Aikido and Business

I had a rough childhood. While I was trying to steer away from trouble, I was managing to get into quite a bit of menace. I did gymnastics when I was a kid but didn’t continue. During secondary school and college, I was involved in KaJu KenBo Karate, Judo, Kung-Fu and Muay Thai and channelled my undiagnosed ADHD energy into martial arts. I’ve got a black belt in Karate and was invited to the national team.

All these martial arts rely on the force of yourself. I felt like there was another force that I was missing, and it wasn’t the dark one.

In around 1991, the year Metallica released the legendary black album, I was looking for yet another martial art and found a pamphlet at a grocery store near my place. It was an advertisement for a newly established dojo of Aikido. It was a faraway place in Istanbul from my home, but I took the trip of 2 buses and a ferry to get to the dojo. It was also at a time way past curfew, but we are talking about 90s when families did not really know the dangers and youngsters didn’t really care much. Pretty much the Stranger Things timeline where you could open a portal to an upside-down world, and nobody cares unless a girl you like is involved and the girl’s ex’s chasing you and your friends.

I rocked up to the dojo around 7 pm, it took me a while to find it without Google Maps, though.

There were only a couple of new starters and 2 black belts, plus the Sensei.

Throughout the warmup, I kept asking what it was like, as I was a seasoned martial artist by then, and they kept saying it wasn’t like any of the others. Even the warmup was different. We were warming up the joints, not the muscles. I imagined it would be close to Judo since Morihei Ueshiba and Jigaro Kano were friends, and Aikido, like Judo, comes from Jiu-Jitsu and old Samurai traditions. Yes, I made an effort to study a little in advance though there was no internet, only a BBS on Amiga 500 we connected to at the time.

After a couple of lessons, I got it. I mean, not the black belt, of course, but why they said it was different from other martial arts.

It was a total I opener and fit the lazy mentality of a teenager, like the two pieces of a jigsaw.

You don’t attack.

You wait for the attack.

Just about the punch hit, you breathe in and move with a foot movement called tai-sabake.

The attacker is fast and heavy, and its momentum is taking him further as you are not there anymore, and the punch is in the air. The action of attack, that anger, that concentrated force already disconnected the attacker from the forces around him.

You are now behind the attacker.

You can walk away,

You can tackle him,

You can touch him and make him faster in his attack direction,

You can grab a limb or the gi of the attacker and slightly change the direction of the movement.

The possibilities are endless…

The whole thing I explained above has a name in Japanese, and it is called AWASE.

AWASE is to join and blend in to harmonise with the forces around you. Punch, kick, grab, weight,?wind, yourself… No matter what the force is, you blend in, be part of it, and accept and manage as you wished for.

While other martial arts were indoctrinating to attack, block and attack, or immobilise the attacker by injuring them, Aikido was teaching the opposite. You had to blend in with precise movements and great awareness. Even breathing is the opposite. In Karate, you breathe out (Kiai) when you are punching, but in Aikido, you breathe in while you are defending yourself. I don’t know how much of it is true, but our Sensei explained it as you breathe in, the oxygen allows your neurons to communicate faster therefore, you think faster to take action.

When your mind connects with the experience, you are totally immersed in the experience. You become one with experience. You don’t care about the past, and you don’t think about the future. Past is past, and you can’t do much about it other than learn from it. The future is not shaped yet, and it is not affecting the present. ?You are in the moment, fully aware, and awake, and your mind is open to finding the best solution. This is the first principle of Aikido.

When it comes to applying this principle to business life, you can see that many people are not even liking their jobs, let alone immersing in them. There are many managers that are not fully aware of the project, situation, capabilities and the people working with them toward a common goal.

I was watching Shark Tank for a while, and the common question and determination point in investing was how much time you spend in the business. If the presenter said anything less than a hundred per cent, sharks weren’t investing. If you are not putting in the time to your business, project, task etc., the success is just out of luck.

The awareness brings your mind to a state to accept and adapt to life as it unfolds. Now that you are aware, you have the option of harmonising with what is going on around you. You accept first and deal with it as it unfolds. Will the shit hit the fan? Political games played above your project? Can you change the outcomes? Is this your job? Is the attacker carrying a knife? Harmonising with the situation is the second principle of Aikido.

Harmonising is accepting your project with all its pros and cons. You can’t dismiss the cons and only take in the pros. You must know every variable and its possible value. You can dig into alternative courses of action but don’t have analysis paralysis.

Once you are fully immersed in the experience and accept and adapt to the situation, only then can you contribute toward the common goal or eliminate the situation with a sharp, in-time decision. This is the moment that you are now behind the attacker, and you can contribute to its force. Rather than mindlessly acting and digging in deeper, you are now mindfully influencing the situation. Contribution is the third principle of Aikido

Contribution to a project comes with knowledge and understanding. In other words, immersing and harmonising. Your actions may seem unnecessary to an uneducated eye, but the results will be applauded by everyone. There may still be people grinding their teeth towards your success, but nobody cares about them anyway.

After years of practising Aikido, it saved my life a couple of times. Aikido training and techniques burnt into the minds of Aikidoka, do not come out unless your life is threatened. The first thing you learn in Aikido is how to fall without injuring yourself and get up quickly for the next move.

One situation was a fall when I tried to walk on the narrow side of the concrete stairs at a park. It was straight, sloping down and covered with moss. As soon as I set foot on it, I started sliding down like I set foot on a banana peel. With the force of the slide, my body raised up in the air, parallel to the ground, and I fell onto that 30cm wide side of the stairs (damn you, gravity and Newton). My wife and another friend were watching from behind at the top of the stairs. I quickly and unconsciously turned my body slightly and did a break fall on the side of the stairs. Break fall stopped most of the force, and I landed safely and rolled onto the stairs safe and sound. My friend pulled out his phone to call an ambulance, but I was already on my feet talking to them. He thought I had broken my hips, my rib cage and possibly my shoulder and arm. When he saw that I was safe and sound, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Because of my training, my mind melted with the experience; I accepted that I am falling, and my mind found the solution and implemented it without my consciousness. A true zen moment.

This sort of teaching cannot be achieved in an MBA program. It can only be learned through coaching under a good sensei in the war field. When you have faced with a hard situation, all sorts of negative feelings encapsulate your mind; fear, frustration, the smell of failure, and stress stop the communication between your neurons. Because two forces are clashing here: you and the situation. The situation does not have a mind, you do. You are the one who needs to immerse, harmonise, and contribute to the situation.

The more experience you gain, the more flexible you will be and adapt to the situation. The solutions will be creative, unexpected, and easily accepted because it is to the benefit of every stakeholder.