Toyohaript's Blog

Saotome Sensei, in Aikido living by design

Saotome Sensei, in Aikido living by design

Philosophers, in both East and West, have written about how to live well. There is (they often tell us) an art of living.

Saotome Sensei fears that we are losing that art.

“The easy life-style of postwar human existence has gone too far”, he says. “Our bodies are so pampered that they have almost lost their original functions. Our heads talk with one another through computers, as we sit in isolation stroking keyboards. We are our heads. Our maladies display this reality: lower back pain, headaches, heart disease, obesity, obsession and neurosis. We drive to the health club so that we can run on a machine. We live imprisoned in our homes by locks on the doors and bars on the windows. We have lost our skill of critical thought and are robbed by greedy professionals.”

According to Saotome Sensei, one of the causes of this condition is that we have separated ourselves from the wisdom of the past. “We haven’t incorporated the past into our present way of being.” He claims. “Instead, we have turned our backs on past ways of doing things to create somehing entirily diferent. Different it was supposed to be better, but it has now become absurd.”

“Our ancestors worked a great deal with their hands. They farmed, sewed, cooked, and built things with raw materials. It was a different world were a human lived among nature, where life was faced with many dangers and risks.”

The solution does not lie, of course, in turning back the clock. But, according to Saotome Sensei, it does involve our relearning of our senses, thereby reconnecting the world around us. In part, we do relearning by working with our hands – sewing or growing our own food. But, to do this, don’t we need to stop thinking of ourselves as warriors? No, says Saotome Sensei. In his opinion, the path he has presented is the Way of warrior:

“The warrior does not hone his skill by deadning himself to the world”, he explains. “On the contrary, a warrior’s art is based on heightened awareness of all sensations. Warriors are tough because warrior training teaches them to face this world directly and by themselves. Through their olfactory, visual, auditory and tactile senses, they gather information about their immediate surroundings. With clear heads, they can process this information quickly. And a calm readiness increases their ability to respond appropriately. These are the warrior’s skills.”.

“The warrior spirit is the struggle for life – spiritual as well as physical”, he continues. “The warrior will not accept a spiritually dead existence. And what preserves life is the natural world around us.”