 So, there is a lot of confusion about what spiritual Aikido is, or if Aikido can be spiritual. As most of you know, the founder of Aikido, Marki Oshiba, he would often say, he used the spirituality word a lot, he would emphasize spirituality in Aikido, but in today's world, it seems the spirituality part of Aikido is in a big confusion and a big hassle. That question was always present in me, it was always important for me because when I started Aikido, I actually started because I was interested in spirituality, but one of the problems with spirituality is that when somebody says, spiritual or is this spiritual or Aikido spiritual, oftentimes we're not really defining what spiritual is. And spirituality is a vast topic, there can be many interpretations of what spirituality is. Somebody can imagine spirituality to be about chi, ki, chakras, etc., and the other person can see spirituality as a practice of self purification. Both people will speak and argue about spirituality without actually realizing that one is talking about apples and the other one is talking about oranges. So that's actually where people trip very often or too often. Before we continue to talk about what is spirituality, I would like to define that spirituality for me, I try to make it as simple as possible. And for me, spirituality means understanding that you're a part of a bigger whole, that the world is not about you, that life is bigger than each individual, and in a sense we are all in this together, that individuals and life is a one communal thing and it's important for us to work for the betterment of the whole, to understand that my preferences, my personal needs are not as important as the needs of everyone. For me that's actually spirituality, you can talk about it in other words, you can talk about it in different ways, but we can stop actually here. And if you look at Ossensi, he might have used other words for it, but you can see that he was very passionate about reconciling the world, making the whole family, the whole world one family. So it seems that it's quite clear actually that spirituality for him had similar meanings. The problem is that what I heard, the stories I heard, and there's one book which I really like, Remembering Ossensi, where different people, both Westerners and Japanese tell short stories about Ossensi, and also I heard the few stories from Sihan Robert Nadeau, who was a friend and a student of Ossensi, back when he was alive, that his students, most of his students weren't actually interested into the spiritual part of Aikido, and that was for a few different reasons. Another reason was because when Aikido was at its peak, it was after the Second World War, the Japanese, since they lost, they were very patriotic, so they really wanted to win back the honor of Japan. And so when they seeked out Ossensi as this great well-known martial arts teacher, they wouldn't be interested into his spirituality, they would be interested into his martial arts skills. And so when he would speak about spirituality, there's this one story from Sihan Robert Nadeau, which made a big impact on me, Ossensi, he would oftentimes start to talk and talk and talk and share these long stories about spirituality. When he would start talking, oftentimes he would talk for the whole class, and the class wouldn't even happen. So there were these doors, and there were one or two senior students next to these doors. Once somebody coming in late, walking into the dojo, and Ossensi was talking, Sihan Robert Nadeau, the way I remember the story, he told the senior student, and make a point here, senior student, he saw somebody coming and she said, no, no, don't come here, the old guy's talking. Today there's not going to be any class. Senior student. So that kind of gives the sense of what was happening, and you could think that this was maybe that one person who was not really into what Ossensi was saying, but at the same time, when I was reading the history, the biography of Ossensi and the remembering of Ossensi, there was a story when Ossensi was walking with a bunch of his students, and he said, you know, I see people walking behind me, but when I turn back, I realize there's no one, and that student who was telling the story said he didn't understand what he means back then, but then later it occurred to him that Ossensi just didn't feel that anyone is with him into that spiritual path. So in the end, he did have Goi-sensei, which is another whole long story, but it doesn't seem his students were passionate about spirituality back then. There's a couple more things why that happened. One more is because his students were young. For young people, it's very common for the whole world to be about you or about some concept rather than the whole. Another point is that Ossensi was very much into mystical terms, and most of you know that probably. Ossensi was very much talking about how spirituality is connected to Izayami, Zanagi, Aminamurokumokusamaradus, Hemly Dragon, and these diris, and he used a lot of mythological terms, and even today reading most of his texts, it's sometimes hard to catch what he was talking about, and that made for the students even harder to catch his spirituality. Although, nevertheless, like in the book The Heart of Aikiro, which I really love as well, the stories he says, or the ideas are very precise, very pure, so it was not all that bad. But then as the students of Ossensi grew, not everyone was interested in spirituality, and some became interested in spirituality, but in different ways, and in most of the cases it's just not very clear where the spirituality is with Aikiro, even more so when it's becoming so vast and actually disconnected as we spoke a bit in the past video. So when we look at spirituality in Aikiro, today we have this background, which is already quite vague and quite complicated, but today again, spirituality is oftentimes the word to many, too many people think connected to esoteric, so cheeky, chakras, etc. But the problem is that such spirituality is oftentimes it's exclusive. You have to believe it, and if you don't, you're not in the club, and which is actually, in my terms of spirituality, it's not actually, which is just important, it's not considering the whole. It's more about me becoming more spiritual, becoming more cool in spirituality, and then I'm higher than you, you are nothing, which is just not spiritual at all, makes me mad, actually. And that happens in Aikiro, too, as we spoke in the previous video about judging others and comparing each other and saying, I'm better than you, again, kicking out the spiritual side. And then again, when you look at the Aikiro, most of the dojos are just teaching technique, and sometimes they say a quote or two about from a sensei, but then you get confused, then you say like, okay, so where's the spiritual part in that? And it's, I