Does aikido work against other MA's?

Yes. I have seen good aikido. But most aikido dojo I've trained with (seminars, guest lessons etc) were of the 'truth is beauty' variety. Big slow motions, people jumping along with the throws even when the throws failed, and a complete failure to do anything useful when I just grabbed them instead of blindly trying to run through them.

Aikido is only as useful as the way you train it. Kinda like ninpo really.

 

What do you mean by 'force on force'?

I am speaking based only my experience. From the Aikido groups I have worked with, they have paid very close attention to the level of force being used with an emphasis on using as little as possible (preferably none). In my opinion, the choice of least force vs more force is better in terms of self defense. Where I live and from my experience, the vast majority of 'self defense' happens at the lower end of the spectrum.

Also from my experience, I know that the local Aikido and Combat Hapkido schools spend quite a bit of time focusing on levels of force and legal aspects. The local NHB/MMA schools spend more time on the upper ends of hand to hand engagements within the (fairly few) rules of the sport. I think that is how it should be, the training should fit the overall goal.

So, back to the original topic and my original response, to answer the question of "does Aikido work against other MA's", one still has to define the context... are we talking in a cage or in a street scenario or in a TKD match or what?

Hmmm... where are you getting the bjj reference from? I neither wrote this nor implied it. Personally I think BJJ works in a very similar way... control and guide the opponent to a reference point and apply a technique that works.

As far as the awareness/avoidance things, again, I speak only from my experience in the local Aikido school. If you re-read what I wrote, I described what I liked that I saw being taught in an Aikido school... and did not say that it was exclusive to Aikido or anything.

This goes more to your style of training and your experience in the art. I've been impressed with the Aikido guys I've cross trained with and when we threw them into drills where they had to 'struggle' to gain or regain control, they did pretty well... again I think part of it comes from the constant practice of guiding opponents into a 'pre-set' area of strength and applying a strong technique (something I would imagine other arts do in various ways).

 

I bolded the phrase I wanted to comment on.

I think that in discussions like in this thread, the importance of experience is not taken into account by many posters. IMHO, experience is often the most important factor, along with fighting spirit (attitude), in determining the outcome of a real situation. Skill is a distant third in importance as well as other factors.

So I like this statement you made, "Aikido is only as useful as the way you train it." I would even take the statement further to provide direction... I would say "Aikido is only as useful as the CONTEXT in which you train it."

If you have folks with a background of real fighting and real situations... for example police officers of five years or more, and they come into Aikido, you don't have to spend a lot of time getting them improve on fighting spirit and striking with intent. If you hit one of them in class, they would not stay surprised for long... they could recover quickly.

Almost the same or in some cases, more so, if you have folks with cage fighting and ring fighting experience now in your Aikido class. No need to spend a lot of time improving on their fighting spirit and recovering from being hit, etc. They already have this.

Now, on the other hand, you got folks that never really been in real fights and never fought in the ring... well now you got to spend more time with developing fighting spirit and giving them fighting experience.

This is why CONTEXT is so important.

Many martial arts schools, not just Aikido, try a one size fits all approach... they teach the same way to all students without adapting to changing context. For example, you might be learning the same as their teachers taught them and the teachers before them, without taking into account how adaptive and changing the art was back in the old days. For example, we did line drills 30 years ago in class and we do line drills today.

However... 30 years ago, the students may have participated in contact sports growing up, or another martial art like Judo. Seventy years ago you may have a lot of farmers that were physically tough, etc. As times changed you get more office workers and less people that have played contact sports growing up.

The needs of the students have changed.

If you have students that are inexperienced in real world fighting, you got to provide them with training to give them some of that experience so that the rest of the training is more meaningful.

If you got students that are already experienced in fighting, then the training should be tailored to help them improve in areas they most need help with... for example learning how to relax better and improve on their technique rather than use strength and speed to compensate for bad technique.

One size does not fit all. IME.

 

It shows he knows what he's talking about and personally I thought he also showed he at least had the potential to genuinely put a fair amount of power behind his techniques. Which is actually not all that common in Aikido demo videos. The stuff that tries to show effectiveness tends to be very messy, making it difficult sometimes to really see what's going on. While the stuff that is clean and flowing tends to be a bit too flowery. Then there is the over abundance of pure guff.

I think it's more important that the people in videos come across as knowing what they're doing rather than looking cool breaking some poor uke in half. You seem to be expecting some sort of UFC-ish cage fight or something.

 

From an instructional video I expect exactly what I saw, but this thread isn't about instructional videos, it's about whether aikido is effective against other martial arts and that video was presented as being relevant to that discussion - I disagreed and gave a reason why.

 

it WAS relevant. compliance or not, it showed an aikidoka employing strikes while not being an uke. and good strikes at that. this ties in perfectly into my point that the martial art you train is not something you're bound by ineffable laws to stick to in its most basic fundamental form when you fight, but rather something that gives you tools that you may or may not use, and may or may not blend with other tools (in this case, striking, whether trained or not).

