This question sat with me for a long time. 

I trained Aikido for 26 years. For the last five, I haven’t. I’ve been learning Aiki-jutsu instead. 
And during those five years, one question kept circling in my mind: 

If this is Aiki… then what was I doing for the last two decades? 
Was I actually doing Jujutsu all along? 

So I kept digging. 
What is Aikido...really? 

Eventually, it clicked. 

There is no Aiki in Aikido. 
There can’t be. 

It doesn’t matter whether you interpret the art as: 

• Ai-ki-do — a conceptual, fragmented “way of harmony”, or 
• Aiki-do — a unified idea of “the Way of Aiki”, but still conceptual 

If Aiki is treated as an idea rather than a principle, then: 

• Aiki cannot physically manifest 
• If it cannot manifest, it cannot power a technique
•  And if a technique relies on leverage, timing, angles, or cooperation… Aiki is not the engine — Jujutsu is. 

Without Aiki, the road often taken to “get better” is to collect more techniques and variations, mistaking a bigger repertoire for deeper skill. And the reason I kept expanding outward was simple: I didn’t know I was missing an engine. 

That was the missing piece for me. 

Aiki only becomes real when it becomes a principle — something you can train, feel, apply, and test. 

That’s what Aiki-jutsu is: the art of applying the principles of Aiki. And that’s why it felt completely different to me… because it is. 

There is nothing wrong with doing Aikido. But here’s the part I want to share — especially with anyone who has visited our dojo and struggled. 

When I first stepped into Aiki-jutsu, 
I thought: “Oh… this must just be a different style of Aikido which had changed it's name to whatever is trending.”   I expected the same. 

But what I was actually encountering was: a different engine, not a different style.  

I wasn’t struggling with “a different version of Aikido.”
I was encountering a completely different way of thinking, moving, organising, and generating effect. 

Aiki-jutsu felt harder because it relied on fundamentals I had never developed. 

I stepped in with the movement patterns and habits I’d built in Aikido, and they simply didn’t translate. 

I wasn’t failing at Aiki-jutsu.
I was discovering the limits of what I had been trained in. And because I didn’t know those skills existed, I misinterpreted the experience. 

If you’ve visited our dojo and felt the same confusion, the same struggle, the same sense of “why doesn’t this work the way I expect?” — this is the reason. 

It’s not you. 
It’s not your rank. 
It’s not your ability. 
It’s the engine. 

You were encountering Aiki — not as a concept, but as a skill. And that changes everything. 

If any part of this resonates with your own experience, you’re welcome to come explore Aiki with us. No pressure, no expectations — just curiosity and honest training.