agree, it's hard to see it there. There are many legends, many myths, one of the myths is, if you train long enough, eventually, you will just get it, which is not true. And again, in remembering a sensei, there's a quote which I liked, too, remember who said it, but said, well, in the past, when we would look at a sensei doing these incredible things, being so inspired, we think, okay, in 30, 40 years, we will also get there. We just need to do techniques, do techniques, do techniques, and we're going to get there. But then he says, 30, 40, 50 years past that we are doing Aikiro and said, it didn't come. That spirituality didn't come by itself. And they started to realize, you know, this is not self sufficient. It doesn't come, it does not come by itself. And that's my experience, too, until, until I got exposed to taikiro teachings, which are about the whole integrated into the training, it didn't really click into me. And the more I trained with my first instructor was very much about combat, the more I had this resistance of understanding, like, I don't see where that spiritual side of Aikiro is, I had to explore things on my own besides the training to get the spirituality there. Shrasni, it is there, even in a lot of dojos, some of the parts you can see. So the most common one is no competition. Although, yes, there's tamiki style and some other places where they try to implement tournaments. But most of the dojos most of the dojos, they don't have competition, which is actually good. And that's the reason I was since he did it. He said, competition separates us and makes us against looking to the notion of the wholeness, equal spirituality, competition denies that in a sense, creating a non competitive environment in Aikiro where we are where we don't need to compare each other where we don't need to prove that I'm better than you is already a part of spirituality, which is quite rare in most cases. Most life cases don't have that aspect. Even in work, you can you compete even with your friends, you compete. And technically, Aikiro shouldn't have that aspect. Again, as in previous video spoke, unfortunately, heck, it oftentimes does. Too oftentimes dojos compare, students compare, but that notion is still in most dojos, it's present. Also, who can not get a relationship in a healthy dojo, which is again, not always you find it, but in Aikiro, it is oftentimes emphasized that you should take care of your partner that even if it's an attacker, the ideal of Aikiro is actually to take care of the attacker, as I say, to not double dip. So if you immobilize him to not punch him in the face three times just because he attacked you, but rather do only what is necessary. And in the training also to take care of your partner to make sure he doesn't get hurt to make sure he feels good, you both feel good while you train. Again, not all the dojos have that, but generally the tendency of Aikiro is to encourage that, which is also quite spiritual. I could continue on expressing more ideas about how generally Aikiro has a tendency to draw people towards that kind of notion of spirituality. But the last thought I'll share for today is that my concept of what I call on and off the mat, what you train on the mat, you bring back on to your life. If you always resist on the mat, if you always compete on the mat, if you always hurt others on the mat, that's what you're going to get and do off the mat. But if you go towards the healthy side of Aikiro, if you take care of your partners, if you enjoy your training, if you support and help others in their growth, if you take care of people even who are against you and you try to resolve conflict without becoming aggressive. If you're not competing with others on the mat, hopefully, again, actually, it's quite rare. But if you don't, which Aikiro generally does give that space for it, if you don't do it, that's what you're going to get and bring back off the mat. Those are the qualities which you're going to start to live off the mat, meaning you will start to compete less with the other people. You will start to become less aggressive when there is a conflict on and on and on. So in that sense, Aikiro has that space, has a fairly unique space, which has the potential to be spiritual, even on the basic level, which can make you more spiritual, make you more concerned about the whole, make you more concerned about the well-being of not only you, but you as a part of the whole. There's also the next step, which is a very direct implication of spirituality into Aikido training, which I'm very passionate about. I really love doing my sensei, that Jogasti does it, this whole community does it, and I do it very passionately too, connecting techniques with certain exercises which make you feel more part of the whole. But that's the whole and other video, and we're going to talk about that later. If you're interested into that topic, subscribe, check the other videos while the next one comes out. But I hope that gives you at least a bit of an understanding, a bit of a sense of one way to interpret spirituality in Aikido, and actually at the same time, unfortunately, you see how oftentimes in the world of Aikido, it's off that direction, dojos competing with each other, trying to prove who's best, sensei's not getting along, etc, etc. But there is hope, there is that space, there is that basic initial message that Ossensi left us with to do something great. And I want to remind you that we have that choice. We can see more spirituality in Aikido. We can see Aikido, which is taking care of the whole. I understand you, I've been there too, not all dojos will accept that, and not all dojos will offer you that space, but you are free to choose your dojo, you're free to choose your sensei. And the techniques you will learn, you will be able to bring to the other dojo. You might need to relearn some things, but you're going to be fine. Trust what is important for you, trust why you study Aikido, try to see how it can actually work on and off the mat, and try to see how you can implement Ossensi's message into your life through training and off training. There's a lot more to be said here, but I'm going to stop here. Thank you very much for listening through the whole video. I'm happy that you stayed all the way against Rokas, and we'll continue on with our talks further. If you have any thoughts, I'm very interested to hear them in the comments. I'll definitely respond. Let me know what you consider spirituality to be in Aikido. Also, maybe the downsides of spirituality and misunderstandings you see. So let me know anything you think and feel in the comments. Also, subscribe, like the video that helps share this message further, share it with your friends. I think it's worth it. And yeah, I think looking at life in Aikido through this way, we can actually make a difference. So, we'll stop here.