A couple videos from the Aikido school I attend.

The first video is filmed in slow motion since we wanted to play around with that option and the second video is done at a more normal pace but still slow enough to allow the Uki to catch up with the joint lock.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk8y6oXD_Lg"]Tri City Aikido TenShin Dojo December 2014 - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0oBTz55LP8"]Tri-City Aikido TenShin Dojo September 2014 - YouTube[/ame]

 

I just thought id share a couple videos since it might be a good ice breaker since I'm not active in this forum and am a noob at aikido but not new to martial arts since I come from a Kung Fu and Grappling foundation.

 

Hi Doppelganger,

are you any of the people in the videos? And are you wanting any comment on what is in the videos?
It's been 10 (10!!!!) years since I last did aikido, but I still enjoy watching an aikido clip and still miss the feeling of flying through the air.

 

not an aikidoka, but i like what i see (on the other videos too).

 

No I'm not any of the people in the videos since i still am a noob to aikido (Kung Fu & Grappling Arts are my foundation) Im still trying to fix my rolls and hard falls since I tend to do more of a cartwheel type of the flipping hard fall. I blame my cartwheel roll and falls on all the year of the CLF side horse stance since I seem to be even stepping and reaching on to the same line instead of having the more traditional 3 line (right center and left) rolls. Its odd because I use to do awesome judo rolls before the years of Kung fu training and now do an acrobatic roll at least it dosent hurt me lol.

I pretty much posted the videos to share this particular schools flavor of aikido since its not the typical aikido you see out there.

Feedback is welcomed.

 

I've only been training aikido for about 5 months and went to my first lesson a bit skeptical wondering if I would want to train it.

I will say the way the Sensei teaches it is pretty applicable and thats what made me decide to continue on with it.

 

In which case, thank you for posting. I must admit, it didn't look too different in its essentials to most other aikido styles, especially in the second video, after it switched from the big bloke doing techniques.

I asked if you wanted comments, because there were some I could have made about the big tori in the first and start of the second video (if you look at how he is doing techniques compared to some of the others in the latter part of the second video, you will see what I am alluding to), and a comment about uke in both the first and second. But you don't, so I wont

 

Sorry, I just saw this bit, so I will comment away .

As I said, I thought it looked like decent enough aikido; my comments are more centered around the manner in which the big bloke is doing some of the techniqes. If you look at his upper body, he is leading with his upper body and powering his techniques from there. For instance, when he throws, he bends the spine to follow uke down, rather than using his legs to go down. You can see a more correct way of using the legs in the second video, at around 1:24ish; the tori there is keeping a more upright/connected spine and driving the technique from his legs.

It seems though, some of the big tori's issues come from the size difference between himself and his ukes. He doesn't need to use entering, blending or turning to power a lot of the techniques, and he is attempting to accommodate himself to their size, rather than use a more size appropriate technique (because after all, he is attempting to practise a specific technique). I you look at his sokumen iriminage in the second video, where the size disparity is not important, you can see he carries out a clean technique, with sound body structure and footwork throughout. His irimi nages in the first video (and the start of the second) though show static standing, then movement, then a lot of bending.

He's also not helped that his ukes; when they kick, are not kicking into him, they are kicking beside him. He doesn't need to move to deal with the kick, because it was never going to hit him anyway! There are similar issues when they are punching him. The punches are mosty either out of range (too short) or going to the side, which does not allow him to show good technique. Sorry, but this has always been my bugbear in both aikido and karate. In paired practice of a technique, uke is there to give a known, committed and targetted attack for tori to practise with. If any of these three fall down, then tori is not able to improve or learn.

I have a question: Is it standard practice to absorb an attack before moving? I noticed, particularly in the second video that all of the tori were pretty much standing, taking the attack with their arm, then moving the rest of the body. I ask, because we didn't do this in the aikiki dojo I started in, but did do it to first learn a technique in the yoshinkan dojo I later attended. Having said that, once we had the steps of the technique down, we then blended just as much as we did in the aikiki dojo, and the pause and opposition of forces disappeared. Is what I am seeing in the video a similar learning/teaching construct, or is it how you do things normally?

