enter the dojo, everything changes; although the windows in the cafe area look out onto the garden, and the birdsong can be heard as soon as you open them, the tatami area is like a cocoon of over 200 square metres, lit both by the sky and by the luminous fans on the ceiling.
The dojo is the fruit of the hard work of the practitioners who have renovated it and maintained it on a daily basis, and for us it cuts a proud figure. In this place where the body works and where one works on the body, where there is gentleness and concentration as well as resistance and tenacity, everyone who takes part in the Aikido or Katsugen Undo1 sessions feels proud to be there, without any pretention, but with the pleasure of experiencing what the everyday world has made difficult or even impossible for some. Everything has to be regained, and if the desire is there, the place lends itself to it. If the dojo presents itself so humbly (that is its Ura side), it is also to allow the encounter with simple and courageous people who will discover its interest (its Omote side) beyond appearances.
O-sensei Ueshiba: what a magnificient posture!
Humility and posture
Preserving humility so that we can rediscover the pride of being who we really are is not without interest, and is often a necessity in the face of inflated egos of recent origin, often due to the upbringing of children from a privileged section of society. Humble people are usually depicted bent over, folded in two, head down, which is really nothing more than a sign of submission or renunciation. The breathing in this case is blocked or wheezing and the whole body will tend to resort to deceit if it is not already the case. Humility and humiliation are two different things, you do not become humble through humiliation, the healthiest reaction is rebellion, then you stand up straight to show your abilities, even in adversity. When the body is upright, the skeleton is in balance and no longer crushed by the weight of the flesh, its surroundings keep it in that posture, animated by that vital energy which is difficult to define but which we know and recognise.
To this day I remember Tsuda sensei’s posture as he left the dojo after the morning session, carrying his bag to do some shopping before going home. To those who did not know him, he looked like an ordinary man, an Asian choosing fruit in the rue Saint-Denis or buying a newspaper, but to those who could “see”, he exuded a presence, a way of moving that was different from all those around him. With his back straight and his head aligned, you could say that he cut a fine figure; and even without knowing anything about posture you could feel his inner strength, his “aura”.
Tsuda Itsuo sensei. The body straightens up and stands out in a crowd
One
All the masters who had been students of Ueshiba Morihei and under whose guidance I had the opportunity to learn and train, such as Noro sensei, Nocquet sensei and Tamura sensei, had a very high regard for what had been transmitted to them and felt that they had a mission that they could not betray. As well as others like Sugano sensei, Hikitsuchi sensei, Kobayashi sensei and Shirata sensei, whom I met during training courses, they all had great simplicity and rigour, and were proud to pass on our art with the humility that befitted each of them, clearly knowing how to be both “proud and humble” at the same time.
Obviously Tsuda sensei, who was my master for ten years, was part of this tradition and he knew very well how to put us in our place when necessary, often with humour or mockery because he had the art of guiding us without demeaning us, but rather by enhancing our own qualities and never letting us take pride out of them.
Here is a text by Noguchi Haruchika2 translated by Tsuda sensei, which at first glance and for those who do not know the author may seem extremely pretentious, but which can also give us a small idea of the vision of a master recognised as the most prestigious in his art.
‘THOUGHTS ON THE FULL LIFE
I am.
I am the Centre of the Universe.
Life lies in me.
Life has no beginning or end.
Through me, it extends to infinity, through me, it binds itself to eternity.
As Life is absolute and infinite, I too am absolute and infinite. If I move, the Universe moves. If the Universe moves, I move. “I” and the Universe are One, indivisible, a body and a mind.
I am free and without barriers. I am detached from life and death. The same goes, of course, for old age and disease. Now I realise Life and remain in infinite and eternal peace.
My conduct in daily life remains undeterred and unalterable. This conviction is incorruptible and eternally unassailable.
Oum! All is well.’ 3
Tsuda sensei adds a few remarks in his book: ‘Perhaps this thought needs no comment for those who feel its impact directly. Yet I am aware of the enormous distance that separates this thought from Western thinking, which underlies the mental structure of the civilised. […]
[…]
I am.
This statement is simple, profound and sublime.
Unlike Descartes, Noguchi does not need to prove his assertion. His position is not removed from his statement, but “inside” it.
This can embarrass us with its very simplicity[…]. But no one dares to say: I simply am.
[…]
I am the Centre of the Universe.
From the Western point of view, these can only be the words of a madman. Is Noguchi a megalomaniac, a fanatic who thinks he is God? […]
Yet what he says is simply a very banal observation: I am alone in feeling the direct value of my experience. As such, anyone can recognise that they are themselves the Centre of the Universe. To each his Universe.
Mental universe? Subjective universe? How many Universes are there in the Universe?’ 4
Calligraphy by Tsuda Itsuo. I am. I am the Centre of the Universe. In me lies Life
A proud bearing
Let us look at O-sensei’s posture when he walks or when he waters his flowers: what a magnificent posture! In the same way, I am speechless when I see how Jikishin-kage-ryū expert Shimada Teruko sensei moves.
Shimada Teruko sensei
Men and women, without distinction, show haughtiness in their presence in front of others, as well as simplicity and modesty in their private lives. Not so long ago, poise was valued, and if it was not used to hide flaws, weakness, mediocrity or even falsehood, it was supposed to reflect the inner self, the “soul” of the person. Today, many values are considered negative or absurd: one sees arrogance, pride, stupidity, childishness, etc., whereas my way of understanding the world saw boldness, courtesy, intelligence or panache, as in the “No, grammercy!” tirade from Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac5.
Martial arts, and more particularly Aikido, bring us back to ourselves, regardless of the education we have received. It is a chance to refocus and at the same time to measure our independence and our dependence on everything around us. It is an opportunity, through contact with others, to rediscover our living roots, invisible though they may be, but not immaterial, or rather made of a materiality not yet recognised as measurable. With regular practice, the body straightens up, and without being remarkable, it will stand out in a crowd as a charged element worthy of interest.
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Article by Régis Soavi published in Self et Dragon (Spécial Aikido n° 14) in July 2023.
Notes:
Katsugen Undō (in English, Regenerating Movement): a practice which normalises the body by activating the extra-pyramidal motor system (involuntary system)
Tsuda Itsuo, One, 2017, Yume Editions, Chap. I, pp. 11–12 (1st ed. in French, 1983, pub. Le Courrier du Livre (Paris), p. 7)
ibid., pp. 12–13 (pp. 8–9)
Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Act II, Scene VIII, trans. by Gladys Thomas and Mary Frances Guillemardavailable online (1st ed. in French, 1898, Librairie Charpentier et Fasquelle (Paris))
Fear has a twofold origin: firstly, it is a primitive, atavistic response, already perfectly well known, but it also has an acquired congenital origin, and is therefore a consequence of civilisation.
Although it can be one of the means of self-preservation, it has all too often become a handicap in our industrialised societies.
In today’s world, fear tends to precede almost every action taken by a large number of people, and it doesn’t just randomly appear, it takes the form – I have found thirty-two synonyms for this emotion – of fear, apprehension, worry, anxiety, etc., all of which multiply and intertwine. Each time, it cancels out the act, the gesture, the approach, or diverts them from the intended objective, presenting itself as if, at the very least, it were already “the” indispensable response to every problem that arises.
Breathing, its mechanism
The blocked respiration and breathing difficulties experienced by many of our contemporaries in the face of aggression or, even more so, the threat of conflict, can be explained by a wild, i. e. a primitive, involuntary mechanism, which has become rigid. It’s less a question of a lack of training in fighting or overcoming fear, than of a habit born of that very fear. We block the air, we compress it, to respond in the most appropriate way to what is likely to happen. We hold our breath to be ready to act, we store air by breathing in quickly, because to act, to defend ourselves, to flee, or even just to shout, we need to breathe out. It is the expiration that enables an aggressive or defensive action to be taken and it is therefore the inspiration that precedes it, reassuring us because it positions us favourably in relation to the actions that seem inexorably bound to follow. We instinctively act in this way every time we think we need to defend ourselves, and have done so since childhood.
In reality, regardless of the fact that we might have intended to do so, we cannot always defend ourselves, society doesn’t allow it, there are rules. In many cases, we are forced to stay with an anxiety, stage fright, shortness of breath, without being able to liberate ourselves. All we have to do is to recall our childhood or teenage years, our physical reactions during exams or simply when one of our teachers gave us a surprise interrogation or asked us a question on a subject that we hadn’t worked hard enough on or had skipped over. There are too many people for whom schooling has been a tragic journey during which anxiety, even internalised anxiety, has been one of their most faithful companions in adversity. It is not so certain that, to paraphrase Nietzsche‘s aphorism, ‘that which does not kill us makes us stronger’. It depends far too much on the individual, the moment and the situation, among other things. Difficulties in childhood are not necessarily the origin of abilities for resistance or resilience, as some might think; they can lead to weaknesses or handicaps, and this often derives to a large extent from the starting point, birth, family environment, and so on. But since fear has become a habitual primary reaction, arising beforehand in every circumstance, the solution adopted by the body via its disturbed involuntary system remains systematically the same. Blocking your breath, which was the right response, becomes its very opposite. ‘The solution becomes the problem’ 1. The body can no longer exhale or move, or even speak, let alone scream. If something unblocks, for whatever reason, then exhalation comes and with it action reveals itself, the need finds a response to the situation, fear takes a back seat and gives way to reactions that are sometimes even presented as courage or unconsciousness, cowardice or common sense, based on the moment or the idea we have of it.
Being instinctive
Prior to birth
It was particularly in the mid-twentieth century that the ideology of preserving the human species by protecting the manifestations of life was born. This concept of protection led Western society into a race towards the medicalisation of bodies that had never been thought of before. This preventive approach, which could be understood as a modern, life-saving response, was unfortunately carried out using warnings against simple risks that were previously considered normal, and which were part of the very fact of living. The fear it engendered gave rise to a negative side-effect on an unprecedented scale.
Over the years, prevention during pregnancy has become a form of hyper-medicalisation that is now a common practice and which has deprived women first and foremost, but also fathers though to a lesser extent, and consequently, of a simple relationship with the body, with their own body. The joy of carrying a child, and the strength that comes with it, has been transformed into anxiety about its future, and even its present in-utero, the life of the unborn child suffering the trauma of the contraction it feels due to the anxiety of its parents. Unfortunately, anxiety is communicated more than we think. In spite of desiring the contrary, the desire to bring serenity to the baby, this preoccupation quickly turns into fear, a fear of movement, of changes and more generally an apprehension in facing the unknown. The consequences are easy to foresee: the risk of emotional shocks and a vulnerability to difficulties that can last throughout the child’s future life. At birth, if tranquillity is lacking and if it is replaced by agitation or anxiety, tension and contraction are produced, blocking the respiration of the newborn who does not understand what is happening, but suffers viscerally without being able to do anything about it. As the baby grows up, little by little, the lack of response to this incomprehension will initially lead to crying and screaming, followed by a certain form of apathy, of giving up, by not fighting anymore when the need is met with no satisfactory solution.
Not letting yourself be overwhelmed
Taiheki, a tool for understanding
I have already had the opportunity to explain in Dragon Magazine (n° 23, January 2019) how knowledge of taiheki can be a useful tool in particular circumstances for understanding people’s reactions. The classification of taiheki developed by Noguchi Haruchika sensei2 is based on human involuntary movements. It is not a typology that fits individuals into small boxes, but rather identifies usual behavioural tendencies while taking account of their possible interpenetrations. Tsuda Itsuo sensei gives us a brief description in this extract from one of his books:
‘These are the 12 types of taiheki:
1. cerebral active 5. pulmonary active 9. closed pelvis
2. cerebral passive 6. pulmonary passive 10. open pelvis
3. digestive active 7. urinary active 11. hypersensitive
From 1 to 10, we can see the five areas of polarisation which are: the brain, digestive organs, the lungs, the urinary organs, and the pelvis.
11 and 12 are a bit special because they refer to conditions rather than to parts of the body.
For each area, there is an odd and an even number. The odd numbers refer to the people who act out of an excess of energy, in the realm of their respective body aria. The even numbers refer to people who are subject to outside influence out of a lack of energy’ 3
Faced with danger when fear arises, our responses will be multifarious, but they will be so not only as a result of our training or our abilities, but also, and even above all, because of the circulation of ki in our body, that energy which can be coagulated at one point or another, leading to specific stagnations and therefore to different results and responses.
The vertical group
For the action to be triggered, ki has to go to the koshi, but when the coagulation occurs in the first lumbar vertebra, the energy goes to the brain and has difficulty descending. This is why type one people, cerebral active, tend to sublimate their fear, objectify it, turn it into an object they can contemplate and analyse to find a solution that satisfies their intellect because action, especially immediate action, is not their main ambition. We often misunderstand this kind of stance which may seem stupid. We wonder why the person did not react in such or such circumstances, and we may find, thanks to the taiheki, an answer to the questions we may ask ourselves about the mystery of certain human behaviours.
Type two people, cerebral passive, are fully aware of what’s going on, but their body does not react the way their brain intended, although there is nothing unpredictable here. They cannot control their energy, which in this case goes down but causes uncontrollable physical reactions such as stomach aches or trembling that make it difficult to respond adequately.
