Why Aikido?

Because you don’t always need to punch someone in the face.

People come to martial arts for a lot of different reasons. Oftentimes a prospective student or a parent will come to the dojo with a specific question or goal in mind. Here’s a common question: “is Aikido useful in a fight?”. And here’s a common goal: “I want to learn self defense.”

Let’s talk about those.

Both of those are asks for practical self-defense training. This is obviously an extremely common and very valid reason to take up a martial art, especially if you’ve been in a fight or been threatened recently.

People ask about this for Aikido specifically, in part because Aikido is not a striking art where training begins with punches and blocks — Aikido is more subtle.

I want to be clear: Aikido is called “The Art of Peace” for a reason. The philosophy of Aikido is to deal with conflict not by escalating or overwhelming it, but by realigning and neutralizing it. We do not train to hurt people. If your plan is to street fight or to dive deep into MMA, Aikido is probably not the art for you. But let's be real: street fighting is not most people's day-to-day life.

Think about what martial arts practice is for — are you trying to dominate others, or are you trying to improve yourself?

Everyone deals with conflict. Most people deal with it every day — within the home, with your children, at work, or even conflict with yourself. A difficult conversation that you’re avoiding. A confrontation with a parent or a child. And one thing that Aikido argues is that it is vastly more important to learn to master yourself and to learn to navigate this daily conflict than it is to learn how to win a street fight. You face yourself every day. Train for that.

So what does Aikido teach? Is it applicable to self-defense? Sure it is!

Aikido training teaches you to stay calm when someone comes at you or grabs you. Aikido students learn to relax their mind and to train their awareness. A new student tenses up when faced with the unknown, or gets stuck trying to think instead of just acting. Aikido teaches you not just to face the moment calmly, but gives you tools to de-escalate a conflict, and how to disarm someone’s attack by going along with it. It also teaches you the discipline to pick your response, to not retaliate when you could.

All of this is useful. But it’s not really why we train. O-Sensei, the founder of Aikido, said, “A true warrior is invincible because he or she contests with nothing. Defeat means to defeat the mind of contention that we harbor within.”

O-Sensei’s teachings and the core of the art of Aikido are exactly the opposite of learning to hurt an opponent. The attacker in the dojo is a training aid. What you’re actually working on is yourself, on your involuntary reactions, your mental flexibility and preconceptions, your need to dominate.

Everyone has their own reasons to step on the mat. Be clear in your own mind what you’re training for, and remember that some of the toughest challenges are the ones you carry with you.

Conflict is a constant in life, but you don’t always need to punch someone in the face. There are other options. Aikido is one of them.