 Welcome back dream men and women so for you. It's probably been a couple of days or a couple of weeks before I released You know this this next episode of the Akito philosophy and history Or unless it's been already released and you're just connecting the two But anyway for me, it's been only a few minutes. I just recorded the first session about Akito It's history and Ossensi and his history But now let's look at the main subject of the whole controversy of the philosophy So now that you know kind of the background of Morio Shiba and and how he came to come to the conclusion that Akito needs to be created like a martial art Which is seeking peace needs to be created. Let's look at deeper the philosophy and the whole controversy of why I feel the Akito world actually fails to deliver that philosophy so I mentioned to you that I will explain a bit deeper the perspective of Ossensi the whole unity of What the Akito idea of that we're all one family means and what it implies to do it as a martial art Because Ossensi the founder of Akito, he would often speak and say that we're all one family will come from the same source and that was very related to his spiritual Opening up enlightenment If you if you want to say if you call it that you want to call it that of his perception that we're all one kind of that zen state I've I'll just mention that briefly here, but I went down that road, you know, I explore that enlightenment thing and so on There's a whole video about that. I call it I called it enlightenment. It's not It's not what you think I can watch it there if you want more details But i'm familiar with that subject and it's best perceived and Understood through directly experiencing that kind of open state But there's also a very good way of theoretically explaining it of what that that state is and The way to explain it. There's a great great story Kind of a simple beautiful story to portray that message And the story for some reason it's called the egg story I can't know exactly remember why and I'll just give you a brief version of it But look it up online. It's it's definitely a story worth listening to but the story goes that a person dies and He goes to this heaven place or whatever And he meets this godly being And they have a conversation and the guy who just died says so where am I and the godly being says you're in this transitional state And He says so does that mean i'm going to move on to the next life like green carnate and he's the godly being is like Yeah, I know but not really. He's like what do you mean? Well, he's like you're not going to continue on In the same time like you're not going to go to the next life after this your death You're just going to move at a different life. And he's like so i'm going to exist at the same time And he's like the godly being like yeah, so so is that like he's like is it the first time i'm doing it And he's like the godly being is like no actually it's been a long it's like you're doing this for a while So the guy's like so damn. I've been all those people that I loved actually I I was loving myself. I was I was them and he's like yep. It's like so that means all the people I hit are Were myself as well and the other guys the godly beings like yep. He's like so I was hitler It's like yep, so I was jesus Yep, and then and then that's kind of the whole story and I think it's a beautiful way of Understanding that philosophy if we are all one you know that if you imagine yourself going up And the same background as someone else You know you'd have the exact same conditions parents and intelligence and so on and so forth You would probably end up making those same decisions and so so that whole notion of the x-story kind of gives you a perspective that that There's there's a great chance that you know the other person is very much like you. He just had different opportunities And then what would you do with that person if you were actually that person like what how would you want to act with that person if you were That particular person in that misfortune You give an example if you need someone misfortune it and it's easy to Kind of disassociate yourself and think you know, oh if it's trouble. It's his problem. It's his You know dad. I don't care about it. My life is my life But in this philosophy, you can imagine that you would die and you would actually live his life And you ask so what would I want to do for him if I was him? It's kind of a deep rabbit hole, but but that's actually Kind of the essential way to explain what the aikido philosophy is in my understanding And that's what kind of osensi the founder of aikido. That's what he was trying to portray He had that realization that we're all one that we're all connected And he asked the question to how do you create a martial art? Which respects that which honors that and from what I understand his his intention was to create and what he kind of aimed to do and what kind of aikido looks like he aimed to Create aikido in this way where it's very flowing very connected There's you know, there's few punches like the the further he went You could kind of see that he would reduce the punches and And the kind of techniques which are really damaging That that that seems like that was the direction he was heading and he was making it softer and softer And and it kind of sounds cool and sounds cool because It seems like oh, so that would be and that's what kind of aikido dubs itself as As a martial art, which doesn't hurt the other person who's attacking you So, you know, that would be great for for