 

Hi Kave,

I am going to have a crack at responding to what you have said, but at a really fundamental level I agree with the critique you offered.

My way of looking at the issue was thus. In my experience of aikido the kind of practice that the OP was referring to, against boxing style attacks, is pretty rare. It is a traditional system, and that is expressed in the kata based approach to training - something common to loads of Japanese systems. All of that said, pretty much every place I ever trained in had a core of people who had a 'harder' approach and in loads of cases quite a bit of striking training from different systems. So it wouldn't be so much a case of heading off into the great unknown in terms of training as finding new applications that aren't necessarily covered by the traditional curriculum.

I totally agree that this would be something best incorporated into classes themselves, bit in most aikido schools in isn't. I guess I was trying to respond from the perspective of not wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater, i.e. if you want to keep training in a traditional manner but also try and at least see how it might start to operate in a different context. Im not going to pretend its a perfect solution to the issue - that would take a major reform of the way the art is taught, to the extent that it would become something very, very different - but I still think its better than doing nothing at all.

I actually have a question for the shodokan/tomiki folks out there. Do you guys ever stretch your competitive rule set, even if just occasionally and out of interest? I have a feeling that if anyone in the aikido world is pushing away at the whole issue of 'sparring' it might be from this camp?

paul

 

yep this

so in response to the question posed by the thread starter, we get an example of a drill where the uke stands there with his arms out waiting to be attacked and thrown, and nothing else other than people says yes theres good aikido out there and it will work on normal attacks, but it wont look like aikido as you see it trained and they cant find any clips of it working against other arts.....??

 

actually i found this video where aikido is used against taekwondo
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NinO0vGum38"]Aikido VS Taekwondo åˆæ°—é“ã¨ãƒ†ã‚³ãƒ³ãƒ‰ãƒ¼ã§é—˜ã£ã¦ã¿ã¾ã—㟠- YouTube[/ame]
I hope i'm not breaking any rules. if i am please let me know.

 

that's the weakest tkd i've ever seen in my life.

 

fair enough but it is still aikido against another art.

 

ahh now i know why it's so called weak taekwondo the guy is just a red stripe. sorry my eyesight getting worse nowadays. i thought it was a black belt taekwondo practitioner.

 

It's against a low to mid level (looks like a blue or purple belt) and it does not seem to fare well at all

 

I always like to give people their due for trying. At least they tried in a semi-contact way.


I liked it.

 

You wanted to be a ninja, your opinion is invalid.

 

I am a ninja. You're not wearing your favourite shirt today. 0.o

 

I agree. Or rather, applicable to most of the drill/pattern/technique only arts.

I do realize that the original question was if aikido could be effective if all the necessary qualifications are present. Rather than if aikido in general is an art normally a safe bet, which is the way I felt this discussion was going. So arguably my comment is of little relevance.

I felt that an argument for aikido in a self-defense situation was being made (because of legal consequences) in contrast to the force on force arts.
I don’t necessary agree that you will do what you train under pressure. If all you train for are unrealistic situations (which mean that you in reality won’t end up in a situation where you can use what you practice) you will probably resort to a more struggling body usage which my or my not feel like what you do when practicing your art. This means that if you want to end up doing what you do at practice when in a real situation, you will want to practice what mimics reality. At the end of the day it is that “reality” that will dictate if what you have practiced will be of use or not.

This is a good thing. But still, even after the first initial technique, when that fail, which it should now and then when practicing with a stronger partner (not muscle strong), there should be continuity until one or the other is subdued. Which I now understand that there is?

I feel it is different when there is a difference in how you train. The knife thing was just an example. Let’s say that an aikidoka gets punched in the mouth after a block was being made but failed. Would a puncher with resisting training be more in tune with that situation? What would you do in training from an aikidokas point of view? Start the technique again until he was able to block it? I am not saying that the bjj/boxing etc. is perfect for self-defense situations. You would need a shift in the goal of the training. But the resisting training already installed in his body and mind will probably lift him a couple of notches compared to drilling only practice.

Great.

Imagine that happen for real. If he had not been knocked out, he would psychologically stop. And it is the psychological part that needs conditioning in this situation. There is not much you can do about it when you are knocked out, but if there is a psychological thing, then that is actually optional. Not saying that you don’t realize this. Just thinking out loud.

Training with live resistance.

What about all of them?

Got it.

Many have pointed out that in aikido you learn principles. And that is a good thing. Systems should have drills to teach principles, the knowledge of your art. But when drilling knowledge is all you have, and no system to turn the knowledge in to skills, the knowledge won’t matter. Kata is knowledge, and live training is the skills to make technique work.

A few articles on the subject that I find interesting and explains much better than me.
http://northwestcqc.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/warriors-not-worriers/
on the subject of mindset.
http://northwestcqc.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/under-pressure/
on position and pressure.

 

Somewhere on MAP there is a video of me delivering an Aikidoesque technique at moderate pressure in an unrehearsed scenario...as with everything you fight how you train