Hey man, no rules broken. I think you need to be less nervous about posting on this site - we've all made mistakes and have been taken to task for them. It's not a big deal and hardly anyone reminds me that I've got a furcula dirty sitting mouth. Or that I like music that would make your granny blush. 's cool. With that said, commenting on the video, both tkd and aikido are two schools that have a high variance of quality. Other arts have a much greater degree of consistency. The striking of the tkd practitioner seems... Fair, if I'm being kind. I think it's worth noting that it's ridiculously easy to grapple with an untrained or poorly trained striker. Not to imply stroking is bad or inferior. One of you jerks would knock me the ficus out if I said that.
I don't think anyone can give an answer to that - it's too broad and goes beyond the actual style to the students' goals/methods of training/etc. If you are talking about studying an art in order to be successful in MMA cage matches, I would recommend studying at an MMA school instead of an Aikido school. The 'good thing' about a cage match is that you know exactly what to expect in terms of your opponent, i.e. a similar size person with no weapons and no buddies that has the goal of knocking you out (or submitting you) inside the cage to win (under very few rules). I'm not saying it is 'easy', but it sure does eliminate a lot of the gray areas of 'self defense'. I would argue similar rationale against entering other arts' tournaments as an Aikidoka. Sure, it could be fun to test yourself but not being prepared to compete under the rules is a major handicap. Again, depending on the style and rules, a lot of the 'gray area' of self defense is eliminated. For self defense, there are a lot more gray areas, especially in terms of legalities, levels of force, and even stuff like weapons/multiple attackers/and so on. I think the awareness/avoidance concepts need to be taught as well as legalities and levels of force. Training should focus on escalating or de-escalating to the lowest level of force needed (or to the highest needed). From what I've seen in the local Aikido school, the instructor has a good handle on showing how to use the principles of Aikido to train in that way. I think one of the keys is being open-minded to other arts and to other ways of training (and being humble enough to try your skills under rules where you might not have the advantage and where you might get tapped out/knocked out.... ask me about grappling with the NHB instructor some time! ) Oh, and don't bother preaching on about 'live' training and resistance... I'm with you on that. I believe it's absolutely essential for whatever art you train in and I believe it can be implemented in any art. I'm a believer.
I'm not the biggest fan of aikido or their training methods as a whole, and I'm not gonna weigh in specifically on the application of aikido, but that same criticism is leveled at ninjutsu regularly (which suffers from some of the same limitations as aikido) and I know from plenty of personal experience that in my case it is a bogus criticism. No, an attacker isn't going to leave an arm in space long enough for you to snatch it from the air. The stiff, slow lunge punch is a training tool using large movements to help a beginner break down the fundamental principles of body mechanics and learn to manipulate them in a controlled environment. It's a bit like a very slow training dummy. Ideally, once those mechanics are mastered using the same technique from a variety of angles, attacks, and intensities, then you would step away from the controlled, robotic lunge punches and learn to apply the same technique more dynamically in an aggressive, faster environment using more natural attacks. Do some schools fail to advance their training beyond the lunge punch and overuse the instructional nature of it? Sure. Does that invalidate it as a training or instructional tool in all cases? No. For me, even though I learned arm/wrist locks from the lunge punch model, I had no problem adapting the techniques and using them in a different context entirely. I didn't stand around waiting for the attacker to square off and punch at me face-to-face before reacting to control the space. I didn't try to snatch any arms or hands from space mid-attack. There is no need to do that. What I did was move in and control the space. Once negotiations had broken down and a physical response was imminent, I would grab a hold of their arm in two places. I would grab a fist full of softer tissue/nerves on the upper arm, somewhere between the elbow and shoulder, often wedging a thumb deep into the ulnar nerve. The other control point was grabbing the arm at the opposite end, somewhere on the wrist or hand itself. Once I had a firm grip at both locations I would force them off balance and apply a joint lock. And I don't recall those joint locks ever failing me, not even once. I even controlled those people long enough to walk them outside before releasing them or handcuffing them and supervising transfer to the police. It's silly to think I might stand around waiting for someone to punch me in the face because of a teaching model in a classroom. That's absurd. Usually I tried to grab them from behind while their attention was diverted to something else. In the cases where I was being attacked head-on, I would either angle off to the outside of the haymaker, close to their elbow, and then immediately move in and control the space by grabbing the arm as mentioned above, or I'd employ a stop-punch to jam up and stun the offending arm, then I'd once again grab the arm as mentioned above. Using the argument that someone can't apply a arm/wrist lock because they can't catch punches from the air is a bit like stating that a judoka or jujutsuka can't apply a choke or lock standing up because they have only practiced those techniques on the ground. Once you have a very firm grasp of the fundamental principles of a judo or BJJ technique, you can apply the hold standing or wedged against a wall to flatten someone out and simulate the floor without actually going there just fine.
