Aikido - the organizational context

Chapter 9

The role of the IAF – The World Games

If the previous posts tried to explain that the IAF was necessary to establish Aikido in countries with governments, this post will address what the IAF has become on top of that.

When the IAF was established its main goal was to create a foothold in the world of sport. Doshu Kisshomaru Ueshiba is said to have been the driving force behind that decision*.
Once looking for ways to do so, the IAF found that there was a new international organization, close to the IOC. This organization was organizing similar Games, which were named the World Games. The organization was named the IWGA (International World Games Association).

It turned out that this was a magic bullit. This was an organization that was new and open to new members. It accepted Aikido without great trouble. It allowed Aikido to participate in its games as a demonstration sport. National Aikido organizations could now claim recognition by an international body such as IOC, there was a reason for countries to be in the IAF, Aikido had a platform to present itself.

This happines however was short-lived. The IWGA quickly (after the second World Games Aikido participated in) made it clear that being a demonstration sport was not a permanent status. Just like in the Olympic Games, a demonstration sport is expected to participate in the next Games as a competition sport. This was asked from Aikido as well.

At that time the powers that be in the Aikido community were unified in their standpoint: Aikido does not have competition. And this was the position I was asked to represent at an IWGA meeting in Berlin in 2005. The response to this position was simple: no competition, no participation. So, as a consequence, the World Games in 2005 in Düsseldorf became the last World Games Aikido participated in. In 2006 – 2008 the IAF tried to negotiate its position with the IWGA, but they were just as flexible as the Aikido community, perhaps even more. IWGA looked for alternatives for competition. They proposed Aikido could hold gradings during the Games, these could be judged and this was considered an alternative for competition. But Aikido didn’t budge. And so Aikido was not invited to participate in the World Games in Kao Shung – Taiwan, or in the World Games in Cali – Colombia in 2013.

But, as one door closed, another door opened … (Read the next post 🙂

In the meantime, the World Games Aikido has participated in had been a relative success. In 1989 the World Games in Karlsruhe – Germany were a success because they were well organized by the German Aikikai under the leadership of Asai Sensei.
In 1993 the World Games in the Hague – Netherlands were not so successful as a whole, but compared to other sports Aikido drew larger crowds than many other competitive sports. In 1997 the World Games were successfully organized in Finland, and in 2001 the were successfully organized in Akita – Japan.

Each time the IAF and the national Aikido organization managed to organize a training seminar together with the Games. This turned out to be increasingly meaningful to the Aikido community. Large numbers of Aikidoka came from all over the world to attend these seminars.

This was such a success that the IAF started to see these seminars as a goal in itself. Since then all the IAF congresses have been accompanied by training seminars.

I believe this has been one of the things the IAF has done for its members.

* With certain regularity Hombu-representatives ask why the IAF wants to be in the world of sport. Let there be no mistake, because a Doshu asked so.

Chapter 8

In the previous chapters I have described some of the constituing elements for the current situation in Dutch Aikido. But the picture isn’t very transparent.

Due to a long chain of (unforeseen) events an umbrella organization was established named Aikido Nederland (AN). This organization is registred as a member of the Dutch Sport Council (NSF). In this respect the organization fulfills the requirements that governments have for sport: it’s one organization for the sport.

To allow this, a number problem had to be solved.

1. The existing Aikikai-organizations, that were the longest existing organizations, were divided into some 10 different organizations.
2. One of the largest groups was in the Judo federation (JBN) and did not want to change association.
3. The majority of these Aikikai-organizations were Hombu recognized, but only one was member of the IAF.
4. The government and NSF were only interested in an organization for all Aikido, not only for Aikikai-Aikido.
5. The condition for Hombu recognition is that the organization only practises Aikikai-Aikido.
6. The condition for the organization to be member of IAF is Hombu-recognition.

This vicious circle was broken by a smart compromise:

– if the organization that held the IAF membership would be willing to share its membership of IAF with the other Aikikai-groups, they could all become member.
– this organization – the NAF – would remain as a separate legal entity, but become an institutional member of the new umbrella organization.
– all the other styles of Aikido could become member of the new umbrella AN

As we (I was member of the NAF at the time) felt it would be in the greater interest to establish one organization for Aikido in the Netherlands, and that the NAF was intended to represent all Aikikai-Aikido anyway, we agreed to this compromise.

