The date has been set for the 1st International Annual Taigi Competition on July 20, 1996. The event will be held at the Ryogoku National Sports Stadium in Tokyo. The Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido Kai branch of the Ki Society takes the occasion of the first Ki-Aikido news bulletin to explain the meaning and goals of the new International Taigi Competition. This inaugural issue of the KI-AIKIDO NEWS is the first step toward that event, and toward a new era for the Ki Society.
At the same time, it will be the coming of age for the Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido Kai, as 20 years will have passed since this branch of the Ki Society was formed in April of 1974. The environment and conditions surrounding the Ki Society and Ki-Aikido have changed radically during the past two decades. What has not changed during this time is the unflagging commitment to spread Ki principles to a world in need.
As founder and director of the Ki Society, Tohei Sensei has often reminded us, "The techniques of Aikido are a way of realizing mind and body unification, not just in theory but through actual practice and experience. Wanting to share these wonderful arts with people throughout the world, I established the art of Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido based on the principles of mind and body unification."
These words have reached deeply into the hearts of each member of the Ki Society, and have helped spread Tohei Sensei's commitment to many countries in the world. The 1st International Annual Taigi Competition and the 25th Anniversary Ceremony are a means of remembering and renewing our commitment to this great work.
Tohei Sensei actually set out on this mission as early as 1953, beginning with his efforts to teach Aikido in Hawaii, and from there across the United States, to Europe, Asia, and many countries around the world. Over the more than 40 years which have passed since then, Tohei Sensei has devoted his entire energies to the task of introducing Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido to the world. His work has taken hold and blossomed, and now a great many instructors have absorbed his teachings and carried on his work.
Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido is beyond national borders, and shows no discrimination as to race or sex. The way is open to anyone who wants to learn Ki through Aikido. Nevertheless, there are barriers of language and distance which inevitably separate Japan from the rest of the world, and the resulting communication problems can stand in the way of realizing this ideal.
The task of the International Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido Federation will be to strengthen the bonds which unite those who are learning Ki through Aikido, not only inside Japan, but also reaching out across the globe.
The die has been cast, and now it is up to us to join together and make the International Taigi Competition a grand success.
"In wanting to spread Aikido to the world, I have no interest in simply promoting the martial arts. Through the correct practice of Aikido arts I wish to make the way of the universe clear, to help people to develop and use their original power which derives from the universe, and thereby lead a life of happiness, health, and confidence."
In other words, the real purpose of Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido is not to learn how to throw people, but to unify and control mind and body.
Although in the beginning some people practice Ki development in order to make rapid progress in Aikido, once they learn how to perform the Aikido techniques they stop practicing Ki development. Somehow they come under the illusion that Ki training is different from Aikido practice and therefore dispensable. It is important to realize that Aikido arts which are devoid of Ki or which consider Ki training unimportant are at best an imitation of the real thing.
It is true that there are no competitions held in the martial art of Aikido. The reason is that Aikido is considered to be a true martial art that is performed in earnest, and not as a sport or game. It is not right for people to use martial arts techniques to engage in mortal combat. However, by simply avoiding the issue it is all to easy to fall into self-complacency, or a style in which any individual approach is considered acceptable. The purpose of holding a Taigi Competition is to prevent self-complacency and arrested development, by providing an opportunity to show the cumulative results of one's daily training against a set of rigorous and objective criteria.
Thus by providing both a measure of individual progress and a goal for daily practice, the Taigi Competition has helped many Ki Society members to make remarkable progress in Aikido and Ki development. Against what criteria are participants in the Taigi Competition judged? The three basic criteria for performance are familiar to many Ki Society members, but we will reconfirm them here.
The three principle points which the judges look for in the Taigi Competition are:
In preparing for entry into the Taigi Competition participants make rapid progress through repeated and serious practice of hitori-waza (individual movements), kumi-waza (paired arts), and tsudzuki-waza (consecutive arts). The outcome of the competition is secondary in comparison with the benefits which all participants gain in making these efforts, deepening their level of mind and body unification, and gaining the driving power of mind and body by which to weather the storms of life.
However, in order to further improve the Taigi Competition as a means of acquiring these benefits, it is now necessary to make the criteria far more specific and easier to understand. Traditionally the martial arts have been passed on from master to student, under a system by which the teacher granted dan-grades to those students whose techniques met the teacher's approval or standards. Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido is no exception in this, and practitioners of Ki-Aikido have been granted kyu- and dan-rankings, either by Tohei Sensei directly, or under his students or their students once or twice removed, all working under a common grading system established by Tohei Sensei himself.
However, even if a person has learned directly from Tohei Sensei, just as every personality is unique, every one of Tohei Sensei's students differs in depth of understanding and approach to teaching what they have learned. Like the tale that has been told by more than one, by the time that Tohei Sensei's teaching has passed through several filters it has often been modified considerably from what it started out to be, depending on individual interpretation and understanding.
Nonetheless, we all live in the same universe, and universal principles are by definition the same everywhere. In this sense, if Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido arts follow these universal principles, then their essence too must be the same. It is to clarify what these universal standards are for Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido arts that the International Taigi Competition will be held, and judged against highly specific criteria for each technique which have been established and approved by Tohei Sensei himself. These criteria represent the official version of the keys to Ki-Aikido, points for both teaching and judging which are indisputably clear for all to see.
In this way the International Taigi Competition has raised the standards of the annual Taigi event. The judges will have completed a series of strict training sessions on how to judge the Taigi Competition, conducted directly by Tohei Sensei (see related articles on pages 4, 5, and 7).
The newly established criteria will be employed in the International Taigi Competition by judges whom Tohei Sensei has carefully selected and trained. This will not be a competition in which participants compete to win or to lose. Rather, the competition will be to reveal new levels of perfection in mind and body unification. Perhaps the closest analogy in the Olympics would be the competitions in gymnastics and figure skating.
The reason why we want to bring this to the world stage is that we are confident that through the Taigi Competition, we are ready to show the true essence of Aikido to an international audience.
Aikido is defined as the "Way to union with Ki." The universe is one, and its principles are universal. If we become one with the universe and put its principles into practice, people will follow us gladly and the world will go our way. If we are only concerned with ourselves and our own progress we will walk a lonely way. The effort to ally ourselves with the universe, to think and act with the understanding that we are one with the universe, is behind our desire to present the true essence of Aikido on the world stage.