Omote & ura ( 2/3)
Ura of Aikidō —any surface contains enough depth beneath its shallowness to keep it upright.
The first part went through the definition of the Japanese words omote and ura and explained how a practical learning system such as Aikidō can be superficial by design.
The point developed here is not limited to a martial art. This applies to many areas of human activity, of course.
Ura of Aikidō
So, how flattened out and superficial this Japanese martial art is ?
For example, in the classical martial arts approach, nothing can be shallow.
Just like when you learn a new language or the schooling with kindergarden, school, highschool, university…
The curriculum is organised, progressive and what you learn depends on your level.
And you can go deeper and deeper.
There is a natural hierarchy of skills.
How about Aikidō ?
As a practice, as is the case for any complex practice, you can go quite deep and it can take a lifetime to achieve something.
As a teaching system, it is very different.
Actually, whatever your rank, whatever the years of practice, the studied curriculum is the same and remains the same.
There are variations you can learn, but they are just variations.
Now, of course, there is this very perculiar thing called aiki.
I already talk about that in my previous articles.
This is a high level principle mastered by the great masters of Aikidō.
Let’s say it is like integral and differential in mathematics.
You cannot study or even understand the integral or the differential until you have acquired some knowledge in infinitesimal calculus through study and practice, not to mention algebra, geometry, etc.
So, no functions, no derivative, no integral for you if you’re just discovering the multiplication tables.
But if your curriculum is mathematics, even if now you are learning multiplication, at one point in the future, you will learn integral and differential.
Integral and differential are taught, there are part of the curriculum.
Is the aiki principle taught in the dōjōs ? No.
The martial art is called Aikidō – way of the Aiki – but study of aiki is not part of the curriculum.
One could say that’s probably not very important, and probably not possible anyway.
Because Aikidō is… a shallow system.
But there is a turning point here.
Of course, today, Aikidō is not a trendy martial art at all.
But regardless of trends, there is one characteristic that does not change : there has always been a great diversity in Aikidō.
The practice may vary from one dōjō to another.
Sometimes significantly.
Some Aikidō will be based on simple and very accessible principles — such as use of imbalance, pain, etc. — whereas others can teach complex and subtle principles — such as use of intention, no-use of pain, etc.
Moreover, this teacher in this dōjō will teach a technique using pain, for example the technique called nikyō… While that teacher in that dōjō will teach the very same technique, nikyō, with no use of pain !
Is this confusing ? Maybe.
But it is only because we are attached to the name of the technique.
Or maybe to the form of the technique.
The reality is they are totally different techniques.
They have identical names taken from the catalog of Aikidō, they have very similar choreography.
But the principles that rule the two movements are very different.
This diversity is a real richness.
This richness is only possible thanks to the simplicity and shallowness of the nomenclature of the Aikidō system.
As a teaching system, simplicity and shallowness, far from being reductive, are paramount.
Aikidō is an open system.
This is one of the fundamentals of the modernity of this martial art.
That is how someone can explore quite deeply the art of Aikidō and make it their own.
In the classical approach, you learn the art like you learn a language.
Like all Japanese modern martial arts, Aikidō is a Budō and a Budō is always the result of a simplification, a standardisation, a normalisation.
In Aikidō, the normalisation is so shallow that if you learn it like a language, your knowledge will be very superficial.
This is typically the case for many ordinary dōjōs around the world.
When it is possible to go deep and enter the ura of Aikidō.
For this, you need to become free.
You can’t learn Aikidō like you learn a language, because you need to develop your own.
Does this mean this creative approach is limited to masters ?
Of course not.
Creativity is an integral part of the art, at any level.
Does this mean I can do everything I want ?
Of course not !
Exploring the territory implies we take into account the territory.
Actually, that’s the most difficult thing.
In such a perspective, Aikidō is not a traditional art.
This is the tremendous ura of Aikidō.
The beginner needs to learn that responsibility from day one.
Freedom can be misleading.
By taking charge of your own learning process, you can easily lose yourself in the illusion of progress.
Freedom implies rigorous coherence.
With openness comes responsibility and the need for reality.
This is what an open learning system like Aikidō can teach us.
Ura of Budō
Since around 1600, Japan was cut off from the rest of the world.
Then in 1853, USA came with their war ships and forced Japan to enter into trade.
The industrialised colonial empires — the West — were setting their sights on Asia… To avoid being colonised like other Asian countries, Japan decided to adapt.
A very Aikidō move, actually.
They did awase and musubi.
The very principles of harmonisation.
In Aikidō, harmonisation — awase and musubi — can be very proactive.
What kind of awase and musubi are we talking about here ?
The small country isolated from the rest of the world for 250 years decided to establish itself as an equal to the most powerful industrialised colonial empires by becoming a colonial empire itself.
Therefore, the following period was a time of upheaval and rapid, profound westernisation : Japan quickly adopted and adapted the best of Western civilisation.
The motto was « Japanese soul, Western knowledge » — wakon-yōsai 和魂洋才.
Looking back in the past, a very similar process had already taken place in the 8th century.
At that time, the motto was « Japanese soul, Chinese knowledge » — wakon-kansai 和魂漢才.
The country of Wa decided to call itself « Japan » — Nihon 日本, the origin of the sun…
By this act, it was like they were saying : « Yes, China, you are the empire of the center — 中国 mean exactly that — ; and you are the largest power dominating the whole Asian continent… But we, Japan, are the land from which the sun rises and shines over everything, you China included. »
How arrogant it was ! But that was how this little country began to establish itself as an equal.
And to succeed, they adopted and adapted the best of Chinese civilisation – writing, law, religion, philosophy, culture, etc.
All this happened before the 10th century.
At the end of the 19th century, the process in course was the Westernisation.
It deeply transformed the country.
A lot of traditions were wiped out to invent new ones.
And of course, the Japanese martial art and its long, long history was no exception and underwent transformations of the same order.
That’s how « Budō » came into being after the Meiji Restoration.
Judō — the very first-born Budō – is particularly representative of the process…
Jigorō Kanō who came into the world in the effervescence of late 19th-century Japan was educated at university where western knowledge was taught.
He learned to think in western ways and absorbed western theories of education. He became a teacher and headmaster, he was close to the Ministry of Education.
Historically, there were hundreds of different traditional martial arts — the Bujutsu — but they all belonged to a bygone world.
They were now despised by Japanese society.
No ancient martial arts could be practised in schools as a form of physical education.
Government even wanted to chose a Western method of physical education to be spread in all schools.
What did Kanō as a pedagogy expert to convince the Ministry of Education that Japan already has a fantastic method of physical education ?
He adopted and adapted the Western methods.
He westernised the obsolete Bujutsu.
How ?
« Japanese soul, Western knowledge ».
Kanō turned his personal traditional hand to hand martial art baggage into something new.
A westernised version of the tradition.
He invented the Jūdō.
The ideal democratised modern martial art : that can be taught even if the teacher is not a high level master… That can be practised at any age, in all schools in the country… That can train the body and mind of Japanese youth that will build the Japan of tomorrow !
In the next and final part of this article, we’ll go deeper in the ura of Aikidō, Budō and more generally how an omote system can be the entrance door to ura system.