Posture is key
The lateral group
In this group, coagulation occurs in the second lumbar vertebra and affects the digestive system. This is why type three, digestive active, panics while trying to ease their fear, quickly crunches a little something, what they always have on hand in case of need. If there’s a bit more time, they eat something more substantial, a sandwich or a pastry. The important thing is to have a full stomach, so their solar plexus softens and their fear diminishes or even disappears. So they become diplomatic and try to work things out, but if they can’t, they get angry and rush ahead in a haphazard manner, without thinking about the consequences.
Type four, digestive passive, remains inert in the face of fear, unable to react. This is a friendly person, and you almost get the impression that he or she is not concerned. From the outside, we see very little of their nature because they have difficulty expressing their sensations or feelings. From the point of view for action, these persons will appear to be considerate and courteous, seeking to smooth things over and play things down.
The forwards-backwards group
Type five, pulmonary active, has a tendency to lean forward, which facilitates forceful action, regulation or coagulation, or even blocking of their energy which is located in the fifth lumbar vertebra. When faced with danger and therefore with fear, they see it as a face-to-face confrontation. They often act in an outgoing way, but they are also reasoning and calculating individuals, if the fear they feel is logical, they will confront it methodically and will only back down if it is in their own interest, i. e. if they risk losing their feathers. They take action in cold blood because they have prepared for it. For them, training always has a reason to exist, apart from any feelings.
Type six, pulmonary passive, on the contrary, is introverted, inhibited, has a feeling of frustration, but on the other hand is quickly set ablaze, especially with words; in the face of fear they stiffen even more than usual but can either explode as during a hysterical crisis or close up like an oyster, to sulk and wait.
The twisted group
Here the vertebra concerned is the third lumbar vertebra, which is the furthest forward in relation to the axis of the spine and is also the pivot from which the body moves from the point of view of rotation. Without lumbar rotation and curvature there is little koshi action possible.
Type seven, urinary active, twists themselves in such a way as to protect their weak points, both physical and psychological, they want nothing to do with fear, they want to ignore it, and that works. They know they can’t fight it or it will grow stronger and block them in their actions, so they believe it’s best not to think, but to go straight ahead, whatever it takes. They are often seen as heroes or as unconscious people, but they don’t care, they simply can’t resist to what pushes them forward, action is their reason for living and their modus operandi.
Type eight, urinary passive, gets a hard koshi and his fighting spirit tightens up inside. On the contrary, they have a tendency to boast and to get offended by anything. They face their fear if there is an audience, or if they enter a competition, if an opponent challenges them. Even if they can’t win, they will persist so as not to lose, whereas type seven is absolutely determined to triumph. They exaggerate the conditions that have caused them to be afraid, and because they have a loud voice, they can sometimes impose themselves by their screams alone.
The pelvic group
In the case of type nine or type ten people, polarisation occurs throughout the body. We could say that there is a tendency towards tension and concentration for some, or conversely towards relaxation, or even permanent slackening for others.
With type nine, closed pelvis, tension is predominant. They are not easily frightened because their intuition enables them to sense danger before it arises. In any case, fear, even if it is present at a given moment, never stops them in their endeavours. These are persons for whom intuition is more important than reflection. They are vigorous but extremely repetitive, tenacious and rather introverted. Their energy is internalised in their pelvis. They are an example for those who want to observe continuity in human beings.
Type ten, open pelvis, is most capable of dispersing energy. In the face of fear, they find more strength in protecting others than in protecting themselves. We think they act out of kindness, but in fact, by doing so, they forget their fear and their own difficulties. In the case of danger, if they’re on their own, far from trying to fight they may try to flee, because what matters is staying alive and they can therefore easily be considered as cowards, whereas if other lives are at stake, it’s their primitive survival instinct that involuntarily springs into action “to ensure the future of the human race”. They risk suffering from the opinion of others who obviously don’t understand them in such cases and therefore react according to morality or instilled ideas of bravery.
Type eleven, known as “hypersensitive”
They react very quickly to fear because it’s familiar to them, but this reaction doesn’t lead to action; it’s more of an emotional response and they have a strong tendency to exaggerate it. Even if almost nothing happens, they dramatise the situation because their heart rate increases as soon as their Kokoro is disturbed and they can easily faint or have an asthma attack. Because of his heightened sensitivity, they are the ideal candidate for all kinds of mockery, even if they do escape, they know that they can become the scapegoat and suffer harassment to which they would not know how to respond.
Type twelve, known as “apathetic”
For them to react to fear, they need to be given clear orders. Although they may look robust and square, it’s only an appearance, because they don’t know how to react, sometimes by overreacting and sometimes by giving up. They tend to follow the crowd, to act if others act, to do as everyone else does or to wait while enduring.
As society tends to over-protect its citizens, even denying them the right to defend themselves on their own, except in certain circumstances that are strictly regulated by law, individuals become numb, which is likely encouraging a direction that shapes bodies of type twelve, regardless of the original taiheki.
Without incident, so goes the good man (calligraphy by Tsuda Itsuo)
Aikido, a prospect
Normalising the terrain does not mean fighting fear. If this “something” continues to live in us, yearning for greater freedom, but does not awaken, then the fight is likely to be only superficial. The teaching of aikido aims to make individuals independent and autonomous, not to train warriors, which in no way detracts from the fact that it is the learning of a martial art. It’s perfectly possible to learn carpentry or music without wanting to become a professional, but instead aim to be an educated amateur, capable of making a table or a cupboard, capable of appreciating a symphony as well as a quartet or a lied. If you are well primed, you will be able to react correctly in all circumstances, you will be able to gauge the situation, you will be able to sense when to intervene and how, or whether to refrain from intervening at all. The practice of aikido transforms people regardless of their past or their tendencies, but only on condition that they agree to stop in their mad rush to acquire psychological or physical techniques that are supposed to provide the solution to all problems and all fears. If deliverance is needed, it sometimes comes in the act of going “full reverse”, to rediscover the balance and strength that each of us possesses and that is just waiting to emerge and unfold.
Is it not a paradox, or even a contradiction, to immobilise in order to unblock, soften and decongest a joint? Yet that’s the way we see it in the Itsuo Tsuda School, because it is not a matter of forcing our partner with coercion or through a technique that has become fearsome by training with a view to future effectiveness, but rather of taking advantage of this moment to refine our sensitivity.
Regaining flexibility
The Itsuo Tsuda School has followed a particular path as regards immobilisations. Instead of seeing them as a complete blocking to which you have to respond with submission as quickly as possible, or risk pain that can sometimes be intense, I see them as an opportunity to make the joints more supple, to bring back their lost mobility. There is a way of working on immobilisations with the breathing that’s much more an accompaniment than a blockage. When practitioners get used to it, they are no longer afraid of being mistreated; on the contrary, Uke participates with Tori in the immobilisation, avoiding stiffening by breathing more deeply, to improve his abilities.
It is the art of visualising the breath (the ki) through the partner’s arm that enables you to get in touch with the other person’s breathing. If the starting point is the coordination of the breath (we breathe in and out at the same rhythm as our partner), this is a first step that should not be neglected, because everything that follows depends on it. At first, and unfortunately for many years afterwards, all you can do is twist the arm to control the other person, at the risk of damaging the joint. But little by little, if we are attentive and do not force, we can begin to feel a very real and at the same time very special energy flowing through the limb we are controlling and throughout our body. Some people are so surprised by this that they refuse to give it the importance it deserves, and risk missing out on a major event, the opportunity to deepen what I call their breathing and thus discover a primordial aspects of our art: harmony. It is precisely at these moments that I can intervene to make people feel that their sensation is real, that it is not an imagination, by touching them in their own sensibility through a direct demonstration, without theoretical discourses. Sometimes, with infinite care and the greatest gentleness, I also show how it is possible, with a well advanced partner, to go much further, not only in visualisation but also in the concrete sensation that can be communicated by making them feel the path taken by this energy that reveals sensations.
When we are attentive and without preconceived ideas, quite empty in a way, and well concentrated at the same time, we can have the sensation of covering, as if on a path, a large part of the body. We start from the end of the hand, we follow up to the shoulder, we reach, always with sensation, the spinal column and we slide very gently towards the third lumbar, which is the source of the movement, of activity, and is related to the hara, the cinnabar rice field as the Chinese call it or the third point of the belly in Seitai. This is possible thanks to a perception that may seem completely new to us, while it is simply a body’s capacity that we make little or no use of, forgotten as it is because of physical and mental stiffening, this being a poor or even tragic result of so many years of conscious, voluntary, and rational control over our involuntary nature, our intuitive understanding, over the very roots of our life.
We reach the spinal column and slide gently towards the third lumbar vertebra, which is the source of movement in relation to the hara.
Circulate the ki
Discovering deep within ourselves how to make the ki circulate and how to pacify it is a quest that has always been encouraged by the greatest masters. It is certainly not an approach that aims to thrill those in search of the wondrous, but rather one that is oriented towards a verifiable reality that we can reach as long as we are interested without preconceived ideas. It is visualisation, attention, flexibility in the execution of techniques, as well as sensitivity that enable us to work in this direction. A large number of arts in the East, sometimes using a different name to refer to this quest, are able to demonstrate its value: Tai Chi, Qi Gong and among others in China, as well as Kyūdō, Shiatsu and Seitai in Japan. If you also seek information, you will find a number of civilisations around the world that, under different names, have preserved and promoted this highly valuable dimension which is the ki.
Everything depends on the direction we take from the start in the practice of Aikido. Tsuda sensei reminded us of this with a certain irony when he quoted his master: ‘Mr Ueshiba kept repeating that Aikido is neither a sport, nor an art of combat. But today it is considered a combat sport everywhere. What is the source of such glaringly different conceptions?’ 1. While allowing us to reflect on this antinomy, this paradox, he was careful not to deny the effectiveness of Aikido when it was practised by O-sensei himself. ‘Mr Ueshiba immobilised young Aikido practitioners on the ground by merely placing a finger on their backs. At first that seems implausible. Several years of practice have enabled me to understand that it is quite possible. It is not simply a matter of pressing with the strength of a finger, but passing kokyu through it, directing the respiration through the finger.’ 2
Mindset
If immobilisation is to be in the spirit that O sensei was talking about, that of cleaning the joints of the dross that hinders them, of the tensions that diminish their capacities, then the posture is of the utmost importance. O sensei considered that the practice of Aikido was a Misogi, that is to say, it was about getting rid of accumulated impurities: ‘The Earth has already been perfected. […] Only humanity has not yet completed itself. This is because sins and impurities have penetrated into us. The forms of aikido techniques are preparation to unlock and soften all joints of our body.’ 3 To control movements and suppress an opponent so that he is unable to react, all you need is to be solid, stable, to have a good technical knowledge and, of course, to be determined. On the other hand, if you want to act in such a way as to free up a joint, for example, you need sensitivity, gentleness and a good knowledge of the lines that link the body. Nothing can be done without the agreement and understanding of Uke, with whom of course it is not a question of playing the healer, the guru who knows everything, or of subtly imposing “for his own good” this or that way of doing things. There is knowledge other than that provided by anatomy, which can certainly serve as a basis for a minimal understanding, but as amateurs, in the best sense of the term, i. e. passionate about our art, it is of the utmost importance not to limit ourselves to the strictly physical aspect of the technique.
Posture
The posture of the person who performs a Nikyō or Sankyō type of immobilisation, even if it is in essence very concentrated, is even more demanding if you want to go further. The approach, the attitude and the research change our physicality and allow it to acquire a different dimension, one that is more supple, finer and more sensitive. It is essential to merge with your partner, to initially adapt to the other’s posture to enable him to find his place, to position his body in such a way that he can best receive the gesture, the act that will allow relaxation, even maybe the expected liberation. But the immobilisation does not begin on the ground; already in the wrist hold there must be an impossibility of aggressive movement on Uke’s part. In this case, as in most techniques, posture and “Ma” (the distance) are decisive, as is the firm softness of the grip.
The posture and the “Ma” (distance) are key.
Feel the other
The reason I talk about gentleness is that many beginners look to strength to achieve what is the result of long practice and research. Quite often they reinforce their technique, in pursuit of power, by perfecting precision, to the detriment of the feeling you can get from the whole body if, on the one hand, you have physically understood, at Hara level, the circulation of Yin and Yang, and if, on the other hand, instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to satisfy your ego, you have positioned yourself in an attitude, I would say, of benevolence towards your partner. To say that Aikido develops a better understanding of the human being is a banality, to say that we perceive the human soul better takes us into the realm of the mystical, to claim to feel what is happening “in the body, in the mind of the other” seems quite simply delusional and beyond all reason. Yet it’s not so different from what attentive parents do when looking after their newborn baby. Tsuda Itsuo gives an insight into this in Chapter 3 ‘The baby, educator of his parents’, of his latest book Facing Science. Here is a passage:
‘Knowing how to treat babies well is for me the height of martial arts.
A Frenchman was startled by my reflection. “How is it possible to accept such a preposterous, bizarre and incomprehensible idea as associating babies with martial arts? […].”
Obviously, for a Western mind, these are two totally different, unrelated things.
Martial arts are, essentially, only arts of combat. They are about crushing adversaries, defending oneself from attack.
If your opponent is there, you do a Karate kick. If he is closer, you will apply a certain Aikido technique. If he grabs you by your garment, you’ll throw him with a Judo technique. Otherwise, you pull out your knife and thrust it in his stomach. If you can take out your 6.35mm pistol, that’s even better. […]
In short, the point is to accumulate various complicated means and techniques of attack and fill the arsenal.
[…]
However, beyond ai-uchi, there is ai-nuke, a state of mind that allows adversaries to undergo through the danger of death without destroying each other. There are very few masters who have achieved this state of mind in history.
