With the exception of Tomiki Aikido, competition is largely absent from the practice of Aikido. what is that?
At Aikido Sangenkai, there is a fascinating article about this and this history of aikido. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.
Kenji Tomiki, Morihei Ueshiba’s first 8th Dan in Aikido, often referred to the famous famous rising dragon story when discussing competitive practice:
Randori practice, sparring practice, is something that is done to give life to, and demonstrate the real power of, those techniques that were first learned by the student through kata. That is to say, randori provides the means to complete a painted dragon by filling in the eyes.
The reference here, if you’re unfamiliar with the story, is to the story of the famous Chinese artist Zhang Sengyou, who painted four dragons on the walls of Anle Temple in what is now Nanjing around the year 500.
He painted the dragons completely except for the eyes, believing that the paintings were so realistic that if he drew the eyes, they would come alive and fly away.
Responding to people’s disbelief at this assertion, Zhang then painted the eyes of two of the dragons, and they immediately flew away to heaven riding on clouds and thunder. This became the famous proverb, “to paint a dragon and dot in the eyes” – 画竜点睛 (“Garyou Tensei”, in Japanese).
Of course, this represents one of Kenji Tomiki’s motivations in creating a competitive form in Aikido – to bring life to techniques trained in the classical Kata format (which he did not abandon) by applying them in under live resistance.
The second of Kenji Tomiki’s motivations was that he believed that competition could be a unifying force in the Aikido community, providing a standardized technical framework under which all Aikido students could meet and train, even if they normally employed different training methodologies at home, a commonly agreed upon neutral ground upon which Aikido students from many different traditions would be able to meet and train together.
He was not alone in conceiving of a useful place for some form of competition in the training pedagogy.
Minoru Mochizuki, for example, whom Morihei Ueshiba asked twice, one before and once after the war, to take over his art, instituted sparring and competition in Yoseikan Aikido.
In another example, Koichi Tohei, Morihei Ueshiba’s only 10th Dan to be promoted through official Aikikai channels, created a form of competition more like “figure skating” with annual Taigi Competitions.
It’s worth noting that this type of competition is also frowned upon by the Aikikai, and has been the cause of some controversy in the past:
The IAF holds a general congress every four years and the official reason for holding it in Japan is to allow the instructors residing overseas to visit Japan and recharge their cultural batteries, so to speak. An exception was made in 1992, however, when the Congress was held in Taipei. I was IAF General Secretary and it was my responsibility to organize this vast meeting with Paul C N Lee, who was President of the Republic of China Aikido Association (ROCAA). At IAF Congresses it is customary to have aikido training seminars and to hold a demonstration in which representatives from all the member nations participate. The arrangements for the aikido seminars and the demonstration were the responsibility of the host country, in this case the ROCAA. During one meeting at the Hombu, attended by Mr Lee, Fujita Sensei and myself, Kisshomaru Doshu had appeared and urged us all to exercise great caution, but to me his warning was about as obscure as Dumbledore’s warnings to Harry Potter. Fujita Sensei was a close friend of Mr Lee and fully understood the very difficult conditions under which the ROCAA was operating, but I had no idea of these conditions and was unprepared for the explosion that was about to occur.
After the arrangements for the Congress had been publicized, certain Japanese overseas instructors sent fax messages to the Aikikai requesting the dismissal of two officials, on the grounds that they were responsible for organizing competitions in aikido, at a congress that was about to take place. One official was Fujita Sensei, who was the Hombu Dojo Secretary; the other was myself, the IAF Secretary. These fax messages were received by Fujita Sensei in the Hombu office, who promptly sent copies on to me.
The Congress took place and the atmosphere can best be described as taut. The wa, so important at international aikido meetings was certainly there, but underlying this was a tension that sometimes appeared at meetings as straight conflict. I was in a very difficult position, however, for I had discovered independently that the condition imposed by the local Olympic committee in Taiwan for the operation of aikido by the ROCAA was that they had to hold aikido demonstrations that could be seen to outsiders as competitions, with judges holding up scorecards after each demonstration. The Aikikai had known about this condition for several years, but had remained silent and it was only now, with an impending demonstration that would be attended by officials of the local Olympic committee, that it had become an issue. I happened to have lunch with Doshu one day and warned him that I had no intention of resigning and that I would have to explain to the entire Congress that the Aikikai had known all along about ‘competition’ aikido in Taiwan and had done nothing about it. This lack of action would certainly be construed as approval and would cause a conflict that might have the same consequiences as Tohei Sensei’s departure from the Aikikai. Doshu pursed his lips and answered that he did not want any explosion at the Congress (the problem of wa arising again), but he added that ‘Fujita does not understand international matters.’
Both Fujita Sensei and the present Doshu, who was Hombu Dojo-cho at the time, gave up their positions in the Hombu to ‘take responsibility.’ I had also been pressed to do this by the instructors who desired my dismissal, but I refused: I was not a Japanese and did not intend to be treated like one in this instance.
“It Had To Be Felt #50: Masatake Fujita: When is a Hombu Deshi Not a Deshi? When He’s the Secretary“, by Peter Goldsbury
Be that as it may, Kisshomaru Ueshiba made the choice after the war to strictly prohibit any form of competitive practice within the Aikikai (eventually, but that will become clear later on).
