Aikido Vs The Jab

This thread is to talk about how Aikido deals with the jab It's brought up in almost every Aikido thread so I thought there should be one for it. SO it quits wrecking all the other topics in our section.

Ok how does Aikido deal with jabs and do you even practice against them at your school.

In my school we simply slip the punch just like a boxer would strike with a uppercut to the ribs and then usally use a irimi nage from there.

There our other things we do this is just an example to get the thread off and running.

And I would like to add that even boxer's get hit with jabs alot, so to all you jabbers quit acting like all us Aikido guys would get killed by a good jabber because most boxers, karate guys, and anyone else would too. It's a very tough punch to defend and Aikido does just as good of job at it as any art does.

 

erm, if the majority of boxers cant slip jabs at will what makes you think you can?

 

what i was getting at is that even decent boxers find it quite hard to slip a jab, and they spend a lot longer practicing it than your average aikidoka. it takes a huge amount of practice to be able to weave and dodge like a boxer does (effectively) and I honestly do not think that most aikidoka are caable of doing that.

these must be some warped, twisted rules from neverland. ever see Muhammad Ali or Lennox Lewis fight?

i dont think that your average street thug is going to jab at all. from what i can tell, most stweet fights are launched with a big wide haymaker.

and after all that i think we have a different idea of what the slip actually is because the gracies use a level change, which is not the same thing. still effective though, especially in a confrontation where shots are pretty muh guaranteed to be going for the head and not the body.

 

A jab will clip most people. If you're lucky, it won't knock you out. If you are unfortunate enough to meet someone jabbing on the streets, don't worry about it, boxers can't fight on the street.

 

Good topic, but what is the big deal about a jab? A jab is just a technique. What matters is the person doing the jab, how good are they at fighting and controlling the distance. A crappy fighter with a jab is still a crappy fighter and they won't stay in the right range to jab for very long against any decent fighter.

I have an idea. I'll still call it a jab so not to get off topic, but I'm going to say the attacker has on one of those push knives. So if they hit you with a jab, they are stabbing you with a knife. Now that the stakes are higher, what does an Aikidoka do?

You run away, that's what. Yes, you move away from a jab, make the enemy chase you down just like against a knife. But Aikido teaches to always keep forward momentum, or in other words, equal weight on feet or slightly more weight on the front foot so that you can move forward quicker.

Get the opponent to come at you, draw them forward, then just when they get used to you moving away, don't retreat and slap/parry/attack the jabbing arm as you move forward slightly off the line of attack. Enter quickly with commitment and apply iriminage.

This is in no way the only technique or strategy, just the tip of the iceberg, a starting point.

 

Actually the best, easiest thing Iv'e found is just to tap the jab to the side and move my head for safety then wait and do a technique on the cross that usually follows because it moves a little slower then the jab

it takes a huge amount of practice to be able to weave and dodge like a boxer does (effectively) and I honestly do not think that most aikidoka are caable of doing that.

This I agree with were not as good at it as boxers I just wanted to show that Aikido does practice against jabs of course boxers are better at defending jabs then us that's what they specialize in I was just giving some examples of what Aikido does to defend them.

Also I might have a diffrent idea of a boxer's slip could you explain it to me?
I have never taken boxing I just think what we do looks simalar to what I see boxers do on TV.

 

i was replying to aiki mac with that

 

Oh ok sorry ikken.

 

we did a nice drill on this last night actually (sorry goju ryu, not aikido, but still...)
we did it from the point of view of getting tagged by the jab - which you often will (a jab is not a knock out technique, no matter what anyone may tell you, it is there to get distancing for the cross - and ideally rock the opponents head back so that they naturally come back into the cross.
what we worked on was taking a jab - the instead of bringing you head straight forward again (where the cross was coming) - you drop (circle) low and shoot the legs... worked beautifully - simple techniques like this - that take a natural striker (as anyone using a jab probably is) out of his comfort zone - ant into an area he doesn't want to fight in -- iam would geuss aikido is applying these same principles by moving in off the jab - moving away is the last thing i would do - that is fighting the striker at his own range - and just gives him a chance to keep punching (are you just gonna keep moving away???)

