修行会

121「己が身にひそめる敵をエイと切りヤアと物皆イエイと導け。」- 植芝盛平

Original Waka

己が身に
ひそめる敵を
エイと切り
ヤアと物皆
イエイと導け

植芝盛平 (Ueshiba, 1977)

Translation

“Within my body, the enemy hid within; with Ei! cut through, with Ya! address all be-ings, and with I-Ei! guide all be-ings.” – Morihei Ueshiba

Waka Translation

Within my body,
the enemy hid within;
with Ei! I cut through—

with Ya! address all be-ings,
with I‑ei! guide all be-ings.

Morihei Ueshiba

歴史的仮名遣い（語構成を明示）

己が身に（おのがみに）
潜むる敵を（ひそむるてきを）
エイと切り（えいときり）
ヤアと物皆（やあとものみな）
イエイと導け（いえいみちびけ）

植芝盛平

Bungo Romanization

ono ga mi ni
hisomuru teki o
ei to kiri
yā to mono mina
i‑ei to michibike

Ueshiba Morihei

Translation, Notes, Commentary, and Research by Latex G. N. R. Space-Coyote

Ueshiba, M. (2025). 植芝盛平道歌–121: Ei! ya! i-ei! (L. G. N. R. Space-Coyote, Trans.; OpenAI ChatGPT-5 Pro, Ed.). Shugyokai.org. (Original work published 1977) https://shugyokai.org/it9x

己が （おのが; ono ga）— self, emphatic possessor; emphatic reflexive “one’s own, my own,” very common in classical diction.

身（み; mi）— body (originally a pregnant woman), person, self; kakekotoba as (a) body, person, self; (b) 実 “substance / essence”, (c) 御身 “august person”, and (d) 見 “seeing”.

に（ni）— locative (“in, within”).

己が身に（おのがみに; ono ga mi ni）— “within one’s own body / within my own self”; the use of 己が rather than just 我が sharpens the self‑reflexive focus: the self whose body is the training ground; kakekotoba on 身 allows for (a) in one’s own body, self, (b) in one’s own true substance / essence, (c) in your august person (faint), and (d) in what one sees / one’s perception. Considering kakektotoba, given Ueshiba’s constant pairing of 身 (body) and 魂・霊 (soul/mitama), the mi pivot nicely overlays physical body and true inner being, so おのがみに can mean both “within my own body” and “within the very core / reality of what I am”.

ひそめる / 潜むる（ひそめる / ひそむる; hisomeru / hisomuru）— 連体形 / attributive of 潜む (hisomu) ‘to lurk, to lie hidden’.

敵（てき; teki） – enemy (<啇 – stem/root|<冂 – upside down box)|古 – old, ancient, things past, simple, unsophisticated, history>|攵 – strike, hit; kakekotoba on -te form + ki (Space-Coyote, 2026).

を — signifies object (i.e., object marker).

己が身にひそめる敵（おのがみにひそむるてき; onoga mi ni hisomuru teki）— “the enemy within”; evokes classical budō teachings that the true opponent is the egoic self; this is common across Edo–modern martial writings and echoed in Ueshiba’s own discourses; emphasizes the inner opponent—egoic aggression and discord lodged within the self. That is a hallmark of Ueshiba’s thought (e.g., “True victory is victory over oneself” / masakatsu agatsu), widely attested in collections of his sayings. The reading here takes 敵 primarily as the self’s delusive opposition (e.g., egoic aggression, fear, discord), not an external foe. Where the kakekotoba of -te form + ki (Space-Coyote, 2025) leads to a victory over lingering / resonant energetic momenta lurking within one’s own body.

エイ／ヤア／イエイ（ei / ya / i‑ei） — kiai / kakegoe are preserved as voiced shouts, reflecting Aikido’s emphasis on breath-sound, posture, and timing.

エイ（ei）— a sharp kakegoe / kiai shout, comparable to sword schools’ cries at the moment of striking; kakekotoba as 栄 “glory / flourishing” and 永 “eternity”.

と（to）— quotative particle (“with the cry ‘Ei!’ / saying ‘Ei!’ and…”).

