Aiki and Internal Training

In reorganizing Inner Dharma, I have combined my writing on the topic of aiki in Aikido and Daito-ryu, as the concept relates to the practice of internal martial arts. Below you will find some of my thoughts inspired from the active discussions occuring on Aiki Web, Aikido Journal, and other martial arts meeting grounds online. [ 1 ]

Introduction

There has been a great deal of interest in “Internal” training amongst the Aikidō community over the last five years, largely due to the efforts of Ellis Amdur in highlighting approaches to training that could explain Ueshiba’s great physical power. Ellis spent great effort also in getting “outsiders” like Mike Sigman and Dan Harden to share their views and experience and provide training opportunities for interested members of the broader budō community. Often at odds with one another, the public discourse has often been fraught, and onlookers often contribute by making the ego statement of “Me too! I practice internal too!” especially when internal training is conflated with the concept of aiki or even simply being good at martial arts. This essay contains some reflections on this discourse and observations on what might be useful to be considered by those invested in developing skill in their taijutsu practice.

In my own travels, I have transited from practicing a modern form of jujutsu to learning Bāguàzhǎng, Xíngyìquán, and Tàijíquán. I have maintained an interest in authentic Japanese swordsmanship as well, largely in an effort to correct improper instruction I received while a student of modern jujutsu. As a result, fellow sword enthusiasts sometimes ask me about where best to go for “internal” training while continuing to pursue their current practice in an unmodified form. In these discussions, the word internal is usually left undefined except as a proper noun to refer to something being “good” or “other” – almost in a semiotic sense. As a result, people often approach the question of pursuing internal training almost as a spice or flavor they can add to their practice, without fundamentally changing it or requiring them to leave it.

There is a problem with that perspective, but I do not blame the people who hold it entirely. Instead, I believe it is a result of much of the current dialogue on the topic of internal training being much too vague. The use of the word internal can be defined in the context at least of the martial culture that adopted its use (e.g., Chinese martial arts) and it may be helpful to explore some thoughts on the term itself. Because the term is often left undefined or taken to be a synonym for “mysterious” or “better”, I think it is of some value to attempt to clarify its use. Recent efforts of skilled practitioners offering seminars in the subject sometimes may do little to correct mistaken assumptions that equates internal with being a superlative adjective, especially when one focuses on teachers’ hardwon skill and not the path required to get to a similar place in one’s own practice.

So, when approached, I usually answer such questions with a question:

“What do you want to accomplish with internal training?”

Understanding that will often go a long way towards clarifying the choices one should make in approaching teachers and training. In this discussion, I will first focus on some ideas that point towards what the word internal might mean, at least in its original sense in Chinese martial arts. I hope then to propose that one should have a decision procedure for examining one’s training to determine when the internal applies:

1. Understand the deficiencies in a given approach.
2. Determine if internal (or another) practice will address those deficiencies.
3. Determine if the investment required to do so is worth the potential reward.

Without some kind of process to evaluate the investment required by training and the benefits resulting from doing so, it is hard to make a meaningful shift in one’s current training to make room for a practice as deep and fundamentally unique as internal training may be.

Internal vs External

In Chinese martial arts, the perspective of arts being “internal” as opposed to “external” likely was developed in the 19th century, when instructors of Tàijíquán, Bāguàzhǎng, and Xíngyìquán decided that their arts shared similar underlying ideas and organizing principles, even though outwardly they appeared different. They wanted to distinguish themselves from arts directly derived from Shaolin martial arts, whom they felt were organized differently at a foundational level. Specifically, they referred to their arts as nèijiā (internal) and the Shaolin-derived arts as waijiā (external).

