International Business Article
THEY FLY THROUGH THE AIR WITH THE GREATEST OF...KI?
In Japan, Execs hope to harness the "life force" in business
Few Japanese executives come more dapper and cosmopolitan than Shoichiro Irimajiri, an
executive vice president of Sega Enterprises Ltd. But unaware that a journalist was watching, he
appeared to come unglued on a recent evening in Tokyo gymnasium. It started with the
55-year-old Irimajiri bowing and reaching out to touch the extended hand of Kozo Nishino, a
master of ki-or life force. Just before making contact, Irimajiri suddenly recoiled and screamed
as if he had been zapped by a ray gun. Flying 20 meters backward, he crashed into a padded wall,
feel to the floor, and started writhing and yelping. Getting to his feet, he jumped wildly up and
down, and then went back to Nishino for a second jolt.
What's going on here? Buckle your seat belt: This could just be the latest chapter in the Secrets
of Japanese Management. For besides Irimajiri, dozens of other Japanese executives are flocking
to Nishino to strengthen their ki. They believe this improves health and stamina, rids them of
stress, enhances self-control, and keeps them youthful. Irimajiri, who visits Nishino's Tokyo
center three times a week at about $20 per session, credits ki with curing a serious heart ailment
several years ago.
In the nine years since Nishino went public with his concept of ki, he has sold a total of about
600,000 copies of nine different books. Roughly 20,000 disciples have trained at one of his two
centers. But only recently has his impact on the executive suite come to light. His other
high-level devotees include executive vice-presidents at Casio Computer and Mitsubishi Electric,
managing directors at Oki Electric, NEC, and Sony, and Masaaki Morita, chairman of Sony Life
Insurance Co. and younger brother of Sony Corp. co-founder Akio Morita.
Like Irimajiri, they almost all "fly" when receiving ki from Nishino. "I don't particularly want
to fly, but I fly," says engineering graduate Masaaki Morita, 67. Although to an observer the
flying seems akin to magnets repelling each other, practitioners say it feels good and their ki
gains strength from it. "I haven't aged in 10 years," boasts Kazutoyo Komatsu, 66, chairman of
the Japan subsidiary of Baxter International Inc., the U.S. medical products company. He
produces a 10-year-old photo to prove his point. "I think ki has helped me grow this company
from $70 million a year to $600 million," he adds. "It has given me a more human touch, which
is very important in cross-cultural communication."
Surprisingly, what would be scoffed at as a cult in most advanced countries is gaining credibility
in Japan. Consumer-electronics giant Sony Corp. has a research team studying ki. One Sony
managing director has convinced himself and others that touching a compact disc to inject it with
ki improves its sound. Japan's Ministry of International Trade & Industry has formed a
committee to look into practical uses of ki energy. Committee Chairman Shigemi Sasaki, a
professor at Tokyo's University of Electro-Communications, says more then 10 companies are
paying for ki research at his university.
Just what is ki? Scientists don't know. look up the Chinese character in a dictionary and you'll
find a string of translations, from "energy" to "spirit" to "soul." It is the same character as the
ki in aikido, the subtlest of martial arts. And it is what acupuncturists believe courses through
the body and can be controlled by needles. Nishino, unusually youthful at 68, prefers the term
"fundamental life energy." He says ki is what Neoplatonists referred to as "psyche," which is
meant "breath" in the original Greek but came to mean "animating principle of the world" to
the Neoplatonists.
Certain breathing techniques are critical to strengthening one's ki. Nishino discovered this
during an aikido match in 1978, even though he already knew the importance of breathing in
yoga and Zen. "It suddenly came to me that the soles of our feet have consciousness and that
breathing is the key to the kind of special, strange power that some people have," he says. He
spent the next few years experimenting 10 hours a day with various breathing techniques.
SOLE BEARING. The breathing methods Nishino espouses are relatively simple, comprising an
assortment of standing, bending, squatting, and sitting positions. Breathing is to be slow and
shallow in most cases. The key, says Nishino, is to imagine that you're breathing through the
soles of your feet. That "shift in consciousness" is said to positively alter the blood and oxygen
flow through your body and help "awaken" each of this trillions of cells. This newly released
energy is ki. At least, according to Nishino.
Many people do believe that breathing exercises can assist relaxation, which has widely accepted
benefits. But cure a serious heart condition? Propel people helplessly through the air without
even touching them? Improve product quality? It's a tough case to make.
Besides his high-profile followers and apparent results, Nihino has two things going for him.
First, he doesn't behave like a modern-day messiah or even a faith healer. "He is a very normal
man," says Sony Life's Morita. Second, Western science and medicine long castigated
acupuncture as Oriental quackery. Then James Reston of The New York Times underwent an
appendectomy in China in the early 1970s with acupuncture as the only anesthetic. He wrote
glowingly of his experience, winning acupuncture new believability in the U.S. Maybe an equally
credible Westerner someday will do the same for Nishino's school of ki.
