i've recently been looking in to aikido and even went to watch a class saturday afternoon,on with the question nearly all the so called threatening attacks seem to be someone making a grab for the wrist,now if i were carrying a katana i could understand this but we don't, so for real world self defence what is the purpose of this. now please bear in mind i like the idea of aikido but i've recently seen some absolutely dreadfull randori clips from off the internet where some highly respected expert as only just bearly stroked ukes cheek and the uke has gone flying,i really think things like this show aikido in a bad light i can only hope that when training you get resistance from training partners or all the martial aspects of aikido will die out,to end on a positive note i also saw some yoshinkan randori that did show aikido in its original martial colours.
There are good schools and bad schools for every martial art. But for argument, I'll assume this is a good school. The wrist grabs defenses teach you the body mechanics needed for aikido's defenses against other attacks. You have to begin at the beginning. You have to lay the foundation. All of aikido's defenses are premised upon first taking the attacker's balance, and you learn how to do this from wrist grabs.
It's a good question warren and it is hard to understand why people attack the way they do in Aikido. But like aikiMac said it's about learning how the body works and how you might be able to manipulate it. Looking at Aikido from a distance it's hard to see how everything fits into place. However once you start practicing and get to grips with some of the basic techniques you do begin to see why things are done the way they are done. On the point about the miraculus flying uke, if the nage is of a high enough grade and uke attacks true then it's possible for uke to be thrown some distance or lifted a good hight off the ground with very little apparent effort. However there are alot of bad ukes out there. Strangley most of them seem to end up in videos. I have seen loads of those clips some were good, but with others I've sat and watched nages posture and looked at the technique being done and thought to my self that uke simpley shouldn't be getting that kind of ukemi. Some times the uke even seems to fly off in the wrong direction or nages posture is so bad he or she would really have been pulled over with a better uke. Unfortunatly with Aikido the people who do practice properly rarely bother to make videos for people to see. Something my own teacher sometimes tells us is "don't look the part, just be the part". In other words stop possing and get it right.
I hanmi / Gyaku hanmi amongst others are not attacks, they are training principles as described in the first reply. Aikido is heavily influanced by the Japanese Sword the application of wrist grabs are / were a means of attempting to stop a sword being drawn from the saya [scabbard] The reason why IMHO they are still a valid means of learning techniques (besides those offered in the first reply) is that tai sabaki is developed this way using the influances of the sword. A tenkan movement from I hamni for instance is part of a movement that would allow the sword to be drawn without having to use physical strength, moving the hip back in a rotational way brings a sword clear of it's saya naturally. Ok so we don't carry a sword any more however we shouldn't forget the origins of our art, otherwise it no longer becomes Aikido. Hip rotation and the firm introduction of hip movement in aiki technique is what makes it powerful. Training the hips (conditioning) is largly done through correct use of tai sabaki, in aikido this is drawn from the influances of weapons. each of these influances can be directly translated back to an empty hand (hence I hanmi etc) Dave
I totaly agree with your self and aikiMac Dave. I was thinking more of attacks in general since this question or similar questions have been asked in several other threads already. Given that the practicality of Aikido in general and certain training practices are so often questioned I think it would be a good idea to make a sticky thread explaining these things. That way people can find the answers far more easily and we don't end up with half a dozen threads all about the same thing.
Okay guys, come up with a list of noob questions, we'll have a wee discussion over them and I'll sticky it for you, ok? Col
