Christian Tissier is a French Aikido practitioner.
One of the very few non-Japanese in history to have reached the rank of 8th Dan Shihan.
He started Aikido at the age of 11,
and is today one of the biggest influences in the international Aikido community.
Willing to go to the roots of his art,
he embarked on a Trans-Siberian train at the age of 18 for a journey to Japan,
and started to train at the Aikikai Hombu Dojo,
where he stayed 7 years, honing his skills and learning the language and culture of Japan.
Now, at the age of 67, he gives seminars all around the globe throughout the year, including Japan.
It was on one of those occasions that he offered us the opportunity to sit together in the legendary Butokuden of Kyoto,
to talk about his personal relation to Aikido for over an hour.
When you arrived in '68,
Yes, in '68
It was just after the last insurrections and violent demonstrations in Japan in May 1968.
It started a little after '68.
[Jordy: It went on a little while later.]
Because back home it was May '68. [Jordy: Yes.]
Here, it was a little later.
Yes, a little later, indeed.
[Christian: Yes, it was violent.] [Jordy: It was violent!]
Oh, yeah, I remember.
We talk about a peaceful country...
Ah no, no, but it was...
Well, it wasn't as violent as in France.
It was not as violent as in France because there were fewer people.
But yes, there was quite the turmoil, I remember it well.
As a result, relations between...
Especially since at the time...
there's the Aikikai, and the Kidotai [riot police] were right there.
Next door! And you could see them practicing,
we'd see them practice every morning.
And so at the time Japan might not have had
such an image of an entirely peaceful country,
even almost apathetic sometimes...
Yeah, I haven't asked myself that question, but...
I was arriving from May 68 anyway so...
It was pretty much the same everywhere.
Yeah, maybe, I don't know, maybe there was more...
this aspect...
somewhat more manly.
I say that as a little connection with aikido,
because in the 60s...
well, we heard that in the 60s...
It was more manly than now...? [Jordy: and 70s that it was a little more...]
When I say more manly...
Yes, certainly.
I think it's because...
I don't really know why.
I think it's because...
O'sensei had just passed.
We had to regroup around...
There was something missing.
It was the blossoming of martial arts anyway.
There wasn't extreme stuff like now, MMA.
Because now if we position ourselves with regard to MMA, well...
we don't want to do that.
Even Thai boxing, which I practiced for a while...
now the level is completely different.
Now they're real pros.
These guys, they are woaw...
When you look they're mountains of muscle,
they're fast, I mean, there's everything.
Well aikido is not...
we're not playing in the same league in terms of...
in terms of practice. It's a long-term practice,
it's not something you do for three years.
It's complicated, aikido, it's like kenjutsu.
Kenjutsu it's...
there are Katas, you have to do a lot of katas, etc.
Kendo, you've got three things: ba ba ba bam!
Same with karate,
in karate you have Katas, things that don't exist, with your feet and stuff.
And then, if you do a shiai, a competition, there is little technique.
So that's it, the more a practice can offer you a wide range of things,
even if it doesn't work, that's not the point,
the richer it is.
All right?
The more it...
The more limited it is in action,
the more it tends towards competition.
Boxing for instance, it's simple:
jab, hook, uppercut.
Kendo?
Kote, Men, Tsuki, Do.
Kote, Men, it's the same.
Tsuki, Do...
Then have a look at Katori Shinto Ryu, Kashima Shin Ryu,
there are a lot of Katas.
So with aikido, we adhere in...
Well...
once we realize that, well...
So it's a Budo, but what's a Budo?
Is it picking a guy in a ring?
No.
It's how you're gonna protect your life.
So that's why I explain:
how through your practice you identify
what affects you.
You identify what you're doing.
How you identify priorities in your practice.
What is a priority?
Okay?
What kind of priority?
To what extent?
How do you identify yourself?
And then you go out into the street, what do you identify in your environment?
That's the real Budo. You see what I mean?
It's not just walking into any bar and saying, "I'll take anyone…"
It's not like that.
