Which Martial Arts to pick for short guy?

Judo is one of the premier grappling arts out there actually. Lots of huggery and throwing of people. Also has better quality control than aikido; that is, you're more likely to find a good judo dojo than aikido dojo. There's a lot of aikido dojos that train in a very impractical, compliant manner, while there are very few judo dojos that indulge in that nonsense.

 

Or do it and give me an English lesson afterwards, with focus on colloquialism

 

In my aikido club (well not mine, but the one I train at) there is plenty of striking. The teacher believes, probably rightly, that if you're under attack and you can't get a technique on, sometimes you just have to hoof them first to stun them and distract them.

We don't actually hot each other as such, we stop short, but I suspect having read your other posts it's the intention to strike that clashes with your personal beliefs.

Also in knife disarm techniques (using a blunt wooden knife) we often mimic the action of turn the knife back into the attacker. That one goes against my personal beliefs but I train it just for completeness.

Martial arts are brutal. Take what 'martial art' means. Martial, as in pertaining to war, art as in skill set. They're developed on and for the battlefield before modern weapons came about, so even the sanitised versions reflect extreme violence. Aikido is no exception with its joint destroying techniques.

 

This is why Endorphins should do BJJ. It's just cuddling.

 

Lol, I think you've got the wrong idea of me

 

I can understand the whole aspect of striking as a last resort or even using strikes instinctually in a life or death situation, don't get me wrong.

I just liked Aikido more from what I've seen because I thought that part of its philosophy was preventing or stopping violence in a way that minimized harm for both you and your attacker and that appealed to me and I've also heard it been referred to as the 'gentle way'. I guess I was drawn to its philosophy, that of harmony etc, not how many ways you can hurt someone I guess.

I'm not violent by nature, am a pretty peaceful person. More of a lover and a healer.

Although there's a part of me that I know exists within me, that if pushed over the edge, even I'm afraid of it, martial arts training or not

 

My personal belief is that if you confront, understand and control that side of yourself then it makes your moral choice to not utilise it much more powerful and meaningful.

Also regarding Aikido it is firstly a martial art and the techniques require atemi to work effectively. Only later did it drift away from martial application to become a tool for harmony in which development of human unity became the forefront message rather than an intrinsic side benefit. Practicing that way will have no martial value. So you need to decide what you actual want to train for.

I would suggest you examine BJJ training as it is both incredibly powerful with the potential to be used in an extremely gentle way. The training - in a good environment - is healthy for both body and mind, empowering and enables you to confront both your ego and the truth of who you are... If you allow it.

Edit - it's also worth pointing out that the highest expression of BJJ is total bodily harmonisation with the other persons physical force/movement... Which you will find is extremely hard.

 

That would be jujitsu. And it's only that because there are rarely direct translations between oriental languages and English. It's called that because the Japanese samurai quickly learned that if someone is as tough as old boots AND wearing armour, there is little point in punching them. So they learned ways of gently ploughing them into things to smash them.

Aikido is partly derived from jujitsu, though other influences are there too. Aikido very roughly means way of harmonising spirit. It means that instead of forcefully opposing an attacker, you merge into the attack and redirect it against the attacker.

Don't get caught up in fluffy sounding translations. I used to train in a style of karate that was called way of peace. Peace being achieved by removing the opponent from existence. Karate itself, or its fuller name of karate do, means way of the empty hand.

None of this is meant to put you off. It's just meant to hopefully help you understand the broader picture, so that you might be more open minded about what you might try.

 

As I understand it Aikido evolved over the life of he founder. In his early days Ueshiba was a badass and hard man by all accounts.

This man...



turned into this man...



who turned into this man...



And as he did so his martial arts changed. The softer aspects became more prominent and others coming after ran with that and took them to the forefront of Aikido even more.

But make no mistake...in his prime Ueshiba could smash faces and break wrists with the best of them.

