Mal hören was Peter Goldsbury, langjähriger Präsident der IAF, und Professer für Philosophie und comparative mysticism in Hiroshima, über die spirituellen Aspekte im Aikido denkt:


Guillaume Erard: So where is the spirituality that everybody talks about in Aikido ?

Peter Goldsbury: What Kisshomaru did is sort of steer a kind of middle course between the pre-war militarism of Shinto and real Shinto, and the rather softer eclectic moralizing that the Japanese do post-war. Aikido in some sense is a way of spiritual development but only in a very very health-related sense of spiritual. It’s not full-blown. Kisshomaru had what you might call a humanistic vision of some sort, where the Kami existed for those who found them useful. The Ueshiba family is Omoto; the ceremonies held in the Iwama shrine are Omoto ceremonies. So, there’s a connection but I don’t think it is a very strong connection at all and nothing like the connection that Morihei Ueshiba had, as far as I can see.

Because of the religious phenomenon of the Japan has, with the mixture… I’ll put it this way: for me, I wouldn’t do Aikido for that reason at all; I had enough spirituality before I started.

Aikido fits a certain model… I’m not a militaristic person anyway. Aikido is good to practice, but I then stop short of saying it will make a better person because, in my experience, the opposite has happened in many cases. So you got Aikido politicians… (sigh) And I’m not saying they are only existing in the IAF; in the Aikikai and in any organization you have politics to my mind. One of the problems with Aikido is you can’t practice it on your own. You need a partner, you need a group, and a Dojo. If you’re going to do it in the in the authentic Japanese way, you know, the classic japanese way. There must be a tatami, you must use Keikogi and Hakama and you must get Dan grades. Once you buy into all that, then the politics comes. To my mind the politics is necessary but politics has to be done in a good way.