There's some information that you put aside for later.

I read these words of O Sensei very early on:

It is essential in Aikido to understand the natural laws of the Universe, for example you must know and use the rotation of the Earth.

To use the rotation of the Earth... of the planet... to knock an opponent to the ground... you can imagine what the beginner that I was at the age of twenty could understand about this enigma. And yet, even if it seemed credulous, this beginner never doubted that there was an allusion to authentic teaching.

I've travelled to many countries since then, I've met masters, studied with them, I've lived in O Sensei's house in Japan, I've slept in his bedroom, cooked in his pots and pans, used his weapons, leafed through the books in his library, folded his hakama, put away his glasses, and talked to those who had known him... could I have come any closer to the origins of the art? And yet no one has ever been able to explain to me how to use the rotation of the Earth.

And you who read me, could you tell me how the rotation of the Earth is used in Aikido?

Maybe I haven't asked the right people, or maybe certain things aren't taught. So I turned to myself to look for this knowledge that I couldn't find anywhere else. I searched without really knowing what I was looking for, I took all sorts of paths, each time enthusiastically pushing my ignorance to the limit, in the hope that a door would eventually open. I appealed to the dead and the gods after my appeal to the living was in vain. I did so much and so well that some force somewhere must have taken pity on me. And one day, on the roadside in Ireland, in a bazaar full of ‘little things’ for tourists in search of folklore, the solution to the mystery of O Sensei was waiting for me. For five euros, I bought the key needed to unlock my brain, the map of the possible movements of a man in a circle of attackers, forged from a brass alloy:

It's true that this unusual object could not have helped me in any way if it hadn't been for the mistakes and errors accumulated during the laborious period of my life that preceded its appearance, but it's also certain that it appeared at the right moment, when I was finally able to see what was staring me in the face.

I have already explained at length, in a series of articles entitled ‘O Sensei's movement’, the reasons why a warrior's movement must follow, from the centre of the circle, the path of the spirals that form the rosette. I won't go back over these explanations, but I'll remind you of the mathematical model on which this figure is based, and once again I'd like to thank Giorgi Chanturia, a student of theoretical physics in Tbilisi, who was able to recognise it:

You have to imagine a warrior at the centre of a circle, surrounded by four opponents who conventionally occupy the four cardinal points, and who attack simultaneously from these positions.

The North, South, East and West are therefore forbidden to this warrior, who is only free to move in the four sectors North-West, North-East, South-East and South-West.

He enters each of these sectors like a spinning top, by means of a rotation of the body which is called irimi-tenkan in Aikido, and which can be executed in only two ways: clockwise, or counter-clockwise, from the triangular position called hanmi in Aikido.

Our warrior therefore has two choices per sector, eight possibilities in all, and by the effect of rotation each of his movements will necessarily follow the path of one of the eight spirals.

Each time he moves in this way, he re-establishes a balance and settles in the centre of a new circle, which once again offers him eight possible choices of movement. This action is called sabaku in Aikido: tai sabaki is the consequence of activating irimi-tenkan.

Let us now compare this way of moving to the way the Earth moves:

This is an animation - at accelerated speed, of course - of Foucault's Pendulum, the historic experiment that showed in 1851 that the Earth was rotating around its axis (this complex movement is in fact the result of the superposition of three different movements): note that the pendulum is actually immobile, it represents the axis, it's the Earth that moves around it.

And we can see that the Earth moves in relation to the pendulum by drawing the spirals of an eight-pointed rosette, which are inscribed two by two in the four sectors of the cardinal points, North-West, North-East, South-East and South-West.

Now, this pattern of movement is the very one we have just been talking about, and which we showed in the article ‘O Sensei's Movement’ is required both for the needs of the strike and for the safety of the fighter.

The conclusion we can draw from this comparison is that the warrior moves on the Earth as the Earth moves on itself. The ideal model of movement imposed on the warrior in his art by the constraints of combat is nothing other than the model of movement used by the Earth to rotate in space around its axis.

This shows that O Sensei's phrase is not an obscure parable intended to evoke some dark esoteric teaching, but the pure description of a physical reality: to practise Aikido is to move in the literal sense as the Earth moves, to behave as it does, to ‘know and use the Earth's rotation’. When the warrior moves as he should, he is an authentic son of the Earth.

It is important to understand here that this law of movement is not attached to a particular art, nor is it a more or less original characteristic that would distinguish Aikido from other disciplines. On the contrary, we are dealing with a physical law that applies in a general way to the movement of any human being living on our planet, when he is subjected to a constraint coming from four directions in the horizontal plane.

If this man wants to perfectly combine the two imperatives of safety and efficiency linked to global combat, and not just pugilism, he has no choice but to model his movement on that of the Earth.

This choice is not an option; it is not linked to the programme of such and such a discipline, or of such and such a school: all martial arts, in both East and West, are faced with the same reality. To win and survive, from Achilles to Miyamoto Musashi to the Bayard knight, warriors have to respect the same physical laws when it comes to moving their bodies in combat.

Perhaps the only difference between Aikido and other martial arts is that the principle of the Earth's movement is presented from the outset as the essence, the heart of the strategy that must absolutely be mastered if the universal nature of the art is to be understood.

This principle is presented as an absolute priority by the Founder:

Even with a single opponent, you must not only worry about what is in front, you must practise paying attention to the four, the eight directions.

The attitude to exercise - Instruction n°1 - Text displayed at the entrance of Tokyo's Aikikai So Hombu from 1931 onwards.

O'Sensei thus unequivocally displays the very first concern that the student must have in mind: to know that he is always standing in the middle of a circle, and that he must always regulate his action in relation to the four directions of attack and the eight directions of response, whatever the particular context of the engagement.

The naive beginner of long ago was therefore right to take O'Sensei at his word. He believed what he was incapable of understanding. A little faith is probably necessary to set out on the path, then one step leads to another, and he who seeks finds one day.

The fact that this beginner with average natural qualities was able to decipher an arcana of Aikido on his own, along the way, means that any man, in his own field and at the level of his commitment, can achieve the same kind of result.

Each in his own way, of course, each in his own place, each in his own role on this Earth; not everyone can be Goethe, Montaigne or Newton. It was by building an astronomical telescope for the first time, and observing the moon and stars through it, that Galileo saw further than Aristotle, and understood that the Earth was moving in space.

In all deference to the master of Pisa, I also look to the moon, but my perspective is my own. And if I can't know the reasons for his quest, he would be hard pressed to guess mine, yet they fit like his, albeit in a different order, into the unexpected and sometimes bewildering plan that the Universe has mapped out for us, and which makes life such a beautiful journey.

Whether we are blind to this plan, whether we perceive it, whether we follow it, whether we ignore it, the Universe continues on its course and "Comprend qui peut", as Boby Lapointe would sing it.

Philippe Voarino, February 2021 - English translation January 2025