example security guards or policemen or if you want to sustain someone Who's a close family member, do you know somebody who's drunk in a party And getting trouble and you don't want to hurt them because you know, he's like your cousin or whatever But you need to sustain him somehow So I the ideal that aikido was aiming for would be great in those situations You know you deal with the person without hurting him and you're respecting that we're all one and if you would that If you would be that person, that's the way you would want to probably be handled Now the reality unfortunately is different and while let's see even if osensei was able to Do that because he was a talented martial artist And maybe he stopped students were able to do that there are stories that you know, they would deal with conflicts efficiently at the same time historically most of osensei's students were Achieved martial artists and other martial arts already most of them were high level judoka or karateka And since he was so famous they would go to him And they would study with him And they would take on the aspect of aikido, but they knew how to handle themselves Like there's a story of one of the main most talented students of osensei koichi etohi Who later went on to create this kind of spiritual style of his own But I think he was really high level judoka and there's a story where I believe a wrestler like a western wrestler comes and challenges koichi etohi and Actually, I think he challenges the school, you know, and says you know prove me that works I know sensei is already old so he doesn't take it on himself and says koichi go take care of it And he deals with this high level western wrestler he kind of He he's able to win against him But I don't think it came just from aikido. I think it's personally I think it came mainly from You know his judo background and also to aikido especially in In that kind of period There was a while when aikido Or sensei's dojo was called oni dojo I think that's the Japanese term or the demon dojo because they would have like bloody knees and Because of sitting on the knees all the time so much and they would train like like five times per day The training was hardcore. They were not like light and easy with each other And especially because if you look the first episode where you know the history of aikido A lot of the young Japanese men They actually wanted to kind of they felt they lost their honor because Japan lost in the war and they wanted to kind of win that back So they were really like, you know aggressive and wanting to become powerful warriors. That's kind of one of the take where how you look Which you can see when you look at the story so and O sensei himself he was a badass in his youth and I think a lot of people are inspired about that too So basically had this culture of these young guys Training like hell with the heavy martial arts background beforehand So yeah, probably they were tough warriors as much as aikido founder himself But the thing is the further he went the more lighter he he made aikido And the more softer and if you take and this is kind of where I feel like Kido is in the current day if you take someone who just comes in into an aikido dojo without any background in our martial arts It's it's a whole subject and I don't want to make this video about that I explored it way too much in You know the martial arts journey channel, but basically to give you a summary aikido is trained In a way where where it's There's no resistance. It's a very light we have training very cooperative And while some aikido could believe that it's effective way of training in reality I'll just tell your short answer. It's not if you want to learn to fight you need to fight And in aikido, there's zero fighting And or or zero actually real defending. It's just kind of choreography. You're just repeating the same motions with a partner who's letting you do them And I think the more The world continued to go the more aikido went into this this realm and also I believe personally that most of the aikido instructors were also challenged because Osensei's philosophy was since we're all part of the same family that it doesn't make sense to fight each other So he was kind of Neglecting the aspect of competition While competition again to give you a brief summary it leads to purification of technique When you're a competition, you have two people who are really trying to overcome each other And your technique has to really work well because there are two experts Dealing with you know an expert dealing with another expert when there's no competition. There's no pressure testing. There's no There's no Way for you to there's no actually motive for you to Really make your techniques work You just kind of play around with each other and you think it works But you never really test them for that person who's really trying to get you Especially in the style such as like, you know because that competitive aspect is disregarded And there's one particular style of aikido which Does have competition, but even then it looks kind of weird Long story again, but then I personally think that the world that aikido was challenged because of that And aikido students the main high-level students They were left with the legacy of morhio shiba their spiritual their religious guy believing in the mystics and so on and believing in this world peace and having went through this long journey to come to That conclusion and most of his students were just that as martial artists who just wanted you know to To be great