Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I have been fortunate in my life to have been exposed to the martial arts relatively early on. I always had an interest in the martial arts, I practiced a Korean art for about a year in my mid-teens, then at 19 I met a practitioner of Karate, Batto-jutsu, and Tai chi chuan. My interest at the time was largely in the Japanese sword. I remember after discussing this with him he showed me how to cut. Then, handing me a suitable sized stick, told me to go and practice cutting before heading off for a beer. This I did, for hours, and continued to learn from him for years. For the next few years the bokken (wooden training sword) was a constant companion. In fact even after I joined the British Army a couple of years later, except for basic training, I carried a pair of bokken wherever I travelled, even overseas at one point, and trained with whoever was available.
I also took up the practice of Yang style Tai chi chuan, the longer form consisting of 108 steps. I have now practiced this for over 20 years.
I have had an interest in Thelema since my teens, and formally affiliated with the A.'.A.'. ten years ago this month. Less than a year after that I also began training in Shinshin-toitsu Aikido (Sometimes called 'Ki Aikido'). I remember one autumn Sunday morning when I had only recently started, sitting seiza in the dojo, the instructor reading from the shoku-shu (book of sayings and readings), "The Universe is a limitless circle with a limitless radius. This condensed becomes the one-point in the lower abdomen which is the centre of the Universe".......I was hooked.
Later exploration revealed to me that Koichi Tohei, the student of O Sensei who went farthest in exploring the ki (氣) aspect of aikido and founder of ki aikido, didn't simply come up with the system by himself, but in addition to intensive training in Zen meditation and the ascetic misogi practices of Ichikukai, started by the Zen master and swordsman Yamaoka Tesshu, inherited a lot of his knowledge from Nakamura Tempu, the Japanese espionage agent who, after contracting tuberculosis travelled the world in search of a cure, obtaining a medical degree in the process and finally winding up in the Himalayas, practicing raja yoga under the semi-mythical guru Kariappa. Tempu on returning to Japan, eventually went on to formulate the system he called shin shin toitsu do. (The way of mind-body unification, sometimes called 'Japanese yoga'). Tohei Sensei was a student of this system, which enabled him to understand and put into practice what he was learning under O Sensei as a student of aikido.
Tohei eventually went on to start his own organisation promoting shin shin toitsu aikido (aikido with mind-body unification), a merging of the two systems, essentially aikido with raja yoga and misogi training built in. In this system, students practice aikido, and in a parallel track practice shin shin toitsu do. The two systems are tested together, for example you have to pass sets of ki tests at 5th, 3rd and 1st kyu in order to be allowed to test for the relevant aikido grades. This also continues up through the dan (black belt) grades.
Throughout my own A.'.A.'. path, ki aikido has been a constant companion. My Zelator exams were passed by virtue of the mind-body unification practices taught in the dojo up to sho-kyu (5th kyu aikido), and having recently passed my shodan exam, 9 years after starting, you could say that the art is central to my path. While it is not necessary for A.'.A.'. students to enroll in their local aikido club, It is without reservation that I would recommend such training as a viable and robust training system which meets, and in most instances surpasses the testing requirements of the 2=9 and 3=8 grades, with higher level training even meeting the requirements of dhyana for a Dominus Liminus. The A.'.A.'. path is largely solitary, and one thing lacking I feel is adequate testing. Students could be doing the wrong thing, having bad posture or incorrect breathing, potentially for years without correction, going on to pass these mistakes on to subsequent students.
While I can't speak of other arts, in ki aikido, asana and pranayama are taught and tested right from the start. You can't progress through the early grades without demonstrating proficiency, and this continues through the higher levels. Most aikido techniques don't work without these fundamentals in place and the uncoordinated practitioner is left with only a hollow shell of the art, which without proper coordination is just an inferior, dance-like form of ju-jutsu. Successful aikido implies successful yoga. The learning and practice of kata (forms) and waza (techniques) requires intense Dharana (concentration) and dhyana (unification) training, leading the aspirant naturally to a unified state required of the A.'.A.'. initiate up to and beyond the adeptus minor level.
Some A.'.A.'. instructors may refuse such things, insisting on using Liber E as the basis of training. That is their prerogative, but personally, if a student goes through a rigourous system like this, which specifically teaches and tests in the requirements of the A.'.A.'., albeit under a different format, I would have no problem with accepting this as evidence for the relevant grades. My yardstick in such matters in not so much adherence to form for it's own sake, but simply practicality, does it get the required results?
Of course there are a lot of other requirements for an A.'.A.'. aspirant, the system is extensive and each must be armed at all points, both for their own training and for teaching others, which is a key part of the system. I consider that yoga is core practice, yet sadly degraded and downplayed by many students who are more interested in other aspects of the system that are more obviously 'occult', while the difficult, rigourous and often unnoticed disciplines of yoga, and their fruits, are forgotten on the bookshelf.
Love is the law, love under will.
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