So that's important to understand.
Once we figure it out,
Okay, we can relax in our practice.
From there you can say "yes, there's a phase where..."
training at some point has to be manly,
but correct.
Okay?
And not...
manly and incorrect, because that's street fighting, you know.
And that's out of our framework.
But that at some point in your life...
You have something like we did at the time.
Sure,
it's profitable.
It's beneficial, but at some point... well.
What is the teacher supposed to give...?
Is it for everyone, isn't it for everyone?
Do you have to break every time, or do you have to...?
Those are the questions we're asking ourselves.
Well...
We can talk about it freely.
Don't you think it's missing a little bit today,
especially in Japan?
I don't know.
I don't want conflicts between people in my Dojo.
If there's any, I leave it a bit, but usually there's no conflict.
But in training, yes:
training is fast, training is manly.
They give themselves, but with a spirit of friendship.
At the Hombu Dojo it was...
At one point all the people who were training hard like that in the morning,
we were going all out, nobody wanted to train with us.
So we were always between ourselves: Miyamoto, Shibata...
Endo who was a little more senior.
Endo, he dislocated my shoulder,
Miyamoto-sensei, at the time, you had to be careful because he was...
You had to be careful with Shibata...
I was the nicest, frankly, I mean for real...
So all the kids who were 2nd, 3rd dan
who were coming to train with us who were 4th dan...
Because you keep the guy for an hour,
not 15 minutes, so you knew you were going to throw him around.
No one wanted to come with us anymore!
So...
Well...
Retrospectively it was perhaps beneficial for some, but for others...
I don't know, I don't know...
It's the problem of how we want Aikido to be perceived.
I think that yes,
you arrive, you're 20, you walk into a Dojo,
you see old people working like old people...
You don't want that.
Now you see young people who are good,
who have a nice attitude,
falling, throwing, it's manly,
but at the same time it's beautiful, powerful.
It's technical.
Then you also see these people who are in their 60s,
same but...
but with another perspective.
You're thinking: that! That's what I want to do. Then maybe I'll become that.
You were talking about priorities; maybe today, people's priorities are more...
They may have changed a little, because the times are different?
Well...
obviously.
Back in the days, when you were a kid,
the only thing you were thinking of was getting out.
To go have fun, you know.
Now the kid, the only thing he thinks about,
it's to go home and...
He wants to do a martial fight so he turns the [computer] on...
Okay, he flips three times before he kicks,
and he's the strongest man in the world.
Then if it's not good enough he erases it and starts again.
It's something else.
And as we can see, can you manage and dedicate
four days a week to aikido when you're 20?
Well, no, because now...
Even in my Dojo I can see,
parents bringing their children who are 8, 9 years old:
"Lessons are on Wednesdays? But on Wednesdays he has music."
"What about Friday?"
"Well, Friday's tennis."
All right...
Well, what's left...?
Back then we had no tennis, no music, no nothing.
For me it was "Aikido? Ahah thank you!"
Isn't there also some misunderstanding in the sense that
Aikido is an art in which we are necessarily obliged to invest ourselves enormously
in order to achieve something, and people don't get involved anymore?
Well there's that.
Aikido takes time,
well it's necessary to...
you have to understand what it means.
It's a long-term commitment.
It takes time. Time aside:
there are schedules,
it's in a Dojo.
It's not like, "what a nice morning, I'm going for a run.
or I'm gonna ride my bike."
So that does explain a little,
not the decline of aikido, but it explains that...
it's a little more complicated now,
people are busy, there's a lot of possibilities:
cycling, running, tennis, martial arts, there are many...
So our work is: what image do we want to give?
I think we haven't found yet...
We haven't found the image we want to give yet.
I think it's the main challenge in the years to come.
It's not defining Aikido, we know what it is,
but what image,
what do we want to convey so that people will want it, without making mistakes.
So in short, how would you define Aikido?
Ah...! So...
Yours.
When it comes to me: that's what I said earlier.