The nèijiā are often not as old as waijiā – precisely because they are generally a reaction to the existing practices prevalent during their time as opposed to the culmination or epitome of them. The term waijiā should, however, not be taken immediately as being pejorative. The subject of what is internal versus what is external is a complex one, but always it is a mistake to conflate the dialectic of good vs. bad with internal vs. external in discussions of martial arts. Indeed, there are skilled and mediocre practitioners of nèijiā and waijiā both. In general, however, one can think of internal training as developing a different or nonintuitive reaction or reflex or quality in a specific domain (e.g., strength, speed, balance) whereas external training is concerned with taking the normative expression of a quality and developing it to its logical conclusion. For example, developing the speed of a punch or kick is an external skill, whereas developing relaxation and sensitivity so that one’s own punch is quicker than an opponent’s, no matter what their speeds are in of itself, would be an internal skill. There is generally, in internal training, a focus on inner awareness and awareness in relation to the world that a skill is measured within (e.g., how hard can I punch a moving, reacting, opponent, and what effect does that punch have on him) rather than only its effect in of itself (e.g., how hard I can punch a stationary object).

Often in Tàijíquán practice we are reminded that besting someone is not enough. If the method by which an opponent is defeated does not respect tàijí principles, the result was not a proper expression of Tàijíquán, even if we can push the other person offbalance. Also, body development in of itself is not necessarily external or internal – one may develop skill at Tàijíquán or Bāguàzhǎng, but when you strike someone, the result will depend on your body, its development and organization, irrespective of the art whose tactic you used to do so. So, body development methods drawn from various qigong have their place in both internal and external martial arts. However, training methodologies and intent may differ between the two. Regardless of methodology, different levels of body development and organization provide some of the key discriminators between high-level and lowlevel skill, irrespective of a particular style.

A question remains, and I believe is an open one, whether there is one “correct” form of body development that once informed many styles of martial arts and is now largely lost in many circles of practice. I am of the opinion, and open to correction on this point, that development must be defined with respect to a goal – strength should be developed to be sufficient for accomplishing a component of a result (e.g., throwing someone, hitting someone, cutting someone), but simply possessing strength alone does not remove the necessity for proper strategy and tactics. To amplify that statement, while body development, especially the kind advocated by the internal martial arts, can be of great benefit to a practitioner, it alone does not complete a curriculum of study. It has to express itself through a martial practice. An open question that should be examined (in another essay, perhaps) is what the differences are in qigong between internal and external styles of practice, and how that develops the quality of force (jin) they express in their practice.

CHINESE INFLUENCE ON JAPANESE MARTIAL ARTS

When looking at Chinese influences on Japanese martial arts, there are two primary time periods of relevance for jujutsu: pre or early Tokugawa influences, and postMeiji influences. First, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, travel between China and Japan led to historical examples of Chinese influence on Japanese martial arts, beyond the general import of philosophy and culture from China to Japan. One example is the teaching of Chen Genpin in Edo, which led to the genesis or modification of several forms of ko-ryū jujutsu. Another is the travel the swordsman Ogasawara Genshinsai Minamoto no Nagaharu (小笠原源信斎源長冶, 1574–1644), seventh headmaster of the Jikishinkage-ryū to China, where he is reputed to have been exposed to contemporary Chinese teachings. However, both these famous examples predate the development of nèijiā. The Chinese methods introduced to Japan during this time, even if they involve body development, breath practice, sensitivity and balance, are most likely Shaolin-derived practices that would be considered largely waijiā by practitioners of Tàijíquán, Bāguàzhǎng, and Xíngyìquán. If not waijiā, they may be akin to practices derived from Taoist qìgōng such as Bāduànjǐn (Eight Brocade), which dates from at least before 1624. Methods of iron shirt or iron palm training are quite sophisticated and can lead to the ability of a martial arts practitioner to express great levels of power and rooted stability. However, it would be a mistake to consider them nèijiā, simply because they are Taoist. They, instead, are usually considered waijin (external trained force).