 

Why would any Aikidoka even try to go toe to toe with a boxer and try to move and weave out of the or block or parry all the attacks, that aint budo, Budo would be to go straight in and take them out, even if it means taking a punch. People talk about attacks in Aikido needing to be commited, that aint really what counts, its that the Aikidoka must be commited to finishing the situation

 

i agree - kinda what i was trying to say in my long winded way - and by doing what you describe "going straight in and take them out" - you are taking the fight away from there skill base and into yours - if you get clocked with a KO punch - you either weren't good enough, or got unlucky - either of which can, will and do happen - part of a real fight

 

Yes that's we we try to do, get in close were the jab doesn't work the goju example was very good.

 

By slip you guys mean going under the punch, yes? I don´t think that is a good idea for an aikidoka - I don´t think that´s a good idea for anyone, unless you practice A LOT. I know I can´t do that, bobbing and weaving out of the way of a jab is hard, and it is even harder if the attacker keeps launching jabs.

In my humble opinion, the best defense against a jab is to, well, throw another jab against it, and keep doing this - but your jabs are a little closer to the enemies´ centerline, and you keep advancing, so that you force him to be on the defense while you keep advancing. This has the added benefit of allowing you access to an opponent´s jabbing arm from the inside, which is an opportunity any grappler can appreciate. What do you guys think?

 

1) Ah, OK. Still hard to do.

2) OK, but you do need a jab to do what I just described. I am a firm believer that in order to counter a certain technique you must first be able to use that technique, and I think you guys (and by you guys I mean those guys with no boxing/punching experience) should take some lessons in a striking art before doing anything against a jab.

 

hmmmmm....

No offense, but many of you still seem to be in the mental framework of sparring and not the streets.

In sparring it is common for a jab to be used to bridge the gap, to set up something else at closer range. For instance, I commonly nail opponents in sparring from around six or seven feet away. They think they are safe out there, but the attack if faster than they can perceive and react. Bam! Followed by a kick to their legs/groin/knee and close in uppercuts, palm strikes, forearms, and elbows. This is sparring, sport. Still useful skill to develop, but the real skill is not in the jab but in not telegraphing your attacks and thus being able to bridge the gap quickly before the opponent can react.

Sparring seems to promote being a counter-striker because people often start to think more that it is a one-on-one fight, so they try more to "set up" the opponent. Get them to make a mistake, leave some opening and then you have them.

In the streets, jabs aren't used all that often to bridge the gap. One reason is that it is harder to hit with a jab barefisted. With padded gloves on you have a nice big surface area to hit with, however barefisted, if you miss just a little, you might just slip on by, leaving yourself open to strikes and kicks to the ribs and groin. You also might be hitting bone on bone making the jab less likely to be effective as a stunning strike. Another reason is that on the streets, people will run away or charge in more, unlike sparring where it is more common to "square off" with the opponent in some fighting stance. It is much harder to use an effective jab against someone that is running away from you or against someone that charges into you quickly.

In the streets, IMO, the more common use of the jab is to "cherry pick", as someone moves towards you, you stick out your hand and punch them in the nose with a fast jab. It is not part of a boxing combo, it is just a strike because someone left their face open.

First defense against cherry picking is to keep your hands up and out on front of you, then attack the attack.

In the streets it is not so much being a counter-striker, but more gaining the initiative and having effective attacks, including attacking the attack. The reason is that it should not be a one-on-one mentality, it could be multi-attacker. You don't have time to set up an opponent. You either move in and finish them off, or run away, get help or a weapon, etc.

 

Aikido against a jab? What's the difference between a jab and an atemi to the front of the face?

From my perspective Aikido has always dealt with angles of attack. As such the attacks used in the dojo are abstract. If we can't make the leap from the dojo to the street without having to go through each and every possible attack, we're missing the point.

So far as a jab goes it's only as good as the boxer attached to it. And the same goes for Aikido.

 

um, ok.

i don't think so. irimi-nage doesn't work in that situation

um, again you guys don't do much full contact sparring, how do you know if any of this is actually going to work?