As a consequence, the group I was in received independent recognition from Hombu, opened the NAF to all the other Aikikai-groups, and the NAF became member of AN.

This however, led to a new and unpredictable situation, which I will address in a later chapter.

Chapter 7

There is an interesting process one can distinguish time and again, that has to do with the creation of new groups. Bluntly put, the process is as follows:
– somebody starts a dojo because he is motivated
– he works hard to get if off the ground and feels it is his property
– he needs to involve students because that’s how dojos work
– over time tensions arise between the instructor that started the dojo and the seniors that outgrow their position as only student in the dojo
– at a certain point the seniors leave the dojo and start a dojo for themselves

In itself this should seem a healthy growth process, but more often than not this process is conflict ridden. As the students become more active in the dojo they also get more influence. This takes away from the position of the person who started the dojo and often leads to conflict.
Students look for new input. They find that with other instructors and start to focsu their attention outside of their own dojo. This takes away further from the position of the senior instructor.
The senior students want to take initiatives and have power of their own. They want to teach, conduct gradings, organize seminars, etc. This undermines the position of the senior instructor more and more.
If the senior instructor does not find ways to accomodate this process, it leads to disappointment and disillusion.

Why is this relevant for the issue of Hombu recognition and IAF membership? Well, every new dojo is looking for forms of validation. The first form of validation is to become member of a national organization. However, in the example given above, the members of that national organization are often the seniors of the instructor of that new dojo. They do not want to give validation to a junior that has just left with conflict. He will not automatically get the power to give grades just because he started a dojo.

The dojo will look for validation by joining up with a more senior instructor. This will often not be the seniors in their own organization. They will seek support from an outsider. This however will create more distance between the old and the new organization.

As a consequence new organizations will look around for support. They will find and create that around the new senior they have focused on. They will try to establish a group. And what will be the first focus of that new organization? Teaching and grading. Dan-grades will be processed through the organization of the new senior. But the next step is to be able to do that independently, and this implies a direct relationship with Hombu through Hombu recognition*.

These new organizations look for further validation. They recognize easily enough that the organization they left was member of an international federation. So, almost automatically they also seek recogntion from the IAF. However, the IAF does not give recognition. The IAF is an international federation with a policy of one member per country. This follows from its relationship with national governments and the world of sport, that uphold a policy of one organization per sport per country**. As a consequence the IAF can not give multiple membership to organizations in a country.

Over the last 25 years I have been in conversations with many people who wanted to start a new organization or were in the process of getting one off the ground. Almost always the question was how to get recognition from Hombu and the IAF. Almost always it was difficult to explain what the difference is.

So, in conclusion:
– you can apply for Hombu recognition if your organization is practising Aikikai Aikido, if there is an organizational and a teaching structure, if you exist for 5 years and if there is a senior instructor of 6th dan. The latter condition is negotiable.
– you can become member of the IAF if there is no other member in your country. In that case you must be a registred democratic organization in your country and have Hombu recognition. If there already is a member organization, join ranks with them. The IAF has recently introduced a policy that new members must cooperate with other existing groups.

* Until probably 1995 Hombu was relatively reluctant to give recognition to new organizations. After 2000 this had turned around and recognition is now given to new organizations big and small.
** Try to imagine how to organize the Olympic Games if is was not an event where countries compete.

Chapter 6

Many people who practice in a dojo will never notice a lot from the organizational structure above their dojo. It will be limited to attending a seminar and receiving a passport, perhaps a newsletter and an insurance most of them will never claim from.

Still, the national organization fulfills a number of functions, both directly and indirectly.

Perhaps the most unnoticed function of national organizations is that through their shere existence they create an environment necessary for Aikido to be recognized at a national and international level. Its a bit of a vicious circle, but the early Aikido organizations actually faced this challenge.

If you practices Aikido and wanted to be recognized as anything, you needed some sort of validation. One form of validation was Hombu recognition. But this only had meaning within the Aikido community. To be recognized by local or national government these groups needed something else.

