Aiki (martial arts principle) Aiki (martial arts principle) Aiki from a Japanese budo term, at its most basic is a principle that allows a conditioned practitioner to negate or redirect an opponent's power. When applied, the aiki practitioner controls the actions of the attacker with minimal effort and with a distinct absence of muscular tension usually associated with physical effort. In Japanese "Aiki" is formed from two kanji: The kanji for "ai" is made of three radicals, "join", "one" and "mouth". Hence, "ai" symbolizes things coming together, merging. Aiki should not be confused with "wa" which refers to harmony. The kanji for "ki" represents
Japanese particles (written using a hiragana character with no other use in modern Japanese, originally assigned as "wo", now usually pronounced "o", though some speakers render it as "wo"). These exceptions are a relic of historical kana usage. There are eight types of particles, depending on what function they serve. Note that some particles appear in two types. For example, ""kara"" is a "case marker" where it describes where something is from or what happens after something; when it describes a cause it is a "conjunctive particle". "Ni" and "de" can both be used to show location, corresponding to the prepositions "in"