First lets take a look at some common translation errors. Often 合気 is translated as harmony-spirit. Some translators have even called aikido the art of peace, again a poetic, but non literal translation. This character 和 means peace/harmony not 合.
'Ai' 愛 in Japanese is love, so again it is a common incorrect translation to call aikido the art of love. Aikido uses this 'ai' 合, not this one 愛.
In our quest to understand this elusive term, let us look at the literal translation of 合. In most dictionaries the definition of 合 - to fit. To fit. I like that. It makes a lot of sense really. I can see how many translators want to layer their own poetry onto the definition, but I think 'to fit' works great.
That being said, kanji are quite complex, so sometimes other words are associated to make the meaning clearer.
Now let us look at the second charecter in 合気 aiki, the 気. Spirit is a fair literal translation. But the BIG problem is that even in our native tongue of English this is not a clearly understood word. In Japanese there are a handful of characters meaning spirit. Let's look at the other characters so we can determine what spirit ki 気 is not.
精 - a spirit,a soul,energy,vigor,
霊 - the ghost, the departed soul, the soul, the spirit
魂 - a soul, a spirit, a ghost
気 air, atmosphere, spirit, mind, heart, will, intention, feelings, a mood, nature, a disposition, attention, care, a sign
I suppose we could take a word from the first character translation and combine it with the second to begin to construct our own personal poetic translations.
合 fit, match, suit, join, combine, unite, coincide, agree
気 air, atmosphere, spirit, mind, heart, will, intention, feelings, a mood, nature, a disposition, attention, care, a sign
合気 is fit/mind, match/disposition, join/nature, unite/mind, fit/spirit
While hopefully the word soup gets us thinking about aiki in new and different ways, that fact is as artists we all begin to come to a personal understanding of what aiki is and what it isn't. Over the years I have heard many people give personal definitions of it and I would like to start collecting them here as the years progress. Following I will list personal definitions I have heard, or that readers submit.
合気 is
1. Accommodation to circumstance
2. Instant victory
3. Instantly penetrating the spirit of the opponent
4. Nonviolent action
5. Movement that is invisible to the tactile senses of the opponent
6. Teaching lineage from Takeda and Ueshiba
7. Fitting to energy
8. Sagawa reports that AIKI was defined by Takeda as a specific technique that could be taught quickly, therefore he was very careful about whom he showed it to.
9. Finding the fit
10. Confluence
11. Synergy
12. The skill of unifying yourself internally , both mentally and physically, as well as externally with space and change(opponent and with environment.)
What is yours?
As a final interesting note, Aiki 噫気 means burp.
Sagawa reports that AIKI was defined by Takeda as a specific technique that could be taught quickly, therefore he was very careful about whom he showed it to.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, "finding the fit":
ReplyDeletehttp://cookdingskitchen.blogspot.com/2008/12/finding-fit.html
10. Confluence
ReplyDelete11. Synergy
Ueshiba Sensei reportedly did occasionally write "aikido" using the kanji for "love" as "ai." I believe he also lectured on the dual meaning as something he intended. Probably this would have been in his later period.
ReplyDeletei think it's helpful to look at the Chinese
ReplyDelete合 ai (he) is most often translated as "harmony" or "harmonize / unify". the literal translation of all the radicals (strokes) is "many mouths as one", so although like most English words it can mean slightly different things in different contexts, the idea of "a unit" is clear throughout.
気 - is a slightly simplified version of 氣 which itself is composed of several radicals that combine the characters for 'rice' and 'vapor', (i.e. what we breathe) which when the two combine give us "vital energy". even in English, the concept of "spirit" is there in the Latin ænima, the root of words like animated, but ænima was also tied to the breath.
氣 by itself can imply some kind of energy that can get something done, for instance 電氣 dian qi, is electric qi, i.e. electricity and tian qi 天氣 is heaven's qi (weather).
i believe that aiki is the same as what they call taiji in the Chinese arts. it's the skill of unifying yourself internally , both mentally and physically, as well as externally with space and change(opponent and with environment.)
its a skill that allows you to flow with the change without being swept away by it, because you can always maintain your center.
i forgot to add that the implication is that part of this skill is tied to the breath, as the breathing can condition the mind, but also be used to maintain a certain balance in the body by recognizing when some action begins to interfere with our breathing we are reaching the limit of that action and need to change.
ReplyDeleteAwesome comment Falling Leaves. I might hack it apart and put it in the main body of the text if you don't mind. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFalling Leaves, I have been checking out Chinese dictionaries. I cannot find 合 as harmonize/harmony.
ReplyDelete合- one-tenth of a peck, Chinese musical note; fit; to join
These characters seem to be more of the harmony, harmonize idea - 燮,和,咊
you can't always go by the modern dictionary definitions of the characters because often times the words take on special meanings when used for martial arts.
ReplyDeleteas one example, 六合八法. liuhebafa. most commonly translated as six harmonies and eight techniques or methods.
at any rate, like i said i believe that the idea of 'unify' or 'union' is what's implied.
'many mouths as one' in a musical context would be harmony, but also, 'balance' is important in considering 'harmony' as in harmony no one voice is more important than another.
as my Sifu often says about our training "it's a dialogue".
in an extreme case we have peng which i can't even find in the online dictionaries i use, but is 朋 preceded by the radical for hand. i can;t remember for sure but in everyday use it means something like 'bounce' but doesn't encompass the real meaning in a martial arts context.
the real guy to ask is Omar from RSF as he speaks fluent Chinese, or even Fong. They can discuss the difference between every day use and martial arts use in endless depth.