and they wanted to learn from best and since he was known as one of the best at the day and so After his death, basically you could look at it that way We have a bunch of these tough guys who know theoretically the idea of aikido's peace and harmony and so on and so forth And they have to portray to other people But they're not as established as in it as since he was and everyone is kind of looking at them and expecting them to know What the heck he was talking about But the thing is one more thing and a controversy and a difficult subject kind of a challenge of aikido Which sometimes is spoken of sometimes it's people are silent about it But I actually had the pleasure of meeting a person who was a friend of Morio Shiba the founder and he's a westerner his name is Robert Nado And he would tell stories about like real-life stories who lived in japan and and met with osensei many many times At his last kind of late late late stage of his life And so I would hear direct stories of what was really going on And one of the stories really struck me was that based on Robert Nado Osensei would sometimes go on these tangents where he would just Start to talk about spirituality and kind of his religious beliefs And he would do that for hours and hours and he would do it instead of training He was supposed to teach but he would start to teach talk about that spirituality side of things And one thing is first of all osensei was really deeply devoted to it and and he was very His way of explaining his religious beliefs were very complicated. There was there were a lot of shintoistic Theories and symbols and Kind of religious beliefs and technicalities kind of the whole mythology if he weren't aware of he would quote that all the time He would use like terms like his anagi his anami the or was that Anyway, forgot there's dragon name which he believed he became an embodiment of like it's a whole complicated thing And he would talk in those Kind of complicated aspects and nobody would get it nobody would knew what he's talking about he has he had again those A bunch of young badasses who had no clue about spirituality or religion And and so sometimes osensei would go into these tangents which not a lot of people understood what he's talking about That was the difficulty if you read some of the translations It's like even today. It's like what the heck he's talking about like there's some ideas which like there's this small Small great great book art of peace Or some of his best ideas and most simple ideas are portrayed also in English and they're beautiful Some of them are really nice But even then sometimes I'm them are like what the heck is he talking about But if you read some of the bigger books of how he spoke and and what he spoke about it's like Holy crap. It's it's an it's a maze there And so back to robert nudeau. He's sitting there and osensei goes on a tangent and A couple senior students are standing by the door And they see and he witnesses that robert nudeau witnesses that he sees some of his Some other students are kind of you know late to class or coming to the next class And they're heading towards the dojo and the senior students come out and say like, you know, like show him Don't come like, you know, the guy's talking. There's gonna be no class. Don't don't waste your time And those were based on the story those were senior students of More he or she but So that shows that they weren't deeply interested or most of them weren't deeply interested in what he was talking about yet now After you know, they're being sent to the world to spread the word of aikido Or especially after or since his death everybody's looking up to them Everybody wants them to to explain to them like what is that thing that more he or she was talking about and they have No clue and they have to guess So that's a huge challenge that I think most of them never overcame and I think most of aikido students are still struggling with it Or in structures They're trying to make sense of what a sense he was talking about But it was it's so tough to get to the point of it. And then you have the physical aspect Which is an important thing to address as well Because thing is if you want to defend yourself There's almost no way to avoid violence unless you're talking your way out Maybe You know Where you're showing that you can defend yourself and the the conflict stops. That's kind of how more he or she but did it A few times in his life based on the stories But thing is uh without violence it's almost impossible and the the irony is even if you look at most of aikido techniques Uh, they're potentially deadly most of them Like uh shihonage Where you turn under the arm and you throw the person to the ground if the person doesn't know how to fall And if you don't know what i'm talking about i'm putting on a video right now if you don't know how to fall There's a huge chance you will hit your head At concrete with the back of your head and you might die Easily some of the froze as well if you don't know how to fall you will get injured badly So it's kind of it's almost mind boggling. So how did aikido people believe or even our sensey Now if you question that openly How did he believe You know that this is Difficult if the techniques They're just they're if you will resist them and a person who will attack you will resist them You'll probably break his arms and maybe bash his head and kill it And you know you could continue on to talk about this whole bigger aspect of protection Or in other words, you know, you're killing that person or