If you watch some demonstrations online you may find some Aikido teachers doing things that appear to be supernatural.
Here is an example:
Some people see these kind of demonstrations as giving Aikido a bad name as it is all fake.
Other people fully believe that we can learn to control and emit energies and influence the energy of another.
Others see it as an interesting thing to train or play around with but of little martial value.
Whatever your view point, it is certainly true that demonstrations like that attract a lot of attention.
People really want to believe in magic..and why not? It is exciting, mysterious and mind blowing. The idea that we could develop some magic powers like a super hero or jedi knight is certainly intriguing.
I recently posted this video on Youtube and TikTok:
The video received a lot of views and a lot of negative comments.
I also got a lot of people wanting to fight me and one offered me £30,000!
These types of exercises are not a big part of our Aikido curriculum and are something we might throw in at the end of a class perhaps to wind down and relax a bit.
Is it a display of some kind of magical Ki power?
There could be something to that but I prefer to focus on simpler answers. I have not researched this thoroughly but I believe certain people are more sensitive to what is around them and can feel things at a distance to them.
When I drop my hands over someones head I often feel a resistance at some point. It varies depending on the person and something there is nothing there. Is this an energy field around someone? This is what some people would suggest but I don’t really know and it’s not something I can prove.
With some people, they are very sensitive to this and they become off balance and move. I myself have always been quite sensitive to this kind of feeling.
The main point about some of these exercise for me is to show that sometimes we can move someone with no touch by influencing their mind.
We work on trying to be less and less physical and use less strength to successfully complete our techniques.
Sometimes that may look like magic but usually there is some explanation to it.
I have lost track of the amount of times I have been thrown in an Aikido class and could not explain what happened. It’s a fascinating experience and it’s part of what keeps Aikido interesting to me.
I’m open to learning more about these things but mostly I find it’s better to train rather than to over think and talk about it.
Aikido For Glasgow 