HEAVENLY LOVE DOES NOT KILL
Morihei Ueshiba used to say: "Aikido is not a technique to master and kill the opponent. Aikido is the way to unify all people in to one family, the road to creating peace in the world. The main goal of aikido is to become one with motion of the universe, creating a permanent and harmonic bond. Those who want to train aikido must discover the reality of everyday training." In the ancient times Japan Martial Arts accepted love as the main goal, (although the roots of these arts lay in various aggressive and bloodthirsty techniques), love submerged in harmony of all things, or to put it another way - the path of realizing oneself. The old Martial Art rule says: "SHIN-BU-FU-SATSU", which translates as: "HEAVENLY LOVE DOES NOT KILL".
The meaning of these words is that murder is the path to defeat. Killing or wounding is the source of shame and for any Samurai any such low action is a reason for deep despising of self. That is the reason why many Martial Artits do not use their skills to attack first, but rather train their students to synchronize their movement with opponents, to be able to deploy the attack to an unguarded spot. However, to do something like that, that is to completely control the opponent we need to gather and accumulate vast quantities of rigorous training and to have complete confidence in ourselves. Contrary to that, sport gives us artificial rules that decide the winner by achievement in the bound of the relative,such as greater speed, greater strength, greater weight, better body build and such-like. BUDO ideals are not rules to be transferred and recorded in our memory. These ideals must be deeply rooted in our lifestyle; only then will the true character of our soul and spirit be captured. Since Uke and Tori do their best to perform the technique as accuratly as possible, there is a clean and rational movement born out of each sequence, which gives the highest level of sincerity and intensity to every training session. One interesting thing that is of the utmost importance awakens our attention,andshould be carved into the mind of every one of us. That is that we should not be preoccupied with the problem of efficiency of any particular technique, with victory or defeat, or the real effect of any one move. All those problems and thoughts should be left aside and replaced with the concept of a training, where the techniques are repeated endlessly. While performing those natural movements, with your Uke (AITE) you may have a feeling of disharmony. And no matter how good your partner is in quality, even if a novice, through practicing together you can stimulate him to give his best in that moment. Most people tend to take an easy path in life. Even though we may be satisfied with this path, it does not bring us any advancement. To become masters of one technique, it is necessary to repeat it every day, giving it time, labor and effort. We must experiment and improve ourselves constantly, to strive for constant changes of body and soul. If our efforts for such changes where our soul is thrown into flame of inner struggle, or intensive hopes are suppressed, we cannot speak of any advancement. Since the techniques appear easy to perform, it is necessary to practice them in such a way as to invest all of our strength in each of them, as if it was a real attack or defense in question.
Miyamoto Musashi said this once: "Treat 1,000 days of training as a TEN, a 10,000 as a REN." He wanted to say that 1,000 days should be the solid base from which we will continue to go on without rest for the next 10,000 days, or in other words for the rest of one's life. Masatake Fujita, 8. DAN (Master Fujita is today the General Secretary of Hombu Dojo in Tokyo. From 14 to 16 July 1996, under organization of Yugoslav aikido Federation, he held the seminar in Belgrade.)
Masatake Fujita, 8. DAN
Master Fujita was the General Secretary of Hombu Dojo in Tokyo.
From 14 to 16 July 1996, under organization of Yugoslav aikido Federation, he held the seminar in Belgrade.)
Translated from the "Aikido" "Aikido" Magazine – of Aikikai Italia
(aikido Bulletin No. 2 of aikido Society "Beograd" published on 1982 October, 15