you're injuring him for the sake of the better whole You know, you're protecting him for himself But I never heard particularly more hiroshima talk about that himself Now if you're looking at the martial arts aspect of aikido Like like or the the aspect of protecting an attacker from himself The best solution that i've come across from training martial arts in a devoted way for years is brazilian jiu-jitsu Because it's a very capable martial art Which actually does have competition But it tends to create humble individuals more often than not And it's all about it's a lot about choking out the person the other person Or isolating him on the ground which actually kind of what aikido strain aims for but if you really want to Create a peaceful outcome without hurting the other person choking out the person is the best possible solution Because you're not hurting him. He's passing out and the thing is and that's what one of my Main mentors and friends And friend talks about map 14 head coach of straight last gym He he he talks about this and I agree with him 100 percent because Pain compliance is not always going to work if a person is on drugs or intoxicated or the adrenaline comes in He can break his arm and he can still attack you The body can do amazing things But then if you choke a person out He's out And he cannot do anything about it so if you want to If you want to find a martial art, which is really Effectively can deal potentially can deal with a physical conflict in a peaceful way Without hurting another person because then jiu-jitsu is your best taken in my opinion Uh aikido, unfortunately is not Not that I can perceive in any way The best thing that I think aikido can strive for and hopefully it does create is if if if if someone if the aikido community keeps talking about That whole notion of we are one and being able to Focusing on conflict resolution And that's what again or aikido founder would talk about that if you say that aikido is the way to reconcile the whole world In that way If you have that philosophy and somebody wants to attack you if you're a badass fighter And you have none of that philosophy. Maybe you'll just you know, kick the crap out of that person and accidentally kill him But let's say hopefully let's say you don't kill him But you just kick his ass and you're like fuck you man And you don't you don't give a fucking you walk away. You don't even you know bother to talk with him Although, honestly, I think like if you're a decent good practitioner of let's say brazilian jiu-jitsu Most likely you won't even just get into that fight Because you also have the confidence you know that you could take care of that person If you're realistic, you know that even if you're a black belt in brazilian jiu-jitsu, you may still get killed accidentally Maybe there's another guy or maybe he has a knife or maybe you know, you don't see You don't you don't see the attack coming. You're not an invincible human being And so you don't get into the fight, but you also know you can handle yourself With aikido, you know, my backward, you know, you might know this part of the story I trained it for more than a decade. I was an instructor of it But I always had doubts when somebody would threaten to attack me because I knew I'm not actually I deeply inside. I knew that I'm actually not capable of defending myself Because the martial art is flawed the way it's trained So even that it's actually failed to do because as my friend francisco de los pueblos says I really like what that phrase if you're not capable of war Then you're not you cannot be a real pacifist you know, if you are Being a pacifist and you're trying to find a peaceful resolution because you know that you don't have an alternative That's not real power. You know, you're just trying to kind of get out of the situation But if you are a badass fighter And then you choose to not kill someone or not hurt them And then you choose to be a pacifist Then you're a pacifist But let me stress that again If you don't know how to fight and you feel threatened and you're like, oh, let's not fight Let's me fight but you're saying that because you're afraid of what the other person is going to do if you're going to fight him That's not be a piece and that's one of the aspects where I feel like keto is failure you know, it gives that image of creating and I think that was one of the images of kind of visions of ostensia on the keto to create these badass fighters badass warriors Who would be able to defend themselves and others But they would choose not I mean they would choose not to hurt You know, they would talk their way or they would restrain the other person And say look man, you don't want to do this. This is not your day. There's a famous story actually And funny enough, it's written Oh, well, actually I read it written not by an aikido guy, but it's written by an aikido guy one of the famous Westerners who trained with more Hiroshima in his earlier days Slipped my mind now. It's a well-sounding name. Anyway, so he wrote the story where he was actually one of those Tough young badasses who didn't care about the philosophy so much And he wanted to test his aikido and he was sitting in a train and there was a guy like a drunk guy Japanese guy walking through the the training aisle and just making a fuss and he really the guy He really wanted to test out his aikido And he felt like whenever the guy is going to come I'm just going to bash him to pieces But before the drunk guy came to him another Japanese guy Stem stood up and You know went