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Peter Boylan is currently the proprietor of Mugendo Budogu. 

---------------------------------
 
Aikido as Spiritual Practice in the United States

by Peter W. Boylan, M.A.

A Thesis
Submitted to the
Faculty of The Graduate College
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the
Degree of Master of Arts
Department of Comparative Religion

Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, Michigan
December 1999
Copyright by
Peter W. Boylan
1999

The practice of martial arts in the United States has become widespread. As a 
practitioner of Japanese martial arts, I was intrigued by the connections 
between the martial arts and Asian philosophy and religions, and how Americans 
viewed their practice. This connection was particularly apparent in the case of 
Aikido, a Japanese martial art founded in the first half of the twentieth 
century. 
The initial research examined the writings of Aikido's founder, Ueshiba 
Morihei, his personal students, and the writings of American Aikido 
practitioners. After developing a background for Aikido as a form of spiritual 
practice from these writings, detailed interviews were conducted with 33 
Americans who practice Aikido in the Midwest at a number of different dojos 
(martial arts practice halls) representing different styles of Aikido. 
The results of these interviews showed that for approximately two-thirds of the 
subjects, Aikido was a spiritual practice. Of these, roughly half saw their 
Aikido practice as a supplement to traditional Western religious practice. The 
other half, however, had rejected or given up traditional Western religious 
practices and had made Aikido a part of their personal religious beliefs and 
practices, without aligning themselves with any particular religious 
institution. 

---------------------------------

Acknowledgements 
I would like to acknowledge a number of people without whose help, assistance, 
and support this project would have been impossible. Foremost among them is Dr. 
Thomas Lawson, who has both encouraged me and inspired me with his own work. I 
must also extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Timothy Light for his kind assistance 
at a moment when this project was in danger of collapse, and to Dr. Brian 
Wilson for his guidance and advice as I wrote this thesis. I must also mention 
the help and support of Melanie Williams and Gwen West, who kept things moving 
when they would have otherwise stopped entirely. 
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Masami, for her incredible patience in 
the face of what has often seemed an endless odyssey. Her encouragement and 
insistence kept me going when I was most tired. 

---------------------------------

Chapter I 
Introduction 
Aikido as a Topic of Interest 
In their home country, the Japanese martial arts have been seen as a form of 
spiritual practice for more than 400 years. Many of the oldest arts have direct 
links to a particular kami, Buddhist temple, or Shinto shrine (Friday 1997, 
19-24; Shimizu 1976, 10; Mitani 1982, 10). They have often been considered a 
form of shugyo or ascetic training similar to the shugyo described by Carmen 
Blacker in The Catalpa Bow (1975). 
One of the earliest instances of the martial arts being treated as means for 
spiritual/religious development is in the writings of Takuan Soho (1573-1645). 
References to the martial arts as a means of spiritual development can also be 
found in the widely read Go Rin Sho or Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi, 
written at approximately the same time that Takuan was writing. An emphasis on 
the spiritual development of the practitioner can be found in modern martial 
arts such as karate and Judo which are practiced around the world, and which 
have even been included in the Olympics in various forms. 
This thesis will address the practice of one particular martial art, Aikido, in 
the United States. Aikido is one of the most overtly spiritual of the martial 
arts, emphasizing that its teachings are not just a set of techniques for 
dealing with violent attacks, but, more importantly, they are for improving 
oneself and drawing closer to the divine. Within Japan, there is nothing 
unusual about something as mundane as practicing self-defense techniques also 
being seen as a means of spiritual development, but in the United States, this 
is a radical idea. Japanese martial arts have been practiced in the United 
States now for nearly a hundred years, but they did not become widely popular 
until the occupation of Japan after World War II. After the Allied ban on the 
practice of martial arts was lifted in 1948, American soldiers stationed in 
Japan were heavily exposed to Judo and karate, and these two arts were soon 
being popularized in the United States by returning GIs who had studi
 ed them
 in Japan. Since the early Edo period, Japanese martial arts have stressed the 
spiritual development of the practitioner, rather than simply teaching fighting 
skills, and I believe this spiritual emphasis has been retained to a greater or 
lesser degree in the United States.1 
Since the 1960s the martial arts have begun to be popularly recognized as means 
of spiritual development as well as a way to learn fighting skills. This trend 
was highlighted by the 1970s television show Kung Fu, starring David Carradine, 
in which he played an itinerant Shaolin monk in the American Old West. 
Tai Chi Chu'an, a Chinese style noted for the very slow, almost dance-like way 
in which its forms are practiced, is probably the martial art most widely known 
for its spiritual emphasis, an emphasis which has begun to draw the attention 
of scholars (DeMarco, 1997). However, there is very little differentiation 
between martial arts by most people in the United States, and karate seems to 
form the baseline for people's conceptions of the martial arts, although this 
is changing. 
Since the Kung Fu television show, martial arts movies have moved from being 
cheaply produced in Hong Kong and having a very limited audience in the United 
States to being some of Hollywood's biggest consistent money winners. Chuck 
Norris, Jean Claude VanDamme and Jason Lee have become major action stars. In 
the late 1980s these karate and wu shu stylists were joined in the box office 
by Steven Seagal, a high ranking Aikido practitioner. His movies are now some 
of the most popular action films in America. This has probably done more than 
everything else combined to increase awareness of Aikido in the United States. 
However, as might be expected, action movies, Seagal's included, tend to spend 
far more time on fight sequences than they do on the spiritual lessons of the 
martial arts. 
These movies seem to mirror people's initial reasons for becoming involved in 
the martial arts. Most people who start the martial arts do so in order to 
learn how to fight, although this is usually expressed as wanting to learn 
"self-defense." The spiritual side of the martial arts is most often discovered 
only after a person has begun practicing a martial art. 
Personal Background 
My interest in the religious aspects of martial arts in the United States is an 
outgrowth of my long involvement in the Japanese martial arts both as a 
practitioner and instructor. My experience with the martial arts began when I 
was an undergraduate and took a Judo class to fulfill a required P.E. credit. 
From there I became involved in the university Judo club. I continued my 
involvement in Judo after graduation with a job in Japan, which allowed me to 
train in Judo as much as seven days a week. While in Japan I also became 
involved in the Japanese martial arts of Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu iaido and 
Shinto Muso Ryu jodo, which teach the use of the Japanese sword, and the short 
staff, respectively. Besides these, I also have some experience in the Chinese 
internal martial art Tai Chi Chu'an. I have been practicing Judo for twelve 
years, and iaido and jodo for five years, with occasional cross training in 
Aikido. All of this experience has led me to investigate whether American
 practitioners treat the martial arts as religious practice. 
Aikido and Americans 
In my experience, Americans begin their martial arts training for any number of 
reasons. Some wish to learn to defend themselves (a sometimes ridiculous 
notion, because most experienced martial artists never actually use their 
skills in "real" life). Some come to get in shape, and for them the martial 
arts are exotic forms of exercise. Some are looking for an active form of the 
things they have read in the Tao Te Ching or something similar. Some people in 
the West begin their training in their search for enlightenment. Since D. T. 
Suzuki spread the idea of the martial arts as a path to enlightenment in Zen 
and Japanese Culture (1959), the martial arts have been perceived as a form of 
moving Zen by many. Over time, a martial artist's reasons for practicing often 
change. Although an individual's initial reasons for starting may remain, they 
often become overshadowed by other motivations, which develop as they continue 
to practice. People who start for exercise often come to val
 ue the
 sense of security that they gain from being proficient at fighting, and people 
who started to learn how to fight often find that they continue because they 
like the exercise and the camaraderie of the dojo. Others come to appreciate 
the philosophical or spiritual aspects with which the martial art is clothed, 
and a few come to the martial art specifically seeking that aspect. 
Of all the Japanese martial arts, Aikido is far and away the art most clearly 
and overtly focused upon the higher levels of development. Again and again in 
the literature you read that the spirit of Aikido is taught through the 
techniques of Aikido, that within the techniques of Aikido is a philosophy of 
true love and protection for the whole world. This is often difficult to 
connect with the practice and techniques of Aikido because Aikido's techniques 
are effective fighting techniques which involve the extremely painful 
manipulation of joints, and throwing your partner around quite forcefully, as 
well as occasionally just hitting people outright. Underlying the techniques of 
Aikido, however, is a basic philosophical value of harmonizing, which is 
present in all of its techniques. Aikido teaches that all things are connected, 
and that by working in harmony with the energy of the universe and all things 
within it, one can accomplish whatever needs to be done without conflict.
  On the
 other hand, working in opposition to the harmonious movement of the universe 
is seen as both much more difficult, and something which will eventually bring 
disaster. While Aikido's lessons are couched in the language and techniques of 
physical confrontation, they are intended to be applied to all aspects of a 
student's life. The lessons of Aikido are seen as teaching students to 
recognize the harmonious nature of the Universe, and how to blend with and live 
in harmony with the universe. 
Despite the unfamiliarity of the basic concepts underlying the Aikido worldview 
and the general strangeness to Americans of the idea of athletics as spiritual 
practice, Aikido as religious practice nevertheless does seem to be making some 
headway in the United States. I believe that for many Aikido practitioners, 
Aikido serves as a portion of their active religious practice. The goal of this 
thesis, therefore, is to demonstrate this fact with concrete evidence. To this 
end, I conducted detailed interviews with individual American practitioners of 
Aikido. 
I wish to look at one other question: How exactly do Americans deal with and 
internalize a non-Western conceptual system like Aikido? Many of the ideas of 
Aikido represent a radical departure from the Judeo-Christian tradition that 
predominates in North America. How people absorb these very different ways of 
looking at and thinking about the world is serious question. Do they simply 
jettison the Judeo-Christian tradition and replace it completely with a new 
tradition? Or, instead of forcing themselves to choose between the two, do they 
find a way to blend these traditions, perhaps by picking and choosing those 
portions of each that they find suitable? Do they simply subsume one tradition 
within the other, or do they find some other answer to this problem? 
Related Research 
Surprisingly little academic research has been conducted in the West on martial 
arts spirituality. In terms of Aikido, only three scholars have written on the 
subject. John J. Donohue has written two books and numerous articles about 
martial arts practice in the United States. His work favors his background as 
an anthropologist and tends to downplay the spiritual aspect of martial arts 
practices, treating them largely from sociological and psychological 
perspectives. Even his 1991 book, The Forge of the Spirit, despite the name, 
almost totally ignores the role of the spiritual in martial arts. His books, 
while treating Aikido as one martial art among many, deal with the functional 
and social role Aikido and other martial arts play in the lives of 
practitioners. 
More germane to this paper is Yuji Ueno's Eastern Philosophy and the Rise of 
the Aikido Movement (1995). Ueno's research consists of approximately 50 
interviews conducted in Canada and Japan. These interviews provide some 
excellent data. Unfortunately, his approach to data on religion is almost 
entirely psychological, without much analysis of what sort of religious system 
Aikido might be. One flaw unfortunately mars his analysis. He tries to compare 
attitudes about ki in Japanese and Canadian dojos, but does so by comparing a 
Japanese Ki Society dojo and a Canadian Yoshinkai dojo. These two styles of 
Aikido have radically different interpretations of what ki is. The Ki Society 
focuses almost entirely upon ki, while the Yoshinkai ignores it completely. 
This renders his comparative study of the attitudes about ki in Japan and 
Canada worthless. To be useful, he would have to study Japanese and American 
practitioners of the same styles of Aikido, rather than ones with opposing vi
 ews on
 the point he wishes to analyze. 
The other scholarly analysis of Aikido is by Crawford (1992). His article, "The 
Martial Yen: American Participation in the Aikido Tradition" is the most 
interesting of the scholarly works on Aikido. He lists several things that 
might make practicing Aikido attractive for Americans, including exercise and 
various mental benefits and he points out that there are many less dangerous 
ways a getting these same benefits. The major flaw in his research is that it 
is entirely anecdotal. His analysis of Aikido as religion is weakened by the 
fact that his definition of religion doesn't actually tell what a religion is. 
He quotes Edwin Friedman's "Generation to Generation" and says that there are 
four connections between the preacher and his congregation. These are (in 
brief): 1 the "multigenerational forces" behind the religious tradition, 2 
involvement of the congregational leader during rites of passage, 3 the length 
of time over which a specific spiritual leader becomes familiar with his 
congregation (often spanning several generations himself), and 4 the frequent 
occurrence of individual congregational leaders demonstrating leadership in 
areas other than spiritual. (Crawford 1992, 33) 

Unfortunately, without definitions of churches, spiritual leaders and spiritual 
areas, this description could be applied to the Boy Scouts and the UAW. 
Crawford also totally ignores anything that could be described as gods, spirits 
or other super-human agents. 
Outline of Study 
In this study I seek to determine if Aikido is a spiritual/religious practice 
in the United States. To avoid the above problem of determining what 
constitutes religious practice, Spiro's definition of religion will be used to 
determine whether or not activities are religious (Spiro 1966, 96). This should 
avoid many of the problems found in functional definitions of religion, which 
are often so broad as to be meaningless. It will still allow functions of 
Aikido to be looked at, but it is clear enough that religious functions can 
easily be separated from non-religious functions. In order to fully understand 
Aikido as a spiritual practice, Chapter II will examine some of Aikido's 
history. The life and development of Aikido's founder, Ueshiba Morihei, will be 
looked at particularly closely. Aikido's history in the United States will also 
be examined. 
In Chapter III, the spiritual writings of Aikido will be looked at. These 
include the teaching poems of Ueshiba, as well as the writings of many of his 
students, and a brief look at a collection of interviews with American 
practitioners of Aikido. Chapter IV will present data collected from individual 
interviews with American Aikido practitioners. This data will show why 
Americans are practicing Aikido, and what Aikido practice means to them. 

