by Manon Soavi
Imagine for a few seconds a world in which articles were written about “male Aikido”! With a single article talking about Tohei sensei, Shioda sensei, Noro sense and Tamura sensei. Articles that would find it relevant to put these people together for the sake of having in common… a Y chromosome. It is strange, even ridiculous, isn’t it? How can you put together men with rich, different personal histories, each of whom had a special relationship with O-sensei, each of whom followed a different personal path in Aikido? Each of them has his own personality, his own story and his own specific teaching. Each of them deserves, at least, a separate article.
Yet this is what happens to women. One finds it appropriate to talk about “female” Aikido… Of course this is not something specific to Aikido, it is a society phenomenon. Did you know that the United States were world champions in soccer? Oh yes, “women’s” football, so that does not count. But why? Because there is Football and then there is “women’s football”.
It is also the phenomenon that allows each Smurf to have a distinctive feature, however small, whereas Smurfette’s distinctive feature is that she is a girl, that is all. She has no character, other than the characteristics of a silly, flirtatious girl. Of course, this is just a comic strip, but if you think about it for a few minutes, you can find hundreds of examples of the same phenomenon. Men are people, characters with distinctive features and stories. Women are, mostly, just “women”. Like the female aikidokas who are lumped together in the “women’s aikido” basket, and thus being denied their specificities, their differences and their histories. Fortunately, some people are trying to retrace their steps, although the information is “coincidentally” much less available, if not completely non-existent!
The Matilda effect
‘The Matilda effect is the recurrent and systemic denial, spoliation, or minimisation of women’s contributions to scientific research, whose work is often attributed to their male colleagues.’ 1 This is a phenomenon observed by historian of science Margaret W. Rossiter, who calls this theory the ‘Matilda effect’ in reference to nineteenth-century American feminist activist Matilda Joslyn Gage. She had observed that men took credit for the intellectual thoughts of women close to them, with women’s contributions often relegated to footnote acknowledgments.
This was the case, for example, with Rosalind Franklin, whose work, decisive for the discovery of the structure of DNA, was published under the names of her colleagues. The same is true of Jocelyn Bell’s discoveries in astronomy, for which her director won a Nobel Prize in 1974. Him, not her.
Fujitani Miyako’s story is somewhat similar to that of Mileva Einstein, physicist, fellow student and first wife of Albert Einstein. Mileva and Albert Einstein met on university benches and the theory of relativity was to be their joint research. However, she became pregnant while they were still unmarried, which speeded up their marriage but slowed down Mileva’s studies considerably. In the end, the couple’s three children, the last of whom was disabled for life, were entirely in the care of Mileva after Albert Einstein left to pursue his career in the United States. Of course, the point here is not to question Albert Einstein’s genius, but to question the possibilities of Mileva to continue her career with three dependent children, one of whom was disabled. Albert Einstein was able to pursue his career only because she stayed. At the end of the day, when you think about it, there is nothing romantic or touching about the saying “behind every great man stands a woman” once rephrased more exactly into “behind every great man there stands a woman who sacrificed herself because she had no other choice”. Careers, honours, awards, positions, peer recognition, are all based on the more or less “accepted” crushing of women. When we think that we measure a woman’s competence by her career and the recognition of her peers, we forget that the game is rigged, because for every aikido master who has made a career, there is at least one woman behind him who has taken care of their children, often of the dojo, the registrations, the book-keeping and the social relations. Not to mention taking care of the husband himself, giving him the attention he needs. With these foundations provided by the master’s wife, extraordinary martial skill can flourish and shine. Mind you, I am not questioning the competence of these masters, I am contextualising the female presence that allowed them to flourish. A presence they often took for granted, a state of affairs. Because it is systemic. On the contrary, very often no one helped women to practise their arts. Nobody looks after their children, prepares their meals or does the dojo’s book-keeping for them. Not to mention those who try to stand in their way. So when we compare their careers, supposedly on an objective basis, with those of certain men, it is obvious that, structurally, they have not been able to achieve the same level of fame. However this is not a matter of skills, this is a matter of society.
The story of Fujitani Miyako
Born in Japan in the 1950s, Fujitani sensei is now one of the few female seventh dan in Aikido, who has been teaching in her own dojo in Osaka for forty years. A student of Tohei Koichi, she took her first and second dan in front of Ueshiba O-sensei. However, unlike the story of some of Ueshiba O-sensei’s students, her career as an aikidoka does not tell the story of how she set out to confront the world and make a career for herself, but it tells the story that is so often the fate of women: to stay behind and endure. In this sense, it is a symbolic journey.
