He is my Sijo, not my hero And he also performed Sil Lum Tao up to the day he died. For the record he never decried kata as dry land swimming...he decried artists that did nothing BUT kata as dry land swimmers If you are going to mangle a quote from someone at least make sure you understand it eh?
So what you are saying is that it an art that’s designed to take a long time to make work, and then only if you have a good background in other arts (preferably contact arts at that) if you couple this with the fact on several threads on this forum no one has been able to show a clip of aikido working against a resisting attacker using half decent attacks on a consistent basis or of it working in a self defence situation you can understand why some here are bemused when people say aikido works so well for self defense
self defense isn't fighting, for one. and two, it shouldn't take a long time to work, at all. if anything, your criticism on that point reflects teachers' inability to effectively communicate the overall principles of the art in the context of practice. point number one: evade attack. if teachers and students drilled that from the very beginning, i think this would help a lot of students. instead i've seen students get so focused on footwork, and hip movement, etc. that he/she loses the big picture--i've done it myself. i agree with you on some level. i do think that aikidoka that have a background in judo and/or boxing and/or bjj are better. because for fighting, judo, boxing and bjj ARE better, period. but i'll also say that if a friend or acquaintance came to me and asked my opinion of aikido vs. ninjutsu/wing chun/hapkido/karate (and variants)/krav maga, i'd tell them aikido in all cases. although i would just tell them to do judo, over everything. barring that, some combination of boxing, muay thai, and eskrima would certainly do the trick.
it's really sad, to me, that people see aikido as a very small thing. maybe it's the codification of the art, undertaken by k. ueshiba? maybe it's the fact that we've gone so far from the root of the tree that we don't realize what's been lost? i don't know. i would take this to imply that we should cross-train in multiple styles, with pressure. and that an unlimited amount of techniques are available (including grappling and striking), within the art.
As Giovanni said, I don't think you can fault the principles. But the application is almost always lacking (Hannibal's contribution notwithstanding). That I've seen in the public sphere, at least. Do you have any anecdotes from yourself, or people you know, about how Aikido has proved effective in the face of physical assault? What, in your opinion, is effective in the training methods you've experienced, and how does that carry over to real-world application?
Giovani, as some one who doesn't have much aikido experience I don't fully understand what do you mean by aikido moving away from its root. In what ways has aikido changed and what do you feel has been lost from it?
For the record I don't do Aikido and have only been to a couple of sessions in my time, but the principle is the same for my Gendai as it is for Aikido
first off with some full disclosure, i've only actually practiced aikido for less than two years. but i'm a huge fan of the style and of m. ueshiba. i literally devoured anything online or in print form i could get written by the man or by people who trained with him, like saito. and within the time frame, practiced as much as my family and career duties would allow. the dojo i practiced at was opened by a student of m. ueshiba: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Tohei i mentioned that i feel that aikido does inform my current bjj practice and i do strongly believe that. i hoped to phrase the "moving away from the root" as a question. ueshiba believed that aikido meant all techniques. and that in reality, aikido was mostly striking anyway. so i feel like there's a disconnect with actual practice versus what the founder had in mind. is that because ueshiba isn't any longer with us? or because of the codification and spread of the art, we've lost this key principle? i don't know. or is all this just the philosophical musings of an old man not connected to the art?
jeffgau: search through the aikido sub-forum for posts by koyo. there's a lot of terrific stuff there. sadly, he's not with us. and even though i never met him personally, felt a kinship. ps...here's a good one....i went back through koyo's book and am just astounded at the man...again!
Cheers for that giovanni, does sound very different from the aikido I have experienced. sounds like a top guy aswell
SOmeone using your video as an example to prove aikido is useful is like saying look wing chun works because a man who never did the art once throw a combination which looked like a chain punch in the cage, if the only examples of how an art should work can be found done by people who do not even do said art then one really has to question both that art and especially how its trained
your point might be valid if so many clips of complaint aikido demonstrations weren't abound on youtube, its not that an art is fake if its not on youtube, its that if there are so many clips of an art and they are all complaint unrealistic clips any right minded person would sort of question what else actually happened in the arts wouldnt they ? I mean what happens do the cameras all stop working as soon as the complaint wrist grabbing and extended punching drills are done and the real sparring happens ?? :bang:
It might well be. But with greater acceptance and popularity comes dilution. Genuine quality becomes rare. Which is not unique to Aikido.
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj8xH_aiCtg"]Aikido vs Muay Thai - YouTube[/ame] pretty good kote gaeshi at 2:50.
Define real sparring. Is it something that Aikido can work in is one question. Is it something that you're likely to find decent Aikidoka doing is another. None of what I do at speed and/or against resisting people looks anything like any normal kind of sparring. It does look like both Karate and Aikido though. Wrist grabs and extended punching are a tiny bit of Aikido. They are training mechanisms to give safe entries to core elements of the art such as evasion, redirection, attacking the balance (predominantly from above the centre of gravity), manipulating the limbs (and the body) through sound biomechanics. We did have a member here who used to post videos of some form of children's aikido competition at the High Wycombe Judo Centre.
Yes. I grew up in a violent home. I put an end to that violence. Awareness is the principle thing that transfers to the real world. Which is developed through a combination of repetition and pressure testing. It stops you from getting into trouble in the first instance, allows you to read the situation correctly and remain relatively calm. And that's not just in a self defence context either. I cycle to work in the morning and their are quite a few motorists that don't even see cyclists. That answer might disappoint some people. But before you start breaking arms and claiming it was self defence. You really need to know what's going on around you to begin with.
Demonstrations are just that. Demonstrations. They're not competitions. Nobody is out to beat the other guy as such. What exactly are you expecting to see in a demo? The uke deliberately try to humiliate his teacher? Not very likely to happen even if the uke hates his teacher. As for videos. Most people aren't recording their training in my experience. In spite of whatever impression you might have from YouTube. In 10 years of training with my teacher, who has now passed away, I amassed a whopping two grading videos which weren't especially exciting. I also did a demo with another guy and split his lip because he spent most of it waffling crap. I did of course apologise. :evil: So I guess yes is the answer. We don't, in my experience, typically record our training sessions.
