Aikido is purification.
Aikido
The Founder, Ueshiba Morihei (uke Tada Hiroshi shihan)
at the time of the Ueshiba Dojo
The legacy of the Founder of Aikido is a spiritual path open to people from very different backgrounds and cultures. Like a tree in full bloom, it has many branches but one trunk, solidly rooted in spititual values universally valid.
The Founder's early students (from the first Doshu on) who have devoted their life to the growth of Aikido in a relentless forging of themselves through training, have generated groups with distinctive characteristics and a shared history of passionate endeavor. Thus Aikido is a vibrantly dynamic traditional discipline for today's men and women.
From the outside, Aikido appears to be a martial art with characteristic dynamically vigorous spherical movements which aim at neutralizing an attack without useless opposition or violence. However, the inner experience in Aikido is in many ways similar to Yoga: in fact, the term “Aiki”and the sanscrit root “Yug” refer to the same striving towards union with the Absolute.
Training is in all respects a meditation session both personal and relational in nature, and involves the body, mind and spirit.
This is why Aikido is an extraordinary instrument for inner awareness which enriches and enhances paths for self-knowledge of both eastern and western origin.
The intensity and depth of training grows in time, making it a journey, an adventure of the spirit.
Aikido is a powerful aid to fine-tune our vehicle (the physical body), and provides useful indications as to how to use it most effectively, in order to live everyday life fully without being tense, developing strenght, not violence. Among the highest goals of Aikido is learning to let go of physical and mental rigidity, achievenig a state of inner freedom.