---------------------------------

Chapter II 
History of Ueshiba and Aikido 
A Brief History of Budo 
In the Heian period (784-1185 C.E.) the primary skills of the warrior in Japan 
were horseback riding and archery, but as foot soldiers became more prevalent, 
the use of the sword, naginata (halberd), spear, and unarmed fighting 
techniques came to predominate, with the sword holding a place above all 
others. Within the popular literature and urban mythology of the Japanese 
martial arts, all aspects of spirituality and religion in the modern martial 
arts are attributed to the influence Zen Buddhism. This represents a tremendous 
over-emphasis on only one of the traditions involved in the development of the 
Japanese martial arts or budo. During the Muromachi era (1333-1568), Zen 
meditation became popular with many of the regional warlords in Japan as means 
of preparing their soldiers minds for battle. It is a mistake, however, to 
assume that the benefits sought from this meditation included achieving satori. 
The monks that teach meditation consider the improved concentration, men
 tal
 balance, and the ability to maintain a calm mind under the most trying of 
circumstances to be side effects of the practices used to approach satori. For 
the samurai warriors who studied Zen from the Muromachi period on, these were 
often the primary goals. 
However, other Japanese religious ideas were influential in the development of 
budo as well. One of the most important of these was the Shinto idea that 
enduring physical hardship purifies the spirit. This idea contributed greatly 
to the way in which budo have been, and are, practiced. Many of the seemingly 
ridiculous and/or self-destructive practices of the martial arts are really 
expressions of this belief. Shugendo monks and other groups have long had the 
practice of meditating and chanting sutras under waterfalls in the dead of 
winter as a means of purifying themselves, drawing closer to the kami, and 
developing super-human powers of knowing and healing (Blacker 1975). A story 
common to the origin of many of the classical martial arts in Japan is that the 
secrets of the art were revealed to the founder by a kami after an extended 
period of immersion in ascetic practice. The ideas about purification in 
Shugendo and the Japanese martial arts come from Shinto, the indigenous
 religious tradition of Japan. In Shinto, the kami, or gods and spirits, are 
pure, and humans are impure. By purifying oneself, one can draw nearer to the 
kami. 
The first verifiable martial arts in Japan, those connected with the Katori and 
Kashima Shrines,2 were founded sometime in the 15th century, though precisely 
when is not known. Amazingly, these arts are still extant. However, it was with 
the introduction of firearms in the 16th century, and the enforced peace of the 
Tokugawa era beginning in the 17th century, that martial arts started to become 
vehicles for spiritual practice and development as much as a means of achieving 
victory in armed conflict. 
The writings of three men from the beginning of the 17th century have provided 
the philosophical and spiritual foundations of Japanese martial arts for nearly 
four hundred years. The Go Rin Sho or Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi is 
the most widely known both in Japan and the west. The Heiho Kaden Sho or, 
Family War Secrets Book by Yagyu Munenori is also fundamental in the history of 
Japanese martial arts, partly because its author was head of what was at that 
time the most influential school of martial arts in Japan, Shin Kage Yagyu Ryu, 
and the official instructor for three generations of Shoguns. Here also is the 
first strong connection between the martial arts and Zen, with Yagyu strongly 
recommending the practice of zazen as a means of developing one's mind 
(Miyamoto 1993, 105). 
The third leg of the philosophical stool of the martial arts is provided not by 
a martial artist, but by Takuan Soho, a Zen priest, Sado (Tea Ceremony) Master 
and correspondent with Yagyu Munenori. His writings, especially the Fudo Myo 
Ryoku Chi, or Immovable Wisdom, have been a great source for martial artists, 
and have been translated into English as The Unfettered Mind (1986). The three 
letters translated in The Unfettered Mind contain a great deal that is simply 
mystifying for most people, both Japanese and Westerner alike, yet they remain 
a tremendous source of inspiration. I have seen calligraphy of fudo myo ryoku 
chi (immovable wisdom) in numerous dojos in the United States and Japan. 
Over the 250 plus years of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan, the martial arts 
moved farther and farther from their roots as battlefield arts. The arts of the 
sword were technically denied to those not of the samurai class. However, as 
the Shogunate continued, the stipends of the samurai continued to be paid in 
rice while the economy expanded and converted to a monetary base. Under these 
new conditions, wealthy merchants and farmers found that they could purchase 
that which was technically forbidden them. The non-sword arts grew in practice 
as well, and these were much more useful for a populace that was barred from 
carrying swords. The arts of the staff, truncheon, and jujutsu (unarmed combat 
techniques) came to be practiced by a more and more diverse group. 
As the possibility of war diminished, and the memories of the battlefield faded 
and died with the generations, the techniques and the way they were practiced 
changed also. Many arts, including the arts of the sword, came to be practiced 
exclusively indoors, on smooth, hardwood floors. This inevitably led to changes 
within the arts, and with how they were practiced. Many of the martial arts 
lost elements such as footwork which were essential for use outdoors on uneven 
terrain, and developed traits such as sliding footsteps which are useful only 
on smooth, polished floors. Accompanying these changes in the techniques was a 
shift in what was primarily sought in the martial arts, as many practitioners 
began to prize mental and spiritual development rather than combat skills. It 
is undeniable that much of what is taught remains effective in a fight, 
however, or modern police and militaries would not continue to practice them. 
These changes were neither instantaneous nor universal. Many schools retained 
their combat orientation and sneered at those that sought to develop the total 
person. This shift in focus to the spiritual rather than the practical, 
however, was present in many areas of Japanese culture, with spiritual ways 
developing in many disciplines, including sado (tea ceremony), kado (flower 
arranging), and shodo (calligraphy), among others. The martial arts were just 
one thread of a larger tapestry. These changes in the arts of the warrior were, 
and are, but a minor thread in the tapestry of Japanese social and religious 
life. 
The goal of the martial arts is to train the body and the kokoro.3 The physical 
training is the aspect which most people are generally aware of. It is easy to 
see the physical aspects of the martial arts, as they are celebrated in the 
movies and on television. These, however, are merely outer skills, and it is 
the goal of martial artist to not need them. Being able to defeat an enemy 
through skill is the lowest level of the martial arts, one that is idealized by 
the mass media, and looked down upon by masters of the martial arts. The next 
level is to be so advanced that you can defeat your opponent without using your 
skills. There is a classic story about Bokuden, the founder of Kage-ryu 
(school) of martial arts. (Draeger 1973b, 71-72). Bokuden was on a ferry, and 
one of the other passengers was a rough warrior who was bragging about his 
skills and intimidating the other passengers. Finally, he asked Bokuden what 
style he practiced. Bokuden said, "The style of
 'Winning-without-using-my-hands.'" The warrior was insulted and demanded that 
Bokuden show this. Bokuden agreed, but recommended that they take a small boat 
that was attached to the ferry and go to a nearby island, so they wouldn't hurt 
anyone else. The warrior agreed and they set out for the island. When they got 
close to shore, the warrior leaped out of the boat and waded ashore. Bokuden 
gathered himself up as if he was going to get out of the boat, but instead he 
grabbed an oar and pushed the boat back out into the sea. He called back, "This 
is called winning without using your hands." This is the second level of 
mastery in the martial arts. It is the level at which one doesn't need his 
skills, because he can transform the situation so that there is no conflict. 
The highest level of mastery is described by Takuan. At this level, your 
physical skills are not needed, because no one could even conceive of attacking 
you. 
He who uses the sword, but not to kill others means that even though he does 
not use the sword to cut others down, when others are confronted by this 
principle, they cower down and become as dead men of their own accord. There is 
no need to kill them. (Soho 1986, 81) 
The first level is the level of physical skill. It is easily seen, and is what 
most often initially attracts people to the martial arts. The second level is 
reached by very few of those who begin practicing the martial arts, and the 
third level exists mainly as a legend and unreachable goal for martial artists. 
The level of physical skill, and more precisely the practices that are required 
to achieve any degree of proficiency in the martial arts are the means by which 
a martial artist achieves the higher levels of development, and develops his 
kokoro. The most basic form of development comes from just surviving the rigors 
of practice and coming back for more. As described by Carmen Blacker (1975), 
enduring hardship has been seen as purifying the individual in Japan and 
drawing closer to the kami. The hard practices of the martial arts have much 
the same goal, to purify the individual, and awaken greater abilities and 
powers within him. In Japan there are often special, especially rigorous, 
practices held at what are traditionally the hottest and coldest times of the 
year, and to celebrate the new year. It is not uncommon to see reports of 
groups training in a river or in the ocean on the TV news at New Year's, 
especially if there is snow falling for added visual effect. The hot summ
 er
 training is not as visually enticing for TV news crews, but it is at least as 
trying for those who take part in it. These intensive practices last for a week 
to ten days, and are meant to burn out any impurities in body, mind, or spirit. 
If nothing else, after surviving one of these practices, day-to-day problems 
seem much smaller than they did before. 
Aikido is a modern part of this tradition. All of the spiritual practices that 
have been mentioned were a part of the life of Aikido's founder, Ueshiba 
Morihei, and modern Aikido practice preserves many of these and other 
traditional religious practices. 
The Life of Ueshiba Morihei 
Morihei Ueshiba was born on December 14, 1883 in the village of Tanabe in what 
is now Wakayama prefecture, Japan. Ueshiba's father was a prosperous farmer and 
merchant, as well as being a local councilman. Reportedly, Ueshiba was a weak 
child. However, encouraged by his father he took up sumo, running and swimming 
to build up his body. 
Ueshiba's education was not unusual. Although the new Japanese government had 
recently established a national education system, it had not yet built the 
schools necessary to teach every student in Japan. Thus Ueshiba started his 
education at the local terako, or temple school, transferring to the public 
elementary school when that was completed. Although he started junior high 
school, he soon transferred to an abacus school. Here he proved to be an 
especially adept student, rising from student to assistant instructor after 
only a year. Ueshiba soon left this post for a position in the local tax 
office. He held this post until he became involved in a dispute between the 
government and local fishermen who were being squeezed by new government 
regulations and large scale-fishing operations. His involvement on the side of 
the local fishermen led to his resignation. 
Following this, in late 1901, Ueshiba's father provided him with money with 
which Ueshiba went to Tokyo and opened a stationery store. The only notable 
thing about this trip is that this was Ueshiba's first real encounter with the 
classic martial arts of Japan. Apparently, young Ueshiba studied Tenjin Shinyo 
Ryu jujutsu and Shinkage Ryu swordsmanship. This episode did not last long 
though. Ueshiba soon became sick with beriberi and he closed the store and 
returned to Tanabe. 
In 1903, Ueshiba enlisted in the army and was assigned to the 37th regiment of 
the Fourth Division, in Osaka. What is most important about this is that it was 
during this period that Ueshiba began to study martial arts seriously. He 
became a student of Yagyu Ryu jujutsu under Masakatsu Nakai, in Sakai, Osaka. 
While in the army, Ueshiba was also stationed in Manchuria for a 
year-and-a-half. 
Following his discharge from the army in 1907, Ueshiba returned to Tanabe. 
Ueshiba was reportedly moody and depressed while living in Tanabe, often taking 
his sword and disappearing into the mountains to fast and train. He also 
performed mizugori daily. Mizugori is a traditional ascetic practice in Japan, 
involving pouring buckets of cold water over one's head and body to purify 
oneself and draw closer to the kami. Ueshiba's father had a dojo built on the 
family property and invited a prominent judoka, Kiyoichi Takagi, to train 
Ueshiba. Ueshiba also continued his training in Yagyu Ryu jujutsu, commuting to 
Osaka periodically to train there. Eventually he received a teaching license 
from the Yagyu Ryu in 1908. 
In 1910 Ueshiba became interested in a government project to settle the 
northern island of Hokkaido. After making a tour of Hokkaido, he arranged for 
recruiting in Tanabe, eventually gathering over eighty people to settle the 
area of Shiratake, in Hokkaido. On March 29, 1912, Ueshiba and his party set 
out for Hokkaido, leaving his wife and young daughter behind in Tanabe until 
appropriate accommodations could be constructed (Ueshiba had married in 1902). 
The pioneers worked hard, and by the third year the fields were producing a 
decent yield, and their timber business was showing a profit. What was most 
important about this adventure was not the success of the pioneers however, but 
the fact that it was here that Ueshiba first encountered Takeda Sokaku, the 
founder of Daito Ryu aiki-jutsu. 
Initially, Ueshiba had little opportunity to practice martial arts in Hokkaido, 
but he was obsessed with physical strength, felling trees by himself, uprooting 
stumps with his bare hands, and playing tug-of-war with draft horses. He also 
continued to meditate alone on the mountains, and he didn't stop his practice 
of performing mizugori daily, which in northern Hokkaido in the winter would be 
an extreme ascetic practice indeed! 
Takeda Sokaku was famous in Japan as an unrivaled jujutsu master, and he was 
invited to Hokkaido by the prefectural police to train them to deal with the 
gangsters and highwaymen who were running wild in this frontier. Ueshiba met 
Takeda on a trip to the town of Engaru, and after being easily defeated by 
Takeda in a demonstration, Ueshiba, who, partly because of his great physical 
strength, was unaccustomed to losing to anyone, asked for admission to Takeda's 
Daito Ryu. Ueshiba immediately became a student of Takeda's, spending the next 
thirty days training with him. At the end of this time, Ueshiba was awarded a 
first level teaching license in Daito Ryu. His absence caused some concern in 
Shiratake, since he didn't tell anyone there what he was doing, and it was 
concluded that he must have died in a blizzard. 
When he returned to Shiratake, Ueshiba constructed a dojo on his own property 
and invited Takeda to live with him and teach there. This was a martial arts 
apprenticeship in the traditional mode. Ueshiba was expected to personally take 
care of all of Takeda's needs, including the preparation of his food and bath. 
In the course of his career, Takeda had killed several people and so was 
suspicious of everyone, suspecting his food of being poisoned, and there being 
an assassin around every corner. Because of this, Takeda was an especially 
demanding master, requiring, among other things, that everything be 
taste-tested in his presence. 
With Takeda in residence, Ueshiba would study privately with Takeda for two 
hours every day, as well as seeing to all of Takeda's daily needs and tending 
to his own business. It was at this time that Ueshiba learned many of the 
techniques which would later become Aikido. The art that Ueshiba learned from 
Takeda was one which employed a variety of wrist locks and throws. The emphasis 
was upon timing and blending with one's opponent. One vital element of 
Ueshiba's Aikido was strikingly absent from Takeda's Daito Ryu aiki-jutsu. This 
was the philosophy of love, spiritual harmony, and personal and world 
development that set Aikido apart from many of the classical bujutsu systems of 
Japan, and even from most of the more modern budo systems such as Judo. The 
older bujutsu system had little place for love or universal harmony. 
In 1919 Ueshiba abruptly and permanently left Hokkaido. The ostensible reason 
for this is the grave illness of his father, although this does not seem to 
have been the real motivation. Before he heard of his father's illness, he had 
already sent his wife and children back to Tanabe. His home and land he gave to 
Takeda. In addition, on the way back to Tanabe, Ueshiba detoured to Ayabe, in 
Kyoto prefecture, to visit the headquarters of Oomoto-kyo, a newly founded 
religious group. He met the leader of the group, Deguchi Onisaburo. According 
to his various biographers, while praying in the Oomoto shrine, 
Suddenly an apparition of his father appeared before him. Then another figure 
emerged form the darkness, saying, "What do you see?" 
"My father," Morihei replied sadly. "He looks so old and wasted away." 
"Your father is fine." Onisaburo gently said to Morihei. "Let him go." 
Ueshiba was fascinated with the Oomoto-kyo headquarters in Ayabe, and stayed 
several days, studying the doctrine and practicing Oomoto's meditation and 
purification techniques. By the time he reached Tanabe, his father had died, 
peacefully. (Stevens 1987, 23) 
It seems likely that Ueshiba had heard of Oomoto-kyo while living in Hokkaido. 
It is reasonable to assume that Ueshiba had been on a spiritual quest nearly 
his entire life, judging from his on-going habits of meditating on mountains 
and performing daily misogi in the traditional mizugori manner. In addition, 
Ueshiba could not have been ignorant of the spiritual aspect of the martial 
arts, since the Japanese government had been promoting the martial arts as a 
means of developing the spirit of the Japanese people since the Meiji 
Restoration. 
Based on these facts, I believe that Ueshiba, having heard of Oomoto-kyo in 
Hokkaido, and probably having read some of their literature (as Oomoto-kyo had 
a very active printing division, which included a national newspaper), Ueshiba 
left Hokkaido with the intention of investigating Oomoto-kyo for himself. It is 
possible he intended to join Oomoto-kyo even before he left Hokkaido. 
Within a few months of his father's death, Ueshiba moved his entire family to 
Ayabe, to live at the Oomoto compound there. This was not a light decision, 
because every member of his family objected. His wife and his mother especially 
wondered how the family would support itself. John Stevens quotes his wife as 
having complained "Why leave this place when we have productive land and fine 
neighbors? Are the gods that you say are calling you going to pay you a 
salary?" (Stevens 1987, 23). 
In Ayabe, Ueshiba quickly became integrated into the daily life of Oomoto-kyo. 
Two of the basic beliefs in Oomoto-kyo are the importance of natural food, and 
that art is the mother of religion. Having been a farmer his entire life, the 
first of these teachings was not difficult for him to put into practice in the 
Oomoto-kyo fields. The second teaching led him to take up both calligraphy and 
poetry. 
After moving to Ayabe, Ueshiba continued his martial arts practice alone, but 
when a fire brigade was organized, he helped train them, including in basic 
self-defense techniques. Shortly after this, the leader of Oomoto-kyo, Deguchi 
Onisaburo, asked Ueshiba to teach budo to other members. A building was 
remodeled, and became the "Ueshiba Dojo," Ueshiba's first dojo. There were 
probably two reasons for this turn of events. The first would have been to 
build members' strength, health and character through the practice of 
traditional arts. Secondly, it was probably to train a group of bodyguards for 
Deguchi, since the Japanese government was beginning to look askance at some of 
his teachings. 
The martial art that Ueshiba was teaching at this time was Daito-ryu 
aiki-jutsu. It was fundamentally the art that he had learned from Takeda. In 
fact, Takeda visited the dojo in Ayabe on two occasions. 
On February 11, 1921, the government raided the Oomoto-kyo headquarters in what 
is known as "The First Oomoto-kyo Incident." Based on rumors from disgruntled 
ex-members, and allegations from government spies, the police raided the 
headquarters and arrested many of the leaders, including Deguchi. Although most 
of the charges eventually had to be dropped, including those hoarding weapons, 
Deguchi was found guilty of lese majesty and given a five-year sentence. 
It was upon Deguchi's release from prison that Ueshiba seems to have moved into 
the inner circle of Oomoto-kyo activities, when Deguchi made Ueshiba his 
personal bodyguard. Ueshiba had already absorbed a great deal of Oomoto-kyo's 
teachings, including meditation techniques and purification rites, which 
include a revived form of the traditional Shinto purification ritual 
chinkon-kishin. As Deguchi's bodyguard and confidant, Ueshiba also learned a 
great deal of Oomoto-kyo's kotodama4 (word-spirit) teachings. 
In 1924, Deguchi started to put into action his dream of founding a nation 
based upon his religious teachings. With Ueshiba and a few other followers, he 
set out on what is known as the "Mongolian Adventure." In the course of 
traveling to Mongolia, Deguchi and his band relied upon the assistance of 
Japanese already in the area to arrange things with various warlords. In this 
they became the pawns of both the Japanese, who were generally agents of 
Japan's Black Dragon Society seeking to gain a foothold in China for Japan, and 
the warlords themselves. They made it to Mongolia, but were there 
double-crossed by one of the warlords. They were arrested, and sentenced to 
execution. Although the Chinese probably never intended to carry out the 
execution, no one told the prisoners that. They were released to a Japanese 
envoy only after they had been brought before the firing squad. 
What is notable about this adventure for Ueshiba is that this is when he 
reportedly first developed what might be called "super-human powers." The 
journey across China to Mongolia was long, and certainly not easy. To add to 
the difficulties of bad or no roads, and negotiating with each successive 
warlord as they crossed his territory, they were frequently attacked by 
bandits. On one of these occasions, Ueshiba claimed to have developed the power 
to see the path of someone's intentions. Whenever someone was going to fire a 
gun, he would see a ball of light shoot out from the gun just before the 
trigger was pulled. Stevens (1987, 32) quotes Ueshiba in an oft repeated story; 
As we neared Baian Dalai we were trapped in a valley and showered with bullets. 
Miraculously, I could sense the direction of the projectiles-beams of light 
indicated their paths of flight-and I was able to dodge the bullets. The 
ability to sense an attack is what the ancient masters of the martial arts 
meant by "anticipation." If one's mind is steady and pure, one can immediately 
perceive aggression and counter it-that, I realized, is the essence of aiki. 

