Aikido - Movement of Nature

Aikido

What is Aikido? What is its true definition? Some people believed that Aikido are for soft and injured people, is that true and what about Steven Seagal using Aikido techniques during his movies. Now I will answer these question.

What is Aikido?
According to most description, Aikido means the path of harmonizing people with the mental power Ki or a Japanese self defense martial art. Is that all?
Ai means respect, together and love, Ki means the mental energy and the primordial power that created this universe and Do means the path, Tao. Aikido is a art of peace and the movement of nature. O'sensei stated that Aikido emphasizing being one with the universe, go with the flow and borrowing of the enemy's energy against him/her.
Aikido is a budo that emphasized weapon, unarmed and defense in different situation. Aikido is about calm oneself and bring the whole universe into his/her mind.

Research
O'Sensei in his many years studied different religion including Christianity, Buddhism and Taoism. He believed that the concepts of almost all religion are the same. Aikido is mostly based on the concept of Taoism. Laozi, the Taoist philosopher said that all things in the universe are created by one primordial force, Nothingness. Only with Nothingness, Yin and Yang are created and later the creation of the whole universe. All things comes from nothingness, therefore in order to execute an Aikido technique, the mind must be calm and empty. Not only Aikido is based on the concept of Tao, but many ancient classic texts are links to its secret.

Truth of Aikido
Aikido is consisted of a soft martial art, yet sometimes it is hard. For the world have yin and yang, life and death, light and darkness. And so does Aikido, it is a hard and soft martial art. Some believed that Aikido are for soft people due to its beautiful and circular movements, they forgot the word, self-defense. Aikido can be orthodox and unorthodox just like an army. Aikido also consisted of locks that control the opponents instantly and circular movements are used to avoid attacks and to blend in with the enemy's attacks