Aikido versus kicks

You've not heard the terms Tachi Dori or Muto Dori before ? In KI based Aikido what generic terms are used to describe Ken, Jo and Tanto disarming waza ?

With regards to the swordsman question... You said "...I'd probably lose" .. You’ve just reinforced my entire point in this thread. Swordsman, Karateka -- whatever -- You can only effectively deal with a given situation if you've already trained in that environment and understand the dynamics involved. We're not talking about accepting challenges; we're talking about the effective application of one art against another.

The moment we as aikidoka judge distance between ourselves and our opponent we are assessing predisposed risk as well as opportunity, however; no self respecting karateka will allow someone to freely enter what they consider their ma-ai. In kumite, you rarely see either exponent standing still, they are "bouncing", shifting weight back and forth, adjusting ma-ai and seeking opportunity. This is something which we NEVER do in aikido especially in training and, put an aikidoka in that environment, I kid you not; the karateka holds most of the advantage.

For you and I as aikidoka, our minimum ma-ai is normally the distance from our outstretched arm to our body however, for karateka this distance is increased relative to a perception (based upon experience) of their opponent's kicking ability (IE distance) as and when we enter that ma-ai (which to us is still just outside our comfort zone in terms of fighting distance) we're already very vulnerable to being kicked, unless you train to recognise the signature of a karateka shifting weight, you're unlikely to focus on the possibility of this form of atemi.

Then again the same could be said of working with an uke standing with a bokuto or jo, ma-ai is the only real difference however; whilst ma-ai is a major factor, failure to appreciate the strategy and movement used by any given budoka (in this case a karateka) will place us in a very unpleasant situation.

 

Which was first.. you choked him out or he busted your ribs and face ? I'll hazzard an educated bet that he tagged you several times before you sussed his tactics/strategy and learned how he was using his ma-ai.

Was he giving a 100% effort to his atemi ? IE Full contact

Was he concerned about having to deal with ukemi or just doing TKD on you ?

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

One point I think worth considering on the Aikido v's kicks (not specific style) is balance. I'm talking here without personal experience, but surely an Aikidoka's job of unbalancing uke is made easier by uke standing on one leg and swinging the other one (at least if you've managed to avoid taking the blow). I know exponents of kicking styles work on balance as well as speed and power, but 2 legs on the ground have to be better than one.

 

I spoke with my Aikido sensei last night, and he explained some of the moves.
Now I felt awfully vulnerable and ill at ease when he showed me how the wrist locks and so-on could be adapted to grab a foot and convert a throw. And figuring out how to fall would be a fraught process.
However, in a full-speed setting, I think it would be extremely difficult to get that lock on, so it seems a bit risky to me.

 

Karateka don't consider being on just one foot during execution of waza as being off posture or overtly vunerable, (unless of course the person was entirely or almost static when doing so). Indeed when you consider the nature of the art and the kicking involved it holds a fair amount of importance.

My Karate sensei can easily kick jodan yoko geri in under a couple of seconds from the point where he's set his posture and begun to shift weight. He can also kick jodan mawashi geri at almost 'boxing' ma-ai and this means you can't see his lower quarter of his legs because at that ma-ai you're now focused on other things.

 

Good one. Classic!

The way you worded that, I would have to agree, but just to clarify, in karate being on one leg is known to be vulnerable. This is why very few will avocate kicking higher than the waist in a real situation. Not only is there the danger of being off balanced easily, but it is hard to dodge when you are kicking since both legs are usually used in moving. In addition, there is a risk of self-injury... pulling a muscle or rolling your ankle, etc. especially if the body is no warmed up before the legs are used extensively with explosive power. Kicking a lot also takes a lot of energy out of someone having to lift the mass of the leg each time.

Karateka don't actually kick that much, maybe on the high end 30% of strikes are kicks but that would include knee strikes. The only ones that kick more are either doing a demostration, sparring someone (practice), or they just are really good kickers.

Koyo and a few others already posted that you don't fight the technique (e.g. kick) but the person. Dave has the right idea, IME, to control distance is the best defense against kicks. It is very difficult to kick someone that is sprinting away from you, for instance.

Now just to throw something into the hopper, kicks are dangerous to be on the receiving end of because legs are somewhere around five times the stronger than arms. A good kick or knee is going to hit at least twice as hard or more than a punch. If a punch is hard enough to hurt you, the kick is going to hurt you much more.

Aikidoka train in knife defense. A knife can be very deadly. If Aikidoka can deal with the force of a knife, the force of a kick should not be a problem.

Now here is my challenge (to be done in a safe manner of course, safety first), attach a training blade to the foot of your opponent (uke). Now go train. Got it?

 

Some of these techniques look good but I don't quite no much about aikido. My only concern is that I wonder if anyone practices these realistically? I understand this is a demo and not a real fight or drilling and such.

I would like to know if any aikidoka have uke put on some shin guards and really try to hit with those kicks nce in a while? Put a headgear on the defender and have him practice the catches.

I realize you can't finish the techniques in a full on sparring environment but practicing those kick catches at full speed is possible and would be very beneficial to aikidoka wanting to show others they train hard.

Just a thought as I know some complain that aikido looks to partner compliant.

