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Aikido ™ – Kan er echt een handelsmerk op zitten? [Dutch Version]
Reg. No.2313434, June 28, 1991 – Registered Trademark “Aikikai”
*This is a Dutch translation of the article “Aikido ™ – Can it really be trademarked? – Who’s doing Aikido, who isn’t, and who decides.“, courtesy of Ernesto Lemke of Seikokan Aikido.
Wie doet er aan Aikido, wie niet, en wie bepaalt dat.
Hier is iets wat me opviel in het boek ‘Best Aikido, The Fundamentals’ (Kisshomaru Ueshiba Doshu en Moriteru Ueshiba Hombu Dojo-Cho) die in 1997 werd gepubliceerd als「規範合氣道基本編」 in het Japans:
Ｑ：合気道の分派はあるのですか。
Ａ：確かに巷には合気会とは別に「○○合気道」と名乗っている団体が存在します。中には、素姓の知れぬ訳の判らぬようなものもあるようです。
しかし、開祖・植芝盛平に連ならないもの、その教えを逸脱したものは、いかに外見を似せようが、深遠そうな哲理を語ろうが、合気道ではありません。例えば、競技試合を行っているようなものは明らかに合気道本来の姿を忘れたもので、合気道と呼ぶことはできません。
私どもで言う合気道には分派は存在しないと考えています。分派がいくつもあるという考えは、それ自体が合気道を貶（おとし）めるものでしょう。
Q: Bestaan er verschillende scholen in Aikido?
A: Er bestaan zonder meer vele systemen die beweren ‘zo en zo Aikido’ te doen zonder echt te weten wat Aikido is. En er bestaan ook versplinterde groepen die gesticht zijn door voormalige leerlingen van de Grondlegger waarbij enkele zelfs zo ver zijn gegaan om georganiseerde competities te introduceren, iets wat volledig tegen de geest van Aikido indruist. Los van hoe de technieken ook overeen mogen komen, als ze gescheiden zijn van de geest van de Grondlegger is het geen Aikido.
We beschouwen het niet zozeer als verschillende Aikido scholen. Als we te veel onderscheid maken tussen de verschillende interpretaties van de technieken zal het universele karakter van Aikido verzwakken. (more…)
February 22, 2013
Morihei Ueshiba, Bruce Frantzis and Bagua
Bruce Frantzis and Liu Hung Chieh, a master of Bagua, Tai Chi, Hsing-i and Taoist meditation
静中触动动犹静
“Seek motion in stillness, seek stillness in motion.”
The Taiji Classic – “Song of the 13 Postures”
動中静、静中動
“Stillness in motion, motion in stillness.”
Seigo Yamaguchi Shihan, Aikido 9th Dan
静中の動。合気道の基本は此処に存するといわれている。
“Motion in stillness. It is said that here is the foundation of Aikido.”
Ni-Dai Aikido Doshu Kisshomaru Ueshiba
静動一致
“The unity of calm and action.”
(Official English translation – the Kanji read “stillness” and “motion”)
Ki-Society Founder Koichi Tohei
Some more thoughts about Aikido’s Chinese heritage
Bruce Frantzis spent some sixteen years training in China, Japan and India in Tai Chi, Bagua, Hsing-I, Qigong, Yoga and Taoist meditation. From 1967 to 1969 he also trained at Aikikai Hombu Dojo, and was able to attend classes taught by Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba. He is the author of a number of books, primarily relating to Chinese Taoist meditational methods and Chinese internal martial arts.
In an article on the Energy Arts website he speaks a little bit about his experiences with O-Sensei, and about his theories about the sources behind O-Sensei’s unusual strength.
“I studied with O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido, during my undergraduate days in Japan. My research has indicated that O-Sensei’s aikido was in a primary way directly influenced by bagua zhang. My first in-depth, extended experience with a top-level master of internal martial arts was with Ueshiba between 1967 and 1969.”
It’s quite interesting that Frantzis unequivocally places Morihei Ueshiba in the same category as the Chinese internal martial arts instructors that he trained under.
He’s not alone – in the diagram in this article Keisetsu Yoshimaru directly equates the Kokyu Ryoku (呼吸力 / “breath power”) used in Daito-ryu with the explosive power expressed in the Chinese internal martial arts.
However, that very assertion by Yoshimaru (a Daito-ryu practitioner), which shows internal power coming directly to Daito-ryu from Sokaku Takeda without a detour through O-Sensei, shows the difficulty in arguing that the source for O-Sensei’s unusual power was direct instruction in a Chinese internal martial art.
It becomes even more difficult when considering that there were a number of people in Daito-ryu, such as Kodo Horikawa and Yukiyoshi Sagawa, who had no real connection to O-Sensei but were able to duplicate his feats of martial prowess.
The common thread, of course, being Sokaku Takeda.
(On a related note, you may be interested in this very interesting study by John Driscoll, originally published on AikiWeb, that shows the almost exact correlation between the techniques taught by Morihei Ueshiba and the techniques of the Daito-ryu Hiden Mokuroku.)
