Aikido, a budo martial art, was founded by Morihei Ueshiba. Aikido’s spirituality and philosophy was influenced by the Omoto-kyo religion.
The word Aikido is made up of three Kanji characters; ‘Ai’ refers to harmony, ‘Ki’ refers to spirit, ‘Do’ refers to the way. In other words, Aikido is the way of harmonising the spirit, a way to peacefully end aggression.
Aikido requires the practitioner to be in a relaxed state of mind so that one can easily blend with the opponents ‘ki’ (energy or force).
While self-development and philosophy is important in Aikido training, both cannot happen without physical training in the techniques. In Aikido training, two practitioners will partner up. One of them takes the role of the uke, and the other becomes the nage. The uke is the attacker and receiver of the technique. And the nage is the one who executes the Aikido techniques.
The uke’s job is to make the attacks as realistic as possible. He has also to practice how to receive the Aikido technique with minimal pain.
Both uke and nage learn the fundamental principles of Aikido. Uke must be flexible and relaxed to be able to remain in balance during the technique’s execution. Nage must control the uke’s movements by controling the distance and timing of the the technique’s execution.
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Tags: aikido, aikido techniques, aikido training, budo aikido