Calm comfort

Aikido is perhaps one of the lesser well-known martial arts, lacking the obvious glamour of karate or tae kwon do, but familiar to many people through the films of Stevan Seagal. Watching it is sometimes said to be more like watching a dance than a fight, with no obvious striking, hitting or dramatic chopping movements. If less well known in the West, aikido is still popular and practiced in Japan, and it's got a solid Czech following as well, according to Václav Teichman, of Aikido Klub Praha.

"Aikido developed from much older martial arts, notably training given to Samurai - the elite warriors who ruled Japan before the restoration of the Emperor in 1868," explains martial arts enthusiast and aikido practitioner John McWilliams.  

In the 1920s and 1930s, O Sensei Ueshiba began to develop his own form of the martial art aikido, but the more popular modern versions were developed after World War II. Inspired partly by the changing religious landscape and his own developing beliefs, O Sensei began to create a martial art that could be used to defensively but not to attack. Aikido involves side-stepping and deflecting an enemy's line of attack rather than blocking it using physical strength or answering with aggression.

There are various branches, some derived from O Sensei's early versions and other, later ones developed after the war, sometimes by his followers. "There are four main branches of aikido," says Teichman, "Aikiai, Yoseikan, Tomiki and Ki Aikido."

One of the main ideas behind later aikido techniques, especially, is to be able to deflect aggression without hammering your opponent. Vaclav Teichman interprets the ethos of aikido as "true pacifism," which allows skilled followers to intervene in and deflect aggression without injuring their attacker or using violence themselves.

"O Sensei and many of his direct followers were extremely religious," says McWilliams, explaining that many who developed the art after the war became increasingly pacific in their approach to aikido.

To better understand the theory and philosophy behind aikido, I went for a lesson at Aikido Klub Praha. It began with 20 minutes of iaido - a branch of swordsmanship upon which later aikido techniques are based. This was a mildly exhilarating exercise on how to stand from kneeling position and slice through the skulls of two attackers in a handful of smooth steps, including how to shake the blood from your sword before replacing it in its sheath. Then we started aikido proper, in a style called Nishio-ryu.

During practice, one person takes the role of attacker and the other the role of defender. To put one typical basic technique very simply, the attacker tries to hit or punch the defender, and the defender deflects the blow, by grabbing and twisting the attacker's arms, in such a way that, most of the time, the attacker has no choice but to be thrown to the floor. It was energetic and demanded quite a lot of concentration to understand the movements and execute them relatively quickly.

So why would someone try aikido? Many of the reasons are common to most martial arts. Many people hope to be able to defend themselves or intervene if they encounter aggression in real life. It's certainly a valid reason but not something you're likely to achieve in your first few years of training. However, martial arts will often give you visible self-confidence and enable you to remain calm if you do encounter aggression, winning you half the battle already, according to Teichman. It's good exercise, and there is a social element, as well. Aikido's appeal is broad, and you're likely to meet people from all kinds of backgrounds. It also has the advantage of being safer than many sports. Injuries tend to be fairly rare and not very serious - so it's unlikely to render you out of action and unable to enjoy other hobbies. From speaking to followers of various budo (Japanese martial arts), it seems they are very much something you do for their own sake. Whether you practice a few times a month or every day, they give you a chance to relax, exercise and focus on something other than the outside world.

Alexandra Jordan can be reached at
features@praguepost.com