Thank you for posting these, and I hope you aren't offended by my comments - I like the videos and saw much of worth in them. Plus, in critiquing/commenting, I get to think about how I do things and what I could do better too. (I have a hypothesis that when someone bangs on in critiquing a video, they are focussing on the things that they are weakest in or thinking about the most in their own studies - and body structure, particularly in takedowns, is what I have been working extensively on this last year.)

 

I wish real people fell over so easily.

 

You hit it on the nail head about the tori adjusting to the height of the uki when doing the techniques. He's the first person I've ever came across where I had to stand on my tippy toes to get a standing rear naked choke on when he asked me to do so for a demo of a technique. Im 6 foot 3inches and I want to say hes at least 4 inches taller then me. He even comments on how he leans in to the techniques at times because of adjusting for the height difference and tells us not to copy that habit.

The parts that your talking about where the Tories are standing absorbing then blending is probably because most of us have only been training aikido for less then a year or two since this particular school has only been around for about two years. We are suppose to be blending with the strike more but the tori was probably concentrating to much on the deflection and technique since they were being filmed.

Yes I can't stand it when people don't try to actually hit me in my training as well and we do try to correct that as much as possible when doing the training it might have been one of those things where the uki wanted to make sure he was making the tori look good who knows.

But good eye and catch on the details and critique I probably am the strictest on making sure my own stance is low and that I'm actually throwing realistic strikes when training but I think thats from my Kung fu background.

Thanks for the critique it was all logical statements and no offense was taken.

 

Thanks Aaradia and yes I'm happy that I finally found a school that I want to dedicate time to since the relocating and thats cool that your niece is going to aikido I hope she's enjoying it.

About that neck throw your talking about it is probably one of the more easily applied throw and one of my favorites. Did you catch the free hand being placed in the small of the back for the spine lock on that throw? It reminds me of high pat on horse in the YTCC and is probably why I like it so much.

I'm finally getting comfortable enough with the basic Aikido footwork and deflections where I've started to see where my TCC, Kung Fu & Judo techniques can blend with it and have been playing around with mixing it up a bit.

I wish I knew some of the basics of Aikido footwork and deflections back in the day while teaching the joint locking classes because I could have livened them up quite a bit more with my new material LOL.

The writ lock you are referring to is another one of my favorite locks but it always was while I was doing CLF so thats not a surprise to me. It is actually a pretty applicable throw especially while the opponent is holding a weapon (thats you think there's any applicable weapon defenses)

I would say the way my Sensei teaches aikido and our method of Aikido is a bit more tighter and angular then most aikido schools and probably is why I enjoy it. Another reason why I enjoy this school is because about a third of our small core group are ex instructors in other styles which makes it a bit entertaining since you never know whats going to happen to you in our free style randori (sparring).

P.S. Forgive the erratic order of responding to the post this website isn't mobile phone friendly and is probably why I'm not on it much.

 

if it really was a doable practical throw you would see it alot more in both grappling and MMA, you dont because ,well people actually move and dont stand there allowing you to do things like that

see answer above if it really worked like that in real life you would see guys fling all over the place in grappling and MMA
wrists locks can work (low percentage but can), but the range they work at isnt the same as the range you see in these clips and you will never be able to grab a hand like that in real life, and if you really are worried about wrist locks make a fist with the grabbed hand problem solved

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I'm actually glad allot of people don't concentrate on them in the Grappling & MMA community because it leaves me with an ace up my sleeve when I grapple.

I will agree with the fact that its hard to pull off these types of lock/throws but they are possible. Most MMA practitioners weed out techniques that don't have high percentage sucess rates because they would rather use that time to practicing a technique that has a higher sucess rate.

I personally have been able to pull off wrist locks while grappling that would be very similar to the standing throwing wristlocks. These are just modified to set up bent or straight arm locks and I have even had successful submissions with just the Wristlock.

