Only standard issue, Mister!

World wide, a great majority of “official buildings” are supported and decorated by reproductions of ancient Greek columns. The design is absolutely clear… there is no question about that.
Few of them are… the Gate of Brandenburg in Berlin, the Federal Hall at Wall Street in N.Y and on it goes… all of them are just like the columns of the Parthenon in the city of Athens. The right term when referring to this style, is columns of “Ionian Rhythm”
The reproduction of this particular design is going on for centuries… correction, for thousands of years. If one looks into history more carefully, he will see that, when speaking of the ancient Greek civilization, there were other column rhythms as well. Like the Corinthian Rhythm for example, that is of unsurpassed beauty, too. But from all these different styles, the Ionian Rhythm is the one that remained, representing the classic. This is not by chance. Those columns are of a design that includes tenths of details of perfection, which extend from esthetics to mathematics and from ergonomics to geometry… I remember that once, in a discussion with an expert of archeology, it took the man about fifteen minutes to explain just one of them. Specifically how the Sun’s light reflects intelligently, on the particular oval curved surface of these columns, and then transfers part of that reflection, to the inner part of the temple…

It is only natural to take the best of moments from each of man’s culture and civilization and then continue its existence, by applying it again and again… Thus, some parts of tradition, when spontaneously accepted by all, become of timeless value.  
Tradition that lives on, in this manner, tradition that keeps on marching into the future, is a heritage that is far more interesting, and has little or nothing to do with merely reproducing or “saving” the past…

Japanese Martial Arts, and especially Aikido, didn’t make it so far in any different way. They didn’t just survive, but they flourished here in the West and gradually are becoming an “imported” culture that is reproduced… here.
But when something is as old and deep, it undergoes a loss of originality, a loss of purity, if you like. Decadence is a normal process, and it also happens to the country that originated the Art. That is why “reproducing” and practicing the Arts as the Japanese did/do, means little. The idea is to understand the originality of an Art, to understand why it became timeless and to preserve that understanding above a copy-paste attitude.

When an architect decides to build a modern building, which will nevertheless stand on columns of Ionian Rhythm, he does not go to the Parthenon of Athens camera on one hand and a measure on the other…
But he goes back to his archives and records, in order to find the specifications of the particular design, its geometry, its mathematics. So, he makes sure that he will be in accord with the original ancient idea and not only with something that looks like it.

When a beginner comes to the Dojo we are supposed to take this person and, before any training, dress him/her properly and arm him/her properly. This procedure can become a headache of major proportions (if you’re up to maintaining some standards)… To begin with, if I leave a beginner to go shop his/her Aikido gear and then come to the Dojo he will at the most go as far as the edge of the tatami and then never get permission to enter the premises… And this awkward situation will never be the beginner’s fault…

The standard Aikido wear, and practicing weapons, are part of what can be referred to as dress-code. Of course small individualities from Dojo to Dojo are natural to exist and, when done with elegance, they can give a distinction that characterizes yourself, your Dojo and your Sensei…
But our tendency to westernize the Art, along with other facts, has created a deviation of enormous size, to the “standard issue” of dressing… In order to avoid going into the details of this, I will try to draw the outlines of it.
By now it is extremely difficult and limited to have a Gi (Aikido uniform) that its pants has the traditional inner cord-belt made of fabric, which allows the practitioner to adjust its tightness around the waist, according to how one feels on each particular day (since the region of the belly is not solid). Instead, most companies have rubberized the inner belt of the pants, which of course chokes up any normal abdominal breathing from the Hara. This “detail” is big deal to all Aikidoka who wear their pants with a cord that can be adjusted…