Master Ueshiba’s Aikido, from what I sensed, was completely filled with that spirit of ai-nuke, which he called “non-resistance.” After his death, this spirit disappeared, only the technique remained.
Aikido originally meant the path of coordination for ki. Understood in this sense, it is not an art of combat. When coordination is established, the opponent ceases to be the opponent. He becomes like a planet that revolves around the Sun in its natural orbit. There is no fight between the Sun and the planet. Both emerge unscathed after the meeting. Fusion is beneficial and enriching for them both.
[…]
[…]If the baby uttered very distinct cries, […] it would be easier. But this is not the case. It is only the parents’ intuition that can distinguish these subtle nuances. It is the full commitment of parents that saves the day. If they don’t attach as much importance to the situation as if they were at the point of a bladed weapon, if they are so distracted that they only think of taking out their “doll” to show him to others, “our child is the most beautiful baby in the region”, no one else can force them to do so.
These are conditions that associate the baby with martial arts. It’s not worth listing many other conditions. Nothing beats lived experience. […]
[…]
One of the few remaining areas that requires this total abandonment of the “intellectual self” is caring for a baby.
Maintaining the purity of this kind of care, in the sense of coordinating ki, is a colossal job whereas so many easy and commonplace solutions exist.’ 4
The firm softness of the immobilisation allows the joints to relax.
Seitai
Without my encounter with Seitai and especially without the practice of Katsugen Undo (Regenerative Movement) I would have never discovered possibilities such as those I have mentioned. Regular practice of the Regenerative Movement over many years is one of the keys to deepening what Tsuda sensei called breathing, the art of feeling the circulation of vital energy, which is nothing other than one of the forms that Ki takes when it manifests itself in a concrete and sensitive way. One of the exercises we practise during Katsugen Undo sessions is called Yuki, and it is one of the Non-Doing practices which, when properly carried out, allows us to achieve a fusion of sensitivity with a partner. It is up to each and every one of us to use it in everyday life, and even more so in Aikido or any other martial art. Although not every situation seems favorable to that when you are just starting out, it is certainly a possibility, a path to follow, which seems appropriate to me and which you can discover, particularly in quieter moments such as during an immobilisation or the zanshin that follows it.
This was the path Tsuda sensei was pointing out to us, the path he himself had followed in the footsteps of his masters Ueshiba Morihei for Aikido, Noguchi Haruchika for Seitai or, in another way, his Western masters Marcel Granet and Marcel Mauss – for Sinology and Anthropology respectively – who he also had the opportunity to know personally.
This path, the “Non-Doing” or “Wu wei” in Chinese, has no definable limits or depths, and each practitioner must make his or her own experience, check where they have got to and accept their limits to continuously deepen instead of accumulating.
Aikido Journal: Does aikidō still have a chance of survival after more than three months of interruption?1The first lockdown [in France] due to Covid-19 started on 17 March and ended on 11 May 2020, but it was possible to resume Aikidō sessions on 12 July (2020)
Régis Soavi: Who speaks of more than three months of interruption of the practice? According to our sources, in fact firsthand with the exception of three or four people who had just started less than a month or two ago, none of the members of our dojo have stopped practising (at home). And even, for some, the lockdown allowed them to do what we call the Respiratory Practice (commonly called Taisō in other schools) every morning, while usually because of their work they only can have three or four sessions per week.
The place, the dōjō, has indeed remained closed. Although being confined to Paris by order of the State, but living within twenty meters of the dojo, I was able to continue to go there and preserve Life there. Each morning with my partner (in lockdown with me) we were able to do the respiratory practice after the Norito Misogi no Harae that I recite before the sessions. The resonance, created by the “Hei-Hohs” during Funakogi undō and the clapping of the hands that accentuate the exercises at the beginning, permitted I think to maintain the space “full”, in the sense of the fullness of ki. The dojo has never been empty.
A. J.: Will resumption of practice in its usual form be possible at the beginning of the school year or will it have to wait for the development and implementation of an effective vaccine against SARS-CoV-2?
R. S.: Aikido: Is the way a highway?2Tsuda Itsuo, One, 2016, Yume Editions, Chap. IV, p. 29. (1st ed. in French, 1978, pub. Le Courrier du Livre (Paris), p. 27.)
It is more than ever necessary to normalise our terrain in order to allow a response of the body that is both healthy and fast. If Katsugen Undō (Regenerating Movement) is a specific response to make the body react, Aikidō for its part – if practised regularly with the necessary attention and concentration – is a practice that goes in the same direction. Provided of course that we forget the aspect “I want immediate and easy efficiency”. In the statutes of our dōjō about the essence of the practice is always stated the following recommendation from Tsuda Sensei: ‘without knowledge, without technique, without goal.’ These indications – in a very Zen spirit one might say – make our school a very special school, it is certainly not the only one, but this type of school has become rare and is now beginning to be sought after again for its specificities.
It is through mobilising of the unity of Being that the physical body regains capacities that are too often forgotten, undervalued, overestimated or even despised, but in any case too often underused. Why have Tai-chi-chuan and Qi Gong, whatever the school, been able to continue, progress and flourish, while many Aikidō clubs have been regressing and sometimes slowly dying? Would it not be because they were able to present the health and personal development side as well as the relaxation side of their practice, facing the stress caused by modern lifestyles, rather than the martial side which nevertheless exists in many schools and – I would even dare to say – exists in an underlying way in all schools? They were not afraid to put forward values that are or should be ours, such as the circulation of Ki (Chi or Qi) and the importance of the unity of the body to maintain mental as well as physical health.
Cross Immunity
After locking us up, in lockdown in towns and villages, after instilling fear in the majority of the world’s population, today we are told about cross immunity as if it were a discovery. But have we not been asking ourselves the question of the capacity for resistance, for resilience of human beings for thousands of years? If the human being still exists, is it not because he is fundamentally anchored in Nature, with a capital N and not nature in the sense of “his environment” – which, for that matter, he treats so badly? We are an indivisible part of “Nature”, we lead a life in symbiosis with what surrounds us, we are fundamentally Symbionts. Bacteria, so much feared, do not only play a pathogenic role, they are, for example, also at the origin of our ability to breathe, thanks to their mutations which turned them into mitochondria3Marc-André Selosse, Jamais seul [Never Alone], 2017, pub. Actes Sud (Arles, France).. Without their work, we would be unable to digest food and thus nourish ourselves, just as they participate in our defence system by forming a barrier against dangerous elements.
As for viruses and retroviruses, they play a role in our ability to live and overcome difficulties and obstacles: some are bacteriophages, others, often very old, stuck as they are in parts of DNA that are still misunderstood (parts so misunderstood that they were even called “rubbish” or “garbage”), serve as a information database – much like a huge library – for the immune system, as long as we let it work whenever it is needed. What about balance in these days of panic? Society offers us, imposes on us more and more protection and we are increasingly helpless when faced with difficulties. We are talking in Aikidō about training, we want a strong body, maybe we should also think about training our immune system, and not hinder it in doing its job.
Fear, a Banality
Fear is the big responsible and is instilled from our earliest childhood, with kindness, with good will and for our own good. All of this almost without anyone realising it. Everyone around us participates: parents, family, educators, teachers, media. Fear of pain, fear of illness, fear of death. One must be careful, beware of everything, the slightest cold, the slightest fever, a tiny pimple, everything must be treated, analysed, listed, there is danger everywhere, the individual ends up claiming to be locked up in a bunker, whether physically or mental, supposed to contain a soft cocoon of protection as reassuring as can be. All this all seems normal, why deprive ourselves of this cocoon, deprive others, our friends, our family members of it?
Modern society has altered the meaning of life and replaced it with its passive consumption, the propagators of this new ideology have made it an object of desire, sometimes an object of worship as during the lockdown, but always an object. Can we turn the tide? Go back? Would it make sense? One would quickly be called madman, a dangerous sectarian group, to be eliminated quickly because of the “risk of ideological contagion”. If there is a solution, it is individual, reasonable and responsible, regarding oneself as well as those around us.
A. J.: In the context of the decreasing number of practitioners and their ageing, does Aikidō still have a chance of survival after more than three months of interruption?
R. S.: “The myth of old age.”
I am told: ‘There are no more young practitioners in the Aikidō dōjōs! They all will practice Budō that are deemed to be more effective, more voluntary!’ Why such defeatism?
Instead of doing “a little bit more of the same” as the theory of the Palo Alto researchers puts it, what if we reflect on what made us come to an Aikidō dōjō instead of choosing another art? And what if our strength was elsewhere, what if the value of Aikidō was precisely not in learning to fight, but in the art of the fusion of breathing, the development of sensitivity, in favour of the research on the sensation of the sphere, intuition, the liberation of the real human being who still sleeps deep within each of us? This does not form weak people – quite the contrary – but rather people who are able to look for what they need at the right time, even in a difficult, indeed dangerous environment. And what if our strength was the involuntary, and its outcome the “Non-Doing”?
But how do you manage to reawaken this strength? If we have not kept it since childhood, perhaps we simply need to find it again and for this, to mature, sometimes even eliminate false good solutions, illusions, stratagems.
O-sensei Ueshiba Morihei searched all his life in the practice of Budō as well as through the Sacred, and this search was the very realisation of his life. He did not retire at the age of sixty to become a club boss. He was an example for those who, like Tsuda Sensei, knew him personally. An example and certainly not “a person at risk” who must be protected, as we do today with our elderly in specialised institutions.
I cannot resist quoting a small passage from a text that Tsuda Itsuo published in notebook form in the early 1970s and that I have kept preciously until its official publication in a posthumous collection in 2014. This passage says a lot about the state of mind of this extraordinary master whom I had the chance to follow for more than ten years and who has imbued so strongly my approach in the practice of our art.
Tsuda Itsuo: ‘I started Aikido at the age of forty-five, at an age when we generally give up on any movement that is potentially violent. For more than ten years, every morning, I went to the session that began at 6:30 a.m., getting up at 4 a.m., relentlessly, even if I’d happened to go to bed at 2 a.m. or had a fever of forty degrees. I did it for the pleasure of seeing an octogenarian master walking on the tatami mats.
Comrades in the dojo used to say to me: you have an iron will. To which I replied, “No. I have such a weak will that I can’t even ‘stop continuing’.” Which made them laugh with joy, but I meant it.’4Tsuda Itsuo, Heart of Pure Sky (posth.), ‘Booklet n°3 – Respiratory Practice in Aikido’, 2025, Yume Editions, p. 99 (1st ed. in French, 2014)
Article by Régis Soavi (under the theme “practice and lockdown”) published in October 2020 in Aikido Journal N. 75.
Notes
1
The first lockdown [in France] due to Covid-19 started on 17 March and ended on 11 May 2020, but it was possible to resume Aikidō sessions on 12 July (2020) ↩︎
2
Tsuda Itsuo, One, 2016, Yume Editions, Chap. IV, p. 29. (1st ed. in French, 1978, pub. Le Courrier du Livre (Paris), p. 27.) ↩︎
3
Marc-André Selosse, Jamais seul [Never Alone], 2017, pub. Actes Sud (Arles, France). ↩︎
4
Tsuda Itsuo, Heart of Pure Sky (posth.), ‘Booklet n°3 – Respiratory Practice in Aikido’, 2025, Yume Editions, p. 99 (1st ed. in French, 2014) ↩︎
Violence is so broad a topic, with such density, that it seems to me impossible to treat all its aspects properly in one article. Yet it is always an important topic when we approach the question of the human being.
Émile Durkheim: definition of ‘the social fact’
Before referring to violence, its consequences and adopting a position about it, I feel it useful to locate it sociologically, and I think that Durkheim’s definition of ‘social fact’ can be applied to it, because it does not only provide us with the frame that enables us to analyse it but also contains in itself, thanks to its accuracy and simplicity, the keys to the root of the problem.
‘A social fact is any way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of exerting over the individual an external constraint; or: which is general over the whole of a given society, whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestations.’ 1 A relevant question may arise at this point: Is violence a phenomenon frequent enough to be considered regular and that is large enough to be qualified as collective? May we say that it stands above individual consciousness and constrains them by way of its predominance? Even without being an expert in sociology one cannot but answer this is obvious. To support this theory, I was able to pick up in a recent article about the Algerian War the following observation from a sociologist who offers a different look on these events which confirms – if needed – this position:
‘Violence is external to individuals, it imposes itself on them, but does exist through them. It is indeed spatial segregation, at the same time racial, social and gendered, […] that helps the move to violence.’ 2
Violence as an act, whether physical or psychical, spoken or gestural, symbolic or real, can never be justified. However, as a ‘social fact’ it is absurd to deny it. Are we able, just able, to react differently, or are we overwhelmed and carried away by events that ultimately lead us in a direction we would have in theory discarded in the first place – at least consciously?
The situation creates the conditions, the conditions create the situation
‘Hell is other people’ wrote Jean-Paul Sartre in his play No Exit. Maybe, but we shall not forget the “situation” which allowed this hell to exist. Who is responsible and even guilty for this, if not the type of society that brought it into existence?
If we create in our dojos such conditions that the situation does not allow nor give rise to violence despite habits, education or so-called instinctive reactions, why would anything happen but cordially? Is Aikido a special case among martial arts? Well, of course it is not, because most martial arts, whether right or wrong, present themselves as non-violent. But are we not setting foot on the path of violence when justifying a violent reply to an act – or some acts – of violence?