This is the first incident in Ueshiba's life that introduces him as being 
extra-ordinary, something beyond that which could be called humanly possible. 
This is the first development and demonstration of super-human powers that 
Ueshiba is said to have possessed. 
Upon returning to Japan, Ueshiba continued his life at Ayabe, soaking up more 
and more of Deguchi's mystical teachings, both about kotodama, and the meanings 
hidden within the ancient writings of Kojiki. These would greatly color his 
teachings later on, particularly after World War II. 
In 1925, Ueshiba was challenged to a duel by a naval officer and high ranking 
kendo (Japanese style swordfighting) practitioner. For a martial artist to be 
challenged in this way was very common at this time, and Ueshiba regularly 
faced such challenges. Following this duel however, Ueshiba had an intense 
mystical experience. Ueshiba went into his garden to wash off the sweat from 
the duel, and get a drink. Stevens (1987, 32; see also Stone and Meyer 1995, 5; 
and Saotome 1993, 10) gives the most detailed account of this incident: 
Suddenly Morihei started to tremble and he felt immobilized. The ground beneath 
his feet began to shake, and he was bathed with rays of pure light streaming 
down from heaven. A golden mist engulfed his body, causing his petty conceit to 
vanish, and he himself assumed the form of a Golden Being. Morihei perceived 
the inner workings of the cosmos and further perceived that "I am the 
Universe." The barrier between the material, hidden, and divine worlds 
crumbled; simultaneously Morihei verified that the heart of budo was not 
contention but rather love, a love that fosters and protects all things. 
In addition, according to Stevens, Ueshiba's "sixth sense of anticipation was 
completely developed, and he was now invincible as a martial artist" (Stevens 
1987, 33). It is true that after this event, Ueshiba was undefeated. Of course, 
prior to this, the only serious defeat he had suffered was at the hands of 
Takeda Sokaku. 
Ueshiba's skill as a martial artist became more widely known, as he began 
training some members of the local military as well as the Oomoto-kyo members. 
This drew the notice of high-ranking members of the Imperial Army and Navy. In 
the late 1920s he was repeatedly invited to Tokyo to give demonstrations to 
high-ranking military personnel. He was also invited to move to Tokyo and open 
a dojo there. Finally, in 1929, with the blessings of Deguchi, he accepted an 
invitation and sponsorship from Admiral Takeshita Isamu. 
Deguchi felt that Ueshiba's evolving martial art would be his means of teaching 
peace, brotherhood, love, and the importance of art in religion. He told 
Ueshiba "Budo will be your yusai, a practice to manifest the divine" (Stevens 
1987, 37). This separation from Deguchi was very fortunate for Ueshiba. 
Oomoto-kyo was beginning to do things that would eventually lead to its near 
destruction. Oomoto-kyo began training a militia, stockpiling arms, and Deguchi 
started dressing like the emperor. In 1935 the Japanese police raided the Ayabe 
and Kamaeoka headquarters of Oomoto-kyo and arrested all of the leading members 
of the sect, including Deguchi, who was imprisoned and not released until 1942. 
Although Ueshiba had maintained very close ties with Oomoto-kyo and Deguchi, he 
was not arrested in the nation-wide sweep of Oomoto-kyo members. His martial 
arts instruction had brought him in contact with a great many influential 
people in the Japanese military and national police. On the day of the sweep, 
Ueshiba was among those sought by the national police headquarters in Tokyo, 
but he was in Osaka teaching at the local police station. The chief-of-police 
in Osaka, Tomita Kenji, had Ueshiba sent to Sonezake, whose chief-of-police hid 
Ueshiba in his own house. Meanwhile they stalled those in Tokyo who wanted him, 
while Ueshiba's supporters in the military pulled strings to get him off the 
list of the wanted, on the grounds that he was too important as a military 
asset to arrest merely because of some connections to a discredited religious 
organization. 
Throughout the thirties, Ueshiba taught his martial art, which by this time he 
was calling "aiki-budo." Ueshiba was teaching at his home dojo in Tokyo, in 
Takeda for Oomoto-kyo, the Toyama Military Academy, the Naval Academy, the 
Military Staff College, and the Military Police Academy, in addition to 
training trips to Manchuria for the military there. He became very well 
connected, teaching leaders of both the civilian government and the military. 
His students even included the Prime Minister, Admiral Tojo. 
In 1942, however, Ueshiba retired and withdrew to the country-side of Iwama, in 
Ibaragi prefecture, where he had acquired about 17 acres of farmland, a 
good-sized lot in Japan. Ueshiba felt that 
The military is dominated by reckless fools ignorant of statesmanship and 
religious ideals who slaughter innocent citizens indiscriminately and destroy 
everything in their path. They act in total contradiction to God's will, and 
they will surely come to a sorry end. True budo is to nourish life and foster 
peace, love, and respect, not to blast the world to pieces with weapons. 
(Stevens 1987, 47) 
The farm in Iwama did not have a house, so Ueshiba bought a farmer's shed and 
had it converted into a house for himself and his wife. His circumstances in 
Iwama were considerably different from those in Tokyo. In Iwama he was just 
another farmer. This suited Ueshiba quite well since he was able to live a life 
that accorded with his religious ideals. The dojo in Tokyo he left in the hands 
of his son Kisshomaru. In Iwama Ueshiba was able to rest, train, and farm. He 
was also able to build the Aiki Shrine. 
Japan is dotted with small shrines built to honor and venerate any one of the 
yaoyoruzu kami-literally the "eight million gods and spirits." These shrines 
can be so small they fit on a small pedestal by the side of the road or as 
large as the massive complexes in Ise and Kumano. The Aiki Shrine in Iwama is 
small, but still large enough to have a small outer building to accompany and 
guard the tiny inner shrine where the gods dwell. There the 42 guardian deities 
of Aikido are enshrined as well as the Great Spirit of Aiki. Here Ueshiba 
prayed, and in the dojo he built next to the shrine he practiced, preserving 
his Aikido throughout World War II and during the years of the Occupation when 
all martial arts practice was banned by the Americans. Out in the countryside, 
far from the eyes of the authorities, Ueshiba was able to continue practicing 
and teaching Aikido without interruption. 
In 1948, soon after the ban on the practice of martial arts was lifted, the 
Aikikai (Aikido Association) was established, with headquarters in Tokyo. 
Ueshiba stayed in Iwama practicing Aikido, and the meditation and purification 
rites of Oomoto-kyo. From about 1950 on, Ueshiba began traveling and teaching 
throughout Japan again. It was at this time that he began to emphasize the 
philosophical and spiritual aspects of Aikido more and more. It is this version 
of Aikido that most Westerners are familiar with. 
Aikido began to spread internationally in 1953. Members of Hawaii's 
Japanese-American community had seen Aikido while stationed in Japan during the 
Occupation, and petitioned the Aikikai to send an instructor to Hawaii to 
teach. Then head instructor at the Hombu (headquarters) Dojo, Tohei Koichi, was 
sent to Hawaii to teach for several months. The people he was instructing there 
were already generally accomplished martial artists in Judo, kendo and karate. 
From this time on, Tohei made annual trips to Hawaii to teach and conduct rank 
testing. 
Around this time, another of Ueshiba's pre-Occupation students started his own 
Aikido organization. Shioda Gozo founded Yoshinkan Aikido in the early fifties, 
with the blessings of Ueshiba and the Aikikai. Yoshinkan was the first major 
off-shoot from Ueshiba's Aikido. It is a very hard-hitting style of Aikido, and 
has been adopted by the National Police Agency in Japan as one of its official 
arts. While it teaches the philosophy of aiki (harmonious energy), it doesn't 
focus on the spiritual aspects that Ueshiba began to heavily emphasize in the 
post-war era. To this day, the Aikikai and Yoshinkan maintain a friendly 
relationship. The same cannot be said for later off-shoots. 
Tohei continued to make regular overseas teaching trips, and foreigners in 
Japan began to discover and study Aikido on their own. By the early 1960s there 
were a number of experienced aikidoka (Aikido practitioners) with black belt 
ranks in Hawaii. Some of these moved to California in the early 1960s and began 
teaching Aikido there. At this time, Tohei Koichi was the only contact with 
Aikido for people in America. Ueshiba was just a legend. 
Technically, what Tohei was teaching was the same as what Ueshiba was teaching. 
Tohei had a different emphasis however. Where Ueshiba's emphasis was on the 
harmony, the ai portion of Aikido, Tohei's emphasis was on the ki. Tohei had 
been a member of Jukukai, which taught meditation, chanting and rituals for 
developing one's ki, and Tohei was teaching Aikido as a means to develop one's 
ki. There was some disagreement about Tohei's teachings within the Aikikai. 
Aikido After Ueshiba 
When Ueshiba died in 1969, Tohei was the Chief Instructor at the Hombu Dojo in 
Tokyo, and the only official tenth dan (tenth degree black belt), a rank 
indicating complete mastery of the art. Ueshiba's son and heir, Kisshomaru, did 
not approve of Tohei's non-standard teachings and began putting pressure on him 
to stop teaching them. 
This situation created a great deal of stress within the Aikikai, and as Chie 
Nakane says in Japanese Society, "the sudden removal of the leader is a severe 
blow, and automatically brings a 'household rebellion' (the Japanese term for 
an internal struggle)" (Nakane 1971, 46). As Nakane describes, in Japan there 
are no strong horizontal ties within an organization; the strong ties that hold 
an organization together are all vertical, elder to junior, ties. When Ueshiba 
died, it was inevitable that there be some sort of split between the Ueshiba's 
immediate subordinates. All of the top instructors at the Hombu Dojo had their 
ties directly to the senior Ueshiba, and only Tohei was teaching anything very 
different from the others. 
Therefore, when this struggle began, Tohei had few supporters within the 
Aikikai; his loyal students were mostly in the classes outside the Aikikai. On 
the other hand, Kisshomaru was teaching Aikido very much as his father had 
taught it, he was one of the most senior instructors in Aikido, and he had the 
influence of Japan's tradition of patrilineal inheritance. Thus within a few 
years, Tohei was functionally ostracized by the Aikikai, although not outright 
expelled. This is a common way of dealing with problems in Japan. The Japanese 
seek to avoid face-to-face conflict, so the preferred means of getting rid of 
someone is to make life so uncomfortable that they leave, and this is what 
Tohei did. 
This caused a major rift in international Aikido, although it is doubtful 
anyone in the Aikikai realized that this would happen. It is even less likely 
that they would have done anything differently if they had realized.5 Within 
Japan, the only people who followed Tohei when he left the Aikikai to found his 
own organization and style of Aikido were his own direct students, most of whom 
also took part in his ki development classes outside the Aikikai. It was 
outside of Japan that Tohei had most of his devoted students. Frank Doran says: 
Aikido in the United States was primarily influenced, if not totally 
influenced, by Tohei Sensei. . . . There wasn't much talk of O-Sensei.6 The 
teachers were all talking about Tohei, which I don't think was a deliberate 
fault. They all talked with pride about their teacher, who was Tohei. . . . It 
wasn't just Tohei; it was just Tohei if you were in the United States. (Stone 
and Meyer 1995, 136) 
Tohei formed his own Aikido organization in 1974, when he formally resigned 
from the Aikikai. He called his style of Aikido Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido, 
"Aikido with Body and Mind Integration," and his organization is called The Ki 
Society in English. When he formed this organization, he asked all of the dojos 
that he had started in the United States to split with the Aikikai as well. 
Many of them did. This was the real beginning of the splintering of Aikido. 
Since this split, Tohei has developed a large international organization for 
the investigation of ki and the promotion of his style of Aikido based just 
outside of Tokyo. His headquarters is said to be the largest dojo in the world. 
>From this initial split in Japan have come most of the splinter groups in 
>America. The largest of these is the American branch of Tohei's Ki Society, 
>which teaches what it calls Ki Aikido, and Ki Atsu Therapy, a therapy system 
>developed by Tohei that involves the manipulation of a bodies ki energy, and 
>the direct application of ki by a therapist. The emphasis is on ki as an 
>important form of natural energy, how to develop and make use of it. 
Next in size is probably Seidokan Aikido, founded by one of Tohei's disciples 
about ten years after the split with the Aikikai. Rod Kobayashi, a Hawaiian 
born Japanese-American, split with Tohei's Ki Society because he felt there had 
been a reduction in the amount of Aikido as a martial art being taught in Ki 
Society dojos, and he felt that it was important to maintain that part of 
Aikido.7 He formed Seidokan Aikido in the early 1980s. He sought and received 
the approval and recognition of Doshu Kisshomaru for his new organization, 
which emphasizes using the techniques of Aikido to teach what his calls "the 
aiki attitude." 
There have been a number of other splits from the Ki Society. Of those about 
which I have been able to gather any information, they generally seem to be 
moving back towards the Aikikai in an attempt to balance the ki teachings and 
much softer, less combative style of Aikido practice of the Ki Society with the 
much harder and more martial aspects of traditional Aikido. The Ki Society had 
been moving away from the more combat oriented style of Aikido to a softer, 
less martial style, and many of those who have left it feel that it is 
important to maintain the strong martial effectiveness of their Aikido 
practice. 
There are also a number of Aikido organizations that are not affiliated with 
any of the traditional organizations. These include Suenaka-Ha Tetsugaku-ho 
Aikido, another off-shoot from the Ki Society, and Jiyushinkai, an off-shoot of 
Tomiki-Ryu Aikido. There are also numerous unaffiliated, independent dojos. 
These dojos are generally run by black belts who have become disgusted with the 
politics in the existing organizations, and who do not want to start another 
organization. 
Within the United States are also several Aikikai affiliated organizations 
headed by various rival Japanese shihan (master instructors) from the Aikikai, 
who often have difficulty dealing with each other, for the same sociological 
reasons that forced Tohei out of the Aikikai. These organizations, while not 
giving each other's ranks very much respect, all respect Aikikai ranks and 
recognize Ueshiba Kisshomaru as Doshu (Leader of the Way), and world-wide head 
of Aikido. 
In addition, Yoshinkan Aikido has numerous representatives teaching in the 
United States, both Japanese and American, and several splinter organizations. 
One in the Midwest is headed by Kushida Sensei in Michigan. Like the Ki Society 
and Aikikai split, Kushida's Yoshokai was started after Shioda Gozo, founder of 
Yoshinkai, died, and there was a disagreement over how the organization would 
be run. 
There have been numerous splits within the world Aikido community, and some of 
these splits are quite acrimonious. Despite this acrimony at the international 
level, within the United States, the general attitude is one of openness and 
cooperation. Rather than compete with each other, the various styles more often 
work together. When high ranking teachers from Japan give seminars in the 
United States, though the seminars are usually sponsored by one style, 
practitioners of any style are welcome to attend. 
This attitude is strikingly different from attitudes often encountered in 
Japan, where membership in one style can make it impossible to practice in 
dojos of a different, but related style. This difference seems to be directly 
related to what is generally considered to be Aikido's most attractive feature 
for Americans, its non-confrontational philosophy emphasizing harmony. This is 
popularly seen as being the attraction for Americans since the 1960s and the 
counter-culture. This philosophical emphasis allows people to study combat 
skills without compromising personal beliefs. It blends well with modern ideas 
about living in harmony with the environment and with non-violence beliefs. The 
idea of harmony with the universe complements the environmentalist ideal of 
living in harmony with nature. At the same time Aikido's technical syllabus 
emphasizing controlling techniques rather than striking, enables people opposed 
to violence ro learn self-defense skills without compromising 
 their
 personal beliefs. Aikido's growth may well be a mirror of the growth of these 
ideals thorough American society. 

---------------------------------

Chapter III 
The Spiritual Writings of Aikido 
Introduction 
In Aikido as a spiritual/religious practice, the most fundamental sources of 
guidance are the writings of the founder of Aikido. Many of these have been 
translated into English, primarily by John Stevens, a high ranking American 
Aikido practitioner and professor of Buddhist Studies at Tohoku Fukushi College 
in Sendai, Japan. Stevens' translations of Ueshiba's writings, and his own 
books on Aikido, represent an important literary source for American students 
of Aikido. His compilations, The Essence of Aikido: The Spiritual Teachings of 
Morihei Ueshiba, and The Art of Peace, as well as his translation of Ueshiba's 
pre-war book Budo, are the primary source of Ueshiba's writings for the 
non-Japanese reading American. 
However, Ueshiba's writings represent only a tiny portion of what has been 
written about Aikido. Writing about Aikido is growing industry, with two major 
magazines, and numerous new books about Aikido published annually. These 
writings touch on every aspect of Aikido, from simple technical manuals 
describing the techniques of Aikido to complex theories for the application of 
Aikido in psychological practice to books explicating the spiritual and 
religious significance of Aikido. 
After examining the writings of Ueshiba, I will look at three other books on 
Aikido. First will be Aikido and the Harmony of Nature, by Ueshiba's student, 
Mitsugi Saotome (1993). This book looks at the spiritual, religious and 
philosophical implications of Ueshiba's teachings. The second book is the only 
English language book-length biography of Ueshiba to date, Abundant Peace, by 
John Stevens (1987). Last, Aikido in America, a collection of interviews with 
leading American practitioners of Aikido, put together by John Stone and Ron 
Meyer (1995) will be discussed. 
Ueshiba's Writings 
The Art of Peace is a collection of doka or teaching poems written by Ueshiba 
to illustrate particular points and lessons within Aikido. The Essence of 
Aikido covers a much broader field. The book is divided into five chapters. The 
first chapter presents the cosmology of Ueshiba. This cosmology is essentially 
that of Deguchi, 
and is a rich blend of ancient Shinto mythology and Oomoto-kyo kotodama theory. 
The second chapter is a collection of doka, translated and presented 
side-by-side with the original Japanese. The third chapter is a collection of 
Ueshiba's calligraphy, some of it straightforward, some of it dealing with the 
spiritual aspects of Ueshiba's beliefs. The fourth chapter explains something 
of Ueshiba's beliefs concerning misogi, and is filled with pictures of Ueshiba 
performing various acts of misogi, including training under a cold mountain 
waterfall. The final chapter consists of photographs of Ueshiba practicing the 
core of his teachings, the techniques of Aikido. 
Ueshiba's kotodama theory basically holds that sound is at the heart of 
creation, that certain "seed" sounds are fundamental to the creation of the 
universe, and that the proper use of these sounds can transform the world. The 
essential sound is "su." "Su" is the first sound of creation, and all sounds, 
and everything else in creation emanates from it. "Su" expands outward to 
form/become the five vowel sounds of Japanese, a, i, u, e, and o. 
The kotodama theory is not, in my experience, part of Aikido in the United 
States; it does not seem to have made the cultural leap. This is not surprising 
considering that it is based upon obscure Oomoto-kyo teachings, and most of 
Ueshiba's disciples were not members of Oomoto-kyo. They would listen to his 
kotodama lectures, but were not interested in them. The only place I have found 
anything connected to this is that in Seidokan dojos, where, when practicing 
misogi breathing, the sound of your exhalation should be a long, drawn-out 
"su." 
This kotodama theory translates the sounds into Shinto mythology, with 
different sounds and sound combinations representing various Shinto deities 
from the Kojiki. These deities are utterly unknown to most modern Japanese, 
which only serves to make the theories that much more impenetrable for modern 
Japanese, to say nothing of non-Japanese. 
Of far more importance for Americans are Ueshiba's doka, or as Stevens 
colorfully, and accurately, calls them "Songs of the Path" (Ueshiba 1993, 39). 
Ueshiba's doka range from seemingly simple descriptions of Aikido technique, to 
deeply symbolic descriptions of reality. Quoting from the preface of one of 
Ueshiba's Japanese collections: 
Those who train in Aikido must never forget that the teaching has to be forged 
in one's very body. Always keep in mind the Divine workings of creation, from 
beginning to end, and ceaselessly learn from the gods. Make the entire universe 
your dojo. This is the great meaning of Budo. (Ueshiba 1993, 39) 
For Ueshiba, the practice of Aikido, like the practice of any art for a member 
of Oomoto-kyo, was a means of promoting the Divine within oneself, and 
ultimately a means for achieving unification with the Divine. 
Many of Ueshiba's doka were lessons of strategy and technique. Others were 
lessons about the mystical and spiritual side of Aikido, and how Aikido relates 
to God and the Divine. The examples below show how Ueshiba viewed the 
connection between his religion and Aikido. 
The Divine Will
Permeating body and soul
is the blade of Aiki:
Polish it, make it shine
throughout this world of ours!
(Ueshiba 1993, 41) 

This doka makes it quite explicit that Aikido is an activity that is intimately 
connected with religion. 
Aiki-[its mysteries]
can never be encompassed
by the brush or by the mouth.
Do not rely on words to grasp it,
attain enlightenment through practice!
(Ueshiba 1993, 41) 

Though Ueshiba was hardly a Buddhist, still the idea of enlightenment, or 
sudden, individual understanding about the true nature of things, is such a 
common idea in Japan after a millennium and a half of exposure to Buddhism that 
it can be seen here when Ueshiba describes attaining true understanding through 
Aikido. 
Protecting the Way
of gods and buddhas
in this world of ours:
The techniques of Aiki
are the law of kusanagi.
(Ueshiba 1993, 45) 

Kusanagi is a reference to Shinto mythology, specifically to the sword 
Kusanagi, one of the three treasures of the Japanese Imperial family. Here too, 
we see Aikido presented in its relationship to Japanese religion. Ueshiba 
presents Aikido as the defender of the Way of the gods and buddhas, giving 
Aikido a holy purpose. 
The following doka augments the holy purpose above with a divine origin. 
Taught to us by the gods,
the grand design of the Path
follows the Divine:
The Path of Aiki [is the work of the]
Angel of Purification
(Ueshiba 1993, 45) 

This doka also teaches us that Aikido follows the divine, and is a means of 
purification. This is important because purification, or misogi, is one of the 
fundamental rites of Shinto. The kami are pure and mankind is impure. In order 
to grow closer to the kami, men must purify themselves. By describing Aikido as 
a means of purification, Ueshiba is intimately connecting his Aikido, the Way 
of harmonious energy, with Shinto, the Way of the Gods. 
Techniques of purification
taught by futomani
and the gods.
Aiki[do] was established
by the Divine.
(Ueshiba 1993, 55) 

Master the Divine
Techniques of Aiki
and no foe
will dare
to challenge you.
(Ueshiba 1993, 74) 