to him and kind of hugged him and said man come on like what's up? Like do you having a bad day? You know, can we talk about this? And they sat down and the drunk guy started crying Terry dobson I think that's the western Anyway, so the guy the guy started crying the drunk guy started crying and apologizing and saying we have this shitty day Like please forgive me. I don't know what I was doing and and Terry dobson if I remember the name correctly he thought and said to himself. No, that's aikido But the thing is that guy wasn't even training aikido the one who made that solution And Terry dobson at the day he wanted to bash the guy to pieces while training aikido So he can see how how it didn't all line up And I think it doesn't still till today and it's crazy It's crazy crazy crazy That it doesn't So I'm hoping that you're starting to see through this narrative And what a challenging situation the aikido community is that you know, it's kind of It has this huge promise which is super hard to live To make a reality even if you're a badass martial artist But then it has a flawed teaching mechanics And it doesn't give you the tools to do it, but it expects you to do it and then you have This narrative of a sensei who was just like, you know in his own head Had this whole complex understanding of spirituality, which few people got And so that's why I think aikido is one of the main one of the reasons why Not the only one that one of the reasons why aikido Isn't a crisis these days. I believe so few people choose to train aikido, especially younger guys They they they perceive soon enough, especially with all the youtube videos out there who show the flaws of aikido including my own They see that aikido doesn't Give the power in reality, which it's promising to give and then They they do want that power and then if you're not offering the power you cannot offer the peace And also too few aikido dojos actually talk about the peace not a few but not all of them Like there's some who just train In kind of dead patterns and expect to become enlightened somehow Just on the side and it doesn't happen. There's there's a wonderful story There's actually a great book remembering Ossensi where a bunch of his senior students and close friends shares short memories of him And there's one which really stuck with me. It's where one of his senior students There a bunch of them were walking together with Ossensi aikido's founder And and and actually when you listen to the narrative to the story of moriashiba He actually admitted on record quite a few times that he felt misunderstood He felt like his students are not getting him and and he would kind of complain to some people like dare people to know He's like i'm not able to You know deliver my message And I think that was that was reality. That was the truth And he was a great Practitioner, but he wasn't a great teacher. I think he would barely explain techniques He was teaching in an old school way So that's a flaw as well But then the story goes that he was walking down the road with a bunch of his senior students and he was saying Something like along the lines of I see people walking together with me, but When I turned back and realized there's no one really walking with me And the guy who was saying that story he said initially he didn't understand what he means but years later he understood That that's exactly what Ossensi was talking about that that He realized he saw that No one really is following this path that he really wants to deliver I think partly because he failed to deliver it as as you know as much as It's too bad to say to admit There's another story A great one which I mentioned. It's also from the same books. We'll just You know buy it and read it if you want to know more about this stuff but basically There's as I said, there's a myth in aikido, which I was exposed to myself as well Like I was part of that myth a believer that and that's kind of what I sense he tried to do he tried to encode Kind of the feeling of harmony and the aikido philosophy through the movements, but it didn't really work out. I think and But the idea was that if you train aikido for a long enough time just do the techniques that you will naturally kind of come to that mindset of Harmony and peace and realization that you're all one The thing is a lot of people Try that And they had that the investment I believe and and the story the guy says He said back then when they met osense and looked at him They were like, oh crap if I train long enough and tried enough, I will be like him when I'm old But he said now we're in our 60s 70s now. We're at the age of osense But we're nothing like him We can do most of the stuff he is able to do. We don't have the same perspective And he said he kind of admits he says now I realize That we went on the long path. We didn't you know training just training was not enough You know, if you want to be osense you have to go through that journey And that's actually one of the parts which Which did was which was very dear for me From or he or she but you know, I promise to talk about the philosophy Like you know and actually I just went so much talking about how it fails Which is just I guess, you know, I feel I'm a bit sensitive about that subject And I want to make sure you know how to address that But I also want to make sure to address the philosophy and there's one aspect which I really enjoy especially my youth Is that maria shiba he would talk a lot about the person's mission I think one of my favorite quotes from him was that Uh that