Aikido and Rhetoric: As above, below

The Art of Peace functions everywhere on earth, in realms ranging from the vastness of space down to the tiniest plants and animals. The life force is all-pervasive and its strength, boundless. The Art of Peace allows us to tap into that tremendous reserve of universal energy.

Morihei Ueshiba, The Art of Peace

What we call “topics”…may be applied alike to Law, Physics, Politics, and many other sciences that differ in kind, such as the topic of the more or less, which will furnish syllogisms and enthymemes equally well for Law, Physics, or any other science whatever, although these subjects differ…[These] topics will not make a man practically wise about any particular class of things, because they do not deal with any particular subject matter.

Aristotle, Rhetoric I.2.21

Both aikido and rhetoric recognize a sort of fractal structure to the universe that is important for creating harmony in our communities. Ueshiba talks about the universal life force holding things together from the very large to the very small; Aristotle has a similar concept in his notion of the topos, which is a specific relationship or configuration between two or more statements that we can recognize no matter what the particular subject of discussion is: the movement from the greater to the lesser, from comparison to contrast, from cause to effect, etc. The equivalent notion in aikido is the kata or form–a specific way of relating, configuring, or articulating uke (initiator) and nage (responder).

Just as in a fractal pattern, at a distance all that is evident in the practice of aikido or rhetoric is flow. But when observed minutely, structure emerges–and not a hodge-podge of structure, either, but a specific configuration repeated at every scale. As above, below is the cardinal rule of fractal geometries. Just so, spirals nest within spirals in the flow of aikido practice; and topoi nest within topoi in rhetorical practice from the speech to the paragraph to the sentence.

Flow thus contains at its heart another irony of practice in aikido and rhetoric: namely, that flow is only achieved through the linking of small, discrete configurations into larger configurations that link into larger configurations that link into larger configurations… Thus complexity emerges from simplicity and expertise from the practice of basics.