Judges and jury members in courts often face cases in which they have to decide “in their soul and conscience” who was right to use violence, and whether it is justified. The law provides them with a frame they can refer to but which does not offer ready-made suitable answers for each case. However, they often have to make a difference between suffered and exerted violence. Similarly, “self-defence” is extremely regulated, and may evolve according to society issues, history, or politics.
To deny the violence exerted by society on individuals only consists in putting one’s head in the sand like an ostrich, or hiding one’s eyes like little children who play hide-and-seek. However we should not, at first sight, mistake struggle for violence, and not all replies to violence cause systematically other violent retaliations. The value of Aikido lies in the position it adopts, which is not to deny violence, but rather to re-educate and to guide destructive energy towards another direction more advantageous to all.
I
Being faced to all this matter, I find myself compelled to speak about me.
If I began to practice martial arts almost sixty years ago, and Aikido in particular about fifty years ago, it is precisely because of its spirit of justice, its beauty, its non-violent efficiency, its ideal – at the same time generous, peaceful and soft.
Everything began when I was twelve years old. Without being really lucid on what I was doing, I made a decision that took over my life: never be subjected again. This happened as I was lying under a boy taller than me who was striking my head against the pavement, saying to me: ‘You gonna die!’ This realization that another person could exert on me such violence did not trigger a desire for revenge, but on the contrary, an aversion to violence while were emerging a desire to be strong and a desire for justice that I shall qualify as immediate, instantaneous. To be strong was the solution, but not only. There was also and at the same time this refusal for violence as an answer – not only to my personal problems, but after thinking about it, this could extend to the world’s problems too, it seemed to me.
A desire for justice, for me as for all others who are subjected, had just manifested itself, but above all it had to be exerted without resorting to brutality or barbarity, without having to justify nor inciting to commit acts that I instinctively refused. I did not always succeed in holding this position at that time: social tensions, youth would often – too often – drive me to other directions, but always in order to defend a cause, to fight injustice. However, the internal desire for getting out of the violent schemes I would witness around me remained and the Aikido I met later with Tsuda Itsuo sensei was a revelation.
_The Way_, calligraphy by Tsuda Itsuo.
In Aikido, first there is Reishiki (etiquette) and a technical shaping of the body which, based on a strong resolution, gives us an opportunity to wake up our best instincts. It is by refusing to be ideologically contaminated by dominant powers that we can recover our integrity, our entirety. All the theories that justify violence try to push us onto a path that enables the exertion of a power on others and thus a violence against them, which backfires one day or another whatever role we have taken or believed we could take.
A preliminary, the normalization of the terrain
When Tsuda sensei arrives in France in the early seventies, he plans to disseminate the Regenerating Movement (this is the translation by Tsuda Itsuo for the Japanese word Katsugen Undo) and his ideas about ki. Having been closely related to these two great Japanese masters, Ueshiba Morihei for Aikido and Noguchi Haruchika for Seitai, he will tirelessly guide his students, through many Regenerating Movement initiation workshops as well as daily teachings in Aikido and the publication of nine books, towards the discovery of what still seems a mystery to a lot of people nowadays: the Non-Doing, Yuki, and Seitai, among other matters. This alliance of two practices (Aikido and the Regenerating Movement), which was inconceivable in Japan at that time, and even remains so today as it seems, will enable him to reveal in the West a conception of life and human activity which goes far beyond an Oriental or backward-looking model.
Tsuda sensei’s vision, previously faced with Noguchi sensei and seen approved by him, is that vital energy, when coagulated whatever the reason why, is one of the main origins of humanity’s wanderings and difficulties, that its normalization is the source for solving most of health problems as well as those of violence. In this respect he matches the work of researchers such as psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich who did an enormous amount of work on vital energy, which he called ‘Orgone’, or Carl Gustav Jung, also a psychoanalyst, and his research on symbols and his theory of archetypes, or ethnologist Bronislaw Malinowski and his studies on matriarchy in the Trobriand Islands.
Tsuda sensei’s Aikido was far from a self-defense or a sport, it respected the sacred aspect discovered by O-sensei in this art, and enabled us to get at least an insight about its effects through his approach to life, through his writings, his calligraphies. On the other hand he would not allow himself any religious or sectarian aspect, even referring to himself as an atheist and a libertarian, as Aikido was for him a way of normalizing body and mind in a non separated vision of the individual. As for the Regenerating Movement, it was also considered a slow process of terrain normalization.
The sake of practicing the Regenerating Movement and of its alliance with Aikido
Answering the question ‘What is the Regenerating Movement for you?’ which had asked me founder’s son Noguchi Hirochika when he was in Paris in 1980, I said spontaneously: ‘The Regenerating Movement is the minimum’. A firm and sane ground, a body capable of reacting in order to practice martial arts, this is something absolutely essential. Practicing Aikido can then allow the body to work through techniques which will indeed be formidable in case of aggression coming from anyone, but which also enable to rebalance the person. On the other hand, if aggressiveness is enhanced instead of being normalized, it is often violence that comes out and the damages on both partners can be immeasurable. To get involved in practicing Aikido with, as a result, deformation, overaging, accidents or even handicaps seems to me completely absurd.
The knightly art of archery
If the bow has been hunters – and warriors – weapon for centuries or even thousands of years on the whole planet, Kyūdō – which came out of it – succeeded in transforming it into a pacification instrument. It is noteworthy that this is an art practised by as many men as women. A very large number of Schools do not get involved in competition, nor do they attribute grades, as happens in the Itsuo Tsuda School. All these aspects make it a fundamentally non aggressive art in spite of its origins. An art without aggressiveness, but with aims that will help harmony, such as Kai – union between body and mind, between bow, arrow and target –, with an inner search for truth (真 shin), virtue (善 zen) and beauty (美 bi). With such a spirit, one will see that violence is far from being promoted, quite the contrary, conditions are created for developing a more serene humanity.
Aikido, as conceived by O-sensei Ueshiba Morihei, seems to me of the same nature, and that is why I carry on guiding practitioners everyday in this direction. If we cannot change “the world”, we can change “our world”. Then, in dojos following this kind of path, conditions will be created which – at least on a regional level – will plant seeds for a revolution of manners, habits, gestures, thoughts, a revolution in which intelligence of body and mind finally reunited will cause a profound upheaval in society. It is through the practice of Non-Doing in Aikido that we will be able to achieve this.
As an Aikido teacher, as well as a pianist, I went across the notion of Zanshin through several experiences along my path. When I started studying several koryūs fifteen years ago (Bushuden Kiraku Ryū, Niten Ichi Ryū, Choku Yushin Ryū, and some Shinkage Ryū), I also went deeper into this notion when working with weapons, by handling a sword, a bō, a kusarigama, or even unarmed through the many jujitsu katas which are part of these ancient schools.
Though I probably still have a long way to go in martial arts, I wish to share here some thoughts on the topic.
I notice that one of the current human contradictions is our fascination for the external force that goes along with our contempt for the sensitivity and the sensations of our body which we relegate to the level of sentimentalism. Paradoxically, our Western way of life has never been so easy, with so few physical efforts to make, and our ancestors were probably more able to endure walking, cold or even pain, given there were not as many means to take charge of the slightest of their pains, or to assist the slightest of their efforts. Yet did they lack sensitivity? I do not think they did, because the capacity to feel before thinking has always been essential to live and Zanshin, from my experience, is above all a matter of sensation and presence at the present moment.
Zanshin can be translated as dwelling or remaining spirit but for Eastern cultures the body and the spirit are not two separate things. This “remaining spirit” corresponds to a precise sensation, and it is this sensation that guides us in its application regardless of the discipline one practises. These sensations are specific either to the one who acts or to the one who receives. Zanshin is a sensation and at the same time it is a state that we (re)discover.
Historically principles such as Zanshin, Mushin, etc., refer less to ideas than to realities that have been experienced by generations of people. They bring us back to direct, real experiences, which, in order to be passed on, have been “conceptualised”. We are therefore talking about an act or a state we can recover, despite our differences of times and cultures. They are not great principles gone with Samurais and their time, not even principles restricted to martial arts. They are principles that pervade the whole culture, especially the Japanese culture, but also and above all the Chinese culture.
The image: an eye-opener
Ancient Chinese would teach through images, evocations that were to give rise, that were to reveal, within the heart of the apprentice, a sensation that would guide him/her towards the understanding of the core of the master’s teaching. A physical understanding since it was about calling on a real experience that the apprentice would be able to share. They would mainly use nature to reveal the sensation, for observing nature was at that time a life experience shared by all. Yet we also find this way of transmitting in Western arts. Like in music for instance, because beyond some basic advice, the gesture of a musician cannot be transmitted nor intellectually understood.
What makes the difference between a beginner who presses a piano key and the master who plays the first note of a sonata ? It is objectively the same key and the same mechanism to strike the string. Yet the two sounds will be completely different. It’s the master’s sensitivity that will make the difference. Hence, year after year, the apprentice will seek how to make his/her instrument resonate differently, and the master will seek how to awaken in the apprentice the sensation he [the master] has inside himself. That is why some masters use evocative words, they speak of playing “at the bottom” or of “kneading‘ the keyboard, which objectively does not mean anything at all! All these images call on our inner resources, to retranscribe onto wood and strings an inner sensation and so that this sensation would be, in addition, shared by the listener. This is where we touch on the fusion of sensitivity that allows us to feel what happens inside the other person, it is a transmission from sensitivity to sensitivity. Like a Zanshin that will be right, genuine, only if both persons can feel it.
Then, beyond what we objectively know about what Zanshin means, I find interesting to search inside ourselves which experiences we can relate this principle to. How to make it concrete for us.
The spirit of the ordinary
During the years I have worked as a musician, sometimes I have been in a state that I liken to Zanshin. When I played with other musicians and singers I had to be both totally receptive to what happened outside, to the other musicians, and at the same time concentrated on my own gestures to play my piano part. Uncertainties of a live concert are such that I could not count on the fact that everything would go as planned. This never happens, no matter how one is prepared, being on stage is a unique experience. Preparation aims at reducing as much as possible the unexpected but absolutely not at removing it. One has then to react instantly, to stick as close as possible [to what is happening] for harmony to keep on going. To be hyper-vigilant and at the same time to keep a vague concentration, because as soon as I would focus on a single part I would lose the whole. This sentence by Musashi perfectly summarizes this state for me: ‘In daily life as well as in strategy, it is necessary to have an ample and broad mind and to carefully keep it very straight, not too tight and not at all loose’1Tokitsu Kenji, Miyamoto Musashi: His Life and Writings, ‘Part Two – Musashi’s Writings’, ‘4. “Writings on the Five Elements” (Gorin no sho)’, ‘The Scroll of Water’, ‘State of Mind in Strategy’, Eng. transl. by Sherab Chödzin Kohn, 2004, Shambhala Publications
Musashi also said that the ordinary spirit must be the one of the fight, and that the fighting spirit must be the one of the ordinary2ibid.. Yet one cannot always be on guard, hence the fighting spirit does not mean being “on guard”, it means something different… We may also suspect that this state of mind is very far from the apathy that we very often come across today. The translation of Zanshin by remaining mind might give us a hint, more than the somehow reductive idea of vigilance.
Even though today only a few of us encounter “real fighting”, we all face the many little “ordinary fights” in our daily lives. And sometimes Zanshin can pop up there too. This happened to me during some unpleasant experiences I have had.
I remember once when, trapped in a festival during several days, in a small village, all female participants were embarrassed and worried because the person in charge of the workshop, a renowned violinist and professor, would put his hands on them in an inappropriate manner. I was then twenty-one and between lessons and rehearsals, the girls would talk to each other about these very awkward moments and would fear them. During a common meal, the professor started walking along the table, passing behind each of them to give the day rehearsal schedule. I could see him approaching, dispensing caresses in the hair or on the shoulders, little equivocal jokes etc., and I could see with dismay the girls lowering down their heads and waiting for the inevitable as he passed by, or laughing with a tight laugh. It was for me inconceivable not to do something whatever, so I looked at him coming up to me, not knowing what I would do, and before he passed behind me I turned to him and looked at him right into his eyes while talking about the schedule. I know that at that moment my eyes were saying ‘No’. He stopped and did not touch me. During all the workshop I remained present, without ever being opened to it. He never touched me.
This did not happen with only one man, several teachers and other drunk boys understood they had better stay away from me. Yet what would I have done? I don’t know. In all these little situations that happened to me, what always struck me is that everything was very predictable and it was in the end relatively simple to hold them on bay, it was “just” about being there and listening to this sensation of danger that reaches us before anything happens. Of course things would have been different in case of a more serious aggression, that is a different topic, but we also come across a lot of these “small‘ aggressions which, if we endure them, being unable to react, will leave an imprint in our heart and in our bodies.
Being influenced
My Aikido work since childhood, as a path – a search – towards harmonizing with others, has helped me, I am certain of it, to go through hard times, as it has helped me to work in symbiosis with other musicians. Because our way to interact with others, either negatively or positively, is determined by our inner attitude. The fact of not fighting against the influence of the other person, would he/she be a musician or an attacker, is decisive. The fact of understanding for the two of us.