Fujitani Miyako was confronted with male violence from an early age. Her father abused and beat his three children. He died when she was six, having “only” had time to abuse her and dislocate her shoulder. She continued to experience this violence at high school, where she was assaulted by boys on a daily basis. At the time, she was practising classical dance and Chado (the art of tea), but she decided to do something about the violence and considered taking up Judo like her brother. In the end, she chose Aikido. Her first teacher in Kobe refused to allow women in his class, but she insisted so much that he eventually accepted her. She later became a student of Tohei sensei and took her first dan in front of Ueshiba O-sensei in Osaka in 1967. She recounts that ‘[Ueshiba] always referred himself Jii (old man or grandpa). He was always with Ms. Sunadomari, […] helping him in everything. […] Ueshiba sensei would always demonstrate this trick attack with her, a kind of faint to trick the opponent.’ 2
When she started practising in Aikido, she felt inferior as a woman in the practice. With no role models, she had no other horizon but “to become as strong” as men in order to finally be considered “equally competent”. So she tried to match the muscular strength of the men around her. She spent a year building up her muscles. She says that her technique at the time seemed very powerful indeed, but that she abused her body so much that she ended up breaking the bones in her arms and fingers. She also damaged the joints in her elbows and knees. She even had to stop practising for a year to recover.
This situation where women suffer disproportionately from work-related injuries can also be found, for example, among women pianists, where ‘[s]everal studies have found that female pianists run an approximately 50% higher risk of pain and injury than male pianists; in one study, 78% of women compared to 47% of men had developed RSI.’ 1 We are facing a societal issue here again: by only valuing a certain way of doing things, moving, playing music etc., women are systematically disadvantaged and, while desirous of doing their jobs and fulfilling their passions, they damage their bodies excessively. They also pay the price of interrupting their careers or even giving up.
Fujitani Miyako was twenty-one when she met Steven Seagal in Los Angeles, where she was accompanying Tohei sensei to an Aikido seminar. She attended his first dan in the United States and met Seagal again shortly after her return to Japan. He had just won a lot of money at a karate show in Los Angeles, during which he broke his knee, but with the money he had won he bought a ticket to Japan, arriving with his ripped jeans and a silver fork as only possession.
Fujitani Miyako was then a second dan and she opened her own dojo, which she called Tenshin dojo, on land owned by her mother, using her mother’s money. She married Steven Seagal a few months after they met in 1976 and, in a reflex very typical of female conditioning, she herself made him the main teacher in her own dojo, even though she was his senpai, i. e. his hierarchical superior. This is a very strong conditioning of women, who are brought up with the idea that they must ensure the peace of the household and the well-being of their husband by promoting what he imagines to be his superiority. Above all, they must not earn more money, be more famous, or be more successful than him, at the risk of seeing their family destroyed. Every woman knows this, and stories of men leaving their partners because they are jealous of their success are not uncommon. Mona Chollet makes this perfectly clear in her chapter on “‘Making Yourself Small’ to Be Loved?”, with examples that speak for themselves, and with this critical conclusion: ‘Our culture has normalised the inferiority of women so well that many men cannot accept a partner who does not diminish or censor herself in some way.’ 4 Of course, for Fujitani, the rapid arrival of two babies makes things even worse.
Descent into hell
While she was in her own dojo, Seagal quickly began to belittle her, relegating her to the role of ‘the Japanese girl who brings the tea while he plays the little shogun’ 5. The trap closed in on her, all the more so as newspapers and television echoed the “gaijin’s dojo”, highlighting the idea that Steven Seagal was “the first Westerner to open a dojo in Japan”, when in fact he had phagocytized Fujitani Miyako’s dojo.
Meanwhile, Steven Seagal had numerous affairs with other women, including his students, and finally told Fujitani that he was moving back to the States to pursue an acting career. She waited for him with the promise that she would be able to join him and their children. Another promise – money to look after the children – was never honoured either.
Eventually, lawyers contacted her to file for divorce and allow Seagal to remarry in the United States.
