Thursday, 20. April 2006
Aikido & Aiki Batto
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KI, life energy

Although it’s a part of the very word aikido, ki lacks a definition that everybody doing aikido agrees on. On any internet aikido forum there are countless postings about ki, and almost as many views on it. Here’s mine.
Again, since ki is part of the word aikido, it is of great importance in practice. When we do aikido, it should be done with ki as a prominent ingredient. Ki flows, and the path of this flow through an aikido technique is the actual technique – more so than any hand, arm or body movement. Ki comes first, and the body follows, like a boat floats on the current of a river.
This is true for both tori, the defender, and uke, the attacker.

Ki can flow out of any part of the body. It can also enter through any part of the body.

But there is one point of the body from which it comes, when it is put to use – tanden, the center inside the body, below the navel. This is the source of powerful ki, used by uke in the attack and by tori in the defense.

Aikido - The Peaceful Martial Art by Stefan Stenudd. (English)
Much information, lots of texts, photos and video clips.
Do visit it, if you are interested in aikido as well.

Aikido contains, in its usual curriculum, a number of sword exercises and applications. These are not regulated by any Aikikai standard, since the Hombu dojo tends to exclude such practices from its schedule.

Instead, prominent teachers usually have their own systems of practicing with the wooden sword, bokken, as well as with the staff, jo, such as the complex series of techniques developed by Saito sensei and Nishio sensei. Osensei, too, certainly practiced with the bokken, as can be seen on the many films of him remaining.

Aiki batto, the name I have chosen for this system of exercises, is a combination of two concepts. Aiki is the joining of ki, which is so characteristic to aikido, and differs from the more head-on strategy common in iai and kenjutsu schools. Batto means drawing the sword or having drawn it, and was often used for the type of training, today mostly called iaido, the way of joining with being (also, more concretely, implying sitting, since iaido usually includes seated forms).

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Aiki Batto - A system of sword exercises, both Aikiken style bokken with partner and iaido style solo training with iaito or shinken, for learning how to handle the sword in an aiki way. By Stefan Stenudd. (English)
Also with video clips!
Category: Martial Arts & Combat




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