切り（きり; kiri）— 連用形 (continuative) / gerund of kiru ‘to cut’; the verb is in continuative form, but in budō idiom “X と切り” strongly implies a decisive act: cutting the lurking enemy with a swordlike mind and body; kakekotoba as (a) 切り “to cut”, (b) 霧 (kiri) “mist”, and 限り (kagiri) “limit” leaving the cut and mist clearing (i.e., cutting delusion / darkness / mental fog).

ヤア（yā）— a more open, calling kakegoe “Ya!”, often used to project attention outward or initiate action; kakekotoba as や “ya” classical kireji and vocative particle, a call that both cuts and summons.

物皆（ものみな; mono mina）— “all things, all beings, everything”.

ヤアと物皆（ヤアとものみな; yā to mono mina）— grammatically this is a slightly open structure—there is no explicit verb in this line. It’s understood as the object or addressee of the following directive: with ‘ya!’, (turn) to all things / address all beings.

イエイ（i‑ei / yēi）— the third, more elaborate battle cry. Here it forms a climactic kakegoe; kakekotoba as mini-sequence of transformation and return, which is exactly what 導け is doing doctrinally: turning enemy-energy back into harmonized ki.

導け（みちびけ; michibike）— imperative of michibiku ‘to guide’.

イエイと導け（いえいみちびけ; i‑ei to michibike）— 導く shares its root with 道 (michi, “way, path”), so 導け evokes guiding others along the Way, not just moving them around giving the sense of “with ‘I‑ei!’, guide (them) – guide all beings”.

Scope. “物皆…導け” expands the scope from self‑work to cosmic / relational leadership—guiding “all things” through right alignment. This resonates with Ueshiba’s religious language and his interest in kotodama (word‑spirit), where vocalization aligns one’s being with the fabric of the cosmos.

Kotodama & guidance (導け). Retaining the imperatives highlights Ueshiba’s kotodama-inflected view that voiced intent orders relations with “all things” (物皆), shifting from self-purification (cutting the inner foe) to benevolent leadership—guiding rather than destroying.

Form. The tanka maintains a clear upper movement (self-enemy → decisive cut) and lower movement (address all beings → guide them), mirroring the original sequence.

Historical kana/kanji choices. We keep the verb 潜む in classical attributive 潜むる, and the imperative 導け (‑ke imperative for quadrigrade verbs), both standard in bungo paradigms; the object marker を, genitive が, and locative にfunction as expected.

Kakegoe in katakana. Martial cries are left in katakana (エイ／ヤア／イエイ), which aligns with budō writing conventions across modern and historical pedagogy in sword arts.

Pronoun + genitive. 己が (onoga, self‑emphatic “one’s own”) + 身 (“body, person”) is idiomatic, with が marking the possessor; such self‑reflexive diction is common in premodern registers.

Attributive relative clause. 潜むる敵 “the enemy that lurks” uses the 連体形 to modify 敵, exactly as in Classical Japanese relative constructions.

Imperative in ‑け. 導け is the 命令形 of michibiku (yodan / “godan‑ku”) — attested in classical paradigms and still transparent to modern readers.

Inner foe / outer form. The directive “cut the enemy that lurks in oneself” matches Ueshiba’s oft‑repeated ethic that victory is over one’s own contention rather than over others; the poem reframes cutting (kenjutsu imagery) as self‑purification.

Kakegoe, kiai, and practice. “Ei / Yā / I‑ei” resonate with the kakegoe / kiai ecology of sword traditions—tools to time the cut, project intent, and unify breath mind body. (For example, Jigen‑ryū is famous for its piercing “Ei!”.) The poem’s triadic cries map onto phases: cut → address → guide, turning technique into ethics.

Kotodama (言霊). Ueshiba’s religious formation—deeply influenced by Shintō and Ōmoto‑kyō — centers on kotodama, the vibrational power of phonetic utterance. Treating Ei / Yā / I‑ei as world‑ordering sounds aligns with that cosmology. (Scholarly accounts discuss how Ueshiba integrated kotodama into aikidō teaching and ritual speech).

Tanka poetics as discipline. Using a classical lyric vessel to stage this ethical‑martial lesson fits the longstanding role of tanka as a form that condenses doctrine into patterned sound, precisely what court‑poetry theorists (and their modern interpreters) describe.