The ideas that Aikido comes from the gods, that Aikido is a means of misogi, 
and that Aikido is a way of practicing and expressing the will of the gods is 
heard throughout Ueshiba's writings. 
Foster and polish
the warrior spirit
while serving in the world;
illuminate the Path in accordance
with the Divine Will.
(Ueshiba 1993, 61) 

A warrior receives
the gift of life
and establishes life everywhere;
Love is life, the essence
of the divine Plan.
(Ueshiba 1993, 62) 

Steadfast and sure,
animating the cosmos-
the Sword of [Aiki].
Deep learning and Bu[do], the double-edged
instrument of the gods' grand design.
(Ueshiba 1993, 63) 

True Victory is Self Victory!
Harmonize yourself with the
Divine Parent Mind-
salvation lives right within
your own body and soul!
(Ueshiba 1993, 64) 

From the above, it becomes clear that for Ueshiba Aikido was a holy activity 
that rather than being his own creation, was the creation of the kami of 
Shinto. This can leave little question that Aikido was intended as a religious 
activity by its human founder. A number of the doka also tell us that Aikido, 
like any of the classic do of Japan, is intended as a means of personal 
development for those who practice it. 
Many of the above doka set forth Aikido as a form a misogi. It might therefore 
be useful to look at what Ueshiba had to say about misogi. He commented on it 
by saying: 
In short, misogi is a washing away of all defilements, a removal of all 
obstacles, a separation from disorder, an abstention from negative thoughts, a 
radiant state of unadorned purity, the accomplishment of all things, a 
condition of lofty virtue, and a spotless environment. In misogi one returns to 
the very beginning, where there is no differentiation between oneself and the 
universe. (Ueshiba 1993, 98) 
This is a very clear description of what misogi's purpose and goals were for 
Ueshiba. Misogi practices are Shinto in nature and origin. Through the practice 
of various misogi exercises, one gradually purifies oneself, thereby drawing 
closer to the kami. The first part of the description, ending with "a radiant 
state of purity" is a classic description of the state attained through misogi. 
The second half is a very concise description of the goals of Oomoto-kyo, the 
transformation of the world and unification with the divine. 
As for Aikido and misogi, Ueshiba said: 
Train sincerely in Aikido and evil thoughts and deeds will naturally disappear. 
Daily training in Aikido allows your inner divinity to shine brighter and 
brighter. Do not concern yourself with the right and wrong of others. Do not be 
calculating or act unnaturally. Keep your heart set on Aikido, and do not 
criticize other teachers or traditions. Aikido embraces all and purifies 
everything. (Ueshiba 1993, 99) 
Clearly Ueshiba saw Aikido practice as a form of misogi. The practice of Aikido 
is a means of growing closer to and becoming one with God or the gods, 
improving oneself, and transforming the world. That these are also the goals of 
Oomoto-kyo is not coincidental. One of the reasons for practicing the arts in 
Oomoto-kyo is to manifest the divine within oneself. Ueshiba's martial art was 
intended to allow one to not only manifest the divine, but also purify oneself 
to make it easier to manifest and become one with the divine. 
It is also worth noting that Ueshiba's Aikido and Oomoto-kyo had no real 
philosophical differences. Here is the basic teaching of Oomoto-kyo: 
God is spirit abiding in everything in the universe and man is the governor of 
the world. 
Where god and man unite, there follow unbounded power and authority. 
(Oomoto Headquarters 1935, 55) 

It is easy to see from just this that Ueshiba's teachings about Aikido were 
strongly influenced by Oomoto-kyo teachings. 
In Ueshiba's writings that have been translated into English thus far, the 
particular deity or deities who inspired Aikido are not specified. I suspect 
that this is a very important feature of Aikido. Its lessons are meant to be 
religious ones, but which religion, and which god(s), it is teaching us about 
is never made clear, so that Aikido can quite easily be something different for 
every person who comes to it. The practitioners of Aikido have to fill in the 
specifics of Aikido's lessons for themselves, individually. A few can't be 
bothered with it at all. For them, learning how to fight is enough. Most people 
who stick with Aikido for any length of time though, fill in the details of 
Ueshiba's lessons with material from their own background. A member of a 
missionary church said that God uses people for his own ends, so God could very 
well have inspired Ueshiba. For many, as one person put it, "there is nothing 
in Aikido that conflicts with the Bible." The very vagueness of
 Aikido's written teachings is their strength, for the open spaces can be 
filled with whatever the student feels most comfortable with. 
Aikido and the Harmony of Nature 
Mitsugi Saotome is a direct student of Ueshiba who moved to the United States 
in the 1970s. Now married to an American, he teaches Aikido full-time and has 
written several books about Aikido besides Aikido and the Harmony of Nature 
(1993). 
Several themes emerge from Aikido and the Harmony of Nature: that Ueshiba was 
both enlightened and inspired by Kami; that there is no separation between 
self, other, individual, the universe, and God; that Aikido is a true 
expression of the movement of energy in the cosmos; and that through the 
practice of Aikido anyone can achieve unity with the universe. 
On page 15 Saotome quotes Ueshiba as saying about Aikido: 
It was born through the order of Kami that I only followed and conveyed to 
others. Aiki is the Way of Kami. It is to be a part of the laws of the 
universe. It is the source of the principles of life. The history of Aikido 
begins with the origin of the universe. Do you think a human being could 
possibly have created these laws? The shrewdness of human intelligence is not 
enough to understand this. (Saotome 1993, 15) 

These are recurring ideas throughout Aikido and the Harmony of the Universe. 
Another recurring theme, and one which is suggested by the second half of the 
title, The Harmony of the Universe, is a somewhat sketchy monism. "The Creator 
and creation are one, not separate, and we are not apart from the perfect 
rhythm that is an expression of Holy Wisdom" (Saotome 1993, 22). This monism is 
an important part of Saotome's teaching, because his goal is total unification 
with the creator. "To truly become one with the Creator and experience satori, 
we must follow the laws of nature and purify the body, the heart, the spirit, 
even our physical surroundings" (Saotome 1993, 29). This theme of purification 
and unification is repeated again and again throughout the book, and Aikido is 
presented as the means of achieving this unity. This is most concisely stated 
in what Saotome calls "The Five Principles of Aikido" on page 17. 

   Aikido is the path that joins all paths of the universe throughout eternity; 
it is the Universal Mind that contains all things and unifies all things. 


   Aikido is the truth taught by the universe and must be applied to our lives 
on this earth. 


   Aikido is the principle and the path that join humanity with the Universal 
Consciousness. 


   Aikido will come to completion when each individual, following his or her 
true path, becomes one with the universe. 


   Aikido is the path of strength and compassion that leads to the infinite 
perfection and ever-increasing glory of God. 
(Saotome 1993, 17) 
This succinctly describes what Saotome is saying about Aikido throughout the 
book. When Saotome isn't reiterating and expanding upon these points, he is 
describing the necessity of purification, of misogi, for achieving unity with 
the universe. On page 29 he gives a detailed description of misogi, and of 
Aikido as a form of purification. He also talks about Ueshiba's efforts to 
purify himself several times throughout the book, and he reinforces this by 
emphasizing the importance of Ueshiba's being pure when he achieved 
enlightenment. 
Aikido and the Harmony of Nature talks about Aikido from a number of different 
angles, always emphasizing the transcendent nature of Aikido. The examples I 
have given here are hardly the only examples of these points in the book. 
Rather, they are examples of the basic themes of the book. Ueshiba achieved 
enlightenment through his own great efforts, and that God granted him the 
insight necessary to create Aikido: that there really is no separation between 
God and man and the Universe, all are really one; and that Aikido is the means 
of coming to perfect harmony with God and the Universe. This certainly meets 
the requirements of Spiro's definition of religion (Spiro 1966, 96), as well as 
providing support for the argument that Aikido practice is a religious ritual 
under the Lawson-McCauley theory of religious ritual (to be described below). 
Abundant Peace 
John Stevens is an American practitioner of Aikido who now lives in Japan, 
although he makes frequent trips to the United States to conduct Aikido 
seminars. He holds a sixth dan rank in Aikido. John Stevens has written 
numerous books on Aikido, ranging from purely technical manuals to books that 
focus on the religious and spiritual teachings of Aikido. Here I will focus on 
just one of his books, his biography of Ueshiba, the only book-length biography 
of Ueshiba available in English. Nearly every book about Aikido printed in 
English contains at least a brief account of Ueshiba's life, particularly his 
learning Daito Ryu, his ability to dodge bullets by dodging flashes of light 
representing the gunman's intentions, and his enlightenment and subsequent 
invincibility. 
Stevens' book is the only lengthy account of Ueshiba's life. He breaks his 
account into three general sections. The first deals with Ueshiba "The Man," 
the second with "The Martial Artist," and the third with Ueshiba's 
philosophical and spiritual teachings, "The Message." What Stevens has to say 
in "The Message" is very much the same as the other writings looked at above, 
so it is the first two sections that are of interest here. 
"The Man" and "The Martial Artist" contain the biographical information. The 
basic facts of Ueshiba's life were recounted above, but what is interesting 
here is how the documentable facts of Ueshiba's life have been mixed with 
undocumented stories about Ueshiba's powers and abilities. While Ueshiba's 
training in various martial arts is quite well documented in the form of 
contracts and dojo records, and his primary enlightenment experience is 
recorded in numerous brief biographies, including those written by his son, 
Stevens' biography includes numerous undocumented stories of Ueshiba performing 
fantastic feats of strength and skill, as well as stories of Ueshiba 
demonstrating powers of clairvoyance. Stevens even alleges that Ueshiba 
prophesied his own return after his death. This is the only place in which I 
have found this prophecy however. 
Stevens recounts numerous stories of Ueshiba possessing of super-human powers. 
He includes a second story about Ueshiba being able to dodge bullets (Stevens 
1987, 35). He also recounts several popular stories of Ueshiba anticipating 
attacks while the attacker is only thinking about attacking him. These stories 
lend to the super-human aura that popularly surrounds Ueshiba, and a number of 
them have entered into the popular dojo mythology about Ueshiba, i.e., that he 
could never be surprised, that he was not only unbeaten but unbeatable, that he 
knew what other people were thinking, and that he threw people without touching 
them. 
What is perhaps most striking about Stevens' writing is the unabashed awe and 
reverence he piles upon Ueshiba. When mentioning some training in a style 
vaguely associated with some ninja schools, Stevens writes: 
Ninjitsu is the antithesis of Aikido. It is an art based on stealth, deception, 
and dirty tricks; yet even with their reliance on the vaunted "techniques of 
invisibility" and an arsenal of exotic weapons, none of the famous ninja of the 
past could have stood a chance against the divine techniques of Morihei, 
formulated in accordance with the principles of love and harmony. (Stevens 
1987, 71) 
This degree of credibility and raw, unvarnished hero-worship is further brought 
out in the opening paragraph of the section on Ueshiba, "The Martial Artist." 
Stevens writes: 
Morihei was undoubtedly the greatest martial artist who ever lived. Even if we 
accept every exploit of all the legendary warriors, East and West, as being 
literally true, none of those accomplishments can be compared to Morihei's 
documented ability to disarm any attacker, throw a dozen men simultaneously, 
and down and pin opponents without touching them, recorded scores of times in 
photographs, on film, and by personal testimony. 
How did Morihei become invincible? (Stevens 1987, 67) 
It is this belief in Ueshiba's transcendent powers that shows Stevens' Aikido 
as being religious in quality, for it clearly meets Spiro's definition, with 
two super-human agents: Ueshiba and the divinity which inspired him, the "Great 
Spirit of Aiki" (Stevens 1987, 81). 
Aikido in America 
Aikido in America is a collection of interviews with some of the leading 
American Aikidoists of the early 1990s. Most of the book is not about Ueshiba 
or the belief in the super-human within the Aikido community. Much of what the 
interviewees discuss has to do with the development of Aikido in the United 
States, historical discussions of who taught whom, and how different people 
came to practice Aikido or why they ended up teaching the particular flavor of 
Aikido that they do. 
Terry Dobson is quoted saying: 
Aikido is not a religion. That's what's so devilish about Aikido. It deals with 
these primary forces but leaves pretty much all the detail work up to you. 
O-Sensei said, "Aikido leads religion to completion," which I always found and 
still find a very impenetrable statement. (Stone and Meyer 1995, 34) 

This sums up the spiritual and religious aspects of the book quite well. Each 
of the interviews deals with the spiritual and religious within Aikido in its 
own way. 
There are interviews with 13 leaders of Aikido in America, two of whom have 
since died. The book is divided into three sections. The first section is 
called "The Disciples," and deals with people who trained with Ueshiba in 
Japan. The second section, "The Teachers," deals with people who have led a 
great deal of the teaching of Aikido in America, but who do not necessarily 
have any training with Ueshiba. The last section is called "The Innovators," 
and deals with people who have taken Aikido in new directions in America. 
For the purposes of this research, the first section is of the most interest, 
although nearly every interview deals with the spiritual side of Aikido at some 
point. The most interesting interviews are the first seven or so, and 
especially the first four, which are the group titled "The Disciples." All of 
these interviews focus a lot of time on what Aikido is. 
None of these interviews even begins to suggest that the center of Aikido is a 
set of martial techniques. The techniques are only ever mentioned as means of 
illustrating a non-technical point. The spiritual focus is very strong, and 
very imprecise. Yin/yang theory is talked about quite a bit by Mary Heiny, and 
all of them talk about the same spirit of love that Ueshiba did. Interestingly, 
none of them talk about God or gods much. The major super-human agent found in 
these interviews is Ueshiba, and in some of the other interviews, Tohei. 
Ueshiba's incredible technique and ability, and Tohei's ki powers. 
Aikido as a means of spiritual development is the real theme of all of these 
interviews, and they reflect strongly the ideas about spiritual development 
found in Ueshiba's doka. The ideas of love and universal harmony, and Aikido as 
a means of helping people develop themselves are repeated again and again. In 
fact, the technical side of Aikido is strongly downplayed, to the point of 
making simple technical development seem to be the antithesis of the goal of 
real Aikido. Ueshiba is quoted saying, "You know, I didn't really understand 
Aikido until I was in my seventies, and I didn't have my strength to rely on" 
(Stone and Meyer 1995, 87). And Mary Heiny talks about one day coming in and 
not being interested in throwing her partner strongly, but instead being 
fascinated with the process, the flow of energy involved (Stone and Meyer 1995, 
127). 
Each of the interviews deals with the spiritual/religious aspects of Aikido in 
some way. The ideas of universal harmony and love are frequently mentioned, and 
several of the interviewees, particularly Robert Nadeau (Stone and Meyer 1995, 
57-81), George Simcox (Stone and Meyer 1995, 171-189), and Wendy Palmer (Stone 
and Meyer 1995, 261-289), spend a great deal of time talking about how Aikido 
teaches practitioners about the energy of the universe, sometimes referred to 
as ki, and how Aikido teaches them to align themselves with this energy and to 
work with it. 
The view of Aikido in North America presented by Aikido in America is a general 
one. The various teachers each present their own ideas about Aikido, and the 
many facets of Aikido quickly become apparent. Veiws range from the very 
technically oriented, which is most often mentioned with something just a shade 
above derision, to Aikido which is totally focused upon developing people and 
the world, and everything in between. The world of Aikido is one of great 
diversity, within which there is room for polishing all of the different facets 
of Aikido, with each dojo and each practitioner choosing which facets will be 
their specific focus. 