The ShootFighting school I went to even taught the straight arm bar from the top mount with a figure four goose neck wrist lock to set up the arm bar and don't forget i beleive its the blue belt level in BJJ that allows wrist locks in competition as well so they are in the grappling community just most over look them for some odd reason.

 

P.S. One of my most memorable grappling experiences was grappling a guy that used wristlocks straight off the bat while going for a gi tie up and the pain compliance did work well to off balance me so he could suceed with his judo take downs then while on the ground I was finding myself guarding my wrist because that was the first thing he would go for while grappling especially in the guard. He's the reason why i have an open mind to wrist locks and do take the time to study them.

 

No, it leaves you with a technique that wont work against a grappler who knows what they are doing.

You're right that people who train for competition focus on high percentage techniques. Why wouldn't they? Why bother drilling a technique that will only work one time in a thousand? "Low percentage" is just a polite way of saying "doesn't work".

Wrist locks are extremely hard to get and most of the time, pretty easy to defend. They don't overlook them "for some odd reason". They overlook them because there is almost always a better option.

Pain compliance works fine in the gym when the other guy has no real stake in the game. It wont work nearly so well in competition or in a violent confrontation because the other guy is full of adrenaline.

 

I'm actually glad allot of people don't concentrate on them in the Grappling & MMA community because it leaves me with an ace up my sleeve when I grapple.

I will agree with the fact that its hard to pull off these types of lock/throws but they are possible. Most MMA practitioners weed out techniques that don't have high percentage sucess rates because they would rather use that time to practicing a technique that has a higher sucess rate.

I personally have been able to pull off wrist locks while grappling that would be very similar to the standing throwing wristlocks. These are just modified to set up bent or straight arm locks and I have even had successful submissions with just the Wristlock.

The ShootFighting school I went to even taught the straight arm bar from the top mount with a figure four goose neck wrist lock to set up the arm bar and don't forget i beleive its the blue belt level in BJJ that allows wrist locks in competition as well so they are in the grappling community just most over look them for some odd reason.[/QUOTE]

yes they are allowed so the reason you dont see them are two fold
1) mma and grappling coaches dont know them, unlikely since alot of coaches have a tcma background or students with tcma backgrounds
or 2) they are so low percentage they arent worth bothering with
especially when done standing
Which of the above is honestly more likely?

My old shootfighting coach had a mean wrist lock game from the guard, but he probably used it a handful of times when messing around they simply arent high percentage enough to bother with.

 

It wouldn't be done in full flight. Atemi would/should be added to momentarily stop or slow your attacker down.

 

re: wrist locks et al: pretty sure most of the relevant techniques that i've seen and/or trained worked off of an initial grab that is held, which generally doesn't happen in MMA and such because of the format where both start at a distance and assume guard positions. if the other guy knows that you both are going to fight, and is ready to receive and dish out attacks, if you try a wrist lock it's reasonable to assume you're likely gonna eat a face punch and a couple of leg kicks. in a non-sporting environment it's more likely that it's gonna be a committed attack which may or may not involve a grab (which will probably depend on the location and situation, as i am under the impression that different cultures and different types of attackers have different attack patterns), in which case properly drilled, violent reactive joint manipulation has a better chance of being a viable option, ideally after having smashed the attackers face in with an elbow strike or something to try to prevent him from immediately applying full resistance (and potentially followed by one or two additional strikes while securing the lock too). this of course still has all the pitfalls of any technique, such as the tiny little detail that you don't always see the attack coming and react in time, and that you still have to have drilled the technique so you actually know what to do, and that you have to be willing and able to do it, psychologically, and physically capable enough to apply it. additionally, in reference to the whole reacting thing, reacting will always be slower, and joint locking involves relatively complex motions (at least more so than shooting your fist up into someone's nose), which is another extremely compelling reason for heavy use of pre-emptive atemi with full intent to harm. if you have to react, react with something fast and shocking, THEN do the complicated thing while the other guy is shocked, so the technique will be proactive rather than reactive, thus less likely to devolve into mad flailing around, and less likely to be interrupted because you didn't do it fast enough.

then again, ideal worlds and all that jazz. i still say aikidoka should regularly beat the snot out of each other