 

Without getting into a conversation about how likely it is you could get Aikido techniques to work in the first place, imagine what they would look like if you were doing them on someone who had no idea how to fling themselves around to prevent their wrists snapping or their head smashing into the ground. It wouldn't look quite so harmonious

 

Or you of BJJ

Judo is "the gentle way" (yeah, right, I always feel treated like that when doing Judo ), and JuJutsu is "the gentle art", isn't it?

 

Also...it's a bit of a myth that certain arts are geared towards certain body types.
In Judo you have people like Teddy Riner (6ft 8in) and Ilias Iliadis (5ft 10in).
In BJJ you have long slim players (Braulio or Roger Gracie) and short stocky players (like Marcelo Garcia).
You have your Joe Frazier's and your Ali's in boxing.
People make whatever art they do work for them.

Although to be fair if you're a 5ft 5in tall, and 5ft 5in wide, builder that can lift scaffold poles with one hand and hod bricks around all day you're probably better off doing judo than trying to do Taekwondo jumping kicks.

 

Art, way. Semantics. It's widely accepted that the approximate translation of the word jitsu means skill set, in the context of combat. Whereas do is the Japanese for the Chinese dao, which is widely accepted to mean way. But dao is not the way of doing a specific thing like we widely accept the term way. Dao is way as in 'its just the way it is' or 'the way as in the nature of things'.

It's just semantics.

It's like karate do. When the term karate was first coined, to represent a composite art with Chinese and okinawan influence, the full name was karatejitsu. The chap that made it popular in Japan, took his lead from kano of judo fame, dropping the jitsu and adding do to make it more appealing as a health and fitness regime rather than pure combat.

 

Thanks for all the informative posts guys, I find them very helpful and thought provoking. Definitely helping me weigh up my options. It sounds like BJJ is taking it one step further for me than Aikido, regarding strong emphasis on grappling and not on strikes, which I prefer.

I am of average height, quasi-short and stocky and yeah, I'm into weight-training and lifting for sure

I have broad shoulders and my body type seems to respond well to weight training. And I agree, TKD jumping kicks is definitely not for me lol

So all this talk of BJJ got me interested and after seeing the vid below, it was love at first sight. I love the philosophy of the art, everything mentioned seems to be right up my alley guys, I'm not gonna lie.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM_8-c1EqOY"]Intro to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Part 2 -- The Basics I - YouTube[/ame]

What I hope to accomplish from training? Well, firstly to learn how to defuse or get out of a fight on the street if attacked and to do it in a way to minimize harm to myself and my attacker. Also, to explore the mind and body, and I figured who not add a martial art to ways of doing just that?

I have no idea what to expect and that's another reason why I'm thinking of trying it, to confront my relationship to violence, which I have a strong aversion to in my life, having seen and experienced certain things in my life and it seems to be a nagging subconscious fear in the background I would love to overcome. Like Kneerider mentioned, learning to confront, control and overcome that dark part in us can really help I feel and I'm seeking balance.

I've found that the biggest fight is within.

PS What happened to the OP? Hope he finds all this useful too. Don't want to 'hijack' lol

 

Well that's great

I feel that if you stick with it, you'll find it a compelling, cathartic and empowering journey in BJJ. Give it a go.

 

You'll be surfing and eating acai in no time.

 

And inappropriately saying "oss" at every opportunity

 

And making a hang ten/jitz hand in every single photo of you ever taken henceforth :/

 

I am SO guilty of this!!!!

 

BJJ is nice because it offers a continuum of force between "Ehh this guy's just drunk, I'm going to sit on his chest until the police arrive" to "I really, really, really want this person dead and all of his limbs snapped at their component joints."

There's not going to be a lot of self defense "how do I talk myself out of this situation" in BJJ or a lot of philosophy talk. Most of the classes are just "here's three techniques, here's a drill, here's isolated sparring, here's free sparring."

Just cuddling, don't worry :]