each individual has his mission and each family has his mission And each country has its mission like there's you know an inherent quality of your purpose You're calling it you need to fulfill which I'm kind of a bit of a believer still actually I'll make a video about that later Now that I thought about it's going to be a great video but uh So he would have that belief and he would encourage people to kind of seek their purpose and he would say that Aikido is not the path Aikido is a tool to walk your path Which I think is a great philosophy that acknowledgement or that idea that you do have a purpose And I think that's what a lot of people are struggling with A lot of people feel purposeless You know, they feel like we don't belong or you don't have a reason to be but I personally think we all have a reason to be You know, even if you're the purpose may differ it doesn't mean we all have to go save the world and be you know huge Maybe your purpose is to clean up, you know this environment around you And you will enjoy it and you'll make the better of the world better because of it So I do feel like we have that calling in and I resonated with Aikido's founder when he said that And he wanted to make Aikido a vehicle for that again, it's just I think it failed But if we look at the essence of that philosophy and kind of summarize what it's about You know that real realization that we're all in the same mess. We're all here together you know that That we do have this connection. We're all interrelated and kind of makes sense even in a scientific way Because you know, like if you look at the economy in the world today, like everything is so connected If somebody suffers, some country suffers, everyone basically suffers Not yet to a hundred percent degree, but the further we go the more connected we are And you know, if like that's what we're seeing with the pandemic right now That's what we're forced to face is how we are How we how much we need each other and how much we support each other and rely on each other And whether that falls apart we have we're struggling So we are connected actually in the most literal way And then also, you know in this kind of deeper Mystical way, I don't want to stress that too much, but it's a nice notion to believe it I actually I'll check if I feel like my camera is running out of battery, but hopefully I'll make this through So yeah, so you know that That everybody is somebody's brother everybody somebody's you know, mother father child And if the person is acting like shit You don't Have to you know The hurting him is maybe not the best way if you can Do something about it and support him and kind of You know be there for that person like in that story in the train and come from that person's perspective and relate to him and realize you know what I could I might as well be you you know in other conditions. I could be you And then you kind of come to that sense that we're all one family And we have to work for each other and we have to care for each other And so that's that's kind of essentially the Aikido philosophy and to embody that philosophy to live that I think it's a beautiful direction And it'd be so amazing if Aikido would be able You know to do that on a grand scale Unfortunately, it doesn't A strong believer it doesn't I wish it would I guess I don't know if it's better than nothing I guess it's better than nothing. You know it's being spoken about But you know words are not enough thoughts and ideas are not enough Again that notion of war and pacifist You know you have to I think to a degree if you want to embody the philosophy Like you know you have to be a badass. It's a warrior culture. It's a path of a warrior So you do need to be extremely powerful Aim for that and then choose to go out there and Make the world better. That's something I still believe in today. And that's what I I want to fight for myself now that I think of it. It's kind of almost a realization moment for me. I'm like holy crap There's part of Aikido which I do enjoy still besides all the shit So yeah, what would happen if we would be able to Take that idea that philosophy like you know And make it realistic Pretty cool And I don't want to be like delusion and be like oh, you know You can be an almighty warrior and you know go out there and and kind of End violence without violence I do think you know violence sometimes is necessary Not all about peace peace peace But to add that at least a little bit to our lives that would be pretty cool So as always I could talk more and you know, it's an endless subject. Maybe we'll come back to it It's a good one to look at But all of that said I hope for this kind of a bit of a messy jumping around and whole narrative You have a better understanding of where it comes from and What Aikido aims to be and why most probably it fails But also how potentially we could take a bit of that and Add it to our lives and you know what now that I'm talking about that Maybe that's the video on direction I should look at Given my all experience in the past Maybe I should look at that philosophy of You know, maybe kind of how to live the Aikido philosophy more in my life And give some examples how it could be embodied Not just being spoken about theoretically and you do you know, you theoretically have one notion and then physically do completely something else You know walk the talk It's an interesting idea. It's an interesting direction Maybe we'll go look into it and if you want to look into it more, let me know in the comments Until then keep questioning