Jim Ellison (Spiritual Gravity blog)
I began practicing aikido in 1979, at the age of 33, and have been teaching it since the mid-1980s. Our dojo teaches a Tomiki style of aikido and is part of the Kaze Uta Budo Kai organization. I recently turned 70, and continue to teach classes a few times a week. Aikido is still a central aspect of my life.
I recently did an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit, and received a lot of interesting questions on aikido, spirituality, and martial arts in general. Below are some of my favorite questions and answers, or you can read the entire discussion.
Do you have any students who started in their 60’s? Seems like it would hard to learn Aikido now, because of the strain on aching joints from all the holds.
We’ve had some. In the class I teach, we had several that started in their 50’s and are now in their 60s. In fact, the majority of my students are 50 and older. We’ve had one lady make sandan (3rd degree black belt) in her mid-70s and another guy who made nidan (2nd degree) in his mid-80s.
In our style, we don’t use a lot of force on each other in the learning process. For example, when doing a technique, we might take an opponent to the point of being off-balance, but they don’t actually take the fall all of the time. When applying joint locks, we try to to it gently. I don’t need to yank on your arm or put a lot of force on your joints for you to know my technique was effective. We also emphasize going very slowly, in order to develop control. In our dojo, we believe in working around peoples’ various limitations – some skill is better than no skill. We try to have fun and let everyone learn according to his/her own capabilities.
Hi! What have you learned from Aikido that has helped you in other aspects of your life?
I was hoping someone would ask me this!
Aikido has helped me learn to avoid conflicts – and I don’t mean just physical ones. It has helped me examine verbal and emotional conflicts, and practice a form of “mental aikido” where I can resolve these conflicts in the way that causes the least amount of harm to everyone involved.
In aikido, we learn how to fall safely. This has helped me and several others in my dojo. I fell off a stepladder a few years back and managed to land safely without injury. As I get older, I suspect that being able to fall safely will help me if something like that arises again.
In aikido, I try to put the least amount of energy possible into performing techniques. Over the years, I’ve realized that there are situations in life where I have been putting in way too much energy. For example, I used to have road rage – I put so much of my energy into what the other drivers were doing that I ended up making myself miserable. The only one who was affected by all my energy was me. It’s a lot like aikido – we have a saying in our dojo: “He who generates the energy eats it”. It kind of made me think about the concept of karma – the energy you give out comes back to you – I realized that I didn’t want to generate all this negative energy. I started trying to minimize the amount of energy I spent worrying and getting angry about things, especially those I couldn’t control.
I have been interested in aikido since one of my fencing trainers suggested it years ago but I find many of the organizations set the spiritual aspects as a necessary part of training. What are your views on this connection. Is it unable to be disconnected and if it is how would this change the dynamic?
In my case, after years of training it just started showing up in my consciousness. We don’t make it so that you become spiritual (spirituality is really not talked about in our classes); it just happens – maybe not to everyone, but to some people. Some people may not even see the spiritual aspects of aikido, no matter how many years they study (and that’s not a judgement; we all have to follow our own path). They don’t see the spiritual side because they are not looking for it.
It seems like many of the Japanese arts tend to have a spiritual side, though. Think of a tea ceremony, how it takes an hour or two to serve a cup of tea. Most of us don’t understand that. I tell my students to trust in the system for awhile until you get some time in it. Like any art, aikido is what you make it.
What prompted you to start at 33?
I wasn’t doing anything and wanted something to do and was led to it.
Look for “Finding Aikido” on the blog for the longer version.
What is the best defense against potato projectiles?
A deep fryer at 450 degrees
Who would win in a fight between a Grilled Cheese Sandwich and a Taco?
I think it would be the grilled cheese sandwich which is flexible and flowing; the Taco with a hard shell would break in the first contact.