 

Control of distance control of timing and a decisive fighting spirit =control of the attacker whether he is kicking or not. It is the "hesitators" who shall find a problem with kicks (or any other positive attack!!) The aikidoka should be constantly alert looking for the smallest opening to attack not waiting to see what the attacker intends to do. It is obvious he intends to hit you so move or hit him first.

koyo

 

Or you could do what I did back in August. I overshot a midari mae geri(front snap kick from the left leg) to about the highest point that the leg could go and damanged my hip in the process. Currently, I cannot throw kicks at all from the leg, nor do any stance work, thus making MA in general rather difficult, as I cannot shift my weight w/o doing so painfully.

 

A couple of days ago, I had written a rather lengthy contribution to this thread. It was a thing of beauty, a masterpiece artwork, a shining example of the martial genius that is me.

And when I pressed "post"...I got a message that MAP was down, and my genius forever lost to the Intranets. I screamed, I cried, I cursed the gods.

Then I got over it and had a beer at the pub.

Spinning back kicks are hardly just theatre. In fact, if I'm throwing a spinning back kick, I literally want you to walking in very slowly and simply. It will increase my chances of knocking you on your bum.

The problem with this video and training of this nature is that it takes a very technique-oriented view of the striker. It focuses soley on the technique itself, ignoring the strategy and tactics used to apply the technique. This is a problem because against a trained striker, it is not the technique you need to combat, but rather his strategy.

I am not going to just walk up to you and throw a spinning back kick.

When I was competing FC TKD, this was a common tactic I used to apply the spinning back kick, and it worked quite sucessfully.

Starting in a right lead, I would throw a rear left leg round kick at my opponent. It mattered little whether or not I hit him with it, this was the draw. As soon as my left leg touched the ground, I would slid backward, now in a left lead. More often than not, my opponent would move in to close the distance and respond after my perceived "failed" attack. As soon as his inertia started forward, I would fire off a spinning back kick with my rear right leg. More often than not, my opponent ended up on the mat, sometimes unconscious.

Practicing counters to a technique in isolation without preparing to deal with the strategy that employs said techniques will not enable you to deal with the techniques in actual application.

This is why cross-training, or at the very least, exposure to other philosophies of fighting are necessary.

Perhaps the tools to deal with the situation above are found in your Aikido toolbox. However, you're not going to know how to use those tools without previous exposure to the given problem.

This doesn't necessarily mean that you have to simultaneously train in two or three arts, but, especially after having reached Shodan, spending time in a dojo of another style can only help you deepen your understanding of your Aikido practice.

Dave Lowry tells a story of watching an Aikido practice session once. The sensei, growing tired of dealing with the poor punches of his students, tells them to attack him with some real power.

The next student up was also a Shodan in karate.

Evidently the Aikido sensei did not get up for a while.

 

MadMonk108, you bring up a good point about strategy. That is precisely what Dave encountered when he pointed out that the karateka kept moving in sparring. The tactic of moving and controlling distance is strong in karate sparring these days.

An anology from way back is the one of how a karate master defeated a Judo master, fiction maybe, but there is probably some truth to it. The Judoka was bigger and stronger and kept trying to grab the karateka, but the karateka was very agile and fought like a bird -- Circling around, attacking and moving off like how birds fight. Eventually the Judoka made a mistake and left his centerline open, the karateka kicked him in the solar plexus with one front snap kick. This knocked the wind out of the Judoka. The Judoka then said he had enough (apparently it was not a fight to the death) and the fight was over.

You can't just immitate a strategy like the above and have it work for you. The karateka was VERY agile and skilled, so such tactics worked for him.

Here lies the heart of the issue, IMO, is that it isn't the kicks but the fact that you are dealing with a very skilled opponent that has tactics to deal with your attempts at controlling distance and entering.

A simple kick can hurt but generally if you have good control of distance and use angles, the kick is no problem... not any more difficult to deal with as a punch.

It is the skill and randomness of the attacks that make them hard to deal with if you are not experienced against them. Koyo pointed out something a while back in a different thread that Aikidoka could use more training against multiple strikes.

Until someone deals with multiple strikes on a regular basis in training, I don't know how they can even begin to say that they have defense against kicks. All they might have is defense against a single kick... however, kicks is plural. Multiple kicks, multiple strikes!

 

+1

If I remember Lowry's anecdote correctly, the shodan in Shotokan said that they had been throwing half-assed punches previously because that's what everyone else was doing, and he assumed that's how he was supposed to do it.

 

Other side of the coin guys when I was asked how I would handle a kick by a rather arrogant fellow I hit him before executing the throw despite "there are no strikes in aikido" misconception I address the problems of unrealistic training in the martial arts of aikido thread you may find it of interest.

respectfully koyo

I can hit quite fast and hard thanks to cross training with karate and win chun FRIENDS.

 

I like that thread as well.

 

MadMonk108:

I wrote about the ability to 'see off' a spinning kick by entering quite slowly not to say that thay are utterly useless, but that good timing, distance and balance (the 'tripod' holding up Aikido) should make countering them simple for a good Aikidoka.

Your point about practising such things in isolation was spot on. I now recognise that you would not use a spinning kick unless you saw a weakness to attack in that way. Combinations etc. were far from my thinking, so thanks for waking me up!

I reckon it was a silly generalisation of mine, as we cannot take account of skill levels, style differences etc. so I was being over-simplistic. A reward of £1,000 goes to anyone who knows where my mind was at the time.

It's even more silly in that I train with a kick-boxer sometimes so I know how combinations and tactics can catch me. (Mind you I get my own back!)

Mea culpa ('my fault'). . . . . . . again!

 

Sweet Jesus! This is one of the best threads on Aikido ever here at MAP.

Dave Humm - very well put in every single post.

 

Ta mate cheque in the post !!