Chinen Kenyū sensei expresses it with his words: ’The technique is uke [receive], the spirit is attack. […] When one has mastered the principle of uke, there is no longer any attack or defense. Uke is beyond this duality, and this has a profound impact on our being. […] When one is at ease with facing any attack, one develops a self-assurance that allows one to welcome everything, to face anything.’3Léo Tamaki, « Chinen Kenyū, au cœur des traditions d’Okinawa » [‘Chinen Kenyū, At the Heart of Okinawa’s Traditions’], review Yashima #4, May 2019, p. 26
In our life, quite often to defend ourselves, we refuse to be influenced by the other person, yet by doing so we, de facto, close the only channel that allows us to feel and act according to what the other person does: our sensitivity. It is this sensitivity that enables us to feel the other person. Being in the attitude not to refuse the other person, accepting his/her influence does not mean being submitted to it. Absolutely not. Canceling the difference between oneself and the other person and thereby allowing fusion – if they move, I move, because we are but one. There is no longer any action-response. There is One. Basically it is the same thing, whether sensing what a baby who cannot yet express itself needs, sensing the bad intentions of a person or sensing when the singer will start.
Tsuda sensei wrote: ‘Even if we understand and accept Aikido as a means of communion with the Universe, it will be purely on the spiritual plane. As soon as it is faced with real difficulties, the mind gives way to petty aggression.’4Tsuda Itsuo, The Science of the Particular, Chap. XVII, 2016, Yume Editions, p. 141
While being maybe very far from the capacities of these masters, we can practise following that direction and this can be useful for our lives. In order to work in the spirit of communion the first step is to let go. If one has the head full of fears, beliefs, if one is confused then we no longer can expect the right action to spring out from our very depths. This genuine action that the Chinese call Wu Wei – non-action. We search for the exit in all directions, we try to defend ourselves, we refuse the other so to escape him/her but we bump into the wall. Fukuoka sensei used to say about the theoretical search for a genuine nutrition: ‘If you expect a bright world on the other side of the tunnel, the darkness of the tunnel lasts all the longer. When you no longer want to eat something tasty, you can taste the real flavor of whatever you are eating.’5Fukuoka Masanobu, The One-Straw Revolution, Part IV, ‘Confusion About Food’, 1978, p. 126
Zanshin, remaining spirit, is also a fine perception of reality that connects with the principle of yomi. We all think we see the reality, but actually quite often what we see is our interpretation of what surrounds us. Either – too naive – we lack vigilance, or – too damaged, traumatized –, we end up hyper-suspicious. And we become agressive. But whether the defensive spikes of our personal armours are turned towards ourselves or towards the others, the result will be wound and pain. And this does not enable us to live fully too. With an art such as Aikido or ancient koryūs, by putting ourselves into situation, by allowing ourselves to overcome our fears, this can help us to rediscover that we are not that weak.
Then we will discover a different way to adapt ourselves to reality which no longer means being overwhelmed by it. This is something that can be found in other arts, I find something of Zanshin in this sentence by Rikyū, master of chanoyu6chanoyu 茶の湯, improperly translated by ‘tea ceremony’, literally ‘tea hot-water’ from the 16th century, which one day answered to his disciple:
‘Make a delicious bowl of tea; lay the charcoal so that it heats the water; arrange the flowers as they are in the field; in summer suggest coolness, in winter, warmth; do everything ahead of time; prepare for rain’.7Sen Sōshitsu, Tea Life, Tea Mind, ‘Host and Guest’, pub. John Weatherhill (New York & Tōkyō), 1979, p. 30–31
Manon Soavi
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Article by Manon Soavi published in January 2020 in Dragon Magazine Spécial Aikido n° 27.
Notes
1
Tokitsu Kenji, Miyamoto Musashi: His Life and Writings, ‘Part Two – Musashi’s Writings’, ‘4. “Writings on the Five Elements” (Gorin no sho)’, ‘The Scroll of Water’, ‘State of Mind in Strategy’, Eng. transl. by Sherab Chödzin Kohn, 2004, Shambhala Publications ↩︎
Léo Tamaki, « Chinen Kenyū, au cœur des traditions d’Okinawa » [‘Chinen Kenyū, At the Heart of Okinawa’s Traditions’], review Yashima #4, May 2019, p. 26 ↩︎
If we translate Zanshin by ‘sustaining attention after a fight or after a technique’, even if we remain within the martial tradition we remain short of its profound meaning.
Tenshin: the heart of heaven
In the term Zanshin there are two Kanji: 残 (càn or zan), what remains, the residue, and 心 (Shin or Kokoro). If the meaning of the latter is known by all Aikidokas, it still seems to me necessary to specify its value because it corresponds to what we can rely upon to find the path towards fullness in life. For Tsuda Itsuo sensei, a phrase reflected and animated the practices he proposed, both Aikido and Katsugen undo. This phrase – Tenshin – he had translated it by ‘heart of pure sky’. He writes:
‘The word kokoro that I have translated as “heart” is etymologically identical to the word for the central organ of the circulatory system. However, the meaning is quite different. The “heart” in French, cœur, is more related to feeling, while the kokoro in Japanese is not entirely feeling, nor the spirit, nor thought. It’s something that we feel inside of us, it’s more like the English mind1[in English in the text]. If we translate it with the words “mental” or “psychic”, it will be something different again.
The search for a kokoro which remains unperturbed in the face of imminent danger, which remains calm in all circumstances, is the primary goal imposed on those who try to reach perfection in the profession of arms.’2Tsuda Itsuo, The Way of the Gods, Chap. VIII, Yume Editions, 2021, p. 64
‘Your mind must be clear of all thoughts, good or bad. This state of mind is compared to Pure Sky – Tenshin.’3Tsuda Itsuo, Heart of Pure Sky, ‘Katsugen-kai – note n°1’, ’PERSPECTIVE’, Yume Editions, 2025
Zanshin, that state of concentration that lasts beyond the act itself
Aikido: re-learning freedom
As soon as we step upon the Tatami floor, concentration arises. A simple salute towards the Tokonoma suffices for our body to react, to leave this state that could be described as day-to-day to enter the very particular state of Zanshin. It is fundamentally a natural state, a state where our biological animality (in the best sense of the word) arises again. All the tradition that we have been given by O-sensei and that has been transmitted to us by his direct student Tsuda sensei is essential to understand this. It is in the way we perform exercises such as the vibration of the soul, the rowing exercise and many others – often wrongly equated with a warm-up – that we become aware of their importance. It is all the attention given to breathing that allows us to sense, at the physiological level, the circulation of Ki and that summons us back towards this state of concentration that Zanshin is. All this first part of an ordinary session in our school has been designed to bring us, to take us beyond ourselves, beyond what we have quite often become – an ordinary fellow of our society. Immediately, if we are attentive enough, we can feel its effects. We move on the Tatamis in a profoundly different way, what we feel, our perception of the other, of others, becomes at the same time sharper and more pronounced, wider and lighter. It is day after day, by immersing into this atmosphere, that we can both relearn the freedom of moving, a first step towards inner freedom, and feel our space, our spaces. Recovering the sensation of how the forces that surround us are positioned, discovering or rediscovering that nothing is finished, nor concluded, but that everything is connected, that Zanshin is a moment of an eternity that runs its course in all directions.
Daily life: an eye-opener
Without us being aware of it, without us acting in a voluntary manner, our body constantly reacts to the many aggressions from our environment that we undergo everyday. Whether these attacks come from bacteria, viruses or more simply the quality of our nutrition, our body responds in an adequate manner thanks to its immune system, its digestive system or any other system according to the dysfunction at stake. The body’s response, if the terrain is good, if our immune system is well awake for instance, is not limited to a few skirmishes here and there, the mobilization of the body is total and the fight can sometimes be of great violence. Once the fight is over the body does not put itself at rest immediately, it does not go back to sleep once the danger has gone (something our mental, on the contrary, would have perfectly admitted). Our involuntary system does not loosen its attention, eliminating up to the last bacterium, to the last virus or immobilizing, blocking them so that they become harmless. And even then it is not over yet, the body remains vigilant, keeping an eye on everything that happens, serene but attentive to the least movement of the aggressors, whatever and whoever they are. This spirit is the state of the natural and involuntary Zanshin of a body that reacts healthily and therefore the state of the exact opposite of an apathetic body. When all is really over, life somehow resumes its natural course. It is essential to facilitate that this work inside our body can be done with complete peace of mind without being frightened by the slightest pain or disturbing reaction.
For who approaches for the first time a martial art – and in particular Aikido –, the aims are often many, and range from the need of moving to that of defending oneself, through all possible variants, real or fantasized. The discovery of Zanshin constitutes an integral part of Aikido teaching, and its deep understanding as well as its extension to our entire life sphere brings a greater tranquility when facing unpredictable events and allows one to live every day more fully. For it is eventually in day-to-day life that the usefulness of the practice can be experienced and appraised. Without being utilitarian it is always pleasant to see and verify what it brings us in our daily life. There cannot be real attention, concentration, nor pleasure in the achievement of some work without – even though we are not aware of it – the state of presence that we call Zanshin.
Zanshin is a moment of eternity
Circles in water
When the child throws a stone into the so peaceful water of a little pond, s/he stays watching the concentric circles s/he has created that spread and extend from the center. If s/he has kept her/his profound nature, if it has not been destroyed by adults, parents, educators or teachers, who attempt to explain her/him the scientific rationale beyond the phenomenon or who, pressed for their so precious time, give little importance indeed to this little insignificant game, then, immobile, contemplative but deeply concentrated, the child waits until the circles fade away, until their initial liveliness, while lessening more and more, becomes no longer recognizable, becomes one with the natural movement of the simmering water, slightly nudged by the wind. This so precious moment is also Zanshin, it is an instant that could even be considered as sacred, where the child’s Kokoro quietens down, when s/he recovers her/his primordial nature, her/his true nature.
School, or how to break this natural state
The entire school education aims to equip children with weapons for the future. Though the idea looks nice on paper, reality is completely different. The grading system, whether with figures4[In France, grades range from 0 to 10 or 20, letters are not in use.] or letters such as in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, generates fear, indeed anguish – always concern – and produces, in fact, more damage than benefits. In this case we do not work for the pleasure of discovering nor even for a concrete result but for a grade, an assessment, that are supposed to reflect our level in the system. Yet, for a century, countless pedagogy experts have denounced the harm done by this type of schooling system and mode of education. At the total opposite of the state of Zanshin one is waiting for the verdict, the result of the written exercise, test, or exam. Instead of developing the physical or intellectual capacities of the child, we transform her/him into a scared being or later a rebel who only aspires to get out of the system in which s/he is trapped, to breathe if only a little more freely. The damage is however not irremediable, this is also what our practice is for, reviving what should never have been abandoned nor destroyed.
being present to oneself and to others, without aggressivity
Graduate first!5[The French sentence is: « Passe ton bac d’abord ! » [Take your Baccalaureate exam first!]. In France, the Baccalauréat is a national exam taken by 18-year-old pupils ending high school. It is required to enter the University and to apply many jobs.]
Who has never heard this sentence, that has now become a parental leitmotiv? Which parents have let their children follow the direction they had decided to take on their own, supporting them despite the general condemnation from their family or close circles? In France the new law6[law promulgated on 26 July 2019] making instruction mandatory from three to eighteen years old compels the parents, who sometimes chose home instruction because they became aware of the damage they have undergone in their own childhood, to still remain within the national education framework. To force their children to undergo exams and tests they have to pass, failing which they would have to be reintegrated in a state-approved school. How can we allow the child, the teenager, to discover, rediscover or preserve what s/he has always had and should never have lost: Zanshin, this state of concentration that remains beyond the act, this instinctive state that gives us pleasure, satisfaction, and strengthens our capacities by allowing them to benefit from the experience acquired in this moment thanks to this slight standstill where something remains suspended? The child, boy or girl, during this uncertain time, where anything can play out, escapes the world of social conventions, becomes strong, of this strength that no one will ever be able to deprive her/him of, s/he opens her/himself to an intelligence that only belongs to her/him and that is created by no doctrine or ideology.
Ai-uchi, ai-nuke
From Zanshin a world can be rebuilt if it was destroyed or simply damaged. In the Zen practice it is the spirit that remains or the spirit of the gesture that allows one to recover what has been lost, in Aikido it is not the fighting spirit that allows us to live in harmony but rather what is behind, in depth, and that breathes life into our action. Tsuda Itsuo sensei tells us the story of this great 17th century master Sekiun Harigaya who had found inner peace:
‘After having been tormented for a long time by the kind of uncertainty which reigns when we are in an extreme situation, where we cannot resort to a precedent to justify ourselves, he found:
“Defeating the weak, being beaten by the strong, and destroying each other as equals are all dead ends.”
Even if we win one victory after another, according to him, it is nothing but a kind of bestiality. It is nothing but wolves or tigers fighting each other. We always remain in a position of relativity, of opposition. You have to leave that behind in order to find the real path.
How is one to get free of bestiality to find the real way? Especially in a situation where the result is not measured by scores. The accepted formula used until then was “ai-uchi”, mutual annihilation. When you want to beat the other, while trying to keep your own integrity, you lose everything, because at the last moment you are overcome by fear, which paralyses you. In order to get ourselves out of this duality that torments us, we decide to die, giving up everything we have. “When you have my skin, I will have your meat. When you have my meat, I will have your bones”, goes the bravado formula. We still remain in a state of bestiality.
After many years of meditation, Sekiun found his formula “ai-nuke”, which means for each go beyond. The basis of this formula is the discovery of the unchanging, eternal kokoro, in which there is no annihilation of the adversary, but only respect for the other.