---------------------------------

Chapter IV 
Research Results 
Research Background 
In the course of researching this subject, 33 individual interviews were 
carried out with current practitioners of Aikido. These interviews were 
conducted face to face with the researcher. Because the researcher is an active 
martial artist himself, and usually took part in practice at the various Aikido 
dojos where subjects were recruited, the interviewer was generally regarded as 
either a participant or at least a very knowledgeable outsider from a related 
discipline. 
For this reason the research would have to be classified as that of a 
participant observer. It should be noted that being a participant in a martial 
arts dojo presents certain dangers to the researcher. Practicing a martial art 
means the active practice of techniques used to subdue, injure, maim, and 
sometimes kill people. In an Aikido dojo these techniques are practiced by 
having one person act as the aggressor, called uke (meaning receiver). This 
person receives the technique of the individual who is practicing, called 
shite.8 These techniques can be quite dangerous to both uke 
and shite. They are dangerous to shite if shite fails to dodge or redirect 
uke's attack, and dangerous to uke if shite applies a technique too vigorously 
or if uke fails to flow with shite's technique smoothly. It is worth noting 
that the researcher injured himself in the last manner, spraining his wrist. 
While this injury was a hindrance to actually practicing, it was also seen as 
an indication of the researcher's sincerity by others in the dojos where he was 
practicing. 
In order to protect the anonymity of the interview subjects, and because of the 
small size of the Aikido population in the Midwestern region, the styles of the 
individual practitioners will not be given with their other data, nor will the 
individual's rank. Particularly with higher ranking members of the Aikido 
community, little more than an individual's rank, style and general location 
would be necessary to identify that individual. 
Most of the interviews took place in the actual dojos where the subjects train, 
usually before or after practice. Several interviews took place in my car while 
the subjects and I were waiting for an instructor to arrive and unlock the 
dojo. A few of the interviews took place in restaurants or coffee shops because 
the dojo was unavailable. It is worth noting that the interviews in the dojos 
were certainly the most relaxed, with both the interviewer and the subject 
generally lounging on the padded floor in a very informal manner. 
Surprisingly, while several individuals declined to be interviewed, most often 
they did so with obvious regret, declining due their inability to find the time 
necessary. Only one individual declined to be interviewed because of discomfort 
with the subject of the interview. While this might seem anomalous, within the 
various martial arts it is not surprising. Reputable martial arts instructors 
generally encourage people to find an art that suits them. It is not unusual 
for people to try an art, and if they don't particularly like it, to move on. 
Anyone very uncomfortable with the teachings of Aikido would more than likely 
either move to an Aikido dojo that ignores those areas that trouble them, or 
move on to another style. If a student wanted a technically similar style they 
could choose an aiki-jutsu school, or a traditional jujutsu style. For these 
reasons, the researcher was not surprised to find that no one was hostile to 
the teachings of Aikido. 
The sample was chosen from volunteers at dojos in the Midwest. The Midwest 
region was chosen because it was accessible by car from a research base at 
Western Michigan University. The individuals interviewed were all volunteers 
chosen because they represented a broad range of ages and experience within the 
Aikido community. 
The interviews were conducted in dojos from four different styles of Aikido, 
representing the three main lineages of Aikido today. The styles were Aikikai, 
representing the main line currently headed by Kisshomaru Ueshiba, Yoshinkan 
and Yoshokai, representing the Yoshinkan line founded by Gozo Shioda, and the 
Seidokan branch of the line founded by Koichi Tohei. It is hoped that by 
interviewing subjects from the three main lines of Aikido that a fairly 
accurate view of the beliefs concerning Aikido in America can be presented. 
Of the 33 subjects interviewed, 4 were female and 29 were male. Although all 
interviews were voluntary, this does reflect the general ratio of women to men 
in the dojos, at least on those nights the researcher was in attendance. The 
practitioners of the martial arts are overwhelmingly male, with a small, but 
usually very dedicated percentage of women. I suspect it is the unusual 
dedication required of women practitioners to put up with the overwhelmingly 
macho aura of the martial arts that causes the women to make up a much higher 
percentage of the yudansha (dan rank holder, dan is better known in the United 
States as a "black belt") than their overall numbers would cause one to expect. 
Of the interview subjects, one of the women holds a third dan, another a second 
dan, and a third holds dan rank in several martial arts outside of Aikido, and 
will be ready for her first dan test in Aikido in a year or two. 
The interview subjects ranged quite widely in age and experience in Aikido. The 
youngest person interviewed was 18 and had just 2.5 years of experience in 
Aikido. The oldest person interviewed was 58 years old, and had started Aikido 
7 years earlier. There were 6 people in the 18-29 range, 12 in the 30-39 range, 
10 in the 40-49 range, and 5 in the 50-59 range. There were no subjects over 
the age of 58. It should be mentioned that there were people practicing in the 
dojos who were younger than 18 and older than 58. 
The average length of time practicing Aikido was 7 years, with the shortest 
time being 1.5 years, and the longest 23 years. Six people had at least 10 
years of active Aikido experience, and 16 people had from 5-9 years of 
experience in Aikido. The remaining 11 had from 1.5-4 years of experience, 
including one person who did not give his length of time practicing Aikido, but 
because of his low rank the researcher believes he could not have more than 2 
years of experience. 
The subjects ranged in rank from gokyu, or fifth level below shodan (beginning 
step), or 1st degree black belt , to yondan, or fourth degree black belt. Rank 
directly reflects the length of time one has practiced, as the first 
requirement to be met for promotion is a certain number of hours practiced. The 
time required per promotion varies somewhat from style to style, but all styles 
require progressively greater periods of time in a rank before one can be 
promoted to the next rank. So while only 30 hours of practice may be required 
for promotion from rokyu to gokyu, hundreds of hours will be required for each 
promotion beyond shodan. In addition to sheer time spent practicing, one must 
also show the requisite skill level for the rank one is testing for. 
Thus an individual's rank in Aikido represents both the amount of time one has 
been practicing and the level of skill achieved. Among the subjects, there were 
two yondans (fourth degree black belts), 3 sandans (third degree), 2 nidans 
(second degree), and 7 shodans. The yondans had been practicing Aikido for 23 
and 19 years, while the sandans had 14, 9 and 8 years of experience, the nidans 
had 9 and 5 years experience, and shodans ranged from 2.5 to 17 years of 
experience. It should be noted that promotions do not automatically occur when 
an individual has sufficient time and skill. One must apply for the rank and 
take a test that consists primarily of a formal demonstration of techniques. 
The shodan with only 2.5 years of experience, and the shodan with 17 years 
experience show the variance in promotion speed quite well. Shodan after only 
2.5 years is very fast; the individual would have had to practice at every 
opportunity, and have tested at the very earliest possible mome
 nt. The
 shodan with 17 years of experience represents the other extreme, of one who 
practices but does not pursue rank. 
Among the 19 subjects with kyu (below black belt) ranks, this variation is also 
evident. One man with bad knees continues to practice after 11 years, although 
because of his knees, he will probably never be able to take the test for 
shodan. Another student has reached ikkyu (last kyu rank before shodan) after 
only two years. It has been the researcher's observation in the other martial 
arts in which he is active that younger participants tend to seek rank as 
quickly as they can get it, while older participants are more interested in 
simply practicing. 
The variety of religious backgrounds among the subjects was surprising because 
of the preponderance of subjects who had been raised Catholic. Out of 33 
interview subjects, fully 19 were raised Catholic. The researcher thought 
perhaps this indicated that Aikido held some special attraction for people who 
were raised Catholic. However, after noting that ten of these subjects came 
from the same dojo, the researcher asked informally about this at the dojo, and 
was told that this was not surprising because the area where the dojo is 
located is overwhelmingly Catholic. The rest of the subjects showed a wider 
distribution with three raised Lutheran, two Episcopalian, two with no 
religious background, one Church of Christ, one Congregational, one Reformed 
Jew, one Sunni Moslem, and one Methodist. 
The majority of subjects who were raised Catholic did not carry their 
Catholicism over to their current religious practice. The most common answer to 
the question "What is your current religious practice?" was "None" with 13. The 
other answers included: seven who were Catholics of varying degrees of 
activity, three non-denominational Christians, two atheists, one Reformed Jew, 
one Sunni Moslem, one Lutheran. The remaining four respondents included one who 
described himself as "open-minded," one who has had a near-death experience and 
is quite idiosyncratic, one best described as a pantheist, and one who takes a 
supermarket approach to religion, trying a lot of different things and taking 
what he likes from each. Interestingly, one of the respondents said that he had 
"a financial relationship" with the church his wife and son attend, and two 
others also said that they attend churches with their spouses and children 
although they do not believe in the teachings of those institu
 tions. 
It should be noted that this is only what people answered when queried directly 
about their current religious practice. As will be shown later, most of the 
people who responded "None" in actuality do have religious beliefs and 
practices; it is simply that these do not fit into any of the current, popular 
religious categories in the United States. Many of these people expressed a 
belief in divine inspiration, which, under Spiro's definition, is clearly an 
expression of religious knowledge. 
When the subjects were queried about their reasons for starting Aikido 
practice, a number of different answers were given, none of them having 
anything to do with religion. The closest any came were a number of subjects 
who said they started Aikido because they liked the philosophy. The reasons 
given for starting Aikido broke down into a few general categories: (a) became 
interested after watching someone practice Aikido (8), (b) proficient in 
another martial art and decided to try Aikido or add Aikido to their skills 
(9), (c) a general interest in learning martial arts (7), (d) exercise (4), (e) 
self-defense (3), (f) looking for something to do with free time (3), (g) other 
(2). 
It had been expected that the philosophy and spirituality of Aikido would be 
one of the primary things that initially attracted people to Aikido. It turned 
out that very few of the subjects knew anything about the philosophy of Aikido 
before they first encountered it. Only four of the subjects made any mention of 
the philosophy or spirituality of Aikido when describing why they started 
Aikido. The researcher suspects that these were important issues for more than 
just the four who mentioned them, but not in the sense of being explicitly 
aware of the philosophy. 
Karate is easily the most common image of martial arts in America. Those people 
who became interested in Aikido after seeing it practiced, and the martial 
artists who started practicing it to balance their other martial arts skills, 
were attracted by the technical expression of Aikido techniques which focus on 
blending and controlling rather than striking and breaking. This is different 
from becoming interested in Aikido because of its stated philosophy of harmony. 
Subjects were also asked if their reasons for practicing Aikido had changed 
since they started. Two-thirds of the subjects said their reasons for 
practicing had changed in some way. They described a broad variety of ways in 
which their reasons for practicing had changed, and here the philosophical and 
religious aspects of Aikido become important. 
Subjects' reasons for their continued practice of Aikido were far less specific 
than were their reasons for starting. Frequently they gave a group of reasons 
for continuing, and although their original reasons usually remained, most 
often they had become secondary to the subjects' main reasons for continuing. 
The most common reason given for their continued practice of Aikido was for 
self-improvement/self-development, with eight people giving some version of 
this as a reason for continuing. It is probable that the two people who gave 
spiritual reasons for continuing also fall into this category, because whenever 
"spiritual" came up in the course of an interview, it seemed to indicate 
something done to make one a better person, as opposed to "religion" which was 
seen as an organized and dogmatic activity. This would bring the number of 
people practicing Aikido as a form of self-improvement to ten. 
The next most common reason given was the philosophy of Aikido. Six subjects 
gave this as one of their reasons for continuing to practice Aikido. The 
philosophy of Aikido is not a clear-cut, secular oriented philosophy however. 
Aikido's philosophy presupposes a very Japanese world-view, without clear 
absolutes. It is one in which social harmony and avoiding direct conflict are 
put at a premium. Ueshiba's Aikido teaches one to apply these ideas to physical 
conflict. In an American dojo, the ideas of harmony and conflict avoidance are 
first encountered in the physical technique, and then expanded to once again 
apply to social situations. 
Four subjects also mentioned that the social aspects of practice were a big 
part of why they continued to practice Aikido. It is the researcher's opinion 
that social involvement is a strong motivation for many other subjects as well. 
In the course of the interviews, the social side of the Aikido dojo came up 
quite often, but almost always outside of the discussion about why people 
practice Aikido. One very typical example came right at the end of an 
interview. The subject had been asked if there was anything he wanted to add 
that we had not discussed. His first comment was "I have lots of fun down 
here." He talked about the camaraderie of the dojo, and his very last comment 
was "And I like the bar-b-ques in the summertime." 
That particular dojo had evolved into something more than just a place where 
people studied Aikido. It had become a strong social group as well. The members 
often went out to see the latest martial arts movies as a dojo. All of the 
other dojos where I conducted interviews had evolved into social groups to one 
degree or another. This seems to be a generally unrecognized, or at least 
unspoken reason for practicing Aikido. The members of the dojo become friends, 
beyond just practice partners. This is true of every dojo I have practiced at. 
At one dojo, members will go out to a bar after practice, at another they hold 
regular dojo meetings over dinner. In other words, what begins as exercise, 
self-defense training or a philosophical interest, frequently develops into a 
social activity as well, adding another reason to continue practicing. 
Dimensions of Aikido 
In this section, several general areas of inquiry into the beliefs and 
practices surrounding Aikido will be looked at in order to facilitate the 
examination of the variety of views found within in the Aikido community. A 
multi-dimensional approach has been selected so that various aspects of Aikido 
can be examined separately, without losing their connections to Aikido as a 
whole. 
The dimensions to be examined are; the sacred narratives, doctrines, ethics, 
social aspects, ritual aspects, and Aikido in life. Sacred Narratives will deal 
with practitioners' views regarding the fact that Ueshiba always attributed his 
abilities and the origin and creation of Aikido to divine inspiration, and 
individuals' attitudes regarding this. 
The section pertaining to the doctrines of Aikido will deal with what are the 
doctrinal aspects of Aikido: the focus on harmony, blending, non-confrontation, 
and loving protection. These ideas may be said to make up the core of Aikido 
thought and transcend any divisions between the various branches of Aikido. 
The ethics of Aikido will look at how these doctrines are interpreted as 
functioning in the dojo and in everyday life. How do practitioners perceive the 
ideas of harmony, blending, and non-confrontation as functioning and directing 
their actions both inside and outside the dojo? 
The social aspects of Aikido will look at how Aikido practitioners interact 
inside and outside the dojo. 
Ritual aspects of Aikido include the various rituals involved in entering and 
exiting the dojo, the opening and closing of practice, the various rituals 
found in some dojos during practice, and the ritual of practice itself. The 
variety of beliefs held by practitioners regarding these rituals will be looked 
at. The technical practice of Aikido will also be examined here. 
The last dimension to be looked at will be "Aikido in Life." This will deal 
with how Aikido affects peoples lives outside the dojo, as well as with what 
parts of Aikido people find themselves taking home with them when they leave 
the dojo. 
The Sacred Narratives of Aikido 
The sacred narratives of Aikido include a variety of materials, not all of 
which are strictly narratives. First, there are the stories told about Ueshiba 
himself, that he could sense others' intentions to attack or that he could 
anticipate attacks so well that no one could even touch him. These are included 
in the writings of his uchi deshi, among whom is his son and successor, 
Kisshomaru Ueshiba. And there are Ueshiba's own writings, many of which deal 
with the relationship between Aikido and the kami. The ideas in the body of 
written Aikido thought form a clear continuum, from Ueshiba's writings, through 
those of Americans who have never visited Japan. 
All of this rather large collection of writings provide the sources for the 
sacred narratives of Aikido. Informants showed a tremendous degree of variation 
in their knowledge of these narratives. Some of them were very familiar with 
all of the numerous sources of information on Ueshiba and Aikido, and read 
everything they could find about Aikido. Others knew very little, perhaps only 
what they had heard talked about in the dojo before and after practice. 
It is important to emphasize that the focus of Aikido is the practice, not the 
literature and the stories. That Aikido is about practice is a point strongly 
stressed in Aikido literature, but even more so by the fact that the literature 
of Aikido is almost totally ignored in most dojos. If one is interested in 
these things, it is up to the individual student to find them out for him or 
her self. Almost all of the informants had at least some knowledge of these 
narratives however. What is interesting is how so many different views of them 
are able to exist within the same art, often even within the same dojo. 
The variety of responses to the question "Do you believe, as is often recounted 
by his [Ueshiba Morihei's] biographers, that he knew other people's intentions, 
particularly regarding possible attacks?" was quite varied. Some simply said 
that "yes I do," others gave very qualified "yes" answers, and still others 
explained why they don't believe that. 
Thirteen subjects gave nearly unqualified "yes" answers to the above question. 
This represents approximately 40% of those surveyed. Additionally, 15 people 
gave qualified answers. The qualifications nearly all had the same basic idea 
that Ueshiba could indeed read people's intentions, particularly intentions to 
attack, but that this is not a super-human skill. Particular variations on this 
idea ranged from one informant who feels that Ueshiba was simply about as 
highly advanced in these things as is possible for a human, to another who felt 
that this is one of the things Aikido is supposed to teach. 
Finally, five informants gave unequivocal "no" answers, and one person declined 
to give a yes or no answer, saying instead "I don't know." 
All told, 85% of the respondents indicated some measure of belief in the idea 
that Ueshiba could tell others intentions. Nearly half of these indicated that 
they believed this was an ability that transcended those of normal people. The 
rest provided a variety of natural explanations for this ability. 
The subjects' feelings about whether or not Ueshiba was divinely inspired also 
showed a great deal of variety. Some people clearly said yes, others said yes, 
but placed the divine inspiration within their own religious system, and still 
others qualified their "yes" by saying that they believe divine inspiration is 
a fairly common thing happening frequently to people who are artistic or 
otherwise creative. People who said no gave a variety of reasons for saying 
this, and two people said they didn't know if he was divinely inspired or not. 
Eighteen informants, fully 54% of those interviewed, said that they believe, or 
they believe it is possible, that Ueshiba was divinely inspired. Two of those 
who expressed this however were very clear in stating that they believe that 
this was from a Christian point of view. It is seems likely that a higher 
number of subjects felt this way, but did not express it, taking their 
religious point of view for granted. 
This shows a degree of elasticity of belief that the researcher had not 
expected. It had been expected that subjects would divide into two, fairly 
clear groups. Instead the results show an incredible degree of shading, with 
some who do not subscribe to a traditional Judeo-Christian cosmology believing 
Ueshiba was divinely inspired, as well as a devout member of a missionary 
church also seeing it as reasonable that Ueshiba was divinely inspired. 
In every case, those who hold these beliefs practice side-by-side with others 
who did not believe, in any way, that Ueshiba was divinely inspired. 
It was interesting that all of these different answers could exist side-by-side 
in the same dojo without any conflict. This is an example of one aspect of 
Aikido that sets it apart from much of religious practice in the United States. 
In the mainstream American Protestant and Catholic traditions, statements of 
faith have always been touchstones of religion. The creeds of the Catholic and 
mainline churches are statements of what beliefs are required to be accepted as 
a member of the church. In the more recently established churches, especially 
within the fundamentalist and conservative Christian communities, declarations, 
or witnessing, of one's faith in Christ are de rigueur. 
Within the Aikido community, statements of belief about Aikido count for very 
little. What is important is that one practices, and does so regularly. 
Practicing in Aikido requires something more than simple attendance. It 
requires physical exertion and physical sacrifice. It is pretty much a given 
that anyone who practices Aikido will eventually be injured in practice. This 
is an accepted part of Aikido. People who do not practice regularly will never 
be fully accepted within the community. 
Spoken words count for very little in any of the Japanese martial arts. The 
researcher can testify that it is quite possible to go entire classes without 
any conversation between practitioners, the only words spoken being those to 
count off repetitions of warm up exercises and to tell people to start and 
stop. This holds true for Aikido as well. 
In such an atmosphere then, the only things that really count are that one 
comes to practice, and one puts forth sincere effort. This includes practicing 
as much as one is able when injured (which the researcher did after spraining a 
wrist), and if one is unable to practice because of an injury, coming to 
practice to watch from the sidelines. This level of dedication is not in any 
way uncommon. 
This means of judging the community represents a radical departure from 
traditional American religion. It also makes it much more comfortable for 
people with, for example, radically different views on the founder and the 
creation of Aikido to practice together than American churches make it for 
people from very different religious views to worship together. 
This is the crux of the situation with the sacred narratives of Aikido. While 
they do exist, they are not overly important for the Aikido community. Even 
having any direct knowledge of them is not important. It is entirely possible 
for someone to achieve a high rank in Aikido without reading any of the Aikido 
literature cited here. In Aikido the only statement of faith that really counts 
is the statement made by your presence at practice on a regular basis. 
The Doctrine of Aikido 
This is an unexpectedly difficult thing to describe because although there are 
literally dozens of books on Aikido, and hundreds of local dojo newsletters 
published in English every year, the real doctrine of Aikido is not contained 
in words. In fact, over and over in the interview process, I was told that 
words cannot accurately describe Aikido. The true doctrine of Aikido is 
contained within, and explicated by, the practice of Aikido in the dojo. 
Written words are considered warped, pale reflections of Aikido, at best. 
Photographs probably have a higher standing for explaining the doctrine of 
Aikido than do words. But the only thing that can really make clear the 
doctrine of Aikido is practice. 
This goes back to the point made above, that statements of faith really don't 
count for anything in the Aikido community, and that what is important is that 
one practices. The basic ideas of Aikido can be talked and written about, but 
they do not become truly clear and apparent until one begins practicing the 
techniques of Aikido. Ueshiba, his numerous uchi-deshi, and countless other 
Aikido practitioners have written about the core ideas of Aikido: Harmony, 
Non-aggression, Not opposing directly, Redirecting rather than blocking, Loving 
protection of all things. But in an Aikido dojo, these essential doctrines of 
Aikido are not talked about. They are practiced in the most physical way 
possible. One person is told to hit another person. The supposed victim is not 
to try to stop the attack. Rather they are to blend with it, redirect it, and 
take control of the other person. Non-confrontation, harmonizing, redirecting, 
lovingly protecting the aggressor from unnecessary injury. Th
 ese
 lessons become vividly real when not learning them means something different 
than getting one wrong on a multiple-choice test. Here, if you get one wrong, 
you are liable to get one in the nose as well. 
Many of the techniques cannot be done unless the attack is strong and sincere. 
This means that if you don't blend with an attack fast enough, the aggressor 
cannot stop the attack in time to avoid hitting you in the face! This gives the 
lessons of Aikido a concreteness that mere words cannot convey. It also means 
that all of the doctrines of Aikido are practical, rather than theoretical. 
Unfortunately, one side effect of this tremendous concreteness is that it can 
be very difficult to explain the doctrines of Aikido to anyone who has not 
practiced it. The ideas come off sounding wishy-washy when merely talked about 
without the experience of practice. 
It can probably be most accurately said that the doctrine of Aikido is 
contained in Ikkyo, Nikkyo, Sankyo, Yonkyo, Gokyo, Shihonage, and the other 
techniques of Aikido. This doctrine is very stable within the Aikido community. 
All of the various Aikido dojos the researcher practiced at train the same 
techniques. Each teacher may approach them a little differently, but Ikkyo is 
always a straight arm lock, and Nikkyo is always a coiled arm and wrist lock. 
Sankyo is always a straight wrist lock, and Yonkyo, Gokyo and the others never 
vary in their most basic forms. What is the doctrine of Aikido is how the 
techniques are arrived at, and how they are applied. 
The Ethics of Aikido 
The ethics of Aikido reflect the country and culture of Aikido's origin quite 
clearly. Rather than being hard and fast absolute rules of the "this is sinful, 
this is good" sort, they are situational. The basic ethic of Aikido is the 
application of its doctrines in situations outside the dojo, and this is not 
limited to those occasions when someone is attacking you. 
This ethic focuses on universal caring, harmony in relationships, and avoiding 
confrontations through the application of the principles taught in the physical 
techniques. In discussions, don't disagree outright. Let your partner 
overextend his argument, then draw him around to your point of view. By being 
more aware of people's feelings and attitudes, one can foresee conflicts before 
they arise, and take steps to defuse or redirect the situation. 
If one fails in applying Aikido to a situation, it is not a cause for 
reprobation, but rather an indication that one needs to continue training, so 
that one will more fully understand the principles, and be able to apply them 
more appropriately in the future. 
Specific rules are unheard of. This is likely to be because specific rules 
would not allow the flexibility to deal with all of life's possible situations 
in a harmonious manner. Inflexibility breeds confrontation and dissent, so 
specific ethical rules would necessarily cause one to act in a manner contrary 
to the doctrines of Aikido. 
The Social Aspects of Aikido 
Aikido is an unavoidably social activity. Even for high-ranking exponents, a 
partner is required for practice. Practice brings together a group of people on 
a regular basis, and these people spend the practice in intimate contact with 
each other. This high degree of physical intimacy, and the required trust that 
your training partners are not going to injure you, help to foster a sense of 
camaraderie among the members of a dojo. 
This sense of camaraderie is developed into a sense of community in a number of 
ways. Aikido dojos, unlike many dojos of the more well known Tae Kwon Do, are 
rarely business ventures, and even when teaching the martial arts is the 
instructors' primary means of support, no one has ever gotten rich as an Aikido 
Sensei. In the course of this research, only one instructor was encountered 
whose primary source of income was teaching the martial arts, and he had to 
teach several other martial arts besides Aikido to enable him to make a living 
at it. 
The fact that the vast majority of dojos are not businesses is part of what 
causes the dojos to develop into strong communities. Every member of a dojo 
must be mobilized to take care of and maintain the dojo. This holds true 
whether the dojo has its own permanent building, or the dojo exists in borrowed 
space only during practices. 
In a permanent dojo, the members of the dojo have to do all of the cleaning and 
maintenance of the dojo, from sweeping the mats before practice, to taking out 
the garbage, to washing the bathrooms, to fixing the roof when it leaks. 
Everyone in the dojo helps out with something. Not everyone will do every task, 
but each member of the dojo is expected to find some way to contribute to the 
running of the dojo. 
At dojos that exist only during practice, and are used for other purposes, the 
members of the dojo have other tasks to share in. The mats for practice must be 
put down and taken up before and after every class. If there is a shomen, it 
too must be assembled and disassembled for every class. In addition there are 
the arrangements to be made concerning the use of the practice space. 
While every dojo has a head instructor, with the exception of the extremely 
rare dojo that has a professional instructor, the teaching duties are also 
shared among the students at both permanent and floating dojos. Anyone who has 
achieved the rank of shodan (first-degree black belt) can expect to be asked to 
teach occasionally. As one moves up in rank, one can expect to be asked to 
handle more teaching duties. 
All of these shared responsibilities serve to develop a strong sense of 
community within individual dojos. In addition, the fact that practicing any 
martial art is a fairly rare phenomenon in the United States adds to the sense 
of community. What people are doing in Aikido may well seem bizarre to those 
who do not engage in martial arts. Studying how to fight is not a common thing, 
and the entertainment media have consistently presented martial artists as 
unbeatable warriors when compared with non-martial artists. This has created a 
mystique around all of the martial arts, not just Aikido, and martial artists, 
while not encouraging this mystique, and often trying to deflate it, at least 
as frequently enjoy it. 
Another point which bears upon many aspects of being a martial artist, is that 
all martial artists, not just Aikidoists, practice something that is almost 
impossible to share with those who lack experience with the martial arts. The 
only people who understand many of the things one does are other martial 
artists. This tends to bring the members of a dojo together also. The shared 
intensity of practice, the shared experiences of being injured and coming back 
for more, and the simple fact that after a martial artist achieves a degree of 
confidence in their skill, they no longer react to pressure and aggressive 
behavior in the same way those without such martial arts training do. This last 
is a tremendous sense of empowerment. These things also help to create a sense 
of a unique community. 
The above reasons combine to produce a social group. One subject said: 
I'm here. I go to work. I'm here five or six days a week. There's not much 
outside. This is my social life. And it's very nice, because there are really, 
really nice people here. 
It's like a second home for most of the people that come here. Because of 
Sensei's sense of family, everybody supports everybody else. 

