Yeah Aikido is heavy on the mind. One of the main reasons most people just can't get to grips with it. But posessing an Aikido mind set could potentialy give you a huge advantage in TKD. It doesn't realy work the other way around un fortunatly and chopping and changing will only hinder your development. Now stop posting about it and go try it.
Hi......I'm a first time poster.....been on the internet for quite a while but never got involved in chats or posting - until now....I've been practicing Ju Jutsu in Perth since July 2002 and started Aikido in September 2003, so I'm running one alongside the other at the same dojo. I find Aikido a bit of a thinking mans art while jujutsu, although similar in body movements and some other elements is certainly the 'harder' style. I've never done a hard MA - eg Karate or TKD because I believe that you need to have a graduated response to various levels of aggression - ie you dont want to kick a drunk in the head if all you want to do is evict them from a nightclub. - this is why i chose jujutsu - plus with all the cameras around it doesnt look very good doing spinning kicks and huge backhand strikes if youre trying to restrain someone - plus a subsequent court case if you do permanent injury. I believe that you need to be able to have a range of techniques available to cope with different levels of aggression - you dont want to have to kick your best friend in the head just to get him out of the pub if he's getting untidy...... thats my two cents worth anyway....... cheers Boxy
lol actualy sometimes I think kicking my best friend in the head would do him some good lol .... but you do make a good point .... why go to all the bother of kicking someones head when you can just as easily break their arm ..... and a broken arm looks better in court .... "well your honor I was evicting the procecution from the bar and he strugled and his arm just broke".
i agree... one of my fellow aikidokas is also a bouncer at a local nightclub.... he has said aikido is the most invaluable tool for him... one example is that he saw a 250 lb dude about to pound on this one kid.. he ran right behind kicked out his back leg, grabbed the guy's arm and applied a tenkai kote hineri lock which he then translated into a more behind the back lock to "carry" the person outside... when the cops came the guy was complaining that the bouncer used too much force and broke his arm... but the beauty of it was there was no break he simply locked the arm in an uncomfortable spot and there were no charges
I'd like to pick up on something if I may Let’s drop the word "Aikido" and replace it with "martial" Ok, what exactly is a martial mind ? As far as I can tell from the various people I've trained with and learned from, the state of mind we discuss is "Zanshin" the total and complete situational awareness of your surroundings and situation. It is your understanding between what we do in the Dojo to practice our techniques and, the differences between that and their 'real life' applications. If you do not understand the differences at all, all you are doing is "Practicing" and will be unlikely to "Do" it for real. If we relate that specifically to Aikido, it is evident where this so called mind set comes from. O-Sensei studied several Koryu of 'old' Japan. The attitudes towards these disciplines were obviously quite different that to day but, Aikido has in many instances retained the traditions and values of the older ways. But, you have to look at the very name of the discipline to understand it. The nature of the discipline has changed from being "Aiki - jutsu" very much a 'hard' method of techniques designed to inflict pain, injure and in some cases death, based obviously upon the arts the Founder studied to... "Aiki - do" The name reflects the path for which the founder wanted his discipline to unfold. A method of uniting people after the horrors of the second world war. "do" 'the way of' So, getting back to the mind set. IHMO it doesn't matter which martial art you study, situational awareness is everything and anything to do with the application of your discipline. Naturally you have to be taught to be 'aware' but, a student can naturally develop their own Zanshin through committed study. There isn't a quick fix of instantaneous skill. All MA's take years to understand. Now, if you want to develop a pure martial mind set, study any of the traditional Japanese sword arts, and do so for a long time. You will find that your 'awareness' becomes a honed skill. DaveH
Well what good timing. In TKD class tonight, my instructor used it to introduce us to aikido. He is encouraging us to take up aikido. He said he started at 2nd dan in tkd, and he's 6th dan now, and it improved his TKD quite a bit. He demonstrated some techniques, and they really don't look too complicated. I'm sure there are more advanced ones that get complicated, but several don't look like it would take long to pick up well enough to use them instinctively. We practiced alot of break falls and rolls. They do seem to use more throws and wrist locks then i thought they would, which i see as a good thing. I think i'm going to try out a class saturday.
See I told you it would help your TKD. A lot of basic techniques are pretty simple. But appearances with Aikido are deceptive. Be prepared to suddenly forget which is your right hand and which is your left. And how do you move those feet again? i see your point dave but today so many martial arts concentrate on fighting and showing off and competition and looking good and being flash. From my experience Aikido students do realy seem to look at things almost totaly differently. Maybe in a few years my oppinion will have changed. Who knows.
Yeah, moving fluidly is pretty complicated when I'm used to fast motions. All the footwork really looks like it could be benefitial though. I've heard his classes are really hard though, he has them do like 200 pushups a class.
When my teacher first started teaching way back a long long long long long time ago in the olden days he used to do alot of push ups and stuff because he wasn't confident enough to teach aikido. But tht was before he opend his own club. He was only 1st kyu. Anyway push ups won't hurt. Well 200 might. But tiring your self out is a good way to find the softness Aikido requires. If you've not strength left you can't use it.
I doubt they do 200 at once. They prob split it up into sets of 20 or something throughout the class. In TKD throughout class we usually do 15 regulars, 15 back the hand, 15 judo pushups, 15 on fingertips, 15 wide aprt, and 15 triangle ones. Normally we do like 3 types of pushup in the middle of class, and then 3 at the end. We usually save the back of the hand, judo, and fingertip ones for last when we are already exausted.
Judo push ups are more less like this: http://www.trainforstrength.com/ex-1.shtml Then you either roll back the opposite way, or just push yourself up afterwards. I've done them both ways. PL
TheMasterSword, I don't remember bouncing in TKD, that's only in certain branches of TKD. In tradition TKD, you don't bounce at all, you make sure you keep your feet on the ground and you slide like you do in Aikido.
Go ahead... and get CONFUSED! Just don't come back whining. And here's why... Remember that in real life situations, we let go of our conscious brain and let our limbic, "reptilian" brain take over. That's when we fight on pure reflex. To get to this kind of level, you have to hardwire your brain (thru years of constant practice). Unfortunately, the brain cannot simultaneously hardwire two opposing concepts or paradigms, or in your case... two opposite arts (Aikido and TKD). Just like a computer, your brain will "hang" as it tries to process (even on the limbic level) the two opposites. To illustrate, Aikido has a much closer maai than TKD. Aikido closes in with the opponent while TKD tends to fight at range. Imagine yourself confronted with a real life fight situation. Your brain is hardwired for one art (yes, every cross trainer will always favor one art over the others) but in the middle of it all, your conscious brain tries to "second guess" you just because it thought you learned some technique of the other art. You will be stopped dead in your tracks and set yourself up for an easy kill. If you need to cross train, try to choose arts that are close to each other in principles and techniques.