Ai-nuke reflects a position fairly close to that of Mr Ueshiba’s Aikido. If we face the other without any aggressiveness, it’s ainuke, but if we retain the slightest aggressiveness, it’s ai-uchi.
But how can we eliminate all aggression when, in fact, we are in a situation of aggressiveness in which we risk losing everything?
This non-aggressiveness, if it does not come from a religious moralist or pacifist, but from someone who lived through 52 real combats up until the age of 50, may be of quite a different value.’7The Way of the Gods (op. cit.), pp. 66–7
Zanshin lies at the heart of the problem, because it is about a presence to oneself as well as the other, without aggressivity, without expectation, without any search for any result. Zanshin is neither the end nor the beginning of a movement, it does not illustrate the power of one over an opponent, it is a time, an undefined space-time, but which gets concretely realized. Recovering the Kokoro from childhood, recovering concentration, the simple joy of feeling fully alive, no longer being satisfied with the superficial aspect of the survival that is imposed to us by society, this is the path that is proposed to us in Aikido. Even if this path demands from us rigor and determination, continuity and introspection, I have always felt and experienced it as easier than resignation, renunciation and hence disillusion or passivity.
Tsuda Itsuo, Heart of Pure Sky, ‘Katsugen-kai – note n°1’, ’PERSPECTIVE’, Yume Editions, 2025 ↩︎
4
[In France, grades range from 0 to 10 or 20, letters are not in use.] ↩︎
5
[The French sentence is: « Passe ton bac d’abord ! » [Take your Baccalaureate exam first!]. In France, the Baccalauréat is a national exam taken by 18-year-old pupils ending high school. It is required to enter the University and to apply many jobs.] ↩︎
Why talk about life force while the topic seems old-fashioned (it is considered today as a kind of ideological remnant from the 60’s), or remains apparently in the privileged field of a small quantity of people looking for mysterious effects?
If physical force remains for many reasons and in many cases an important area, it is not a permanent and inalterable state. There are many factors that we must take into account: the person’s age, health, mental state, social situation, world outlook, etc. The same applies to the so-called mental force, or more commonly speaking, the strength of character.
The spectacular
It has always been a dream for young people to have the body of a god or a goddess, the state of the body being clearly supposed to be reflected by its appearance. A way for evaluating someone’s health status, strength or power is her/his figure. Statues from ancient Greece or Rome would provide as many models. The focus was on aesthetic of shapes and proportions. The same applies today, but models have changed, since they now belong mainly to trendy circles of the “celeb society”: actors, high-level athletes, models, etc. Even when they have not been retouched, the images of these new models we are being offered dangle before us a completely unreal world of innocent young people, bubbling with health, hopping, and performing “exploits” with utmost ease. ‘The whole life of societies in which prevail modern conditions of production announces itself as a huge accumulation of spectacles. All what was directly experienced has moved away in a representation’ (1). In this world of sham, no wonder we are considered troublemakers when presenting other values than those acted by advertisements devoted to Economy and a few people’s will to power – all of this at the expense of majority.
Tsuda Itsuo showing the ventral points during a conference
A society issue
2019 society is not the XXth century society, and even less the XIXth century society. At that time physical force had a natural – would I dare say primitive – aspect but it is no longer the case. If, for instance, medical breakthroughs in the West could save people and enabled to extend lifetime, as a backlash they made many people dependant on treatments and drugs, thereby creating a society of assisted persons whose life force seems to have sorely weakened. Pharmaceutical companies are not shy about producing profusely more and more substances, new molecules, supposed to make life easier.
One of the examples that recently caused a scandal is that of drug-addicts on prescription. Opiate-based painkillers, through the addiction they generate, have not just brought already two million people to dependence, but also hundreds of thousands to addiction, not knowing any more how to get their dose, and even – dramatically – more than forty-eight thousand people to death in the US in 2017 (2).
In some countries, sports medicine too has drugged athletes without hesitation for decades in order to get their country a medal.
Records are continually surpassed in sports, as well as in any place where competition is raging, but it seems difficult to win – or even just to be selected – without having body and medicine specialists in one’s technical staff.
Natural physical strength alone does not suffice any longer, more, much more is required today. Food supplements are being offered, cocktails of ever more sophisticated substances to exceed natural human limits and even sometimes simply to be always in shape, or at least to appear so, and when the consequences of treatments – or rather the ill-treatment – of the body occur it is already too late to turn back.
Human Ecology
A part of the new generation becoming aware of the state of the planet could be the trigger for a more global awareness. The absolute necessity to reconsider not only the production of consumer products but also the patterns of this production should – if pushed a bit further – lead society to understand this imperative need for a change of orientation.
If technology has convenient aspects, should we give up thinking by ourselves and follow the tracks pre-printed by software, algorithms, or web-browsers? Western medicine, which is no science but an art, has progressed a lot in understanding and treating certain human diseases, but is it a reason to give up our free will and place ourselves in its hands without seeking to understand or feel what works best for us? Society over-feeds us with recommendations which, if they do not make us laugh anymore, often leave us indifferent: ‘Eat move’, ‘Eat five fruits and vegetables a day’, ‘Watch out your cholesterol level, eat low-fat products’, ‘Respect scrupulously the number of sleeping hours’, etc. The modern human being comes to follow directives from people who think for him about his health, his work, his relationships, everything is prepared, pre-digested, for the sake of our well-being, in order to realise what writers like Ievgueni Zamiatine, as soon as 1920, Aldous Huxley in 1932, or George Orwell in 1949 had described in their so-called anticipation novels, that is, “an ideal world”. Are we already living in the world Huxley predicted in his 1961 conference?
‘There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it’ (3).
Far from me the idea of carrying forward reactionary or backward-looking ideologies which tend to bring their solutions with the blow of ‘there is only to’ or advocating the resurgence of patriarchal or racist values which fortunately are – or hopefully should be – exceeded. The steps to be taken belong to a completely different dimension. It is nothing less than recovering human values and this seems to be the real revolution. Aikido carries this hope, but we must not take the wrong direction.
Respiration Ka Mi: activation of life force
Life force
Popular expressions such as “intestinal fortitude” or “to have guts” express well how important this region of the body was considered by most people who lived not so long ago. Courage did not originate in reflexion but rather in action from the bottom of the body.
Life force was a field well-known to martial arts masters and all of them paid the greatest attention to make it one of the main matters in their teachings, if not their backbone. All those who had the opportunity to know the first generation masters after O-Sensei know that the value of Nocquet sensei, Tamura sensei, Yamaguchi sensei or Noro sensei, as well as so many others, did not originate in their – obviously flawless – technical quality but rather in their presence as a mere reflection of their personality, their life force.
Tsuda Itsuo sensei, an Aikido master, also belonged to this generation but he was also one of the first generation masters after Noguchi Haruchika sensei in the art of Seitai, a field on which he wrote quite significantly ever since his first book The Non-Doing, from which I have taken a few excerpts.
‘From the point of view of Seitai, the abdomen is not merely a container for various digestive organs, as we are taught in anatomy. Already known in Europe under its Japanese name of “hara”, the belly is the source and storage centre of the vital energy.’ (4)
‘[L]ife acts as a force which gives cohesion to the elements we absorb. […] This cohesive force is what we call “ki”. […] Seitai is not interested in the details of the anatomical structure but in the way each person’s behaviour reveals the condition of this cohesive force.As it is, this cohesion is spontaneously searching for balance and it manifests itself in two diametrically opposite ways: in excess or in deficit. When ki, cohesive force or vital energy, is in excess, the organism automatically rejects this excess in order to regain its balance. The confusing thing is that this rejection, far from being simple, takes many different and complex forms. We can see its manifestations in the way a person speaks, makes gestures or acts. On the contrary, when ki is in deficit, the organism acts to fill the deficiency, by attracting towards itself the ki of others, i.e. their attention.’ (5)
In Seitai, there is a way to perceive the state of the koshi and life force, namely just by checking the elasticity of the third ventral point which lies approximately two fingers under the navel. If the point is positive, that is, if one feels it bouncing when pressed on, then everything is right, one will recover rapidly in case of difficulty or disease; on the other hand, if the fingers go deep and come back only slowly, if the belly is soft to the touch, then the body is in difficult condition and this lack of tonicity reveals the state of life force. I prefer to give no more details, so as to prevent sumptuousness or ill-informed handymen from beginning to touch everything. Anyway you can try on yourself, but not on others even if they agree, the risk of disrupting their biological rhythm and therefore their health is too great, it is no use playing the sorcerer’s apprentice.
Life force is what makes us rise again after sinking. It is what enables us to bring to reality projects that sometimes seem unrealizable.
Representation of the hara, Basilica Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, France
The Seitai technique: an orientation
Seitai provides in our daily life the tools we lack to take care of our life force. Practising Katsugen Undo (Regenerating movement), as well as the suitable Taisos according to Taihekis (bodily habits), or first aid techniques is just the visible part of it, its essence is to be found in its philosophy of life and understanding of human being. All attention given to the education of young parents, the baby care, how to make the ki circulate, to respect everyone as an individual rather than referring to general standards, all this makes it a science of the particular, as Tsuda Itsuo sensei liked to qualify it in his so-entitled book.
If workshops are occasions for me to provide practical indications which enable people to recover a good health condition and get their life force back when weakened, I am always relying on the individuals’ capacity to react, to understand that this implies a need for a different path, instead of dismissing their ability in favour of a technique, an idol, or a guru.
Without life force, physical force labours in finding a way out, it goes round and eventually disturbs the individual her/himself who does not know how to find her/his balance any more.
Life force has no moral standards, it can indeed be used in a relevant or irrelevant way but if it is gone, it is no use discussing about the value of the aims to be reached or about the prospects society is offering to us.
There are lots of questions about its nature, its origin, even its domestication. Some wish they could measure it thanks to highly developed technological devices, like for example, sophisticated electrodes capable of recording the subtle answers emitted by the brain. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately – considering the high risks of manipulation –, that seems impossible for the time being. Life force is of a totally different nature, one can understand it when one recovers the sensation of ki in one’s own body. But what is ki? In order to rediscover it, Tsuda sensei offers us a clue in a few words:
‘Ki is the motor of all instinctive and intuitive manifestations of living beings. Animals do not try to justify their actions, but manage to maintain a biological balance in nature. In man, the extraordinary development of the intellect threatens to destroy all biological equilibrium, to the point of total destruction of every living being.’ (6)
Aikido: an art to awaken life force
Aikido is easily at the heart of many polemics about its refusal of competition, its ideal of non-violence, its lack of modernity, even its alleged inefficiency. It seems to me that it is precisely time to affirm the values of our art – and they are numerous. In the practice of Aikido, what is determining is not physical force, it is rather the ability to use it; similarly, as far as technique is concerned, the most important thing is adapting it to the concrete situation, and this is impossible without our life force been awakened. To be put in situation on the tatamis day after day, session after session, if without concession and at the same time without brutality, opens our eyes and enables us to develop and find again what animates the human being, namely a force, a vitality too often allowed to atrophy. The power that can be developed but also the tranquillity, the inner quietness that can be found again are the visible manifestation of it, the reflection of what is called Kokoro in Japan.
No need to compare with other practices because, whatever criticism is made of it, even if Aikido merely helped to allow the awakening, the maintenance or improvement of life force, would it not have fulfilled its duty to practitioners? Would it not be relevant to consider it one of the main martial arts?
Life force is at the heart of all disciplines since the origin of time and, if all martial arts evolve, it remains the essential element to their practice.
Article by Régis Soavi published in October 2019 in Dragon Magazine Spécial Aikido n° 26.
Notes:
Guy Debord, La société du spectacle [The Society of the Spectacle], éd° Buchet-Chastel (Paris), 1969, p. 9
« Médicaments antidouleurs : overdose sur ordonnance » [‘Pain-Relieving Drugs: Prescription Overdose’], newspaper Le Monde, 16 October 2018
Aldous Huxley, speech pronounced in 1961 in California Medical School of San Francisco (available online on https://ahrp.org/1961-aldous-huxleys-eerie-prediction-at-tavistock-group-california-medical-school/)
Tsuda Itsuo, The Non-Doing, Yume Editions, 2013 (1973), p. 191
For most Westerners, practising Aikido on their knees rather than standing seems to be at first sight very difficult. Although in our everyday life, we are very rarely in this position, it has been since immemorial times a relaxing posture, still allowing to stay vigilant.
Relaxing
To sit in Seiza (in Japanese « the proper way to sit ») allows the spine to be aligned and helps abdominal breathing, and so allows to put power in the Hara. Moreover, if the position, the posture, is well in line, while relaxed, it is an extraordinary opportunity to relax the whole body.
To rest, to relax without having to lie down has always been what people working outside and therefore at the mercy of enemies, predators or even just because of bad weather conditions, have been looking for. The squatting position, still used in most countries of the African continent, in South America, Australia and many other countries, has the same function. On this matter, Tsuda Itsuo sensei recalls an anecdote in his book The Path of Less:
‘In an article probably conceived before 1934, Marcel Mauss describes this under the heading “Techniques of the body”.
Children squat normally. We no longer know how to squat. I believe that this is an absurdity and an inferiority of our races, civilisations, societies.
And he quotes an experience he had at the Front during the First World War. The (white) Australians he was with could rest on their heels during stops, while he was forced to stand.
The squatting position, in my opinion, is an interesting position that we can help children preserve. The biggest mistake is to take it away from them. All of mankind, except our societies, has retained it.