Another said "Although I still like the exercise, I've become friends with the 
people who do it." Many dojos develop a greater or lesser amount of extra-dojo 
socializing which only serves to strengthen the dojo as a social unit. 
All of these things combine to make martial artists in general, and Aikidoists 
in particular, feel that they are members of a unique group. This feeling of 
being different from the average crowd reinforces itself, and is reinforced by 
non-martial artists who will joke about being intimidated, or the martial 
artist's ability to "take them apart." Particularly for people who did not 
perceive themselves as being physically powerful before they started a martial 
art, this is a heady drug, and serves to strengthen their feelings towards 
their dojo social group. 
The Ritual Aspects of Aikido 
Aikido is something that is practiced. This is a point that cannot be made too 
strongly. There are no statements of belief, no creeds to be recited. While 
there is a large and rapidly expanding library of books, magazines and videos 
about Aikido, knowledge of them is not at all necessary to achieve a high rank 
in Aikido. The only thing required of an Aikido practitioner is, like anyone 
who wishes to get to Carnegie Hall, practice, practice, practice! 
This is the main reason that so many divergent opinions about Aikido can exist 
side-by-side within one dojo community, much less within the greater Aikido 
community. Within a dojo, time is devoted to practicing the techniques of 
Aikido, and little, if any, time is spent talking about Aikido. This leaves 
little opportunity for differing views on the nature of Aikido to be aired. 
Several subjects specifically mentioned the atmosphere of the dojo, and the 
attitudes of the practitioners as things that either attracted them to Aikido 
initially, or as things that contribute to their coming back every week to 
practice. During practice, individuals are expected to be quiet, attentive 
(this is a combat art; awareness is one of the things being taught), respectful 
of everyone in the dojo, considerate, caring and protective of their partners. 
Like all Japanese martial arts, the practice of Aikido is steeped in ritual. 
Most of these rituals have survived the journey across the Pacific Ocean quite 
well. There are rituals for entering and exiting the dojo, opening and closing 
class, practicing with your partners during class, and some dojos even have 
rituals to follow when getting training tools such as practice knives and 
swords. 
These rituals provide the boundaries for Aikido practice. The ritual bows when 
entering or exiting the mat area provide a clear demarcation of dojo space/not 
dojo space. The rituals for opening and closing the practice sessions clearly 
demark the time for practice and who is in charge of practice, as well as 
reminding everyone where Aikido came from. These sorts of rituals are endemic 
within the Japanese martial arts, and even Judo, which is best known world-wide 
as a sport, maintains many of these practices. In many of the martial 
traditions that date to pre-modern Japan, the religious origin of some of these 
rituals is quite clear, with many bows being made to the dojo kamidana, 
literally god shelf, that is the altar placed in the dojo shomen. 
In Aikido, even the act of warming up becomes a ritual. There are special 
exercises, called "Aikitaiso" or Aiki exercises, and although every exercise in 
some way relates to the technical practice of Aikido, some of them have been 
lifted from Shinto or Buddhist traditions and are traditional esoteric 
practices (Little, 1994). However, considering how few subjects displayed a 
deep knowledge of the history of Aikido, it seems unlikely that more than a one 
or two would know anything about this. Therefore, although some of these 
exercises may have roots in esoteric Japanese practices, it is the ideas that 
are connected to them by American practitioners rather than their historical 
roots that have importance for Aikido practitioners in the United States. 
When examining Aikido rituals in a religious context, Spiro's definition of 
religion will be used as a guide (Spiro 1966, 96). In addition, in order to 
look at the religious component of some of the ritual behavior involved in 
Aikido, we will be guided by the system of examining ritual actions outlined in 
Rethinking Religion (Lawson and McCauley 1990), which also relies on Spiro's 
definition. 
Lawson and McCauley's theory ignores arguments about the truth claims of 
religion and focuses on the beliefs and actions of particular religions. This 
method avoids the recriminations involved in too much of academic research. The 
fears, worries and arguments of those who want to make religious truth 
something outside of academic research, and those of the academic community who 
are trying to show that the physical sciences have made religion obsolete and 
irrelevant, are both avoided. 
The Lawson/McCauley theory of ritual analysis posits that within the rituals of 
any given system are large quantities of knowledge about the system. This 
knowledge can be unpacked by examining the necessary components of the ritual. 
One of their examples is the Catholic ritual of crossing oneself with holy 
water as one enters the church. By unpacking this ritual they are able to trace 
its nested knowledge back to Christ establishing the Church. As they 
demonstrate, the holy water has no power of its own, it is only through the act 
of a priest blessing ordinary water that it becomes holy. The priest can do 
this only because he has been empowered by three bishops. The bishops can do 
this only because they have been empowered by previous bishops of the church. 
The church exists only because it was established on earth by the power of 
Christ. Ultimately then, neither the parishioner nor the holy water is doing 
any blessing. It is the power of Christ that is doing the blessing. Al
 l of
 this knowledge and these rituals are nested within the ritual of a parishioner 
blessing himself with holy water at the entrance to the church. Lawson and 
McCauley's theory provides a framework for unpacking any ritual, from any 
ritual system, to discover the necessary components of the ritual, and what 
they can teach us about the ritual system. 
Lawson and McCauley's theory allows for a clear analysis of ritual action that 
enables researchers to determine the role of super-human agents within the 
framework of the religious ritual, and to understand the role of those 
super-human agents within the cosmology of believers. It traces the structure 
of rituals by following the necessary precedents for each ritual back to their 
most immediate connection to super-human agent(s). In this way researchers are 
able to see where and how the super-human agent or agents have interacted with 
the world, and something of the role and relationship to the world believers 
implicitly ascribe to them. 
To begin examining Aikido ritual, we first need to know something of its 
setting. Aikido is most clearly described as a grappling art, which involves 
throwing people, pinning them and applying joint locks. Because of the force 
and intensity involved in throwing someone around a room, it is practiced on 
mats. In Japan, the traditional Japanese floorcovering of thick, woven, 
rice-straw mats, or tatami is used. In the United States actual tatami are 
generally unavailable. This being the case, foam mats are usually substituted, 
with a canvas cover over them to prevent toes from becoming caught in the 
cracks. 
The front of the dojo is designated as shomen, or proper face. While in a few 
dojos there is little to indicate shomen except the actions of the students, in 
most there is some sort of special area. In permanent dojos which do not have 
to share their space with anyone, this special area can be quite ornate, and 
even in some dojos that consist of borrowed space, with the mats laid out 
before practice and taken up after, there will be a specially designated 
shomen. The typical shomen consists of a picture of Ueshiba Morihei, usually 
one taken in his later years when he looked much like a grand old patriarch, 
with little hair and a long, wispy beard. Often there will also be some 
Japanese calligraphy of the characters for Aikido, or some saying of Ueshiba. 
Other things that might be present include a bokken (wooden practice sword), 
tanto (wooden practice dagger), jo (4 foot staff), a flower arrangement, a rin 
(ritual bell used in Japanese Buddhist altars), or even a real Japanes
 e sword
 or dagger. One dojo that taught several Japanese martial arts besides Aikido 
lacked the picture of Ueshiba, but had a complete kamidana, or home Shinto 
shrine. 
The most complex shomen the researcher saw involved a large picture of Ueshiba, 
calligraphy by the founder of the particular branch of Aikido that the dojo 
belonged to, a rin bell, and a model tanto in a shirasaya (plain wood storage 
sheath) all in a small alcove at the front of the dojo. At another dojo that 
was housed in an athletic club where the dojo members have to put down and take 
up the mats for every practice, they still managed to have a fairly complex 
shomen. Their shomen consisted of a portable rice-paper screen that served as 
the background, with a picture of Ueshiba hung from the screen, a weapon stand 
that could hold two weapons, and a shelf with an artificial flower arrangement 
on it. This was put up before every practice and put away after. 
The following descriptions are taken from the researcher's personal experience 
practicing Aikido. They follow the general pattern described in Aikido 
information for beginners (see Kjartan 1999). They do not represent the limits 
of possible Aikido rituals to be encountered throughout the world of Aikido. 
Rather, these are the most commonly encountered forms of the rituals in the 
researcher's experience, and many of them are endemic to all the Japanese 
martial arts, not only to Aikido. What can make them unusual in Aikido is the 
interpretation given to them by Aikido practitioners. 
The first ritual encountered in Aikido is found before you even really enter 
the dojo. As you step onto the mats, you turn towards the shomen and bow to 
about 45 degrees. This is done whenever you enter or exit the training area of 
the dojo. 
The next ritual is one of the major, regular, ritual activities of Aikido. This 
is the formal bowing-in that opens any Aikido practice. The students all line 
up kneeling, facing the shomen, and the sensei kneels in front of the students 
facing the shomen. At the command, which varies in complexity from dojo to 
dojo, but is essentially the word "Rei!" meaning "bow" in Japanese, everyone 
bows towards the shomen. The sensei then turns to face the students and again 
following the command to bow, the students bow to sensei and sensei bows in 
recognition of the students respect. 
At the end of practice, this ritual is performed in reverse. It is generally 
followed by the students individually bowing to each other, though this 
activity shows a great deal of variation. In some dojos the bowing to other 
students proceeds in a very formal manner, with everyone forming two lines and 
rotating through the lines so that everyone bows to everyone else. In other 
dojos it is a more haphazard affair, with everyone milling about bowing to each 
other. 
The most important ritual by far, is simply the practice itself. The philosophy 
and worldview of Aikido is not taught with books or with words. It is taught 
through the regular practice of the techniques. It is this ritualized practice 
of the techniques that teaches the concepts of harmony and loving-protection, 
as well as teaching effective methods for breaking wrists and arms, and for 
throwing people around a room. 
The technical syllabus of Aikido is not unique. All of the techniques taught in 
Aikido can be found in various other Japanese martial arts. The unique content 
of Aikido practice is the way the techniques are arrived at and applied. Pure 
force is avoided. Techniques such as wrist-locks and throws are accomplished by 
carefully blending and harmonizing with the attackers movement and then 
redirecting that movement. Techniques are to be done to the point of control, 
not to the point of damaging someone. 
Whatever technique is being practiced, it will emphasize and illustrate many of 
the doctrines of Aikido. One of the most basic points is harmonize, don't fight 
with someone. Whatever uke's attack, shite begins by getting out of the way of 
the attack (called "getting off the line" of the attack) and then finding a way 
to use the attack's energy to defeat itself. Shite then redirects uke's energy 
by either going inside the effective range of the attack, or taking uke's 
momentum and drawing uke beyond their range of self-control, and finally 
applying one of the techniques of Aikido to bring uke to the ground and 
maintain control of uke there. 
It is here that the doctrines of Aikido are illustrated, demonstrated, and 
practiced. They are not talked about much. The emphasis is on the application 
and use of principles of Aikido. It is in this practice that the real doctrines 
of Aikido are learned, and it is this practice that makes up the core of 
Aikido. "It's almost a religion but there's nothing talked about" is how one 
subject put it. This statement reflects the tradition of creeds and asserted 
belief in American churches. Since Aikido lacks these things, most 
practitioners do not perceive it as being religious. 
Practice follows the traditional model of Japan. The teacher demonstrates a 
technique a few times, and perhaps makes a couple of brief comments about 
points to watch out for, and then the students pair off and practice the 
technique on their own. The teacher will then move about the room quietly 
helping individuals with their practice. This will continue until sensei claps 
his hands, signaling everyone to line up, at which point the teacher will 
demonstrate a particular point about the previous technique, or move on and 
demonstrate a new technique to be practiced. There are very few questions 
asked, although these are not forbidden. The emphasis is on trying to imitate 
what the teacher has done, and discovering the principles underlying the 
techniques on one's own. 
This is the traditional, and still common, teaching model in Japan. This has 
been the model for learning in Japan for centuries, and continues to be the 
model for teaching any physical activity, whether it is traditional arts such 
as Iaido or Kado, or modern sports like Kendo or basketball. The teacher 
models, and the students seek to gain insight into the technique through 
imitating the teacher. 
The ritual of practice is the core of Aikido, and it is this practice that 
makes Aikido a living way. By practicing the techniques in the prescribed way, 
students of Aikido learn the principles of blending and non-confrontation. It 
is axiomatic in Aikido circles that there are an infinite number of variations 
on the basic techniques of Aikido. The goal of the technical practice is to 
internalize the principles so that one applies them without thought in all 
areas of life. Ideally, the principles are to be so natural that they are like 
breathing, one doesn't think about doing it, one isn't even aware that one is 
doing it, but one can't live without doing it. That is the ideal state of 
development for a student of Aikido. Without any awareness of them at all, she 
continuously applies the principles of Aikido to her life. 
Looking at the above rituals using Lawson and McCauley's theory, it is possible 
to determine how these rituals might be religious. Looked at individually, none 
of them appears to be religious. When looked at in the context of what many of 
the research subjects have said, however, the religious nature can be made 
clear. The religious nature of Aikido is not very explicit. It is often subtle, 
and it never has the stridency sometimes associated, for example, with 
Christianity or Islam. 
To find the religious within Aikido, the ritual of regular practice will be 
examined. As described above, regular practice is lead by a teacher, or sensei, 
who demonstrates the techniques to be practiced and gives instruction in them. 
To hold an Aikido practice, a qualified teacher must be present. This teacher 
leads the class through the opening bowing ceremony, any warm-up exercises, and 
then instructs the class in the techniques for that practice. 
The necessary component for an Aikido practice is a qualified teacher. A person 
becomes a qualified teacher by training in Aikido under a qualified teacher. 
When a student has demonstrated sufficient mastery of the techniques and 
philosophy of Aikido, the teacher will indicate that the student is now capable 
of teaching on his or her own. In practice, the rank of shodan (black belt) is 
generally seen as being proof of sufficient mastery to teach a class if no 
higher ranking teacher is available. 
It does not follow from this that students who are recognized as being able to 
teach will immediately go out and open their own dojos. Many students remain in 
their teacher's dojo and never start their own dojo. However, these students 
will often be asked to teach classes when their teacher is not available. 
This naturally leads to the question of where qualified teachers originate 
from. All qualified teachers of Aikido must be able to trace their lineage back 
to one of Ueshiba's direct students, and thus to Ueshiba himself. Ueshiba 
personally licensed his original students, and since the founding of the 
Aikikai and the Yoshinkai, these organizations have awarded ranks and teaching 
licenses.9 All subsequent splits within Aikido have been by ranking teachers 
leaving an organization and taking their students with them to found a new 
organization. Therefore, the teaching lineage from Ueshiba to the present 
remains unbroken even when Aikido students are two or three or more 
organizations removed from Ueshiba's organization, the Aikikai, or even when 
they do not belong to any organization because their teacher no longer belongs 
to an organization for political reasons. 
As shown in Chapters II and III, Ueshiba did not take credit for the creation 
of Aikido, but rather attributed the creation of Aikido to the inspiration of 
kami. Ueshiba's various mystical experiences, including his experience under 
fire while accompanying Deguchi and his enlightenment in his garden, together 
with his insistence that the creation of Aikido was due to the guidance of the 
kami and represents the fundamental laws of the Universe point to the 
foundational rituals of Aikido. The kami created Aikido, using Ueshiba as a 
chosen agent to propagate Aikido on earth. 
At this point the religious nature of Aikido ritual, and Aikido itself, becomes 
clear. To practice Aikido it is necessary to have a teacher who can trace his 
lineage back to Ueshiba, and through Ueshiba to the kami. Therefore, the 
lessons of harmony, blending , loving protection and the particular techniques 
which comprise Aikido are the lessons of the kami. 
This makes Aikido a religious activity for those practitioners who believe 
Ueshiba was divinely inspired. This is true whether they accept the traditional 
teachings of Aikido basically as they are, or if they interpret them through 
another religious tradition. If they accept the teachings as is, nothing 
further is needed. If they interpret the teachings through another religious 
tradition, Christianity or Islam for example, all that is necessary is to treat 
the ambiguous "kami" as meaning "God," "Jesus," "Allah," or whatever deity they 
believe in. If this is done, then the rest of the teachings of Aikido fit into 
their new religious surroundings with little difficulty. 
Among the interview subjects, there was no indication that any of the general 
rituals of Aikido, such as the opening and closing bowing rituals, granted any 
benefits beyond those gained from regular practice. The benefits of Aikido were 
not a product of the particular rituals associated with practice, but as 
flowing from regular practice and training in Aikido. 
The practice of Aikido is exactly that. Practice. The techniques of Aikido are 
practiced and practiced, endlessly. No one is beyond practicing. Even Ueshiba 
is reported to have said shortly before his death "This old man must still 
practice, practice." This sets Aikido apart from much of religion in the United 
States. All of Aikido in encompassed within its physical practice. 
Aikido in Life 
Aikido is not limited to its techniques for dealing with physical 
confrontations. As one subject said while talking about why she does Aikido, "I 
do Aikido because I like what it says. I like what it does. And I like that, if 
it's really part of you, you can't help but let it carry over to everyday 
life." 
Within Aikido, this is known as "taking Aikido off the mat." It is the 
application of the principles and teachings of Aikido outside of their literal 
context of physical combat. In fact Aikido Today Magazine has a regular column 
called "Off The Mat" which deals exclusively with applying Aikido principles to 
non-combat situations outside the dojo. Many of the interview subjects 
specifically mentioned that one way they felt they had benefited from studying 
Aikido was in social situations outside the dojo. They had learned to apply 
Aikido in their social relationships to avoid and resolve conflicts. Steven 
Andress addresses this point in his thesis, Understanding Ki in the Daily 
Experience of Advanced Practitioners of Aikido (Andress 1996). These interviews 
show a strong emphasis on the part of individuals in applying Aikido teachings 
to non-combat situations. 
Several of my informants, who talked about applying Aikido as spiritual and 
mental discipline, also described applying some of Aikido's basic teachings at 
a physical level in their everyday life. 
There are times when you're just turning a bolt on a wrench and I find myself 
at arm's length to the job. I think "Well, am I in my range of effectiveness?" 
and I pull in and it's easier to work because I've found the proper distance. 
In Aikido, in an attack that might be considered the maai. And it's the same 
principle there. I'm in my range when I can naturally turn the wrench. I'm out 
of it when I'm extended. 
Many of the informants made Aikido active in all parts of their lives, not just 
within the dojo. Another informant said, "I look at Aikido as a way of life. 
But I think that the whole idea, for me it's a way of living. It's a way of 
life." He also gives as an application of Aikido in a social situation. 
I practice Aikido every single day of my life. I'm in sales, and it's been the 
greatest thing for my sales. It has been. The idea of, if I've had a lot of 
unhappy customers, a lot of rejections, whatever it might be, and for me, 
that's an attack. And to be able to take this energy, and redirect it to a more 
neutral position, so it ends up in a win-win scenario, that's Aikido. That's 
the best Aikido. 
This is an example of Aikido off the mat. The subject has taken Aikido 