Discourse is complicated by the fact that the original style of Tàijíquán from Chen Village , includes a practice called pao chui or “cannon fist,” which is famous for its expressions of shortrange explosive power. Tàijíquán is a grappling art and has more overlap with jujutsu methods than strictly pugilistic arts such as Chángquán (Long Fist). As a result, the expressions of stability and power generation at short distance demonstrated by advanced Chen Village Tàijíquán practitioners have been of great interest to the jujutsu and Aikidō community. This does not mean they influenced jujutsu historically.

So, by “internal development” or “internal practice” in discussions regarding Aikidō and Daito-ryū, one is likely referring to breathing practices and body development practices quite common in Shaolin rather than approaches specific to nèijiā. Ellis Amdur has done a great deal of research into the origins of Daito-ryū Aikijujutsu and concludes that Daito-ryū is likely a derivative of a form of jujutsu associated to Ittō-ryū kenjutsu practiced by Takeda Sokaku’s maternal grandfather. He extends the debunking of the Saigo Tanomo lineage claim of Daito-ryū that began with Stanley Pranin’s examination of Saigo’s diaries (which make no mentioned of budō practice) by offering a plausible explanation for the genesis of Daito-ryū as Takeda’s own creation. Instead, there is a hint that Daito-ryū may be influenced by Taoist teachings of complementarity preserved in the Ittō-ryū cognate jujutsu practice.

If you have not already, please purchase Ellis Amdur's books about Daito-ryū, Aikidō, and koryū, which can be found at Freelance Academy Press. They provide deep insights into these topics.

Similarly, Yoshin-ryū (practiced by several of Takeda’s contemporaries and colleagues) includes variants of “iron shirt” and “iron palm” practices of body development common to Shaolinderived arts, and may be considered a form of waijin practice at its higher levels.

Post Tokugawa, due to Japanese designs on expansion, there was more exposure of Japanese budō practitioners to Chinese martial arts. However, lineal relationships are not generally existent due to the hostile relationship between the two countries during that time. While Ueshiba Morihei did travel to Manchuria, it is unlikely that he would have been able to receive instruction from any martial arts teachers during his travels. At best, he could have crossed hands with some or observed demonstrations or practices. Similarly, while Funakoshi introduced Okinawan Karatedō to Japan, and Takeda Sokaku was known to have travelled to Okinawa and fought at least one bout with a karate practitioner, this is an exposure of southern Shaolinderived waijiā to Japan, as opposed to nèijiā typically practiced in Northern China.

A question is then whether the extreme power and stability demonstrated by Ueshiba Morihei was due to a foundation of Yoshin-ryū preserved qigong passed down via Daito-ryū that was not shared by Takeda with the bulk of his students, derived from spear training Takeda was exposed to by his father, or from some other practice. If anything, Ueshiba’s distillation of the large corpus of 118 hiden mokuroku techniques into a smaller set that maintains a rich practice can be seen as a signifier of that possibility. Interestingly, the martial ineffectiveness of much of modern Aikidō today may speak to the compression of information by Ueshiba being too severe. [ 2 ]

However, the existence of more private training methods within Takeda’s teaching does not mean that the “aiki” of Daito-ryū or Aikidō has a direct relationship with Chinese internal martial arts. As a result, the use of the word “internal” in public discussions may be misleading. It may be better to view Aikidō as a “soft external” style of martial arts, and recognize that the dialectic of hard versus soft does not need to be equated with the dialectic of internal versus external or what aiki means as compared to other forms of Japanese jujutsu. For example, Xíngyìquán is a very hard style of martial arts, but is considered nèijiā. Tàijíquán has several different variants, each with their own thoughts on how to specialize or organize their practice. Yang, Wu, Chen, and Sun style practitioners might not agree amongst themselves, when asked, on what proper tàijí practice is.