The squatting position presupposes flexibility of the hips. In doing Aikido, I see the huge difference between the Japanese and the Europeans. The Japanese, less structured intellectually and verbally, simply imitate what they are shown. Europeans observe, take note, make a file and paste a label on it. But when they begin to execute a movement, they sometimes find it difficult to coordinate everything. If they pay attention to the right hand, they forget the left. As for the feet, they don’t know where they are. This kind of mental habit does not make practice easy. Instead of having two components, A and B, B simply imitating A, they involve a third element, C, called intellect, file, or structure, thus forming a deflected circuit that complicates the situation.’
Childhood, adolescence
Before walking upright, we crawled, then, seeing and imitating other older children or adults around, we stood on our two legs. The vertical position released our hands and little by little we moved quicker and quicker even with our arms full of toys. During this period of our life, our usual playground, the one we feel comfortable to play in, where we can be independent of adults is the ground. And this whatever the area of the planet we live in. Then, we encounter great changes, our bodies spread out, we leave the ground for something more aerial, more mental too because our brain is better irrigated in a vertical position, so the more we grow up the more we get far from it. The society we live in provides us with high chairs, sofas, and other settees on which we can sit conveniently to enjoy ourselves or work, to relax or concentrate. From then, we live far from the ground, we will not be back on the ground again except in very few moments when we play with a child or when we are on the beach or on the lawn.
Tatamis
When people discover the dojo and that huge surface at their disposal, they feel some sort of a childlike joy that threatens them and at the same time attracts them. Some of them are aware of it, others are just impressed. While children immediately start running and rolling on the floor, grown-ups remain reserved, already conscious perhaps of the process to be followed.
The first steps, as to say, on the Tatami mats, start in a sitting position. Frequently beginners cross their legs, but even if they succeed in sitting in the Seiza position, which is extremely unusual, they will almost never be told to keep the position during the practice. After a few seconds or few minutes of meditation, often the whole session will carry on standing. Indeed we are not in Japan, and many people are not used any more to sit that way, but instead of considering it as a challenge, a goal to be achieved, it seems to me interesting to consider it as a game. A game that requires physical and mental implication, but still a game, so a pleasure. And even if there are constraints, they are fully part of the game we have just started.
Getting recentred
Practising on our knees allows to get recentred while remaining relaxed. I always have my students practise slowly, specially beginners, but it is very good for advanced students too since a workout performed slowly and smoothly (I often use the Italian word legato, used in music) allows the whole body to recenter. If, as we got used to it, we do not work using the muscle strength in our arms, but if we project our energy from our center, our Hara and have it run along our limbs, we can feel vividly the flow of Ki and see the effects. Arms must be neither flabby nor rigid, but supple and active, powerful, with this power they have when they are full of Ki. Working slowly in the kneeling position, for example in the basic forms that are Ikkyō or Yonkyō, allows, if one pays attention to this direction, to discover how Yin and Yang act, if we can say, spread out, interpenetrate. We then get recentred automatically because we need to recover our balance, the support on the knees become lighter because the body distributes the weight better, the hips themselves regain the flexibility they had lost by moving only from the standing position.
Two moments seem to me the right time to practise on the knees. The beginning of the session, since, as a slow work, it is a bit like a fitness. And the end of the session, the moment we do Kokyū-Hō which, in addition of being done on the knees, concentrates in a few minutes many physical and mental difficulties. It is, again, an opportunity to work on how to get recentred while one can check the state of the Koshi, its suppleness and so the whole posture.
A preparation?
Getting prepared with practising kneeling techniques, allows you to be ready when you face the opportunity of a Shihō-nage with a partner much smaller than you. The fact that you can turn while kneeling without any difficulty or loss of balance, to pass under his arm is an undeniable advantage.
But the range of advantages to practise in suwari waza (kneeling techniques) does not end there.
If I take as an example Irimi Nage in Hanmi Handachi Waza (techniques achieved with one partner on his knees and the other standing) one can feel more precisely the breath of aspiration down, and you can immediately feel if you are centred or not, if you have succeeded in creating a sufficient void in which the partner has plunged, where he has lost his balance while you stay stable. This is, still in Hanmi Handachi Waza, even more visible and concrete with two partners: the grab Katate Ryōte Dori (seizure with both hands of a wrist) begins with a strike that turns into a seizure — and this is the crucial moment for a kokyū nage. The projection can only be done if one has enough practice of kneeling techniques, if one is able to become very heavy by concentrating the Ki in the lower abdomen, and to pass it beyond the fingertips.
Of course all techniques can be done from this posture with sometimes some variations but what seems important to me is that after having practised on your knees, practising in Tachi Waza (standing practice) becomes much easier. This kind of work can have various consequences, if it is done forcefully, with the desire to win at all costs, or to stand a reputation, a role. Without having found the lines that allow the projection in flexibility, nor a deep and quiet breathing, there is a great risk of damage to the body, of having after a while serious problems with the knees or hips and a real handicap in everyday life.
Walking
Walking, moving on your knees, can be a good exercise, and for that there is Shikkō. Here again it is important not to overdo it, not to show it as a competition, a « tour de force » that some will succeed more or less happily. Shikkō is an excellent exercise but to use in moderation, especially at the beginning. After a few years of practice, if we have not forced, then it will have become a real pleasure. You can even do this training with a Bokken and by striking straight, this way of doing it makes it possible to check if it is the hips that move and if the rotation is done well at the lower level of the body and not from the chest. The shoulders must not move at all, but must remain exactly in the direction of the movement. When you start to feel comfortable you can start to make slow strikes with the Bokken while moving. All these exercises help to regain mobility in the hips. In my opinion, they have no immediate martial value, at first glance, simply because they are executed on Tatamis, which is normal, because who would like to train on gravel, for example, without protection on their knees?
Miracles?
Changes, that seem miracles to whom they happen, are possible. Years ago a woman came with crutches, she had been moving with enormous difficulties for several years. Very determined she came to practice every morning at the dojo. At the beginning there was no way for her to sit other than with her legs stretched in front of her, little by little however, after a few weeks her condition had improved. After a month she managed to get on her knees, but of course, straight and stiff as a board. From then, she began to get down, centimetre by centimetre, to end up, after several months, sitting on her heels without pain and, even later yet, enjoying it.
This is not a unique case, right now at Tenshin Dojo, in Paris, a retired gentleman who came in with serious problems with his knees and ankles as a result of various surgeries he had had several years before. In less than a year of very regular practice (he comes every day) he has regained a mobility he no longer expected and now can sit on his heels. No force, taking time, having continuity, if something is possible it is done naturally.
To be quite honest, I must say that in both cases the people concerned also started to practice katsugen undō (the regenerative movement) which facilitated the work of their bodies and their re-ordering.
Is groundwork essential?
Nothing, ever, is essential, but is it necessary? It is certain that we can do without it, there are even many good or bad reasons to avoid it, we can argue in these terms: it hurts the knees, it is dangerous for the joints, there is no point in that, because nobody moves that way anymore, etc. If we cannot make out the reason of it, why should we strain ourselves? There are so many rituals, exercises that have become incomprehensible in our modern society, that even the simple act of saluting by bowing may seem obsolete, even ridiculous for many Westerners who would be perfectly willing to swap it for the “Shake-Hands”. By adapting to modernity, are we not in danger of missing the essential, of losing the spirit that leads us in Aikido, would I dare say its soul?
In this article, starting from an I Chin hexagram (䷯ jǐng: the well), Régis Soavi discusses with us how the practices of Aikido and Regenerating Movement can be instruments of searching and deepening into oneself.
The dojo is, intrinsically, the well where all practitioners of martial arts in search for the Way, Tao, come to feed themselves. Contrary to rings or gyms, it offers a place for peace that is necessary, perhaps essential, to deepen human values.
dojo Scuola della respirazione, Milan
Today we live at the speed of light. Communication has never been so fast. Waves loaded with bits and micro-bits circulate continuously around our planet, carrying more information that our brain can store. Social networks have replaced knowledge with a superficial veneer that may, seemingly, be fit to meet up with our social appearance. In the sixties, members of the Situationist International castigated the pseudo-intellectuals who would feed on magazines such as Le Nouvel Observateur or L’Express1Le Nouvel Observateur (today L’Obs) and L’Express are weekly French general information magazines. They are among the most prominent ones in terms of audience and circulation, and stand at the political centre in the French media landscape. [Translators’ note] to fuel their society conversations or their writings: what would they say about the democratisation that is now offered to each and everyone of us as a chance to become the new Monsieur Jourdain from Molière’s Bourgeois Gentilhomme? Better than deepening anything, ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ seems to be the motto of our times.
Martial arts tend apparently to be going the same direction. Many are those who are interested in the spectacular pictures broadcasted by media that present the fictive abilities of martial actors who, though highly skilled in their profession, mainly look for a rendering that is both superficial and commercial.
The image of the well in ancient China should make us wonder about the trends that govern our daily life. Whereas water used to be drawn from the well using a bucket and a pole, it was indeed the repetition of such an act that enabled the village life, and the provided food was considered as unlimited. What if we took a leaf out of this ancient book?
When we practice an art such as Aikido, it is not about accumulating ever more numerous techniques, nor blissfully repeating what is being taught, but rather about beginning a search, about reorienting oneself towards something more profound in order to abandon the superficial, the superfluous, that disappointed us so much and that we can no longer bear.
Régis Soavi
Many of those who were, at first, extremely enthusiastic to start a true work with their body get weary of repeating, in an all-too-often schoolish manner, or get misled by the latest trend. This is how some people collect methods and go from one art to another, from Yoga to Tai chi, from Karate to Capoeiera, sometimes thinking that one of them is superior to the other, as so nicely explained by any trendy youtuber making up the news the way they like.
In view of all these characters who live only to influence their followers and earn a living on their backs thanks to the number of “likes” and to the ads they generate, is it not time to search deep into oneself? To take time to think rather than passively consume someone else’s thought? To move one’s own body to rediscover a lost harmony rather than search a virtual complement to the routine that stems from the poverty of one’s daily life?
The dojo as a place for searching has all the characteristics of the well: it is both a place for training, because one draws from it everyday, and at the same time (and maybe even more) it is a place for conviviality where the social gets rid of what prevents it from being true, that is to say, from being as close as possible to the profound nature of individuals. A place where sociability escapes conventions, a place where we can talk to each other, physically get in contact with each other in a simple manner, with all the difficulties potentially involved for who is not ready.
All the arduousness resides in not remaining at the surface of the practice, in not being content with surfing onto an ocean of images that have become virtual or wading on the strand – without getting too wet, please – but in absorbing what one finds out therein, in letting go of what encumbers us so as to be free to explore its depths.In his book The Non-Doing, my master Itsuo Tsuda delivers us with simplicity an insight into his own research and the work he had developed in Europe:
Itsuo Tsuda
‘What am I in comparison with the greatness of the Universal Love of Master Ueshiba, or with the technique of the Non-doing of Master Noguchi, or the unfathomable refinement of Master Kanze Kasetsu, actor of the Noh theatre? I have known them all; two of them are dead and now only Master Noguchi is still alive. Their influence keeps on working in me. They are natural masters. I am simply a being who is beginning to wake up, who is seeking and going through an evolution.
An extraordinary continuity of sustained efforts is what marks out the works of these masters. I feel as though I am finding wells of exceptional depth in barren land. Where the work of categorization halts, is merely their starting point. They have drilled much deeper. They have reached the streams of water, the source of life.
However, these wells are not interconnected, although the water found in them is the same. My task is to draw up a map of the territory, and there, to find a common langage.’ 2Itsuo Tsuda, The Non-Doing, 2013, Yume Editions (Paris), p. 12
This language, Itsuo Tsuda will find it in the art of writing (he defined himself as a writer-philosopher, as attested by his funeral stele in Père Lachaise cemetery), in the teaching of a certain form of Aikido that is grounded in breathing and the deepening of the sensation of Ki, and finally in making known Katsugen undō (Regenerating Movement). Through his work, his writings, his teaching, he will manage to create a bridge between East and West.
What threatens who practices martial arts – and more specifically Aikido – is the boredom due to repetition, search for efficacy, polishing one’s technique, and all this at the expense of the depth of the art and the culture that underlies it. As a matter of fact, our time is no longer under the same imperatives as were previous centuries; while it is still useful to be able to react in case of agression or difficulties, what will be determinant is our inner force and the awakening of our instinct, more than our fighting capacity. Aikido remains a bodily practice, where rigour, dynamics, know-how, are of the utmost importance, but its philosophical aspect cannot be overlooked. This aspect is in no way contradictory, quite the contrary, one of my former masters Masamichi Noro had himself understood it very well when he created this new art that is Ki no Michi (the way of Ki) at the end of the seventies. The search in Aikido is something difficult and can sometimes even be pernicious, because it is not about confronting with other combatants, it is not meditation or dance either – and I can say so because I have an immense respect for these arts, there again the wells are different, but the search goes the same direction.
To go and search towards the development of human capacities, of the culture beyond what is known, to question oneself and question the ideas of the world, to move forward to make our society move forward. Maybe one day to get finally out of barbarism and obscurantism. We just need to read again Umberto Eco‘s conference3Umberto Eco, Costruire il nemico e altri scritti occasionali [Creating the Enemy & Other Occasional Wiritings], 2011, ed. Bompiani (Milano). The conference Creating the Enemy was given in Bologna on 15 May 2008 and its full text is availble online (in Italian) on how the human being creates themselves enemies to understand that, more than ever, we need to know the other to better understand him or her.