We are no longer there to question why, but somewhere in the late ’70-ies or early ’80-ies it was decided by Hombu and a number of Aikido organizations in countries to found the IAF, to become member of the International World Games Association and participate in the International World Games. This established Aikido as a sport in the international community, and it allowed governments to recognize national Aikido organizations. However, to enter IWGA and become a recognized organization, it needed to have a minimal number of members in different countries. So, these countries actually needed to cooperate to establish Aikido as a sport and maintain an international body to maintain that recognition*.

As Aikido participated in the World Games this cost money which the IAF did not have. The first World Games where Aikido participated were in Germany. The financial burden was carried by the German Aikikai under the leadership of Asai Sensei. To cover some of the expenses and make the most of the senior instructors attending, a seminar was organized.
The second time Aikido participated was in the Netherlands in 1993. Dutch Aikikai didn’t have the resources to cover all the expenses of hosting the event, and this was the first time the IAF had to provide the means to organize the event**. Again, a seminar was organized to cover some of the expenses.

These seminars slowly took on a life of their own. As the IAF started to organize its 4-yearly general assemblies it became a habit to organize a seminar as well. These seminars became so popular that over time they were intricately linked. In 2016 2000 participants attended the IAF seminar.

Participation in the World Games and participating in the seminars of the IAF were the earliest spin-off. As time passed more and more examples of that spin-off became apparent.

Virtually every national organization was looking for some form of justification of its existence, other than just being there. Simple things like organizing national training courses started happening. Developing instructors courses and getting them recognized was another step that was appropriate in the development of Aikido as well as just the right thing for a national organization.

As the list of topics grew, it reached a point where there was sufficient justification for national governments to start paying attention to Aikido:
– an international body, member of SportAccord
– participating in the World Games
– with a larger number of dojos covering a wider region in the country
– with national seminars
– with a recognized instructors course

Such a track record was just the boost Aikido needed as a phenomenon to be recognized in its own right. It went from ‘what is Aikido?’ to ‘we know Aikido’. And its unprobable that this would have happened without the national and international Aikido federations.

Today national Aikido organizations provide a larger number of services, ranging from supporting starting dojos with tatami, information, experience, instructors, etc. to special programs for gender equality, physically challenged athletes, Aikido for business, and so on.

So, if anybody asks what’s in it for dojos? Realize you wouldn’t be in the position to ask without the national and international organizations.

* Today some people question whether Aikido is a sport. We will discuss that at some point in the future.
** Since it didn’t have the funds Dutch Aikikai covered the expenses, and these were ‘repaid’ through an installment of its membership fees.

(Chapter 5)

I’ll start my analysis of the world of sport with looking at the IOC. Not that I’m an expert, so there my be discrepancies or mistakes in my analysis. But for the general idea, I think the following is valid.

Over time the Olympic Games have become successful. Both in terms of the event itself as well as in terms of impact. Once governments realized the importance of the Olympic Games, they became involved. A structure of IOC and NOC’s was established. Participation of countries in the Olympic Games became a must for any country.
And in return, being in the Olympic Games established a sport as a sport. Governments started to use that as a defining attribute.

But its not that simple. There are more sports than there is space in the Olympic Games. This gave rise to different developments: there is an organization for recognized Olympic sports. These do not all participate in the Games, but they all fulfill the criteria.

For those sports that were not expected to be in the Olympics anyway, they devised the World Games. To become a member, the sport had to join IWGA.

IOC and IWGA formed an umbrella organization called GAISF. They organized their meetings at an annual event called SportAccord. This became such a success that they renamed GAISF to SportAccord.

But what remained was: if you are member of SportAccord you are recognized as a sport by national governments.

Now,within SportAccord there were sports that didn’t really fit in anywhere in the Olympic spectrum. I’m still not quite clear what the defining characteristics are, but they were brought together in AIMS: the Affiliated Independent Members of SportAccord. In 2016 this organization AIMS got recognized by IOC. As a consequence Aikido is now recognized as a sport by the IOC. And in fact that has consequences: if your country has an NOC, it must recognize your sport because it is recognized by IOC. Aikido is by this chain a IOC-recognized sport. That does not give Aikido the right to participate in the Olympic Games, it does not give access to subsidies related to the Olympic Games, but it does for instance give access to the NOC in your country.

