This person (who I saw may identify as another gender so I'll keep it unisex) goes in with a mindset, result is pretty obvious. Sort of annoyed that the guy he was against was a big strong dude that threw strikes. Also annoyed that big strong dude threw strikes at all. IMO if you get someone like this you should always leave them without injury. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=497419784125953 This guy below is from that Aikido Youtube channel I really like called Martial Arts Journey. His videos have been great fun to watch him slowly view violence through a different lens. He recently donw Wimp2Warrior whilst training under Matt Thornton at SBG. This is the end result:
First video doesnt work, but if its the one I think it is, he goes twice, once ending in a takedown, so thats why the second time the slaps are real.
Haven't watched the whole 2nd vid, but fair play for getting in there and I've seen the 1st round and not sure who is who. Which I guess is a good thing because it just means that at least one of thems been getting decent training. The 1st vid doesnt work...but Im assuming its the one going about on instagram and getting slapped about.
Challenging someone to a fight, and expecting them not to hit you or take you down hard is peak stupid.
What makes me laugh is that the slap the guy lands is EXACTLY the kind of attack Aikido should prepare you for. Single circular strike round to the side of the head. The defender had a perfect moment to enter with a irimi-nage or something. And yet...as is the case when you've never faced something delivered with real intent to land with good energy it can be scarily fast and make you freeze.
The second guys channel has been a good follow, he's approached it with a good mindset. The second one feels like one of those early style v style videos where one person looks like they never took a hard hit, or been thrown in their life, and the other goes in hard at the start. I guess it comes down to how aikido person approached the MMA gym about it, but after they buckle under the first attack I would take it easy on them or at least say to end it or change rule set to no hitting.
The problem with the go easy approach or the not hitting them is that it leaves avenues for excuse making after that fact. If it wasn't for 'this' or 'that' I would have won, etc, etc. The only real way to do this sort of thing is have the challenger set the rules and then soundly but fairly beat them. If they agree to strikes then that's what they get. I mean let's face it...the aikido person ate about one body kick, one hard slap and a hard landing (again....surely one thing aikido should teach is how to breakfall?!). My last knockdown karate grading was much harder than that.
Ya, I was following this on Facebook long before this challenge fight. Cyan posted a bunch of tutorial instructional videos about aikido, except that, he kinda sucks. His enthusiasm is high, and I always applaud enthusiasm for the martial arts, but -- but his partner in the videos plainly had no martial arts experience at all, so the attacks were fake. And Cyan's explanations of what to do in response to such-and-such attack were not viable. So when he said that he wanted to test his aikido against a non-aikidoist in a live sparring scenario, 100% of the FB responses were, "No! Do not do it! You will lose!" But Cyan insisted that he's ready. And again, 100% of the FB responses were, "No! Do no do it! you will lose!" But Cyan insisted on doing it. And stupidly -- STUPIDLY -- he chose to spar against someone who (1) is clearly two, maybe three, weight classes above him, and (2) who has a lot of sparring experience. So it was Cyan who has no sparring experience at all, and whose aikido is sub-par, versus some one noticeably bigger than him who has a lot of sparring experience. The outcome was inevitable: Cyan got an immediate ass-wupping. What makes it especially embarrassing is that Cyan didn't even start in an aikido fighting pose. He posture from the get-go was AWFUL. He was visibly off-balance and not at all "extending his ki." So after weeks of talking about how good aikido is, he didn't even use aikido in this sparring match! Ahhhhhh!!!! Face-palm face-palm face-palm! (shrug) But the FB community unanimously warned him that he would lose. No one at all was surprised at how the sparring fight played out.
Aikido has the same grading system you'll see in Japanese karate: variously 6-9 kyu ranks, and then 10 dan ranks. I never saw a FB post or video stating Cyan's rank, so I don't know what he claims. He billed himself as an aikido instructor, is all. As for the terms of the match, the other guy called it a "Gracie Challenge," but Cyan called it "friendly sparring." But it doesn't even matter, because the other guy clearly was not trying to hurt him. He slapped when he could have charged in for unprotected kill. He stopped immediately when Cyan called time out. The takedown was clearly controlled. I do, too, but ... he brought this on himself. (shrug) We all make mistakes. God knows I've made a lot of them in my life. You just gotta learn from it and move on.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1568648096604293 An interview with the non aikido guy in the video. Skip to the end: the aikido guy said all ground work had to be less then 10 seconds. So that's why he got slapped and double legged.
based on the guys exit video, it sounds like he hasn't learnt from his experience, grasping at excuses, slightly humbled at what happened, but it doesn't sound like it was enough, or the "right" experience to get into the right frame of mind to progress.
Is that such a shock though? The fact he is still in denial even after being given direct experience? It's over 20 years since we have the first UFC in that time no one has managed to post a single clip of aikido working unscripted let alone in a fight. If people are still taking aikido in the belief it can actually work as an effective fighting system then they really are way past being logical and happy to delude themselves. If the past 25 years of total lack of evidence wasn't going to persuade him would anything even direct experience?
The interesting thing about the follow up video is that he says he was just being intentionally inflammatory in his earlier video to get hits. So I have zero sympathy. If you're going to shill for attention, then that attention turns negative, you really have no one to blame but yourself. If anything it's a teachable moment, though in all honesty I doubt he'll learn anything.
Based on how he moved in the video, there is absolutely no way that fellow has been studying aikido under a qualified instructor long enough to gain an instructor rank himself. Since he's obviously delusional about his own abilities and qualifications, then of course he's not going to change his mind about them. Some people will go to great lengths to impress themselves with their own greatness. Just my two centavos worth.