Aikido as an art of the Non-Doing is a gateway to what many people are looking for: realising oneself, with no oversized ego, but in simplicity, and with the pleasure of an authentically lived experience.
Le Nouvel Observateur (today L’Obs) and L’Express are weekly French general information magazines. They are among the most prominent ones in terms of audience and circulation, and stand at the political centre in the French media landscape. [Translators’ note] ↩︎
2
Itsuo Tsuda, The Non-Doing, 2013, Yume Editions (Paris), p. 12 ↩︎
3
Umberto Eco, Costruire il nemico e altri scritti occasionali [Creating the Enemy & Other Occasional Wiritings], 2011, ed. Bompiani (Milano). The conference Creating the Enemy was given in Bologna on 15 May 2008 and its full text is availble online (in Italian) ↩︎
In this fifth part, Régis Soavi discusses a central principle in Seitai philosophy: the unity of the body.
Subtitles available in French, English, Italian and Spanish.To activate the subtitles, click on this icon. Then click on the icon to select the subtitle language.
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Some additional information
Seitai was developed by Haruchika Noguchi (1911-1976) in Japan. Katsugen Undo (or Regenerating Movement) is an exercise of the extrapyramidal motor system that is part of Seitai. Itsuo Tsuda (1914-1984), who introduced Katsugen Undo in Europe in the 70s, would write about it: ‘The human body is endowed with a natural ability to readjust its condition […]. This ability[…] is the responsibility of the extrapyramidal motor system.’ 1Itsuo Tsuda, One, Chap. VI, 2016, Yume Editions, p. 46 (1st ed. in French: 1978, Le Courrier du Livre (Paris)
Excerpts from the video on Yuki
‘The current trend is that there are all kinds of programmes where people give you things to do, whether it’s exercise, food, fasting… all kinds of mental manipulation, mental exercises or other things to make people feel good.
But in fact, human beings are completely different. Sometimes it only takes one tiny thing to make everything better or worse. Sometimes just one number, one number can completely determine the quality of your life. If, for example, you see -4000 euros in your bank account, all of a sudden… ‘Ha!’, your heart can stop. It’s ridiculous. How can your heart stop because you saw a number? It’s absurd. And yet, that’s how it is.
So what matters, in my opinion, is the harmony of the body. It’s a balance that we’re going to find, always the same. Every time we talk about Seitai, every time we talk about what happens in relation to regenerative movement, etc., we have to think in terms of balance. That’s what a human being is: a balance. They are not separate. Of course, if there is a serious problem in one part of the body, the being, the individual, is out of balance, but they will not only suffer in that part of the body. They suffer throughout their entire body. So here again, it is balance that is decisive.
Notes
1
Itsuo Tsuda, One, Chap. VI, 2016, Yume Editions, p. 46 (1st ed. in French: 1978, Le Courrier du Livre (Paris) ↩︎
‘[…] The path to in-depth discovery of oneself […]’ said Tsuda sensei ‘is not a straight line towards paradise, it is tortuous.’ (1) Like classical musicians who spend their life in an infinite search for evolution, martial arts practitioners are on endless paths. Yet these paths are not devoid of meaning, signposts or verifications. One of the signposts Tsuda sensei left to his students is « Dōjō ».
He himself wrote on the topic : ‘As I said before, a dojo is not a space divided into parts and provided for certain exercices. Its a place where spacetime is not the same as in a secular place. The atmosphere is particularly intense. One enters and leaves the space bowing so to get sacralised and desacralised. I am told that in France one can come across dojos that are simply gyms or sports centres. Anyhow, as far as I am concerned, I want my dojo to be a dojo and not a sports club with a boss and its regulars, so as not to disturb the sincerity of the practitioners. This does not mean that they must keep a sullen and constipated face. On the contrary, we must maintain the spirit of peace, communion and joy.’ (2)
But why create Dōjōs? It is quite complicated and requires a lot of work!
To answer this question, one might want to get back to the reason why we practice. If each of us has a personal and complex answer, I personally join the opinion of those who think that we practice first and foremost to “be”. To genuinely “be”, would it be only during the time of a session.Then Aikidō is a tool to bring us back to ourselves. To start “being” on tatamis is a first step which starts with a letting go: to accept stepping onto a tatami and get in physical contact with others! But a contact different from the one which is governed by social conventions. By the way I sometimes notice the reluctance of some beginners to put on a Keikogi, as if keeping their sport trousers allowed them to keep a social identity. The Keikogi puts us all on equal footing, outside of social markers, it rubs off body shapes, sexes, ages, incomes… Of course as long as one does not show off one’s grade, one’s dan, in order to impress beginners. If our state of mind during the practice is to share this experience with a partner, and not to show that we are the strongest, then the fear of the encounter with the other person can lessen. In the Itsuo Tsuda School, there is no grade outright, this settles the matter once and for all.
Adventure starts at dawn (3)
The Dōjō itself is a place out of the social time, out of the epoch, indifferent to the geographical location, and all of this also makes us completely disoriented. In addition we practice early in the morning (as Ueshiba O-sensei used to). Sessions take place every morning, all year long, at 6:45am during the week and 8am on weekends. Whether it snows, whether the sun shines, during vacations or on holidays, the Dōjō is open and sessions take place. Beyond the arbitrary slicing of time in our world.
Dawn is also a particular time. Between awakening and practising, there is almost nothing. Author Yann Allegret had put it as follows, in an article published in KarateBushido : ‘This happens around six in the morning. People leave their home and head towards a place. By foot. By car. With the metro. Outside, the streets of Paris are still asleep, almost empty. Dawn is drawing close. The Aikidō session starts at 6:45am. The rythm of the city is still that of the night. Those who are outside have not yet put on their armours necessary for the workday ahead. Something remains suspended in the air. At dawn, as the sun rises, one feels like walking within an interstice.’ (4)
An interstice of time and space where we can start working on ourselves. Because we have to lose, at least a little bit, our usual landmarks to recover the inner sensation of our own landmarks. The sensation of our biological speed rather than the time on the clock. In order to listen to oneself, silent surroundings are needed. And in our world silence is not so easy a thing to find!
A casket
This is why in Itsuo Tsuda School we give so much importance to creating Dōjōs. Of course it is possible to practice anywhere, to adapt to any circumstances. But, is it always to be desired? To resume the parallel with music (topic I know well, having been pianist and concertist during fifteen years) one can play outside, in a gym, in a school, a church, a hospital, etc. I have incidentally nothing against the democratization of classical music, quite the opposite. But a good concert hall, this is something else. It is a casket where the musician, instead of spending his time adapting to the situation, compensating for the bad acoustics or anything else, can immerse himself into listening, search through fineness and make music arise. Living both experiences is most probably necessary for a professional. For a beginner, finding concentration and calm in the midst of turmoil or airstreams frankly seems to me very difficult.
As to Aikidō, the Dōjō is the casket of this research. If one seizes this opportunity of having a Dōjō, another perspective opens up. Because if our mind can understand the philosophical concepts that underlie the discourses about the Path, about the soul, etc, for the body to truly experience them, that’s a different story. We are often too busy, too upset, and we do have the need for a frame that fosters some particular mindsets.
We can observe as our experience grows that the spirit of Dōjō is to be cultivated both in a rather precise manner and at the same time within something fluid and intangible. The same goes for religious worship places. Sometimes a small church in the countryside, a chapel hidden around the corner breathes more silence and sacredness than an immense cathedral visited by millions of tourists. It is the same with Dōjōs. It is neither the size, neither the absolute respect of rules that make a place different. Dōjō, « the place where one practices the path », is an alchemy between the place, the layout, the prevailing atmosphere. It is not enough that the Dōjō should be beautiful, although a tokonoma with a calligraphy mounted as kakejiku, an ikebana, do create an atmosphere, but it also has to be full and lively of its practitioners!
Architect Charlotte Perriand made this remark about the Japanese house, which « does not attempt to appear, but attempts to reconcile human beings with themselves » (5). It is a beautiful definition that perfectly applies to the notion of Dōjō. To reconcile human beings with themselves and therefore with nature which we are part of. We must feel this as soon as we enter the Dōjō. Often, people make a pause, even simple visitors. It is instinctive.
The prevailing activity in the Dōjō is also an essential aspect of it. We have the possibility to take in charge all aspects of life. Members do the bookkeeping, renovation works, cleaning… Incidentally Tamura sensei used to say about cleaning the Dōjō: ‘this cleaning not only concerns the Dōjō itself, but also the practitioner who, by this act, proceeds to cleaning in depth his own being. Which means that, even if the Dōjō looks clean, it still needs to be cleaned again and again.’ (6). Sinologist J. F. Billeter talks about the « proper activity » [in French « l’activité propre », where « propre » both means clean and personal] when human activity becomes the art of nurturing life in oneself. This was part of the research of ancient Chinese Taoists. For us in the 21st century it is still about regaining a relationship to human activity, not as something separated from our life, allowing us to earn money and wait for holidays, but as a total activity. A participation of the entire being to an activity. The contribution of members to a common work in their Dōjō also enables us to own this Dōjō, not as a property, but as the real meaning of the common good: what belongs to everybody is mine, and not « What belongs to everybody belongs to nobody so why should I care ». This perspective inversion sometimes takes time. It cannot be learnt by words or by strict rules. It is to be discovered and it is to be felt by oneself.
I am sometimes told ‘in the Dōjō it is possible, but at work, at home, it is impossible’. I am not so sure about it. If what one has deepened in the Dōjō is enough, then one will be able to carry it over to somewhere else. Ueshiba O-sensei used to say ‘Dōjō, it is where I am’.
We may not revolutionise the world all at once, of course, but each time we will react differently the world around us will change. Each time we will be able to get back to our center and breath deeply, things will change. All our problems will not be solved, but we will live them differently,our reality will then also be different.
Having no money is an advantage
For Musashi Miyamoto everything can be an advantage. During a fight if the sun is on your back it is an advantage for you, if the sun is on the back of your enemy and he thinks he has the advantage, it is an advantage for you. Because everything depends on the individual, on how one orients oneself. Thus sometimes having no money is an advantage, because then we have no other solution than to create, to invent solutions. This is how we can create Dōjōs without any subsidies, entirely dedicated to one or two practices, what was a priori impossible becomes reality.
Sometimes difficulty stimulates us to create what is essential for us. By being a tenant, by volunteering, by doing things on our own, by not looking for perfection but for inner satisfaction. By listening to one’s own inner imperative and not birds of ill omen who tell you it will never work, before anything has even started.
Temporary? Like all that lives on earth, yes, but a temporary fully lived in the present moment. To live intensely, to follow one’s path, is not an “easy” thing. But poets already gave us some advice, like R. M. Rilke: ‘ We know little, but that we must hold to what is difficult is a certainty that should never forsake us.’ (7)
Building while accepting instability, working to be satisfied and not to get an income or a reputation, here are values that go quite against our society of immediate pleasure, of consumption as compensation to boredom. If today there is not necessarily a struggle for life anymore in our societies, there is always a struggle for owning ever more. A happiness façade, a staged life, displayed on social networks. As theorized by situationists as early as the late sixties, what is directly lived moves away through representation, life then becomes an accumulation of shows, until its paroxysm when reality reverses: the representation of our life becomes more important than what we really and personally experience. As Guy Debord said ‘In a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is a moment of the false.’ (8)
In a Dōjō we work to reconnect with the true that perseveres within ourselves.
Katsugen Undō practice, which enables the awakening of the body capacities, goes exactly in the same direction. The awakening of the living, of our deeper nature. Reality is then no longer an oppression that prevents us from doing what we want with our life but quite on the contrary, it is the fine perception of reality that shows us that all depends on ourselves, on our orientation. Founder of Katsugen Undō Noguchi Haruchika sensei wrote some thoughts about Tchouang tseu’s work. These thoughts are of great interest and I cannot resist concluding this article by the intertwined voices of these two thinkers:
‘When Tsu-yu contracted a crippling illness, Tsu-szu visited him and asked, “Do you think your fate is unpleasant?” Tsu-yu’s answer was astounding: “Why should I find it unpleasant? If changes are brought about and my left arm turns into a rooster, I’ll use it to herald the dawn. If my right shoulder is transformed into a bullet, I’ll use it to bring down a pigeon for roasting. If my buttocks become carriage-wheels and my spirit a horse, I’ll ride along on them. Then I would need no other vehicle but myselfthat would be wonderful!” This is the road Tchouang-tseu walks. Within his attitude – that whatever happens, it is proper, and that when something happens, you go forward and affirm reality – there is not a trace of the resignation that lies in submitting to destiny. His affirmation of reality is nothing but the affirmation of reality. The dignity of the man is conveyed only by Lin Tsi’s words: “Wherever you are, be master.” ’ (9)
5) Mona Chollet, Chez soi. Une odyssée de l’espace domestique, Edition La découverte, 2015, p. 311
6) Noboyoshi Tamura, Aikido, Les presses de l’AGEP, 1986, p. 19
7) Rainer-Maria Rilke, Lettres à un jeune poète, pub. Grasset (Paris), 1989, p. 73 (Eng. transl. by M. D. Herter Norton, W. W. Norton & Company, 1962, p. 53)
8) Guy Debord, La Société du Spectacle, pub. Gallimard (Paris), 1992, p. 12
9) Haruchika Noguchi, On Tchouang-Tseu, pub. Zensei
Photo credits: Jérémie Logeay, Paul Bernas, Anna Frigo
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