Every cloud has a silver lining
Fujitani Miyako was obviously desperate to be abandoned with her two children. To make matters worse, almost all the dojo students at the dojo were more influenced by Seagal’s charisma than interested in Aikido. The ground he had laid by systematically belittling her in front of the students had a lasting effect because, not only did they leave, but they also came back to make fun of her and her deserted dojo. She related in an interview: ‘[At that time] I wanted to crawl into a hole. I had not done anything wrong. Some students would come from other dojos very arrogantly as if they owned the place. And once I started to get a few students someone would bad-mouth me to them: “she is weak so go somewhere else.” So, I really hated that time and this dojo. Some people even rumored that Steven left me because I was bad (laugh). So, old time students truly believed that. Even when he was here Steven would bad-mouth me among the students. That’s why when he left everybody followed him. However, as I lied in bed at night, I would imagine what I have now[…]. I would use my imagination watching my children grow up and me having grandchildren and I would wonder whether the day would came when I would feel happy for having aikido. That was what helped me to reach here. I love teaching youngsters with joy and today I can truly and happily say “I am glad I have aikido”.’ 6
In the end, she hung on, persevered and also discovered the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu sword school, which became her passion and nourished her understanding of Aikido. She held steady, fulfilling both her role as a mother and her passion for Aikido. ‘Nowadays, many women work, even in jobs that were previously only held by men. It’s not unusual for a woman to work and bring up children at the same time. But it was different for me, because I had to support my family by teaching Aikido. […] [Aikido] was, initially, a martial art that was mainly practised by men and I had to miss out on training for a long time because of the children. […] I was embarrassed as an Aikido teacher by the following: one day during training I made a mistake and injured both knees’ 7
Aikido: being a woman is an advantage
Today, in her teaching, she insists on a practice that respects the integrity of the body as a cardinal value. As a result of the accidents she had when she first started, she insists on the importance of the uke following correctly rather than resisting until the body suffers. ‘Ukemi is not a demonstration movement, the original purpose is to protect the body from injury. Doing ukemi does not mean you are a loser. If Uke understands what technique is being used, they can escape it, gain an advantage and prepare their counterattack. When executing a technique, Uke’s role is not only to execute ukemi correctly without resisting the throw, but also to observe the timing of the technique in order to develop the ability to “read” the technique. After all, it is an exercise for both the person executing the waza and the person receiving it.’ 8 That is why she stresses the need for a relaxed body: ‘In Japanese, there is the word “datsuryoku” [脱力], which could be translated as “relax the body as in sleep”. When we sleep, we normally cannot overstress our bodies.’ 9
‘In karate, for instance, you would block and counterattack but in aikido we don’t block. We don’t clash at the same level as the opponent that’s why it’s so difficult. Timing is very important which I emphasize a lot. I teach something totally different from what they do at the Tokyo branch [the Aikikai] which I am sorry to say is wrong. I teach a smoother way with the precise timing so the techniques can be executed more smoothly.’ 10
Convinced that Aikido is the right martial art for women, she works to develop it on a daily basis and through events such as the seminar she conducted in 2003 in the United States – Grace & Power: Women & the Martial Arts in Japan. The importance of having female role models on the tatami has not escaped her. Certainly ‘[t]here was a time in this dojo when there was quite a number of female students but during a period many students were using force and got injured so many women thought they couldn’t do it and there was a blank of women aikidoka for a while.’ 11
‘[I myself] taught Aikido for over 10 years in an atmosphere of discrimination against women. [Yet] by perfecting my practice over and over again, I have developed my own style of Aikido, an Aikido that can be practised by women with no physical ability.
I believe that men who practise my style have a great advantage. If you use your muscles right from the start, you get used to using strength all the time. However, you will not achieve or develop much. But if you rediscover the bases without using strength, relying only on technique, then once you reach a certain level, muscles, size, etc. are an advantage that should not be underestimated.
The founder of Aikido said:12 “Aikido based on physical strength is simple. Aikido without unnecessary strength is much more difficult.” I know that if I tried to teach Aikido based on physical strength, I wouldn’t be able to do a single technique and I wouldn’t have a single student. Perhaps it can be said that aikido techniques developed by women are the key to the last secrets of aikido – an aikido that does not rely on strength.’ 13
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Article by Manon Soavi published in Self et Dragon (Spécial Aikido n° 17) in April 2024.
Notes:
- translated for the French Wikipedia entry ‘Effet Matilda’, preferred to the English entry (bold emphasis added by the author)
- 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)