by Régis Soavi
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.
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:
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.
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?
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.
Follow the trails
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
Article by Régis Soavi published in July 2022 in Self & Dragon Spécial Aikido n° 10.
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- Wassily Kandinsky, On the Spiritual in Art (Germ. OV, 1912), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1946, p. 47 (available online)
- [see also Tsuda Itsuo, One, Chap. I, II & III, 2016, Yume Editions (Editor’s note)]