I’d go further to debunk the notion of Morihei Ueshiba as a direct student of the Chinese internal martial arts, but it’s already been done – Ellis Amdur covers this topic in some detail in “Hidden in Plain Sight“. If you haven’t read it yet then I suggest you make it your next stop for more information about Chinese influences on Japanese martial arts and internal martial arts training in Japanese martial traditions.
Stan Pranin also addressed this issue in a recent article on the Aikido Journal website, in which he shows that the argument made by Bruce Frantzis is not historically demonstrable based on what is now known about Morihei Ueshiba’s life.
All of which I agree with.
But there is a separate discussion here, the issue of a historical Chinese influence on Japanese martial arts in general, and on the arts that Morihei Ueshiba studied in particular, that is not addressed in Stan’s article.
In this respect the sub-title of Stan’s article (“Proponents of the theory of Aikido’s Chinese origin must provide proof.”) is somewhat misleading. (more…)
January 26, 2013
Aikido Shihan Hiroshi Tada: The Budo Body, Part 7
Hiroshi Tada Sensei
Don’t eat watermelon after fasting!
This is part 7 of the English translation of an interview in Japanese with Hiroshi Tada. You may want to read the previous sections first:
Part 1: explore Tada Sensei’s samurai ancestry and his encounters with Shotokan Karate Founder Gichin Funakoshi.
Part 2: find out how Hiroshi Tada met Shin-Shin Toitsu-Do Founder Tempu Nakamura.
Part 3: discover Tada Sensei’s thoughts on “telepathy” training.
Part 4: read Tada Sensei’s thoughts on Japanese Budo and Kata training.
Part 5: learn about the most influential person in the history of Japan, and their relationship to Japanese Budo.
Part 6: find out why Hiroshi Tada’s father was told never to read books on archery.
You may also be interested in “The Day I Entered Ueshiba Dojo“, in which Hiroshi Tada recounts his first encounter with Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba O-Sensei.
You may notice that the tone of the interview is quite conversational. This is the way that it appears in the original Japanese – the original was not heavily edited, with the result being that the natural conversational tone was preserved. However, this also means that the discussion is sometimes less focused then a more heavily edited interview would be. (more…)
September 23, 2012
More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven
Ansai Yamazaki (1619-1682), founder of Suika Shinto
Ansai Yamazaki and Ama-no-ukihashi-den
Ansai Yamazaki was an Edo Period Confucian scholar who started out as a Buddhist monk and was one of the first people to spread Neo-Confucian thought in Japan.
Interestingly, Zhang San Feng（张三丰）, the legendary creator of Tajiquan in China, was also influenced by Neo-Confucian thought.
Yamazaki was also the founder of the Suika Shinto sect, and his work on Shinto theology was instrumental in breaking Shinto thought out from the specialized provenance of the shrines to a more general population. We’ll get back to how this relates to the Floating Bridge a little bit later.
合氣を学ぶものは天の浮橋に立たねばならぬ
In order to learn Aiki you must stand on the Floating Bridge of Heaven.
As you can see from the above quotation, Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba seemed to think that the “Floating Bridge of Heaven” (天之浮橋) was a pretty important thing.
Still – for all of its importance in his writings it is a concept that is generally not well understood. A direct student of Morihei Ueshiba O-Sensei once expressed it to me this way:
The Founder told us that we would be unable to practice martial arts if we did not stand on the Floating Bridge of Heaven. We were told that if we could not stand on the Floating Bridge of Heaven then our training would not bring forth Aikido technique, so it was essential that we do so at all costs.
However, we didn’t understand anything about where this Floating Bridge of Heaven was. Since we didn’t understand where it was there was no way that we could stand on it, so the reality was that we just put on a good face and kept on applying techniques to each other.
If you’ve read “Aikido and the Unknown” then you may have some idea why this kind of thing is not well understood, but just in case, here’s an interesting passage from Koichi Tohei (from “Ki no Kakuritsu” / 気の確立, translated from the Japanese):
Without a doubt, Ueshiba Sensei understood Ki. If we’re talking about that point, then I think that you could say that he was a genius. However, it is unfortunate that he never taught the true nature of it to his students. Even now I don’t know if that was because he didn’t want to teach it, or if it was because he was unable to teach it.
You may also like to take a look at “Morihei Ueshiba: Untranslatable Words” for an interesting story about Koichi Tohei himself and understanding of O-Sensei. (more…)
July 1, 2012
Morihei Ueshiba, Budo and Kamae – Part 3
Tai-no-henka to the left and right, from “Budo” 1938
More on six directions…
If you haven’t read “Morihei Ueshiba, Budo and Kamae” yet then you’ll probably want to go back and read that article first.
You may also want to read “Morihei Ueshiba, Budo and Kamae – Part 2“, which contains a response from John Stevens to the original article.
Now, take a look at the section above, “Tai-no-henka to the left and right”, scanned from Morihei Ueshiba O-Sensei’s 1938 technical manual “Budo”. (more…)
June 24, 2012

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