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.
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.
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:
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.
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Notes
- 1Le 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]
- 2Itsuo Tsuda, The Non-Doing, 2013, Yume Editions (Paris), p. 12
- 3Umberto 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)