principles specifically intended for use in combat situations, and applied them 
to his job as a salesman. This sort of application of Aikido outside the dojo 
is very common, particularly among those subjects who see Aikido as a form a 
spiritual and/or philosophical practice. 
This is one of the most important attractions for the people who consider 
Aikido a spiritual or philosophical practice, that Aikido is not just a martial 
art, but a way of approaching every aspect of their lives. In many cases this 
outweighs all of Aikido's other facets. One subject, in response to the 
question, "Have your reasons for studying Aikido changed since you started?" 
even went so far as to say, "The self-defense aspect has basically totally been 
eliminated. I don't think I could defend myself now. It's pretty much strictly 
the philosophy." 
This is an individual who started because he was interested in self-defense. 
The martial aspects of Aikido for this subject have come to serve strictly as a 
means of learning and practicing its philosophy. The idea of Aikido as martial 
art intended to be effective in real combat has been completely overwhelmed by 
its philosophy. 
There is one other aspect of Aikido that needs to be mentioned, and that is 
reigi, which translates as courtesy, but includes a very strong dose of 
etiquette as well. American culture does not spend much time on etiquette, and 
in recent years it has become common to hear media pundits lament the lack of 
manners among Americans. The rituals of Aikido teach students to be polite and 
mannerly by giving them a clear set of rules and actions to follow for nearly 
every situation in the dojo. Always bow to your partner(s) before you begin 
practicing a technique with them. Always bow to them when you are done, and 
express your thanks to them for practicing with you. Always bow to the teacher 
when he approaches you to give instruction, and always bow and say thank you 
when he is done. 
Practitioners often find themselves using variations of these courtesies 
outside the dojo. The values of politeness and consideration which are enforced 
in the dojo become internalized by the practitioners and are then expressed 
outside the dojo. Several subjects remarked on this point during the course of 
their interviews. 
It seems likely that Aikido's basic tenet of harmony is appealing because it 
meshes very nicely with a trend in modern America to emphasize harmony; live in 
harmony with the world around you, don't just take what you want from the world 
without thought. Ueshiba's teachings about harmony preceded the environmental 
movement in the United States and Europe by several decades, yet they form an 
almost perfect fit with popular environmental thinking. Aikido thus reflects in 
a very physical way many ideas about harmony that can be heard in modern 
American society. The application of Aikido's teachings about harmony in the 
practitioner's social life is then a logical extension of the emphasis upon 
harmony. 
Is Aikido a Form of Religious Practice for Americans? 
Aikido has many aspects associated with religion. It has a rich collection of 
rituals, specially designated and decorated areas for practicing those rituals, 
highly trained leaders to conduct its rituals, a non-verbal doctrine, and an 
ethical standard. For many, this might be sufficient to designate Aikido as 
religious. 
However, for purposes of this study these features are insufficient for 
declaring Aikido to be religious in nature. For Aikido to be religious, it must 
meet Spiro's definition of religion. For Spiro, religion is "an institution 
consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated 
superhuman beings" (Spiro 1966, 96). 
Using this definition, the subjects were divided into three groups based on 
their beliefs about Aikido. The first group consists of those subjects for whom 
Aikido is completely non-religious. For these subjects it is solely a physical 
and philosophical activity that has no connection to God, religion or 
super-human agents of any sort. 
The second group is made up of subjects for whom Aikido is a form of religions 
practice, but one that is contained within, and seen through the lens of their 
primary religious tradition. Thus Ueshiba may be seen as having been divinely 
inspired, but the divinity who inspired him is clearly seen as being the 
Christian or Moslem God. These subjects rejected any other possible 
interpretations because they are incompatible with the their core religious 
beliefs. 
The third group consists of subjects who more or less accept the religious 
teachings of Aikido as they are found in the writings about Aikido. "More or 
less" because the members of this group insist on their right to question and 
interpret everything for themselves, so that while they generally accepted the 
religious teachings of Aikido, they did so on their own terms. No member of 
this group saw Aikido as the sole truth. It was seen instead as one path among 
many, the most appropriate path for these individuals. 
The eleven subjects in the first group, are diverse, being held together by one 
thing. Aikido is not a religious practice for any of them. These individuals 
practice Aikido for a variety of reasons, ranging from self-defense to 
philosophy to personal improvement. 
Religiously, they have very little in common. Some are hard-core atheists, one 
is a devout Catholic, another is a Reformed Jew, and one claimed not to have an 
opinion on anything religious. One was expressly on a spiritual quest for 
"inner peace," but did not see Aikido as religious. 
For most of this group, their attitude towards the sacred narratives of Aikido 
is an extension of their primary religious beliefs. For the atheist, there was 
no place for divine inspiration in his worldview. For the Catholics and the 
Reformed Jew, their religious beliefs did not leave room for Ueshiba to have 
been divinely inspired. 
There were also a number who seemed to have given up religion without embracing 
atheism. For these individuals, all of whom were raised Catholic, religion 
seemed to be a subject that they did not wish to expend any time on. Though 
they no longer held to the Catholicism that they were raised in, they had not 
replaced it with anything, and did not appear to be looking for something to 
replace it with. 
When they were asked if they thought Ueshiba had been divinely inspired when he 
created Aikido, everyone in this group said "No." Several of the subjects then 
proceeded to explain that they believed he had come to create Aikido by 
combining his experience in various martial arts to create a new one. 
They also gave a variety of explanations for the abilities attributed to 
Ueshiba in the narratives about his life. These ranged from one individual who 
thought that Ueshiba was simply a naturally gifted individual, to others who 
attributed his abilities to a deep sensitivity to ki, to others who felt that 
such abilities were the goal of Aikido practice, and by implication, that with 
sufficient training anyone should be able to develop similar abilities. 
For eight of the subjects, Aikido was a religious practice. However, rather 
than it being a self-contained religion for these subjects, it was subsumed by 
the subjects' primary religious faith.10 These subjects viewed the practice of 
Aikido, Ueshiba, and the sacred narratives of Aikido through the paradigm of 
their traditional religious practice. 
This group included representatives of Catholicism, Islam, the Methodist and 
Lutheran Churches, and non-denominational Christians. Their individual opinions 
about the ideas in the sacred narratives, i.e., that Ueshiba was divinely 
inspired and/or enlightened, that he had super-human perceptions, and whether 
or not Aikido is a form of religious practice, varied from acceptance to 
disbelief on each point. When the subject's interviews were examined as a whole 
however, it became clear that these individuals had each, in different ways, 
incorporated Aikido into their religious worldview. 
For some, this was simply a matter of accepting as given that Ueshiba had been 
divinely inspired by the super-human agent of their own tradition when he 
created Aikido, without seeing Aikido as being a direct form of religious 
practice. Others allow for the possibility of Ueshiba having been divinely 
inspired, without holding an opinion one way or the other, while viewing their 
own Aikido practice as way of actively practicing the principles of their 
religion. 
These subjects all came to Aikido with strongly held religious beliefs, and 
incorporated Aikido into their core religious system. They accepted those parts 
of the sacred narratives of Aikido that did not conflict with their core 
system, while modifying and/or rejecting those portions that did. For some, 
this meant that Ueshiba was divinely inspired, but that the practice of Aikido 
itself was not a religious activity. For others, Aikido was a religious 
practice, but they could not be sure about Ueshiba having been divinely 
inspired. 
All of these subjects, however, connected Aikido with super-human agents in one 
way or another. Many of the subjects would be very surprised to have their 
Aikido described as religious. This is because in their conception, religion is 
a complete entity, needing and accepting nothing from outside itself. Here 
though, traditional religious practice is augmented with the practice of 
Aikido, which is seen as embodying many of the teachings of the traditional 
group. 
The third group consists of 10 subjects who accepted the sacred narratives of 
Aikido generally as they are given. They believe Ueshiba was inspired, that he 
had super-human capabilities, and the clear majority of them said that Aikido 
was a religious practice. 
This does not mean that they accepted the sacred narratives of Aikido 
uncritically. It also does not mean that they are "converts" to Aikido. On top 
of their general belief in the sacred narratives of Aikido and treating Aikido 
as a religious practice, this group has one other thing in common. They are all 
spiritual "seekers," critically searching for their own answers about the 
relationship between themselves, the universe, and whatever super-human agents 
there may be. All but two of these subjects were raised in Catholic and 
mainline Protestant churches, and those two did not have any religious training 
in their youth. 
At the time of the interviews, however, not one member of this group considered 
themselves a part of a religious community. Although only one member of the 
group was explicit about shopping around any religious tradition he could find, 
all of these subjects were actively building their own cosmology. They share a 
deep suspicion of organized religion in general, and in fact there was a 
tendency to perceive "religion" as meaning an organized group with a dogma and 
a professional clergy. This was contrasted with "spiritual," which indicated 
any sort of religious practice or search undertaken outside the auspices of 
organized religion. 
This group includes both people who are reasonably satisfied with the religious 
answers they have arrived at and individuals who are still actively looking. 
The doctrines of Aikido provide a common ground for this group. This ground was 
bounded by the goals of achieving personal harmony with the universe, universal 
harmony, and continual self-cultivation. Traditional American ideas about sin 
and salvation were noticeably absent from their comments. As one subject put 
it, "They're not setting you up and saying, 'Hey, if you do this, this makes 
you good. And if you do this, that's bad.' It's a general, overall, consuming 
philosophy, that just begins to underlie everything, and creep into 
everything." 
What was evident was a clear focus on this world. Unlike some members of the 
second group, who subsumed Aikido within their traditional religious practice 
and wondered about whether or not Ueshiba was in heaven, this group did not 
display any interest in any kind of afterlife. Their focus was entirely on how 
they should live in this world. 
It really is a way of life, and being down here on the mat is something that I 
do because I enjoy it. But that doesn't mean that I'm not doing it when I'm not 
down here teaching or taking the class. 
The subject's this-world focus is well matched by the narratives about Ueshiba 
and Ueshiba's own writings. Ueshiba's this-worldly focus is clearly within the 
tradition of Japanese religion, where even Buddhism's primary role is to take 
care of the ancestors so they will protect and aid the family. With nearly a 
third of all the interview subjects' religious ideas focused on this-worldly 
development rather than other-worldly salvation, this might suggests a possible 
trend of change in Americans' religious thinking, from a focus on other-worldly 
salvation to one of this-worldly development. 
While most of these subjects believed Ueshiba had been divinely inspired, their 
image of the divine was very imprecise. This was not because of a lack of 
thought on the subjects' parts. One member of this group has a Master's degree 
in comparative religion, all of them are very articulate, and many were clearly 
quite well read. Several of these subjects specifically quoted the first 
chapter of the Tao Te Ching when trying to explain their beliefs, saying "The 
Tao that can be named is not the real Tao . . ." Among the members of this 
group, who were distributed among the various dojos, there was a strong sense 
that human conceptions of the divine, and human explanations of the universe, 
would always be incomplete and inadequate, because humans are limited while the 
universe, and the divine are not. Aikido was seen as one way of expanding their 
understanding of the Universe. Many subjects were engaged in spiritual paths 
other than Aikido as well. Some practiced qi qong, and sev
 eral
 forms of meditation practice were represented, and one subject was engaged in 
correspondence study through The College of Tao. 
In no case was Aikido seen as being the sole universal truth. Quite the 
opposite. Aikido was seen as being one path among many, and as seen above, it 
is quite possible and acceptable for individuals to tread more than one path 
simultaneously. There is an old Japanese saying that several of the interview 
subjects used, "There are many different paths to the top of the mountain, but 
they all lead to the same place." 
This attitude was evident in every dojo I visited in regards to people studying 
martial arts besides Aikido, and for the subjects in this group, it was also 
their attitude towards religion. As one subject put it, 
It also fits in with what I learned growing up in the church, which I am 
comfortable with, as long as I'm allowed to question and interpret. It's not 
that I don't think anyone should go to church. If you need it, you need it. 
This is a good example of the feelings found among this group. "As long as I'm 
allowed to question and interpret" sums up this group's attitudes towards 
religion of any sort. This was accompanied by a feeling that within organized 
religion one is not allowed to question and interpret. 
This flexibility and openness to multiple traditions is an important factor in 
the subjects' dedication to Aikido. Although Aikido is their way, it does not 
require them to stop looking for other ways. As several members of this group 
did, it is entirely acceptable to practice other martial arts, and other 
religious traditions simultaneously with Aikido. These people are not 
interested in having answers given to them. They insist on working things out 
for themselves, and closely analyzing any answers they do get, even the ones 
they find for themselves. 
Three subjects didn't fit into the above groups. One is an active Catholic, the 
others described themselves as a "lapsed" Catholic and a "non-practicing" 
Catholic. 
The active Catholic had problems with the idea of Aikido as a divinely inspired 
creation, but would not deny that as a possibility. This individual genuinely 
appreciated the teachings of Aikido, and applies them to his spiritual life 
outside the dojo, in much the same way people apply lessons from psychology to 
their everyday lives. 
The other two respondents were even more imprecise. When asked about Ueshiba 
and divine inspiration, one said "In his own way, yes. I believe in some 
inspiration." This was the only religious connection to Aikido for this 
individual. The other case had some strong connections to Aikido, but did not 
find definitions of God as a separate entity acceptable. This made it difficult 
to clearly categorize this interview as well. 
Summary 
Breaking the subjects down into the above groups for analysis is efficient for 
looking at some of the strains of thought and belief within Aikido, and their 
relationship to one another. It shows quite clearly how extremely different, 
even contradictory, opinions and beliefs about Aikido manage to exist 
harmoniously within the same dojo.11 
However, the above divisions arbitrarily obscure a much greater unity between 
two of the groups. The individuals for whom Aikido is a religious practice 
interpreted through their core tradition, and those for whom it is taken 
basically as presented, are creating their own religious worlds. They are 
actively choosing which spiritual/religious questions they are interested in. 
Just how active becomes clear when the members of each group are looked at by 
their movement from their religious background. There was very little movement 
between religious groups among those individuals in the group where Aikido was 
not a religious practice. Out of eleven subjects, five were still part of the 
same tradition, four were atheists or didn't seem to bother with religion at 
all, and two identified their current religious status by what it no longer 
was: Catholic. 
In contrast, in the group for whom Aikido was clearly a religious practice, not 
one subject was still a member of the group named as their religious 
background. In fact, none of them were really connected to any organized 
religion, though many of them had experimented with a variety of religious 
practices. Although several of these subjects identified a formal religious 
affiliation, it was a formal affiliation, done for form's sake because other 
members of their families were committed to that particular church. 
The middle group, in which Aikido was a religious practice under another 
tradition, as might be expected, was somewhere in between the others. Out of 
eight subjects in the group, four remained in the tradition of their 
background, three were not affiliated/not practicing (this last meaning "Not 
practicing Catholic), and one was a member of a very different church. Whereas 
in the first group most subjects either remained in the same tradition or 
rejected religion in general, and the last group gave up on organized religion 
all together, the middle group took a middle path. Five of them stayed with an 
organized church, but all have personal religious vision broad enough to 
include practicing Aikido as an expression of their religion. 
Examining the subjects from this angle allows them to be separated into only 
two groups. The first group is made up of those subjects for whom Aikido is not 
a religious practice. The second group is made up of those for whom Aikido is a 
religious practice. What is interesting about these groups is not their beliefs 
about Aikido but rather their actions where religion is concerned. 
The first group is comfortable with the religion they were raised in, or they 
have no religion at all, either through actively rejecting it or passively not 
bothering with it. Those who are still active within organized religion are 
comfortable within their church, and those who are not active, are not looking 
for anything to replace the churches they have left. 
Looked at against the backdrop provided by this group, the second group leaps 
into perspective. Most of its members have either rejected organized religion 
altogether and replaced it with individual quests, or they have remained within 
an organized religious structure, but choose to bring at least one outside 
element into their own practice. Simply put, all of them are engaged in 
religion as a personal activity, rather than as a social activity. All of them, 
those outside of organized religion as well as those within it, are practicing 
religion that they construct themselves, whether or not organized religion is a 
part of that construction. Ueno (1995, 295) even found an active member of the 
Jesuit Order who had included Aikido in his regular religious life. 
>From this it is clear that some Americans are seeking and finding more ways of 
>expressing and practicing their religious beliefs than just those presented 
>within organized religion. For some this means abandoning organized religion 
>altogether, while for others it means finding ways of augmenting their 
>organized religious practice with outside practices. This is markedly 
>different from the traditional American paradigm which produced groups such as 
>the Shaker who rejected any outside influence. 
This willingness to look outside organized religion may or may not be a new 
factor in American religion. Probably it is not. The popularity of Asian 
religious teachings started with the Transcendentalists and the Theosophical 
Society, and continued with the few Asian teachers who were able to enter the 
United States between the 1860s and the 1960s. This suggests that an unmet 
demand for religious ideas and practices had long existed in the United States. 
Once immigration restrictions were eased in the 1960s, the seeming explosive 
popularity of the new religious alternatives suggests that this demand was now 
being met. The sudden popularity of these many options is sudden only in that 
options were now readily available. 
Aikido is merely one of those options, and one of the quieter ones at that. It 
makes room for nearly everyone who is interested in any portion of it. It is 
easier for people belonging to a wide variety of traditions to practice than 
anything that is overtly religious because it does not make statements of 
belief any sort of requirement. The only thing required of a member of an 
Aikido dojo is that of practice. This allows numerous beliefs about religion 
and Aikido to coexist harmoniously within a single dojo, without anyone needing 
to feel even slightly hypocritical, since no one is required to express any 
beliefs during Aikido practice. 
As this research shows, Aikido dojos accommodate a surprisingly broad spectrum 
of views on Aikido quite peaceably. Individuals are welcome whatever their 
religious background and affiliation. As seen from the interviews, 
practitioners can focus on any aspects of Aikido they wish to, from the purely 
martial to the purely philosophical to the religious. A clear majority of these 
practitioners have interwoven aspects of Aikido into their religious lives, 
whether as one strain of an already established religious practice, or as part 
of a religious practice they are creating for themselves. 