Here you go. Ignore the "two takedowns" bit because the second one isn't shown. The power was at 60-75% and he tries a 1-2 combo, but I am already moving offline with a trapped arm after the first shot so the second actually helps me [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQKtRZXNetE"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQKtRZXNetE[/ame] Out of three scenarios per run only one would fight
If only Koyo were still with us (God rest his soul) to rebuttal you. He would have made a comment from his experience to share with you, and had a useful picture to go with it (he was a lifelong police officer IIRC). With that said, I believe Aikido goes best as a secondary art. You learn a lot of good things there, and combining it with something else you gain a lot of balance, throws, and locks that is often left out of other arts.
Thanks Hannibal, Honestly after reading threw this thread, that was probably one of the most relevant videos I've seen. I agree with armanox statement. I've dont a little bit of Aikido and really enjoyed it, I will probably dedicated a good deal of time to it. But as far as combative martial arts go, Aikido for me is a complimentary martial art. On its own I don't think it would do well against say muay thai, judo, wrestling or boxing, however combined with a more aggressive martial, I think it could be very effective.
Hey, you can't knock an art that's trained to be used by the riot police in Japan in my eyes. Just sayin' From what little experience I've had, Aikido does combine beautifully with a lot of other arts out there. But then I've found having spent the last few years trying to practice a striking art that the stuff I did in Aikido has been a great deal more useful than I realised when I just practised Aikido. Again, it's all about how you train. IIRC, Gozo Shioda sensei - possibly one of the most awesome Aikidoka out there - regularly used to spar with good quality karateka and other MAists. There was even a discussion on Facebook on a group I was with a while about about how Shioda Sensei used to avoid applying certain wrist locks like kote gaeshi and used to focus his aikido slightly differently against other budoka. I stand by the fact that, for me, the problem isn't "will it work against another martial artist" but "is the training method effective or practical". That's my big gripe with a lot of aikido dojos.
I don't believe koyo as a police officer, but he always had good stories. I don't consider Aikido best as a secondary art... but as a secondary art to someone, I can see many benefits. I crossed trained in Aikido for a few years. One thing that would make it a good secondary art is the lack of competition in the training. In competitive martial arts, it is hard to cross-train because you spend a lot of time preparing for competition... you don't want distractions from cross-training in something that follows a different rule set than what you are training for. One thing to realize, IMHO, is that no technique in Aikido is unique to only Aikido. What Aikido focuses on is the principle of Aiki in application. So take any technique you already know, but now apply it using the principle of Aiki. For example, the takedown in Hannibal's video. The most basic version of this take down is an arm drag. In an arm drag you often establish a two-on-one grab and use the dropping of your weight to drive the opponent's fist down and away so that the posture is broken first at the shoulder and then at the spine and hip. It can be very jerky if you use your strength, or it can be very fluid if you apply technique to walk the opponent down. Strength/jerking is unilateral force or basically overpowering. Smooth/fluid is more like Judo, following the principle of Ju. However, none of these are Aiki principle. Aiki would consist of emptiness or void. The opponent's arm would not feel any force pulling or pushing but only equal to the force given. An armbar take down applied with Aiki makes you not want to move your feet. You feel very much like an invisible force is directed into your center and rooting you in place. Then when the tori "looks for money" you fall down and your feet don't want to move. If you look at it in stages... a jerk moves you very quickly for a short distance, at which point you can usually recover with your feet back under you... for a jerking motion to keep you unbalanced, it has to be push/pull like shaking. For a fluid technique to take you down, it has to consists of circles to find the angle where you are continually kept unbalanced until you crash to the ground... the angle has to go where the feet cannot move to recover balance. Now Aiki is another way of approaching the same technique... using an emptiness in technique that roots the uke in the center to the ground, and causes them to fall when the rest of their body stays in motion. None are better than the other always... it depends on the situation which one is better at that time. Just some thoughts.
