Forgive me if I seem rude, but I was interested in Aikido for a while and met a teacher who trains for free. At first, I thought it seemed like a great service that the man was doing, but after speaking with him I'm not so sure. Actually, from what fighting experience I've had with both trained and untrained people from multiple styles, it seems his methods might offer false confidence and be a disservice to his students. It seems to me that the general mindset of the Aikidoka near me and that I've found on some parts of the internet is one of compliance during training, not allowing open sparring (including striking, takedowns, and groundfighting), not competing in martial arts competitions, and generally not fighting. While the idea of not fighting is perfectly well and good, many people achieve this in their life without training in any art even a single day. So why the general dislike of full-contact fighting and fighting between styles? As someone who has been training in martial arts for only 2.5 years in various styles, it's my understanding that the way we grow as fighters is to fight people of other disciplines in order to understand the weaknesses of our discipline and fix them. Without full-contact fighting and healthy competition, you don't have the opportunity to really understand these weaknesses. In particular, I don't understand why it is so widespread that many arts including Aikido don't participate in full-contact free sparring. For a while I studied Shaolin kung fu and then I took a Taekwondo class and suddenly realized that my lack of sparring in class caused my reflexes to be slow and my timing to be poor. It was only after 6 months of doing full-contact sparring in Taekwondo once or twice a week that what I learned while studying Shaolin started becoming useful. I think that the same thing would happen to many martial artists who participate in no sparring, or even light contact sparring. So, it seems unwise (to me) for a school which claims to teach self-defense or fighting not to participate in full-contact sparring. So I've got to ask, am I wrong? Do Aikidoka regularly compete and participate in hard sparring, where I've only been seeing a very loud minority of practitioners? And if not, what is the reason?
No, they don't compete at all really, outside of a very small minority. Why? Because there is no first attack in Aikido. It's a system to counter an attack. Of course you could apply moves proactively, but that would be missing the point. When it comes to self defence, it's dubious. Throws might work, joint manipulations won't however. But then you might as well do Judo instead, and throw even better. My 50 cents.
That's a very bold claim, and one not backed up by law enforcement personnel from around the world who use joint manipulations to very effectively subdue opponents. I don't do Aikido and believe that most of the students I've met wouldn't be able to apply their system against committed attacks, but dismissing joint manipulations altogether seems an overreaction.
You are very fond of creating strawmen aren't you? It does you no good as it makes you appear to either not understand the context of the discussion and subject matter or you look dishonest. However let's run with the theme of locks. What specifically within an Aikido context is the problem when applying them to a self defence situation?
Joing manipulation a work in wrestling just fine. The whizzer and the Russian two-on-one are great examples.
I did not misrepresent anything. Junkie was to highlight the level of the opposition in which it might work. Unsuspecting is good enough, but a less forceful way of putting it. There is not the time nor the convience of grabbing someones wrists in the way traditional martial arts schools teach, when under attack.
Wow. You really might want to consider what "no first attack in X" actually means. Also, use Google more often. You might have found out that O'Sensei was adamant that Aikido should not be used in competition and that many people stick to his attitude as a rule of thumb. Unless you happen to practice Shodokan Aikido. Joint manipulation may not necessarily be the type of technique you deliberately look for in a fight but to say they don't work shows a frankly shocking understanding of what you can do with them or how they might be employed. Remind me again, what's your level of experience with Aikido?
Pains me to say it but I do agree with you here. From my limited experience with aikido the way they train is certainly taking the long road to effective application. Most of the aikido I have seen has been initiated from a wrist grab or a seriously bad attempt at punching, not great methods to develop sparring/real world skills. As to why they don't compete much I think that is largely cultural, akkido was not made to be a competitive style and few of the aikidoka I have met could be called competitive people. Aikido philosophy can be very 'hippy' like for want of a better word and the competitive spirit in other styles (eg boxing) may not sit well with that. Highly competitive people may not be as inclined to take up aikido or stick with it whereas someone with a softer attitude may thrive. Of course there probably are dojos around where they are competitive and the philosophy is not so institutional. I would also like to add that the little aikido I have done and with a background in jujitsu (gendai mainly but with a touch of aiki) I have a lot of respect for a properly applied lock, they can definately work! I don't mean any disrespect the style, practitioner or the techniques only question the training methods.
That's why I wrote it's missing the point. The "harder" style of Shodokan Aikido escaped me at the time of writing. I am familiar of there being such distinctions in Aikido as well.
No. You more often than not try and change the goal posts in a discussion, there are a number of examples. What way do they teach that and what is the context in which it is supposed to work?
From my experience wrist grabs are quite a common training tool in jujitsu and aikido. They are there as a safe route into many techniques and also for the obvious defending against wrist grabs. I never quite understood why they were used so much though as a wrist grab is not exactly a go to fighting technique. I think the practice of catching punches to initiate techniques is fundamental in applying aikido (and aikido like techniques from other styles) yet it is not stressed often from what I have seen.
That's the problem with hybrid and certain gendai arts, the waza are there but the developmental context has been forgotten. So you frequently end up with a square peg in round hole situation.
Not by the Aikidoka who regularly train the weapons syllabus. My instructors frequently show a technique then pick up the sword or jo to show the relevance. There's also the misconception that everyone studying an MA is an SD nut, sometimes the training for the sheer enjoyment of it is why people train. As long as they aren't deluding themselves, and that goes for most arts really.