Note that I say Kisshomaru Ueshiba, and not Morihei Ueshiba.
It is quite common to hear assertions that any form of competition was prohibited as a kind of “heresy” by the Founder himself, Morihei Ueshiba, and that the “heretic” (namely, Kenji Tomiki) was cast into the outer darkness, but that’s not really the entire story.
Ueshiba did not, apparently, see himself as betraying Deguchi by striking out on his own path (nor did Deguchi, from all statements we have), nor was Ueshiba, apparently, overly concerned with his students who went theirs. Shioda Gozo described visiting Ueshiba four days before his death. Ueshiba awoke and said, “It’s you, thanks for coming. I’m riding on a winged horse around the heavens. I can see the earth. Shioda, what is [Kenji] Tomiki doing now? I’m watching.” Of all the people to ask for on his deathbed! Many, including Ueshiba Kisshomaru, considered Tomiki to be the ultimate apostate— aikidō’s first 8th dan, a modern, practical, and educated man, who tried to meld aikidō and jūdō, and even ‘worse,’ established a competitive form of aikidō. In many people’s fantasy, Tomiki would be the last person that Ueshiba would want to see. But as far as Ueshiba was concerned, Tomiki, as much as anyone he taught, lived out his mission in this world—and that is all he was required to do. Tomiki’s students, too, despite their separation from Kisshomaru’s organization, were still practicing aikidō, still contributing their energy to Ueshiba. All, therefore, was well.
“Hidden in Plain Sight: Esoteric Power Training Within Japanese Martial Traditions; Tracing the Roots of Ueshiba Morihei’s Power“, by Ellis Amdur
Just as discussed above by Ellis Amdur, Morihei Ueshiba was rarely concerned with the direction that his students chose to go in their training, leaving them free to make their own choices.
In fact, he specifically refrained from establishing the kind of authoritative structure that would have supported that type of regulation over his students, stating that “there is no Soke in Budo”.
Morihei Ueshiba himself established no clear succession for his passing, once again leaving things to his students to figure out on their own.
After Morihei Ueshiba’s passing Kisshomaru’s authority and title were the result of negotiations among the remaining parties, which would lead to some difficulties – such as Koichi Tohei’s “declaration of independence” in Hawai’i recounted by Ralph Glanstein.
It was only after his father’s passing that Kisshomaru Ueshiba began to implement a kind of “iemoto” (家元) system within the Aikikai – an organization based around a family authority.
It is, however, quite common to see people appeal to authority in order to justify their own assertions.
I started presenting my koshinage in the All Japan aikido taikai. Arikawa-sensei told me to stop. He said it wasn’t aikido. I told him that until Osensei told me to stop, I’d keep doing it.
In Memory of Kuroiwa Yoshio – 黒岩洋志郎 — 1932- 2010
Morihei Ueshiba never told Yoshio Kuroiwa to stop.
He never told Kenji Tomiki to stop, either.
Morihei Ueshiba himself retired in 1942 , stating in his own words that he “left it all to Kisshomaru”, and remaining essentially a figure head where organizational matters were concerned. Actions and negotiations between Kenji Tomiki and the Aikikai were conducted and managed by Kisshomaru Ueshiba, not Morihei, as we will see below.
Additionally, the first competitions in Kenji Tomiki’s Aikido didn’t actually occur until the 1st All Japan University Student Aikido Competition on November 11th 1970 – more than a year after Morihei Ueshiba’s passing.
Morihei Ueshiba himself was opposed to competition, in general, but this was quite normal in his time.
His contemporary, Jigoro Kano, expressed reservations about competition in Judo.
Another contemporary, Gichin Funakoshi, opposed all competition in Karate.
Today those are both Olympic sports.
Competition in Kendo was still a relatively new idea, gaining popularity with Sakakibara Kenkichi – recently enough that he was said to be one of Sokaku Takeda’s own instructors.
Morihei Ueshiba himself practiced an art that already had no competition – Daito-ryu Aiki-jujutsu, and that art is still without competition to this day.
More importantly, Morihei Ueshiba himself rarely discussed competition at all, it wasn’t really on his radar, wasn’t an issue of major concern. On the rare occasions when he did discuss it, his objections were largely technical, the same types of issues discussed by Jigoro Kano and Gichin Funakoshi, rather than the ethical or moral issues often cited today by Aikido students.
Morihei Ueshiba spent much, much more time discussing other matters, at great length, most of which are largely ignored today.
This is important because the official statements by the Aikikai often cite phrases such as “immutable principles of the Founder”, leading us to ask what those principles would actually consist of, and if they’re “immutable” then how some (such as competition) can be cherry picked while others are ignored.
For example, Morihei Ueshiba’s statement in 1960 of the first (and presumably most important) principle defining Aikido – a right wing ultra-nationalistic form of Emperor worship, is not (we would hope)very popular today.
What actually happened, however, was less a matter of principles, immutable or otherwise, than it was a matter of the branding and marketing of Aikido in the post-war Aikikai by Kisshomaru Ueshiba.
The branding of Aikikai Aikido was initially spurred on by pressure from the rise of the Yoshinkan.