You've got a fair point about the realism of the training being an issue, which is a club to club issue rather than an art specific issue. My point is that under pressure you will initially attempt to rely on what you're taught to do, for good or bad. If you've been taught week after week to move in "X" way then you'll probably attempt to try that off the bat. If that doesn't work and things spiral out of control, then sure things will probably turn out different. But most people will try and perform what they're used to when they are first put under pressure. In any good dojo there should be. That doesn't mean that everyone trains like that mind (sadly). Pressure testing and live training really are essential for any good art in my eyes. This is really assuming that the aikidoka fails to move off the target line and fails to redirect the force of the attack - which is perfectly possible but really is a practitioner based problem rather than art specific (again - I must sound like a broken record by now ). But the way I was always taught is that you don't "look" for a specific movement, you should just flow with it. If a certain technique doesn't work the first time, then there's no reason why you shouldn't change it up and try another one instead. And 95% of all Aiki techniques should be done with good atemi waza and tai sabaki IMO (striking technique for breaking posture/balance and/or focus and good "body management" or movement). Sometimes the strike isn't so necessary, but it's better to have it and not need it in my eyes. But yeah, live resistance training should be a must. It's the one criticism I uphold personally of many Aikido dojos.
As I understand it aikido Is one of the few arts with a deeply pacifist ideology. This does not mean that it is ineffective in a real fight but it does mean that few high level aikido practitioners are likely to want to get in a ring and try to give the other guy brain damage.
If it was truly pacifist then it would be a martial art where you are only ever training to be a cooperative uke...oh! Now I get it.
If it was a true pacifist system then its founder wouldnt have instructed his top student to never lose a fight or else, and said student wouldn't have killed a few guys in the process of winning those fights
so the best way to pull of something like aikido in a real fight is to study bjj and catch spar hard and not actually study aikido ??
I think there is more to it than that, but I do agree with the gist of what you're saying. Everything I have read is that Aikido should be a passive, peaceful art that helps create and maintain a positive balance in the world around the Aikidoka. That's not the same as saying "we're totally peaceful", which it is often interpreted as, but that violence should be avoided and not instigated. Which is why to me striking somebody who's looking like they will or are actually attacking you in order to put them down and end a conflict before it can escalate further is still rather "aiki". But that's just my view on it. Of course there's a massive debate about Aikido in general and its' formation with some endorsing that the Aikido O'Sensei practised at the end of his life was true Aikido in terms of philosophy. Others endorse that the Aikido from his younger years was "true" Aikido in terms of practice, technique and power when he was a lot more aggressive and dangerous with his practice. Some even go so far as to practice "REAL Aikido" which is supposed to be "a mix of Aikido, Judo and Japanese JuJutsu" but isn't regarded by any of the major Aikido boards as actually being Aikido. It is worth mentioning that O'Sensei was not against MAists pitting themselves against others for the sake of his training, he was only adamant against competition diluting MAs in his eyes. There is a big difference to me in that. I fully support the art itself, it has a beautiful philosophy, fantastic principles of movement and some surprising lessons to learn about body mechanics and so forth as well as some hideously painful locks and take downs. But I don't endorse the way a lot of Aikidoka train. Let's not forget that Morihei Ueshiba - who was a seasoned Aikijutsu-ka under Takeda Sokaku - and a number of his original students were well known for challenging karate-ka, sumo wrestlers, Judoka and pretty much anyone else they could and would consistently come out on top. So I don't think the problem is so much with the art but more with the people who practice and how they interpret how the art should be practised.
Apparently! I have said many times before that drilling in a "sport" style paradigm allows one to deliver "non sport" techniques JJJ and Aikido have a lot of common ground. The technique I did in that video is very close to something like these [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6dF-Bwzu3k"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6dF-Bwzu3k[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPcPM_G1YPk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPcPM_G1YPk[/ame] I state it is "Aikido-esque" because I don't have an Aikido pedigree, but the concpets of move offline, redirect energy and restrain are universal and shows that under pressure tehy CAN be performed IF you understand the mechanics of what the opponent is throwing (in this case boxing style) and can adjust ever so slightly for the energy you are fed
I've trained very briefly (about 3 months) in Aikido. However, this was Ki Aikido and uke was so cooperative, I was mostly throwing thin air. I don't know if this was representative of all Ki Aikido or just the school I attended. I consequently decided it wasn't for me. Reading the comments that Aikido is good as a supplementary art, presumably alongside Karate or something similar, made me wonder if there is any point studying it at all if you're looking for self defence. I'm not criticising it as I think it is beautiful to watch when done properly. If you're going to study Aikido and Karate, why not just learn Ju Jutsu? Or am I completely missing the point?