Let’s look at the following issues in the next chapter.

(Chapter 4)

The world of sport is complicated. Few people appear to understand the reasons why. And it makes sense, because very few people will ever need to consider what is going on at this level op sport. In this blog I will try to explain my take on the complexity.

The easiest way to start thinking about sport, is that it is something people often do together. This makes it something in the public domain, and the public domain is something governments take in interest in.

For instance, soccer is a simple game children play if they have a ball and a field of grass, or even if the have a tennisball and a garage door. So governments regulate that you can’t play soccer in parks, can’t play of the public street, etc.
But soccer is also big business. It drives national pride. It creates revenue. It demands stadiums. It involves hooligans. Which creates a safety issue. Etc.

So, governments have interest in sports on each level.

Now, soccer is clearly a sport. But how do we know that. There are variations of soccer that certainly do not count as sport. Rugby certainly isn’t football. But American football is quite like rugby. But American football is certainly not soccer. So, is soccer football or not?
And that’s just soccer to start off with.

Why is Aikido a sport? Is it a sport? If it is not a sport, what is it? Who determines what it is? All these questions have turned out to be impossible to answer over the last 40 years for the people deeply involved. How should a government answer such questions?

They have a simple solution. If you are Olympic, you are a sport.

But what does that mean, if you are Olympic. To understand that, you need to understand the international world of sport. Which organizations are there, where did they come from? What do they do now, and why are we related to them.

And finally, how does that impact you.

Chapter 3

In Dutch society there was a concept called ‘verzuiling’, which roughly should be translated to ‘creating columns’. This categorization was everywhere in society: in politics and religion, in schools, in television, and in sport.
However, as this traditional segmentation disappeared, the need for segregated schools, television and in its wake sport disappeared.
Cateegorized organizations for sport led to there being catholic socces, protestant soccer, liberal soccer, etc. Each of these sports were organized under categorized umbrella organizations NSF, NKS, NCS.
Around 1992 the NCAF joined the NCS. As described, the Aikido-department grew and large numbers of Aikidoka were organized there. However, around 2000 problems arise (*). One of the new organizations is unhappy with its position and leaves the NCS.
Despite this going against the statutes of the FOG and the government advise for the structure of Martial Arts, this organization is allowed as member of the FOG.

Between 2000 and 2005 the Dutch government addresses the categorization of sport and indicates it will no longer accept different organizations for sport. There should be one organization for each sport, and it is left to the umbrella organizations to resolve the solution for this policy. The NCS, NSF and JBN sit down at the table to discuss how this should be resolved for Judo and Aikido. However, the discussions about Judo are so complex that these negotiations never come around to discussing Aikido. In fact this drags on for several years, and around 2004 the NCS informed Aikido that they may well be dismantled altogether. This information tips the balance for a large number of Aikido organizations. They quickly abandon ship and cross over to the FOG, who accepts them as members, despite the policy and statutes that should have prohibited that.

By that time it also becomes apparent that within the FOG discussions with the NSF have started to form a new organization for Aikido in the Netherlands, directly under NSF. Placed before the dilemma – wait for the problems to be sorted out between the NSF, NCS and JBN and participate in a new umbrella organization for Aikido – a pragmatic choice is made for the latter option. As a consequence in 2009 Aikido terminates its membership of the NCS.

This is the milestone that demarks the end of the early history of Aikido in the Netherlands.

In the next blog I will look at the organization of Aikido at the border of national and international organization of sport.

(*) unfortunately the problems at this time already involve the DAF.

Chapter 2

It’s difficult to understand the developments in Dutch Aikido without understanding the structure of Dutch sport. Around 1990 I had a simple image in mind: Dutch government had two top-structures:
– NSF (Dutch Sport Federation) which was the NGO to promote sport in the Netherlands
– NOC which was the national Olympic Committee

The organization was in fact called NOC/NSF at the time, expressing the strong link between the two bodies.