Author: Robert Neff
Credit: Business Week / January 23, 1995
THEY FLY THROUGH THE AIR WITH THE GREATEST OF...KI?
In Japan, Execs hope to harness the "life force" in business
Few Japanese executives come more dapper and cosmopolitan than Shoichiro Irimajiri, an
executive vice president of Sega Enterprises Ltd. But unaware that a journalist was watching, he
appeared to come unglued on a recent evening in Tokyo gymnasium. It started with the
55-year-old Irimajiri bowing and reaching out to touch the extended hand of Kozo Nishino, a
master of ki-or life force. Just before making contact, Irimajiri suddenly recoiled and screamed
as if he had been zapped by a ray gun. Flying 20 meters backward, he crashed into a padded wall,
feel to the floor, and started writhing and yelping. Getting to his feet, he jumped wildly up and
down, and then went back to Nishino for a second jolt.
What's going on here? Buckle your seat belt: This could just be the latest chapter in the Secrets
of Japanese Management. For besides Irimajiri, dozens of other Japanese executives are flocking
to Nishino to strengthen their ki. They believe this improves health and stamina, rids them of
stress, enhances self-control, and keeps them youthful. Irimajiri, who visits Nishino's Tokyo
center three times a week at about $20 per session, credits ki with curing a serious heart ailment
several years ago.
In the nine years since Nishino went public with his concept of ki, he has sold a total of about
600,000 copies of nine different books. Roughly 20,000 disciples have trained at one of his two
centers. But only recently has his impact on the executive suite come to light. His other
high-level devotees include executive vice-presidents at Casio Computer and Mitsubishi Electric,
managing directors at Oki Electric, NEC, and Sony, and Masaaki Morita, chairman of Sony Life
Insurance Co. and younger brother of Sony Corp. co-founder Akio Morita.
Like Irimajiri, they almost all "fly" when receiving ki from Nishino. "I don't particularly want
to fly, but I fly," says engineering graduate Masaaki Morita, 67. Although to an observer the
flying seems akin to magnets repelling each other, practitioners say it feels good and their ki
gains strength from it. "I haven't aged in 10 years," boasts Kazutoyo Komatsu, 66, chairman of
the Japan subsidiary of Baxter International Inc., the U.S. medical products company. He
produces a 10-year-old photo to prove his point. "I think ki has helped me grow this company
from $70 million a year to $600 million," he adds. "It has given me a more human touch, which
is very important in cross-cultural communication."
Surprisingly, what would be scoffed at as a cult in most advanced countries is gaining credibility
in Japan. Consumer-electronics giant Sony Corp. has a research team studying ki. One Sony
managing director has convinced himself and others that touching a compact disc to inject it with
ki improves its sound. Japan's Ministry of International Trade & Industry has formed a
committee to look into practical uses of ki energy. Committee Chairman Shigemi Sasaki, a
professor at Tokyo's University of Electro-Communications, says more then 10 companies are
paying for ki research at his university.
Just what is ki? Scientists don't know. look up the Chinese character in a dictionary and you'll
find a string of translations, from "energy" to "spirit" to "soul." It is the same character as the
ki in aikido, the subtlest of martial arts. And it is what acupuncturists believe courses through
the body and can be controlled by needles. Nishino, unusually youthful at 68, prefers the term
"fundamental life energy." He says ki is what Neoplatonists referred to as "psyche," which is
meant "breath" in the original Greek but came to mean "animating principle of the world" to
the Neoplatonists.
Certain breathing techniques are critical to strengthening one's ki. Nishino discovered this
during an aikido match in 1978, even though he already knew the importance of breathing in
yoga and Zen. "It suddenly came to me that the soles of our feet have consciousness and that
breathing is the key to the kind of special, strange power that some people have," he says. He
spent the next few years experimenting 10 hours a day with various breathing techniques.
SOLE BEARING. The breathing methods Nishino espouses are relatively simple, comprising an
assortment of standing, bending, squatting, and sitting positions. Breathing is to be slow and
shallow in most cases. The key, says Nishino, is to imagine that you're breathing through the
soles of your feet. That "shift in consciousness" is said to positively alter the blood and oxygen
flow through your body and help "awaken" each of this trillions of cells. This newly released
energy is ki. At least, according to Nishino.
Many people do believe that breathing exercises can assist relaxation, which has widely accepted
benefits. But cure a serious heart condition? Propel people helplessly through the air without
even touching them? Improve product quality? It's a tough case to make.
Besides his high-profile followers and apparent results, Nihino has two things going for him.
First, he doesn't behave like a modern-day messiah or even a faith healer. "He is a very normal
man," says Sony Life's Morita. Second, Western science and medicine long castigated
acupuncture as Oriental quackery. Then James Reston of The New York Times underwent an
appendectomy in China in the early 1970s with acupuncture as the only anesthetic. He wrote
glowingly of his experience, winning acupuncture new believability in the U.S. Maybe an equally
credible Westerner someday will do the same for Nishino's school of ki.
Author: Robert Neff
Credit: Business Week / January 23, 1995
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