INTEGRATION OF INTERNAL IDEAS INTO SOFT EXTERNAL PRACTICE

In the 20th century, there was cross-fertilization between Chinese and Japanese martial arts, from teachers of nèijiā who taught in Japan, to American practitioners of Aikidō who have sought out Chinese teachers to inform their practice. In the former case, ideas from qigong or nèijiā may have in some cases been incorporated into martial practice with varying levels of attribution. In contrast Akuzawa Minoru, is more open about his training influences, and has combined elements of Daito-ryū, Yagyu Shingan-ryū, nèijiāquán, and mixed martial arts into a unique practice he calls Aunkai. Another example, less en vogue in contemporary discussion, is the Taikiken of Kenichi Sawai, which was influenced by a variant of Xíngyìquán called Yìquán.

In the case of contemporary American Aikidō practitioners, the question remains how the efforts of study of other arts (be they nèijiā or other approaches such as Systema) will inform their existing practice. Merely attending seminars by a master or advanced practitioner will likely not be enough to transform someone’s practice without devoting one’s time fully to ideas about body organization that are compatible with high-level waijiā or nèijiā training. Additionally, within an existing martial arts organization, there may be little room for such expression.

This takes us back to the opening question of this essay, as to what advice is prudent for practitioners seeking the benefits they associate with internal training. I leave it to the reader to choose whether the misconceptions I allude to in the title of this work are what I write about in observing the martial arts community, or my own.

I think an examination of whether one is conflating external versus internal with bad versus good is in order. Arts can be taken to a high level within their own practice, and if an art has declined and cannot, is it the responsibility or place of a mid-level practitioner to correct that, or to recognize that fact and abandon his or her practice instead, for more fruitful avenues of exploration and discovery? This was a conundrum I faced as a modern jujutsu practitioner. I have concluded that I was correct to spend a great deal of energy examining other traditions in of themselves instead of trying to incorporate them into my practice before understanding them. Only years later, after spending dedicated time learning nèijiā, do I feel somewhat comfortable viewing an evolved version of a small subset of my former jujutsu practice as a compatible locking and throwing practice that can be integrated with some of the methods and tactics I have since learned. Attempting to integrate ideas from nèijiā too early into an external practice may be too challenging to be generally successful.

Exploring posture, balance, relaxation, and efficiency in biomechanics can be of benefit to any physical practice, martial or otherwise. One does not need hidden or esoteric teachings to gain a return on that type of investment. If one remains within a practice, improve the quality of the practice through hard work and self-examination and critique instead of simply going through the motions of a practice. Without a basic and proper understanding of these ideas, internal training will not be of much help. If teachers are not readily available, this may be a more profitable avenue of exploration.

There are as many mediocre practitioners of Chinese martial arts as any other class of martial arts, so be careful in your choices as to what you think will improve what you are doing. Because nèijiā is a different type of self-development than external methods, you might even find your skill declines before benefits manifest themselves. Without consistent instruction, where a knowledgeable instructor is invested in your progress, developing skill may be more difficult in internal schools than via external methods. Seminars are interesting from an intellectual perspective and may serve as eye-openers (hence the mantra “it has to be felt”), but I am not sure one can gain a benefit from the nèijiā as martial arts without investing the effort to learn and practice them with regular correction. The prevalence of Tàijíquán practitioners who believe their practice effective but lack martial ability should not be ignored, even if the counterexamples are extremely impressive in their skill.

THE STRENGTH OF SOCIAL NORMS

The social aspect of training becomes important to consider, especially in traditional arts that have a prescribed structure. Unless you are a shihan of an art or have left an art after receiving a portion of its teachings, you may not have the freedom to explore the benefits ideas from nèijiā could provide your practice without being corrected away from them by a teacher who does not understand them. Often, it would be wrong to attempt to do so within the context of traditional martial arts practice. Remaining engaged with a practice that is not as sophisticated as another, while trying to infuse it with the latter, and not changing it, simply may not be an option for most people. Because so much of traditional martial arts practice is today a social activity, where respect is gained via association versus fighting opponents to develop a reputation, this may be too high a price for most students to make. The path is worth the effort, but it will cause change in the perspectives held by a practitioner.  