---------------------------------

Chapter V 
Conclusion 
I have sought to address two questions. The first question was simply, Is 
Aikido a form of religious practice for its American practitioners? This was a 
straightforward question. The second was more complex. If Aikido is a form of 
religious practice for its practitioners, how does it fit into their religious 
framework? Is it subsumed within another, more traditional religious tradition, 
such as Christianity, or are traditional Western religious traditions rejected 
and simply replaced with a new religious framework? 
In order to fully understand how a system of combat could also be form of 
religious practice, Chapters II and III looked the background of Aikido. 
Chapter II looked at the life of Ueshiba Morihei and the history of Aikido. 
Chapter III examined the writings of Ueshiba and some of the more prominent 
exponents of Aikido in the United States. 
An examination of the life and writings of the Ueshiba Morihei shows that he 
clearly saw Aikido as an expression of his religious beliefs. Ueshiba's life 
was dedicated to religious searching until he joined Oomoto-kyo. As a young 
man, Ueshiba would disappear for days into the mountains around his home to 
swing his sword and practice traditional Japanese mountain ascetics. When he 
was living in 
Hokkaido he would perform mizugori daily, regardless of the temperature. When 
he joined Oomoto-kyo, he threw himself into it completely. He practiced the 
simple farming methods of the group, and since practicing the arts is held to 
be a prime means of manifesting the divine in Oomoto-kyo, he took up composing 
poems and calligraphy. 
When Ueshiba eventually decided to leave the Oomoto-kyo headquarters in Ayabe, 
the founder Onisaburo Deguchi is said to have told him that "Budo will be your 
yusai, a practice to manifest the divine" (Stevens 1987, 37). Indeed, Ueshiba 
repeatedly wrote that Aikido was not his creation, but a gift from the kami and 
that he was merely teaching what the kami had shown him. Further, he wrote 
"Aikido embraces all and purifies everything" (Ueshiba 1993, 99). As for 
purification practices, or misogi, in which he clearly included Aikido, he 
wrote "In misogi one returns to the very beginning, where there is no 
differentiation between oneself and the universe" (Ueshiba 1993, 90). 
The religious nature of Aikido is upheld in the writings of leading exponents 
of Aikido in America. If anything, the writings of Ueshiba's student Mitsugi 
Saotome are even clearer in their religiousness. He writes "It was born through 
the order of Kami that I only followed and conveyed to others. Aiki is the Way 
of Kami" (Saotome 1993, 15). It would be difficult to find a more direct 
statement of the religious nature of Aikido. His book, Aikido and the Harmony 
of Nature, is devoted to demonstrating and explicating the spiritual and 
religious significance of the teachings of Ueshiba and Aikido. 
While Saotome's writings support Aikido as religious practice, John Stevens' 
biography shows Ueshiba as both divinely inspired and as divinely empowered. 
Stevens goes so far as to say that "Morihei could even dodge bullets" (1987, 
35). Stevens recounts a number of stories that portray Ueshiba as a kind of 
divinely empowered super-man, able to know other's intentions and defeat any 
foe. 
The interviews contained in Aikido in America (Stone and Meyer 1995) show 
Ueshiba from the perspective of a number of his personal American students, 
including Terry Dobson, Robert Nadeau and Mary Heiny, as well as many prominent 
American teachers who never had the opportunity to train under Ueshiba. Each of 
the interviews presents a slightly different look at Ueshiba and Aikido. 
However, nearly all of the interviews focus on Aikido as a means of personal 
and spiritual development. The interviews show how well the spiritual teachings 
of Aikido have been adopted by leading American practitioners of Aikido. 
Aikido, like most Japanese martial arts, is practiced in the context of a 
number of important rituals. These rituals serve to define Aikido in 
relationship to the rest of world, and to reinforce the traditions and beliefs 
of Aikido practitioners. The rituals performed at the beginning and closing of 
each practice remind everyone of their place in the lineage of Aikido. For 
those who believe that Ueshiba was divinely inspired, the series of bows to 
shomen and instructor serve to reinforce this knowledge. Everyone, including 
the teacher, bows to shomen to show respect and honor for Ueshiba, Aikido's 
founder. Then everyone bows to the teacher, who must be able to trace the 
lineage of his teachers directly to Ueshiba, who was inspired by kami. 
This ritual organizes and reinforces the essential religious elements of Aikido 
for practitioners at every practice. It also serves the critical purpose of 
defining the space and time when it is appropriate to practice and transmit the 
fundamental lessons of Aikido. These lessons, about the fundamental harmony of 
all things, and how one can live and prosper by in harmony with all things, are 
taught through the practice of dangerous and highly effective combat 
techniques. By demarking the period of practice so clearly, the importance of 
the lessons, both the technical and the deeper lessons, are emphasized. 
It may be noted that many, if not all religions, offer adherents power of one 
sort or another, whether it be power over the temporal world, or the power to 
transcend the temporal world. Aikido offers both kinds of power. The first sort 
of power is the same one that can be gained through training in any system of 
combat. It is the sheer physical power to defeat another human being in battle. 
This is a tremendous power, and its attraction should not be minimized, 
especially if it is remembered that out of 33 interview subjects, 19 started 
Aikido because (a) they were either already proficient martial artists who 
wanted to expand their range of skills, (b) they were generally interested in 
martial arts, or (c) they wanted to learn to defend themselves. This is also 
the primary attraction for most other popular martial arts, such as karate and 
Tae Kwon Do, which do not emphasize spiritual lessons as Aikido does. 
The spiritual lessons of Aikido offer the power to transcend the ordinary 
world. These lessons of harmony and oneness with the world offer a way to 
achieve oneness with kami and the universe. Aikido is also a form of misogi 
that will purify the practitioner and help him achieve oneness with God and the 
universe. This is the principal spiritual teaching of Aikido. Importantly, 
Aikido does not specify anything about the kami, leaving the details up to its 
individual practitioners. 
It is likely that the ambiguity concerning the nature and identity of the kami 
is an essential part of why Aikido has been successful in expanding outside of 
Japan. The fact that practitioners can tailor the particulars of Aikido to suit 
their particular world-view and that Aikido requires no statements of belief 
are undoubtedly the main reasons that Aikido is practiced by such diverse 
population without incident. Even within the small sample interviewed, there 
were atheists, Catholics, Evangelicals, a Moslem, a Jew, and members without a 
particular religious affiliation. 
For two-thirds of all subjects, Aikido was a religious practice. The high 
percentage for whom Aikido was a form of religious practice was surprising 
because many of these people were strongly affiliated with established 
religions. In fact, half of these subjects identified themselves as either 
members of a particular religious organization, or as unaffiliated Christians 
(the one Moslem was also a member of this group). These individuals were able 
to interpret the teachings of Aikido, as well as those of their primary 
religious affiliation as being mutually supporting, rather than as 
contradicting each other. 
The other half of the subjects for whom Aikido was a religious practice were no 
longer affiliated with any religious organization. In fact, no member of this 
group even identified themselves with an established religious tradition. There 
was a general feeling within this group that genuine religiosity and religious 
organizations are mutually exclusive. These individuals did not like organized 
religious groups, and felt that religious dogmas obstruct one's search for true 
religious understanding. Several of them stated they felt that each person must 
find the truth for themselves, rather than simply accepting what others said 
was the truth. 
Many members of this group were actively developing their own cosmologies and 
sets of religious practices. Taking something of a supermarket approach to 
religious ideas and practices, these individuals had investigated numerous 
religious traditions, including various Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist groups, 
practices and literature. Taoist works, particularly the Tao Te Ching, were 
very popular with this group, several of whom quoted from it during their 
interview. 
It seems likely that these two groups represent a trend in American religious 
participation and activity. Since the repeal of the Asian Exclusion Act in 
1965, the United States has seen an explosion of non-Western traditions within 
its borders. While much of this has been within the immigrant communities, 
these activities are experiencing growing popularity among mainstream Americans 
as well. Practices such as Tai Chi Chuan and Hatha Yoga are recommended by the 
professional medical community for their health benefits.12 Such things bring 
even people who initially have no interest in non-traditional forms of 
spiritual practice not only into contact with them, but also get them 
practicing them. 
In contrast with Christianity, none of the major Asian traditions contain 
exclusivist statements of faith such as the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds of 
Christianity. This has allowed the various traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, 
Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto, and Ancestor Worship to co-exist peacefully in 
Asia. In fact, these traditions have long histories of not only existing 
side-by-side, but of sharing worshippers and exchanging ideas, rites and space. 
The most vivid example of this is the common practice in Japan wherein most 
Shinto shrines have associated Buddhist temples, and most Buddhist temples, 
even those serving small communities, actually have Shinto deities enshrined 
within their precincts. These traditions bring with them their traditions of 
tolerating a variety of views and practices. 
In addition, the inability of major American religious organizations to 
effectively sanction members who hold or advocate unorthodox beliefs and 
practices changes the background for worship even in the Catholic Church. I 
suspect that in the future, the trend will be towards accommodating more and 
more diversity of belief and practice by the traditional religious 
organizations. With American society becoming more and more ethnically 
pluralistic, it will unavoidably become religiously pluralistic as well. 
In this light, some of the ideas that have been proposed in the study of Asian 
religions may be of service when examining new trends in American religious 
belief and practice. Byron Earhart's work on Japanese New Religions seems 
especially suited to this. His discussions of how the various major religions 
of Japan co-exist and co-operate in Japanese Religion: Unity and Diversity 
(1982) is an excellent starting point for anyone unfamiliar with the ways in 
which Asian traditions interact. In addition, his masterful study of the 
Japanese New Religion Gedatsu-kai provides an excellent theoretical framework 
for analyzing the formation and development of New Religious Movements in any 
culture. 
Aikido is one very small thread of the grand tapestry of American religion. It 
is hoped that this study will stimulate awareness of the religious practices of 
Americans outside the walls of their churches, synagogues and mosques. I 
believe that this is where American religion will see it greatest growth in the 
near future, and that research in this area will provide scholars with new 
insights into the nature of religion in America. 

---------------------------------

Appendix A 
Interview Script 
Interview Script 
April 13, 1997 
Peter Boylan
387-7889
x88boylan@xxxxxxxxx 

   How old are you? 


   Sex? 


   How long have you studied Aikido? 


   What is your rank in Aikido? 


   What style or styles of Aikido do you study? 


   Do you study any other martial arts? 


   How long have you studied them? What is your rank in them? 


   What is your religious background? 


   Why did you begin studying Aikido? 


   Have your reasons for studying Aikido changed since you began? Why, and What 
are they now? 


   How do the practices of Aikido relate to your spiritual practices outside 
the dojo? 


   Is there anything from Aikido that you regularly practice outside the dojo? 


   The practices of Aikido were laid down by the founder, Ueshiba Morihei. What 
do you think of him? 


   Do you believe, as is often recounted by his biographers, that he knew 
others intentions, particularly regarding possible attack? 


   Do believe that he was divinely inspired to create Aikido? 


   Is your Aikido practice a way for you to grow closer to God? 


   Is Aikido practice a way for you to internalize spiritual/religious lessons? 


   What religious lessons do you internalize through Aikido practice? 


   What is misogi? 


   How does misogi help you? 


   What does ki mean to you? 


   What exercises do you do to develop ki? 


   What benefits do you gain from these exercises? 


   Is there anything you might like to add which we have not discussed? 


Thank you very much for your assistance and patience. 

---------------------------------

Appendix B 
Human Subjects Institutional Review Board 
Letter of Approval 

---------------------------------

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---------------------------------

Footnotes 

   For the most part, Judo's spiritual emphasis has been replaced by a sporting 
emphasis. Most people in the world today who say they do Judo, do not practice 
traditional Kodokan Judo, but rather practice what I refer to as Olympic Judo. 
Olympic Judo is a competitive sport form of Judo represented in the Olympics. 
It is said to be the second most popular sport in the world, after soccer, 
although I have seen no documentation of this. The substitution of a sporting 
ethos for the traditional spiritual ethos is also visible in many modern karate 
styles whenever competitive tournaments become popular. 


   There are a number of extent martial systems which trace their lineage back 
to the Kashima and Katori Shrines. Part of the problem is that as students of a 
particular teacher achieved mastery, they would often leave and eventually 
establish a school of their own, though maintaining the lineage. The only good 
source dealing with this subject in English is Karl Friday's Legacies of the 
Sword: the Kashima Shinryu and Samurai Martial Culture, University of Hawaii 
Press, 1997. 


   Kokoro is a native Japanese term with no single English equivalent. It means 
heart, mind and spirit all at once, without the separate ideas implied by the 
English terms. If one considers one faculty which encompasses heart, mind and 
spirit, a rough approximation of kokoro emerges. 


   Kotodama has roots that are undoubtedly older than the written history of 
Japan, since it is mentioned in the earliest written Japanese book, the 
Manyosho. The basic belief is similar to the Indian system of essential sounds, 
such as aum. The fundamental belief is that certain sounds are basic to the 
universe, and that they are the essence of all things. 


   Chie Nakane's 1971 book, Japanese Society, has an excellent discussion of 
this on pages 42-66. 


   O-sensei is an honorific title given to Ueshiba by students of Aikido. It is 
commonly used by them to refer to him. 


   I have confirmed this with George Simcox, fifth dan, of the Ki Society in a 
personal communication. 


   Uke comes from the word ukeru, meaning to receive, and indicates the person 
who is receiving the technique being practiced. Shite comes from the word suru, 
meaning to do, and indicates the person who is actually practicing the 
techinque being performed. In Aikido practice, uke initiates an attack, 
generally a strike or grab, and shite responds to this attack by performing the 
technique that is being practiced. 


   Traditionally dan ranks were not used in the Japanese martial arts. Rather a 
series of teaching licenses, or menkyo, were used. Ueshiba initially used the 
menkyo system, but later switched to the dan ranking system popularized by 
Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo. 


   Several members of this group could very easily have been included in the 
third group, "Aikido as Religious Practice" because their interpretations of 
their proclaimed religious tradition were so far outside the widely accepted 
parameters of that tradition as to constitute having left the tradition in all 
but name. However, they were included here because they do claim membership in 
a religious tradition. 


   I know quite well that within the general Aikido community there does exist 
a great deal of inter-group conflict. However, a great deal of this seems to be 
more political than ideological. People with one set of beliefs are usually 
more than welcome to come practice in dojos where another set of beliefs about 
Aikido holds sway. It is only when one person becomes pushy or adamant about 
his or her opinion that ideological problems arise. It is worth noting that 
Aikido seems to have many more people who are willing to tolerate beliefs other 
than their own than many other organized groups, religious or non-religious, 
and that being pushy or adamant runs counter to the basic teachings of Aikido. 


   After my father had a heart attack, the maintenance regime recommended by 
the University of Michigan Medical Center included the regular practice of 
Hatha Yoga.


                
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