That being said...
The search for the ideal of purity through movement.
How you can have a personal progression
through a study carried out by movement.
If it were a study that was done through meditation, I would choose meditation.
If I was more interested in painting... anyway.
My prime character is...
that's my commitment, that's....
confrontation, competition.
I love competition and I picked something where we don't compete.
But there's competition somewhere nonetheless.
And then at some point...
This feeling that...
Well, there's so much to discover...
As much on a personal level as the interpersonal level or the human level.
In terms of your own structure, your own presentation.
And then above all, to find what place,
what place you want, not to have, but what place...
you can give yourself in a particular environment.
When you belong or when you don't belong,
and if it's not your place, how does it become your place, because...
because everything is going to be ordered around it.
It's that kind of thing.
How...
It's...
I often take this example:
When I do aikido, I don't try to move the partner.
"I'll get you moving"
I don't know, I don't know you, I've never seen you.
I can't say "I'm gonna make you move."
But I can position myself in relation to you in a certain way.
If I want to photograph the Tower of Pisa, well the Tower is leaning.
I'm gonna ask myself, "What do I want?"
Do I want to take it the way it is?
Do I want to produce an effect?
So how do you position yourself in relation to an action.
Not how I'm going to move you out of the way.
That's a phase we have:
You're here, I'm moving you.
But how am I going to position myself so that...
you want to move without...
Letting you have your freedom and keeping mine at the same time.
There, that's my kind of research.
This is something that also applies... [Christian : That also applies]
out of the tatami. [Christian: out of the tatami]
Or else it doesn't make sense.
To conclude: is there anything
in particular that you'd like to say?
In our audience
there are many Aikidokas but not only. [Christian: Yes of course.]
There are many people who do other martial arts,
[Christian: Good, that's great] [Jordy: Kobudos and what not.]
What would you tell them...
about Aikido
or Budos in general, practice in general?
Generally speaking,
Budo is...
There is a "Do", so there's a notion of accomplishment.
I don't make any difference
between someone who's doing the tea ceremony,
Shodo,
Ikebana,
or Budo.
Regarding...
It's simply the constraint,
the constraint you choose and the character you have,
which make you go towards one or the other.
And often you do several at the same time.
Suganuma-sensei for instance:
He's a budoka, but at the same time he does Shodo.
There's something there,
there's a cultural aspect, but it's not disconnected.
It's not disconnected!
Because in order to do it right,
you need to do the motions a lot, to have gotten tired a lot,
you need the attitude, you need the purity, etc.
So that's the first thing.
Whether it's Kobudo, or anything.
Then...
Sincerity.
Humility, sincerity, eagerness.
Humility doesn't mean, "I'm humble."
Humility is to know exactly what you are.
No more,
no less.
You don't minimize yourself,
you don't put yourself above.
You are what you've become.
Period.
There you go.
Otherwise, you lie to people.
Okay?
And eagerness.
To keep the eagerness going, you have to make sure that every day,
every day,
you feel like something new is going to show up,
that you're gonna find something.
You're not looking for it,
you feel it coming,
it's coming,
it's right there.
You can't do what you want to do,
but you don't want to do what you used to do.
This is eagerness.
So every day you put yourself in danger,
every day you put yourself in danger!
That's life.
Without this, you lock yourself in, you don't leave your place.
Every day you need...
that's just human nature.
And so...
we don't need to go far away anymore…
because that's already been done, going to explore Africa, etc.
But you can explore the inside,
because every day you need to move on.
So you need to put yourself in danger through something...
something you don't know...
In your field, but that you don't know.
When you go no further than your certainties...
Ugh...!
Ugh...!
Keep your certainties.
You're history.
And so the purpose of practice is...?
So the purpose of practice is practice.
That's not from me, okay?
Herrigel, about the Art of Archery.
The purpose of practice is practice.
But the purpose of practice,
is to move on.
Where?
Forward!
[Jordy: Thank you so much Christian.] [Christian: Thank you, dear friend.]
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