ON INTERNAL POWER

The above discussion touches a bit historically on what internal martial arts are, at least in China, and how they might relate or be related to some Japanese martial arts. But then, a natural subsequent question might be, for an art like Aikidō that has lofty goals in its practitioners:

What is internal power and how does it relate to Aikidō?

This begs further questions:

1. Is there only one kind of internal power?
2. What types of internal power can be cultivated?
3. Are they all equally relevant to arms-length grappling?
4. In applying them, are you integrating internal power in an optimal manner?
5. In doing so, is your approach still Aikidō or Jujutsu?

The last question is driven by whether the source of your internal training is from Japan or China. If you add Chen Tàijí to you Aikidō, are you still doing Aikidō? From 1989 to 2005, I practiced a form of modern jujutsu that was a combination of Karate, Judō, and Aikidō reworked with content from Kodokai seminars Yonezawa held in the 1970s. Unfortunately, my teacher in his naiveite focused on hard bone crunching locks and not anything more subtle until much later in his career when he invited a qigong teacher to our dōjō.

I remember the qigong person, who had tremendous stability, say if we could learn to work with qi we would vastly improve. He was fine with the external nature of our locking and throwing, it was a bit beneath him but would be improved if we practiced neigong. It would have been a good thing if he had kept his class going there. I think we would all have benefited. Many years later, I wound up leaving that group later and focused my time on Bāguà, Xíngyì, and Tàijí. I now focus on them as separate arts taught in the same school, taught in a way that is compatible.

I remember an admonition about how once you get a person off balance and hit them, the result will depend on your body development. That development can happen in a variety of ways. It is your body. A question is how you train yourself, so that you can generate power in that circumstance.

The broader Aikidō community is very lucky there are people willing to share their body methods (shen fa) with others, outside of a closed group (be it a specific Aikidō organization or koryū). I wince a bit when I hear Daito-ryū traditionalists talk about the propriety of Aiki, when Ueshiba and Takeda taught so many people. Even though I am friends with one or two of them and think some of them are good martial artists, there are others, however, who put the name of their art and lineage as something to distract from their own level of skill. I think all this falls back on what each person can actually do. This is why inter group sparring and pushing can be very useful.

Is that Aikidō?

For me, when I do something that looks like ikkyo, is it Aikidō, Xíngyì, or kodachi from Jikishinkage-ryū performed without a weapon in my hand? If Takeda studied Jikishinkage-ryū for a while, is that more reasonable to claim than Xíngyì, which he likely never encountered?

Does it matter, if someone cannot stop me?

Some additional questions are whether given the benefits of internal power and stability to taijutsu:

1. Is it important to seek Ueshiba's specific methodologies or can alternatives suffice?
2. Is it important to be able to do what he did how he did it or just be able to do what he did?
3. Can this be done by most people in the context of Aikidō or is understanding the parent art of Daito-ryū necessary?
4. If you practice other approaches and they influence your Aikidō, is that acceptable?
5. At what point are you no longer doing Aikidō?

I am writing this as someone who did what is probably considered fairly low level external Aikidō for a time and then decided to focus on internal martial arts in their own context. I have worked those ideas back into my taijutsu. In fact, because one student followed me in my path from jujutsu to Bāguà, in applications to Gao style Bāguàzhǎng, some of my old taijutsu waza survive, albeit in modified form. Are they Aikidō, jujutsu, or Bāguà? I ask this because in Chinese traditions, applications like locks and throws are considered in an art if they follow the principles or feeling of the art (e.g., the same lock done by a Bāguà person or a Xíngyì person, a little differently), but there is a basic level of knowledge considered independent of specific arts.

I don't think I do Aikidō any longer. If I do something that looks like irimi nage, is it just Bāguà or is it good Aikidō now that I know internal ideas, or is it bad Aikidō because the form doesn't look quite right?