The goal of any government would be to have one organization per sport: for soccer, judo, swimming, karate, etc. So, to be recognized by the government you would need to be somehow recognized by NSF. And since the FOG was affiliated to the NSF, Aikido was recognized as a sport through that membership.

When the FOG evicted Aikido as member, but there was a government report stating that Aikido should be within the FOG, we were briefly lost for direction. However, it turned out that my understanding of the structure was flawed.

A remnant from Dutch post-war politics was something called ‘columns’. The religious parts of society were in a catholic and a protestant column. The socialist and communist political parts of society were in columns of their own. And sport appeared to be structured in the same way. So, beside the NOC/NSF there appeared to exist a catholic sportorganization, a protestant sportorganization and a socialist sportorganization. These columns had lost their meaning in society, but the organizations were still there. And next to NOC/NSF there was an organization called the NCS (Dutch Cultural Sportorganization). They were aimed at the working class and to express that, they had chosed the word Cultural in their name.

The NCAF, that had just been expelled from the FOG was interested in becoming a member of any other organization. The NCS was all too pleased with a new member sport. So, we got off on a good footing. The NCS turned out to be a very pleasant organization, with friendly and supporting staff.
In fact, the formula turned out to be so succesful that an increasing number of Aikido organizations joined it. From being a section by itself, the NCAF was joined by virtually all Aikido organizations except the Aikido-department of the JBN.
And in fact the first recognized instructors course for Aikido was establised within the NCS, in harmonious cooperation between the main participating organizations.

Unfortunately the happy years within the NCS were not to last. The government had other ideas for the world of sport, which we will discuss in the next chapter.

Chapter 1

In 1988 I was asked to join the board of the NCAF: Nederlandse Culturele Aikido Federatie. At that time I was a beginner in Aikido, with no knowledge of Aikido politics whatsoever. My teacher asked me to help him, and so I did.

Over time I found out that the history of the NCAF was based on conflict ridden events, that even today are embarrassing to discuss. Luckily they were before my time.

In essence, the early organizational history of Aikido started with members of an organization called BBN: Budo Bond Nederland. However, the Dutch government asked a committee of wise men (actually called so) and their advise was to abolish BBN and replace it with 4 organizations: Karate, Taekwondo, Judo and FOG (Federatie Oosterse Gevechtsporten / Federation for Eastern Martial Arts). Aikido was to become member of the FOG.

Unfortunately, Aikido was practised by two groups of instructors: Judo-instructors that also did Aikido and a new generation of people that only trained Aikido. The Judo-instructors did not want to leave their strong organization (over 200.000 members), Aikido-instructors did not want to be a splinter group in a huge organization.

Setting aside how it happened, the Aikidoka established an organization that first was called NCAB, and later when it joined the FOG was called NCAF. The NCAF applied for membership of the IAF and obtained that (I believe in 1984).

For a brief moment in time there was only one organization for Aikido (of course there was also Aikido within the Judo-federation JBN, but that wasn’t an independent organization).

This was the situation when I joined the NCAF. And the first political topic I ran into was the recognition of an instructors course. Both the NCAF and the JBN had applied for government recognition for their instructors course. The Ministry of Sport had asked both organizations to reach some form of agreement, which they counldn’t. The file was put in a drawer for at least a decade.

Somewhere around 1990 or 1991 I was asked to become chairman of the NCAF. I found out quickly that being chairman was not going to be easy. All the instructors were my senoirs by at least 10 years, and none felt the urge to listen to my advise. One after the other thought that they could establish their own organization. And within about 10 years at least 5 new organizations were established from within the NCAF (Itokan, AFN, CABN, DAF, Ryushinkan).
But also within the JBN there were groups splitting off. The ARN was established of three different sections, the future ASN was already working separately.
New groups came from outside of the Netherlands, other styles than Aikikai found a foothold: Tomiki Aikido, Yoshinkan Aikido, Yoseikan Aikido. New organizations were founded around European instructors.

All this splitting was put into a new perspective when a political coup was organized within the FOG. Out of the blue the FOG expelled the NCAF as a member because it wasn’t promoting the sport enough. Based on this feeble argument the FOG members however decided to expell Aikido and changed their statutes, such that Aikido could not become a member again.

(end of chapter one)