With all the emphasis on mind body unification, mental focus, chi development, meditation, and so forth, in Aikido do you think this makes most experienced and skilled Aikidokas better martial artists in real life situations? Think about it, meditation in itself practiced consistently for the rest of one's life can abound numerous benefits the least of being complete and utter calm in a scene of chaos. My opinion is that a well taught, intelligent, skilled, experienced Aikido pracitioner can make one of the most formidable opponents. I'd like your thoughts. (btw I do not practice Aikido)
In an utter chaos situation would an Aikidoka be calm? I don't thonk that meditating will give that person the calm sense needed. I think someone who has dealt with the pressures of a fight before would do best. The Aikidoka may be calm but will not be able to react (generally i was awre that aikidoka do not pressure test alot) Think of this. If an Aikidoka was thrown into water, assuming he could not swim, he may remain calm of the situation. However he will still drown. He'll just drown quietly! Just my ramblings. Also i'm not saying meditation is bad although i have different views on this for a different forum thread.
"My opinion is that a well taught, intelligent, skilled, experienced Aikido pracitioner can make one of the most formidable opponents." I agree ... but I would say the same about other martial art styles too. Whether or not a black-belt aikidoka has been "pressure tested" depends upon his dojo. Randori training is supposed to be the hallmark of aikido. I am told that "randori" literally means "seizing chaos." Whatever it literally means, in practice it means "defending against multiple attackers." As far as I know this is part of black belt exams in every aikido organization. O'Sensei put a great deal of emphasis on defending against multiple attackers because that is where calmness and centering and proper technique show forth most brightly. It's the litmus test for determining whether or not your aikido is good. I've seen some pathetic attacks in randori demos. I believe that weak attacks in the dojo would not promote the calmness needed in a real-life situation. But let's look at the other side. Just last week I was reading a back issue of Aikido Today Magazine in which Sensei Ken Ota recounted the experience of one of his black belt students. The point of the article was on "ukemi" training (breakfalls). Great skill at ukemi is a pre-requisite for real-speed randori. Ota emphasizes ukemi early on in his teaching so that his students can do real-speed randori. Well, one of his students was jumped by 8 gang members. (This is Southern California, mind you.) Ota said his student went into randori mode. Bam, bam, bam. Three gang members hit the ground so hard that they couldn't fight any more. They had bad ukemi. "The ground hit them harder than any person could hit," Ota said, and I sincerely believe him. The remaining 5 attackers saw what happened to their buddies and fled the scene. An aikido expert can be an extremely formidable opponent if his randori training was done at real-speed with realistic attacks.
Their is a Yoshinkan Aikido school in my area I've tried their class once a few years ago, they seem quite legit, though my interest has taken to this japanese jiu jitsu school with an mma element, if I could afford it with my own money I'd perhaps join both.
Randori is really the closest thing you can get to a practical appplication in Aiki. When you have good Ukes they keep you so busy that you have little if any time to think. from my experience this puts me into a reactionary mind set and I begin to rely on the principals of Aiki not individual technuiqes. In my opinion randori is an excellent stress training tool.
when you blend whit the univers and feel the :KI' from sameone els you have alraddy won --------------------------------------------- true victory=self victory