I feel remiss in not trying to offer some answers or opinions. I will at least notice one problem with the entire line of questioning is something my first Bāguà instructor, Bob Galeone, related to me. In his opinion, Aikidō lacks a welldefined decision procedure (in the logical sense) to determine a person's skill. I think recent efforts at going back to what Ueshiba wrote, his philosophical environment (phenomenologically, semiotically), are useful. I think relating his ideas to other practices in Chinese and Japanese martial arts is also useful. But I think the questions above begin to point at some of the challenges therein.

Just because in Tàijíquán we have certain ideas of body mechanics, and they work extremely well for stability, does not mean that a Shaolin Lohan practitioner who is stable uses the same ideas or methodologies to be stable. If an Aikidō practitioner seeks to be stable, and has lost the connection with what Ueshiba taught, and picks a Tàijí methodology to accomplish that skill, is it compatible with Aikidō versus one who does very fundamental stance training from Shaolin Lohan Quan? Or is it Aikidō because the person dresses in a keikogi and hakama, and bows to a picture of Ueshiba in a dōjo with tatami mats? And still pays dues to his parent organization and goes to annual seminars? At what point, in adopting methodologies from other arts (Tàijí, Bāguà, Systema, Jujutsu, etc.) is the person no longer welcome in her own dōjo? How do some people navigate incorporating ideas into their practice and stay respected shihan in their organizations and others wind up leaving?

Thinking about the change of Daito-ryū to Aikidō, and from prewar Aikidō to postwar Aikidō, it is almost as if there is a change in semiotics from prewar to postwar, from Ueshiba Morihei to Kisshomaru. By that I mean a translation into a different conceptual framework, that encodes ideas in a different manner, and may result in the same signifiers (signs) pointing to different signified, when looking from father to son, whereas in Ueshiba himself, changes in signifiers potentially from Daito-ryū terminology (possibly Shingon based?) to Aikido's language drawn from multiple sources, including Omotokyo?

Some interesting studies might be:

1. How do the philosophical concepts taught at the Aikikai in Tokyo align with those taught in Iwama and those taught in separate (prewar?) Aikidō organizations such as the Yoshinkan?
2. How do the concepts of Omotokyo framing Ueshiba's description of his practice correspond to statements made by other teachers of Daito-ryū?

At the same time, I think it is important to recognize that there can sometimes be a distinction between what one's mental framework is for their practice and what they are doing. Many ideas get lost in translation, and Chinese martial arts are an exemplar rather than an exception. One of the challenges I face when I hear the word internal used in reference to Japanese jujutsu or taijutsu is that the spread of socalled internal schools of Chinese martial arts seem to postdate the major influx of martial theory from China to Japan. Tàijíquán and Xíngyìquán may only date from the late 16th or early 17th century and Bāguàzhǎng was developed in the 19th century. They share common characteristics that seem to be compatible, and different from older martial arts that also provide a mechanism for reaching high levels of personal development (what can be contrasted by being called external martial arts, which need not be a pejorative term).

We in contrast have the founding stories of Yoshin-ryū being set in the early Tokugawa era (e.g., via Chen Genpin) and some crosspollination in Jikishinkage-ryū, where there is in influx of ideas from Ogasawara Genshinsai, who spent 20 years in Beijing after changing political affiliations one too many times. We know that today Jiki looks very different from other lines of Shinkage-ryū. An open question is whether that time Ogasawara spent in China caused the resulting differences. It is well known, of course, for its focus on breathing, posture, and power, and its relative scarcity of explicit tactics compared to other lines of Shinkage-ryū. We also know Takeda Sokaku was rather experienced by the time he visited Sakakibara's Jikishinkage-ryū dōjo. It is overly simplistic to assume Jikishinkage-ryū was a tremendous influence on the man; however, maybe he found something compatible or inspiring in its approach, based on his training.

