Hi, I'm just a pacific islander living in Jersey just going about my business. I like reggae music, I go to church, I earn an honest day's wage. I chose the martial art of Aikido because it fits into my personality. I'm a laid back, easy going guy just trying to live life, not trying to hurt anybody. Anyway, when I'm taking my little girl to the shore, or to the movies or if I'm out and about, I want to be able to defend myself and my family. I'm not out trying to get a title shot, I'm not out for fame or glory, and I don't get my rocks of by trying to pummel somebody's head in to have people cheer. I just want to be able to protect my love ones while out in public. I don't have a burning desire to "test" my skills to see if they really work on another man, in fact, if I was to find myself in a dangerous situation, I'd rather let the authorities handle it or try to defuse the situation diplomatically if I can. It is only as a last resort or if God forbid, a great enough threat when It's the safety of my family at risk that I would fight. I continue to pray that it will never come to that. I hear and read a lot about how Aikido doesn't work in real life, or how Aikido is unproven, but I don't care what they think, I will continue to practice the art because I love it! I hope to never have to be in a situation to use the martial art. :heart:
Welcome! In the spirit of debate, which is more important, as you list both: 1. Protecting your family 2. Studying Aikido If it is 1. Shouldn't you want to prove the art? Not that I'm saying Aikido cannot protect your family, but it likely only will if you've tested your own understanding of it. I also hope it's never needed and this is just forum chitchat
Not sure about NJ's laws but have you considered getting a handgun, permit and training in addition to your empty hand classes? The idea that it's there to protect your loved ones but you don't care to test it (or more realistically, test yourself) to see if it actually does what it's there for doesn't make sense to me, but maybe the feeling of prowess or security is the point. Testing puts that feeling at risk. (It's supposed to, by the way.)
In one of my favorite movies, one dude chews out another guy for taking an untested weapon into battle. Same thing here. The last thing you want to depend on is something that is untested. You want things that are tried and true that you can do in your sleep. Welcome to MAP, I don't think you need to worry about anyone questioning your love of aikido here, there's a lot of folks here who have practiced it at one time or another.
Learning to lift weights and hitting them up hard to be stronger than your average man (not a hard goal to achieve, those photos you see in magazines rep. maybe .0000000000001 of the population) are also a great way to make yourself a non-preferred target. Along with that it'll probably supplement your Aikido pretty well, not to mention all the health benefits. Aside from that, testing your ability doesn't mean going out on the street to see if you can hold your own. You can test it in your place of training by method of sparring. Always good to test things to make sure you can actually do it against real resistance.
Welcome to the forums ol' chum! For what little it may be worth, the general consensus is more than Aikido doesn't work well against other MAists purely because of the way most Aikidoka train, not because of the art specifically. As for real life, from my own experiences I have no reason to believe anything other than as long as the training is honest, then Aikido is perfectly suitable for every day civilian life and SD (well, the technique aspects of self defence anyway). There's also older threads on here by a person called Koyo who had a respectable reputation and stood by his Aikido as being incredibly effective. So if it counts for anything, don't worry about what other people tell you works or not, just make sure you train hard and honestly (which also means letting people actually try and hit you in the dojo sometimes). Look forward to seeing you post a bit more
Welcome to MAP! I hope you like it here. I think it's a great thing to do a MA that you love, that you are excited about doing - where you are already looking forward to that night's class when you get up in the morning. But like others have said, if you have self defense as your main goal - some testing is a really good thing! For me personally, I do MA 90% for health - to get exercise and to have fun. Just going to the gym or doing a random health club class or running doesn't motivate me. I have had a good time doing MA with probably not that much self defense applications, and also doing ones with a lot more. I think it is just good to be honest with yourself about how much self defense application is there in what you are learning and to test it out as best you can. If SD is really your main motivation, testing needs to be a top priority to you. Heck, I try to test stuff - and SD is like 10% of my motivation. I think Aikido is a really cool MA. It is fun to watch, some of the ideas from it seem very interesting. I even like the magic pants. The 2 Aikido dojos near me charge less than any other MA club around - and I really get the feeling they are into it for the love of the art more than anything else. I can see how someone could love it. Of course my problem is I'm already doing a couple of MAs, and lots seem cool to me...
Welcome to MAP! That's cool, I don't like wasting my time in Church. Just my personal opinion though, so it's alright!
You talk as if that is a bad thing? That's a wise course of action but unfortunately we don't live in a world where that will always be possible, so testing your skills is also a wise course of action. If it kicks off then it's not all beautiful take downs and people flipping over like a Aikido class. You still need to look at the possibility of things going bad. Didn't you say you wanted to defend yourself and your family? Isn't that worth putting aside your stubbornness and addressing any failings your art may have? Train because you love it, great, but don't say you want self defence and then stick your head in the sand because things don't match with how you think they should be.
To give context to the OP - Dean trains in some arts older than aikido and really traditional, arguably with less pressure testing than aikido but even he's saying that aikido might not be the best thing for self defence. I assume Dean practices his art because he enjoys it, and less for self defence.
lol Some Koryu do contain randori you know and there's plenty of pressure and resistance in keiko when done right. You'd be surprised at the SD crossover in what I do, obviously it's lacking in certain HAOV and modern soft skills are absent but there's a lot in there that is useful. One big problem would probably be that some of the responses are a little harsh on the force escalation side of things, no I don't do it for SD but that is a big aspect to my personal training. Our atemi is a rather handy delivery system for SD.
Hey Dean, out of curiosity how does the live training work in the koryu? Are there different levels of progression and does the tori (or equivelant term) have to adopt a particular attitude, like going all out blitz when he attacks? Sorry for the off topic question!
It will depend on the ryu-ha, each one is individual. In my limited experience it's been progressive. As with anything you start with a very compliant partner and then the resistance increases and the compliance decreases. That goes for kata too. Mind set can be multidimensional. This was written by my teacher, Kogusoku on MAP, and sums things up rather well. http://seirenkanuk.wordpress.com/the-duty-of-the-uke-in-kata-geiko/
Nice to know that there are people like you who wants to learn martial arts but still have the heart not to hurt people. :Angel: You have an understanding that martial arts is not about self-exaltation or a skill that must be proud of. It's also a great responsibility to learn this art because you can help people or defend your family in case of emergencies. :happy:
Nothing wrong with pride as long as it is not taken to the extreme, it can be a motivator and positive force. As for "defending people" well MA doesn't turn you into a superhero and there are probably more suitable systems out there than Aikido, unless you are under a damn good teacher with solid life experience.
Just as a point of discussion, sometimes its' not about having the want to maim or hurt people, sometimes its' about training to develop the right mind set and attitude that you don't flinch or cower when under pressure, that you can act correctly and assertively to resolve a situation that comes up as soon as it does. Hard and honest training is just that, it's hard and honest. But it does have its' uses (speaking as a guy that knows he could do better ). Most people here know I have a great deal of fondness for Aikido though, it's just a matter of making sure you train honestly with the Aikido.
Training hand-to-hand fighting is vanishingly unlikely to have a "self-defence" pay off that justifies the effort unless you're a bouncer or a plod, even assuming that the training itself is efficient in producing fighting skills. If you don't enjoy violence take up something else that actually makes you happy. If Aikido was, in general, practical, it would also be an astonishingly violent way to fight. Ballistically applied joint locks are a much more unpleasant thing to do than a throw into a choke.
