I've heard it mentioned a few times in various places that Aikido is considered a 'finishng school' for judoka. What is your opinion on this? I can kind of see Aikido as a system of refinment for soild foundational grappling skills forged in the fire of judo practice, but it's not an area I've had huge amounts of exposure to.
Aikido was ment to be a self defence art for martial artists. Meaning that they should have been martial artists before thay began aikido. The techniques in aikido were ment to control the attacker rather than "kill" them. BUT it ment that those who began training had powerfull martial arts to begin with. Most of the original shihan came from judo or kendo. The original shihan in Britain was kenshiro Abe an excellent judoka..so the training demanded that the attacker maintained his balance and the thrower really had to unbalance him to execute a technique. As you say aikido is an art of unbalancing the attacker but refinement and control of balance from the attacker means real mastery of body alignment.timing and unbalancing on the part of the aikidoka. This is most difficult and often lost when teachers talk about harmony etc.Two men with an understanding of judo and the resistance of throws demonstrate aikido far more truly than those who have trained in aikido alone. MANY times our attempts at executing aikido techniques were countered and we were thrown until we really began to study timing and unbalancing. below Abe shihan the first to teach aikido in Britain. regards kyo
Yes they do. But on the whole there is no competition in Aikido and to be honest I always forget what Shodokan Aikido is called and simply wouldn't be able to tell anybody where to find it. So far as i know their competitions involve the use of a tanto. Which is not applicable to an MMA style competition since weapons are generally not allowed.
I can't speak for everyone, but this could also be a reason: http://www.cagepotato.com/mma-steroid-busts-definitive-timeline It seems that some have equated martial arts (mixed or not) with being big? Or big and strong? I know not everyone takes this approach, but wow!
The budoka has no enemy, he does not go around looking for fights. The budoka should revere the very aspects of life and protect it. When attacked one could always choose non-engagement, but this does not mean one will just stand there and get cut down. One will not just protect one's own life but more importantly the lives of loved ones and will willingly gives up one's own life for them. Borrowed for educational purposes from: http://funkybuddha.multiply.com/journal/item/63 It's a good read, except for the part where they mention "The Last Samurai," IMO. The movie had too many short cuts, and although has an aspect at an attempt to mirror some of Kurowawa's films, was poorly done, agian IMO.
I started off at a Shodokan dojo in London. Although they compete I would say that they are not more equiped for an MMA situation or a real life defense situation. My experience and memory of the club I was with doesn't really hold Shodokan in a good light