Despite the questions regarding timing, either of martial theory or practice from China to Japan, or in Takeda's own martial development, if we look besides general anatomy and premodern types of movement (from hunting, agriculture, horsemanship, archery, spear, etc.) it seems like at least at the beginning of the Edo period, there is an opportunity for there to be some common ground in place that could follow similar, albeit culturally specific, developments in parallel. If we assume Chinese internal martial arts developed around the same time. Japanese martial artists in the Edo period did possess the necessary philosophical framework of Taoism needed to discover or develop somewhat analogous internal martial arts ideas.

Rather than being a product of an extremely martial environment (e.g., Aizuhan otome-ryū), could Aiki instead be developed due to a prolonged period of peace, that allowed people extended periods of study, practice, and analysis?

Fast forward to today, in reading Sasamori Takemi in his book Bushidō and Christianity, he speaks of using his dantien quite clearly in talking about Onaha Itto-ryū kenjutsu and kiri otoshi, which is supposed to drop an opponent where he stands. He references Itto-ryū taijutsu explicitly, which might lend some credence to Ellis Amdur's thesis that Daito-ryū aiki is somehow related to Itto-ryū teachings from Takeda's family. The fact that Takeda Soeman is said to have studied Shugendō (Onmyodō) is also interesting to me, regarding Taoism, is mentioned at some points by Daito-ryū practitioners, and I think might be related, or at least worthy of consideration. [3]

What the above does not answer is why all Edo period Japanese jujutsu did not similarly develop concepts of Aiki. Clearly, the people who encountered Takeda, and later Ueshiba, had access to local machi dōjo for jujutsu and gekken/kendō (or kenjutsu). The number of people drawn to those teachers may have been influenced due to political reasons or the spread of Omotokyo (was it Deguchi who suggested the term Aikijujutsu to Takeda?) but the skill level of the two men is not in question.

Some of the questions in my first post are driven by the fact that maybe a thesis is that while a conservative subset of modern Aikidō practice might be quite compatible with internal martial arts ideas, by the fact that the core subset of Daito-ryū practices are as well, a question remains as to whether it is more efficient to attempt to learn those practices directly (if they are accessible for a period of time it was not so easy to do so, possibly now things are more open and there are unique figures making versions of these teachings available more widely today) or whether homologues can stand in sufficiently well.

I think the answer may depend on what a person is trying to achieve, which drove me to ask whether it is sufficient to be able to do what Ueshiba or others did, some of what they did, and by the same means. There is also the question of what a decision procedure is, outside of a kata pedagogy and gokui/kuden methodology, for evaluating levels of skill in a practitioner.

In Tàijíquán, there is the concept of push hands practice to evaluate levels of relative skill between practitioners (although that itself can devolve and become devoid of meaning in the wrong context) and a set of classics that one can consult to evaluate whether one is still doing Tàijíquán. The first is a question of being good or not good (relative level of skill), whereas the latter is a question of doing Tàijí or not doing Tàijí. Even with those textual resources available, there is extreme variation in the outward form of different Tàijí styles, and arguments about correctness and effectiveness across major groups, and differing accounts of Tàijí history.

A benefit with Aikidō, in comparison, may be the existence of written sources not yet fully explored, and that the different Aikidō organizations, and even Daito-ryū organizations, have a common subset of practices they can at least recognize in each other.

End Notes

1. This essay was originally written in two parts, appearing in 2012 and 2017. I have collected those shorter essays into sections of this article.
2. The original version of this essay contained discussion about a story commonly told about Shioda Gozo being visited by Kodo Horikawa, the theory being Kodo taught Shioda in some way. This was subsequently debunked by Ellis Amdur in Banquo’s Ghost - It Ain't Necessarily So, published in November 2018.
3. Bushido and Christianity, T. Sasamori, M. Hague. 2016, ISBN 978-1533476678.