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Aikido will likely develop on a large scale because there is significant demand from people who have tired of competitive sports and because many individuals have welcomed aikido as a unique form of physical activity that offers a combination of mental and physical stimulation not available elsewhere.
On the other hand, the increasing popularity and success of competitive martial arts such as judo and taekwondo in the Olympic Games bodes well for aikido, too.The Tomiki Aikido Network has held international competitions and contests since 1989, with widespread excitement evident among the participants, who enjoy the thrill of competition as in other athletic sports.
This enthusiasm for competition, however, is not generally shared by practitioners of other styles of aikido. Indeed, Aiki-kai strongly forbade competition after Kenji Tomiki created the free practice training method in 1961, which allows two aikido practitioners to compete. The reasoning behind the ban is that contests may produce a mind-set that is more interested in competition than cooperation.
More recently, however, a contest in the format of kata, with the winner being decided by a judging panel that scores each participant’s performance, has become popular in many non-Tomiki aikido schools. Some clubs and some schools hold contests and give commendations to winning participants as an incentive, although strictly speaking this practice may result in producing a mind that wants to compete against other people. Going forward, the competitive mind-set—pro and con—is likely to remain a thorny issue in the aikido world.

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