To the unobservant driver, the rural Aiki Farms property blends in among all the neighboring homes along the heavily wooded Shewville Road in Ledyard. Its low stone walls, sprawling yard, and large, barn-like house could describe any one of hundreds in Ledyard were it not for the large and seemingly out of place Japanese sign at the end of the driveway.
That sign, and what it stands for, is exactly what sets Aiki Farms apart from the ordinary. Anyone curious enough to inquire as to the reason for the peculiar sign has discovered something unique—indeed, a completely different way of life.
If you didn’t know any better, Aiki Farms, owned and operated by 70-year-old Robert Burns, would seem as if it were the exact location where the east meets the west. Aside from the modest sign with Japanese script along the road, it resembles a typical small New England farm, hence the surprise when a step inside reveals a spacious and heavily Japanese-influenced dojo. Burns, a 5th Dan Shidoin Birankai Aikido master, opened the combination biointensive farm and Aikido dojo in 2001.
“This whole house is built around the dojo,” Burns said. “It all starts here; none of this would be possible without the dojo—the farm, the house, nothing.”
While the martial arts studio/farm may seem a strange combination, it is in fact deep-rooted in history.
“Aikido was created by Master Morihei Ueshiba, a farmer and a highly respected teacher of martial arts,” Burns explained. “He saw ‘budo’ [meaning ‘the way’] as the blending of farming and martial arts.”
Created around 1920, Aiki-budo (Aiki meaning “joining energy”), or Aikido as it has come to be known, in its truest form is a synthesis of martial arts and philosophical beliefs centered around bringing peace to oneself and within the world around them. Focused almost entirely on deflecting and redirecting attacking blows, Aikido teaches students to turn the energy from an aggressive attacker back into the attacker.
Unlike other martial arts that teach similar techniques, Aikido is concerned with diffusing attacks while protecting the attacker. With a wide array of judo-like throws and jiu-jitsu-like joint locks, Aikido aims to protect the defender and attacker, which is part of cultivating inner peace.
“Aikido teaches harmony not conflict,” Burns said. “It is a precise and beautiful art that can turn the most violent attack into a calm, peaceful state. If the student takes the art seriously, the training will penetrate every aspect of one’s life, so that harmony, on all levels, is a dominant force.”
Bringing a peaceful solution to a violent conflict is the foremost tenet of Aikido. For dedicated practitioners, or Aikidoka, there is no better way to learn “the way” than to follow in the footsteps of the original master and become one with the earth—something with which Burns and his “hired hand,” 25-year-old Tom Margesson, are quite familiar.
Margesson moved to Connecticut from California specifically to learn from Burns. He works the five-acre farm in exchange for his Aikido training. Rising every morning around 7 a.m. for an early morning Aikido session before tending to the crops, Margesson described his experience so far as nothing short of wholistic.
“It means so much, it’s hard to put into words,” Margesson said. “To farm and feel connected with the earth and to also study Aikido and familiarize yourself with your body and the way the body works, you learn a lot about yourself. You bring that out into the real world and it really brings a lot of insight.”
“I didn’t know why, but I just kept doing [Aikido],” Burns said. “There’s something subconscious about it. It really made a deep impact on me, and I’ve been devoted to it ever since. It took me years, but Aikido helped me break a lot of bad habits and taught me how to live peacefully and healthily.”