The Japanese sword (plus the other weapons that are related to it) is practically worn along with the clothing. The relation of wearing clothes and “wearing” weapons into them, is as inseparable as can be, and it’s safe to say that one influenced the design and shape of the other…
In the spirit of avoiding mortal injuries (or destroying one’s sword) the Samurai wooden weapons were the standard tools to practice with, a characteristic that was continued through Aikido to this day…
It is once too often repeated, that the great Miyamoto Musashi has killed most of his opponents in duels, armed only with a wooden practicing sword… In Aikido we use three major wooden weapons for practice: The Boken (wooden sword) the Jo (short staff) and the Tanto (knife). Luckily we avoid mortal duels and killings, and hopefully we use weapons in order only to practice… But on the other hand these practicing weapons have become so weak, and badly built, the only thing they are good for, is to hunt down flies or other equivalent in size insects… A Boken should, as much as possible, represent the weight and balance of a Japanese Katana (not to mention that it should be able to “deal” with a Katana)  

Instead, we do see the rise of a crazy random fashion, going sideways with the entire dress code… There are more and more Gi (Aikido uniforms) with patches of any kind, Gi with patches of… sponsors, colorful Gi, Gi combined with gymnastics clothing, total “eclipse” of Gi replaced by “wear whatever you wish” clothes and also partly or full synthetic Hakama, plastic Zori (footwear) and (how do I even write this?) plastic… wooden swords. And the market is blooming…         

It has come to a point where in order to “suit up” a student I have to order his gear from around the four corners of this world. His/her clothing, practicing weapon… not to mention the nightmare of a true sword and Tanto… and while the market is constantly changing, we are on a permanent hunt. Worst is, you find the right stuff somewhere, you re-order that same stuff, only to discover that it’s the same name, the same stuff in a… brand new lower quality at a bigger price… And I stand there looking at my new “wrong stuff” and I mumble in disbelief: Is it me or what!?...

In some Arts they abandoned traditional wear all together…
Naturally, when traditional wear in Aikido only looks traditional, the thought crosses your mind… what about finding a way of skipping, and eventually escaping the entire thing, by replacing it for something “modern”. But this turns out in a funny way, since any idea that you could think of (especially the very good ones) are leading you right back to the damn traditional clothing…. It’s like a labyrinth leading you to the same door all the time… anything that could be designed from scratch gradually is leading you back to the original design.
It is somehow the same effect that the… ancient Parthenon columns of Athens have. You have a thousand new ideas of building a modern court house and you end up with a five thousand year, or so, old design…

My latest thought (my students were terribly worried that I would actually put this in action) was to take a step… further back, and apply fully traditional clothing for my Dojo, just as some Iai-jutsu schools have it… Yeap, the original Japanese Samurai clothing… For those lifting an eyebrow, may I remind… in the early days of O Sensei’s Dojo that’s the way it was…   
But each time I feel like going into that direction I realize, once more, the simplicity, the absoluteness (and the… hundreds of details that you find in your way) which constitute the classical white Gi and black Hakama of Aikido. Also, who could overlook the noble intent in keeping an equality of appearance between all members of a Dojo, including the leading man…

Two kinds of traditions
Keeping one’s eyes open and choosing between what is to be maintained as all time classic and what is just a mere copy of a tradition (that has place only in a museum) is no easy task. It extends to all corners and details of a Dojo… Timeless inventions can remain timeless, if we, who use those inventions, spare them from needless deterioration and decadence…

For this reason I will never cease to protest against the awful plastic mat that replaced the tatami… or a “Japanese sword” that fails to act in performing the kind of cutting it was designed for… Nothing more, nothing less!
In the same manner I will never cease to protest against needless tradition, whenever it is crystal clear fake, hypocritical, blindly followed, and of no use.

The lesson before entering first lesson, is for a student to learn what he will dress in, how and why. The same goes for his personal practicing weapons. Put into one phrase, to suit up correctly. He/she should take pride in his outfit, demanding the correct and best, right from the start.

My dressing space lies right next to my students’ separated only by a… straw wall. Senior students inspect beginners to exit from there only when perfectly dressed. If something is out of place I have to suppress my giggle, while hearing their harsh remark…       
Only standard issue, Mister!

September 29, 2009