Aikido - 44th All Japan Clip

[smoothsake]

Here is an interesting video I came across on YT. It is from the 44th All Japan Aikido Tournament. Can anyone with experience comment on the legitimacy of the functionality of aikido? To me it looks a little "magical" but I don't believe aikido as a style could have spread worldwide if it wasn't practical. Do tell... Also I understand Sosai studied Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu, which Mori Ueshiba also studied and later evolved into aikido. So there is a Kyokushin connection here.

YouTube - ?44???????????

Osu!

[ksan]

think this is meant to be funny.... (audience laughing and stuff)

Its not realistic, the applications it self might be in real life, but they are not showing it

[Dent]

Osu!

Somebody may be able to get it to work, but after a year and a half of trying, I came to the conclusion that that wouldn't be me.

Since that time, I have yet to meet someone who can make Aikido work by itself. Some of the techniques used in conjunction with other arts seem to be effective.

Osu!

[Brad]

Osu!

Somebody may be able to get it to work, but after a year and a half of trying, I came to the conclusion that that wouldn't be me.

Since that time, I have yet to meet someone who can make Aikido work by itself. Some of the techniques used in conjunction with other arts seem to be effective.

Osu!

Osu.

I agree Dent! My friend from the gym has a shodan in Aikido. And every time i ask how do you attack he says it better to deflect instead of attack. He showed me one move and put hes head toward the ground as i grappled him. And cracked him a good knee to his head.

[hsphouse]

I think this is no magic.
There is a similar martial art called hapki yusul that was derived from hapkido (korean aikido). The Grandmaster seemed to slide his hand past his opponent, and the opponent would be unable to move for 2 seconds.
Pity, I used to have a video clip but I can't find it anywhere.

Then again, nobody may know the truth behind these 'magical' looking martial arts, unless you put a gun to their head and ask to stun them.

[Dent]

Osu!

Again, I want to be perfectly clear that some people are better suited to Aikido than I am. I also think that it may be difficult for me to judge it based on my use thereof.

Osu!

[jcc]

Osu!

There are undoubtably venerable sensei out there who have an 'aura' about them, but I am a bit skeptical about those that claim to be able to throw, knock out or disable opponents with their aura, 'kiai power' or any such 'magic' (remember our wonderfull kiai master v. mma?).

Aikido doesn´t have competition and I´ve never heard of any aikido practitioner ever fighting kd, mma or whatever, so how do you prove that this actually works under realistic fighting conditions?

Osu!

[shurenkan]

Hello everyone,

There is so much that I want to say about this topic. I don't even know where to begin. Aikido is a gendai budo (modern martial way) based on a koryu bujutsu (old style martial art). It did in fact evolve from the elementary teachings of Daito Ryu as well as Ueshiba Sensei's experiences with Kenjutsu and other styles of jujutsu. According to all accounts, O-sensei (as Ueshiba is known) was a demon with respect to martial arts. In fact, his dojo was known for it's hard. brutal, and realistic training. His uchi-deshi often refered to that dojo as the "jigoku juku" or "hell school." According to many martial historians and his former students, O sensei was the real deal.

But what has become of the aikido today. I do not intend for these remarks to be disparaging in any way to aikido-ka. This is only my opinion and I could be very wrong. I have alot of respect for all the budo. That being said, I will give my opinion of the aikido that is practiced today and it's relevance as a fighting art.

I believe that many modern day practitioners of aikido are victims of mimicry. Let me explain. O-sensei's power and superb technique were the result of decades of arduous, physically demanding training. Only after all that training and his spiritual enlightenment, did he change the focus of his technique toward spiritual development.

What I am trying to say is that O-sensei's aikido evolved to the soft and gentle form we know of today, it did not start that way and that is the key. His technique was highly refined and that's why he was able to pull it off. Most modern day practitioners are only mimicking the movements of an old frail man (I only use these words to illustrate a point--no insult is intended) without having his foundation. The result is an art that is beautiful for self development, but difficult to use in real combat. Believe it or not, I see the same thing happening in many styles of Karate.

However, that is not to say that all aikido is the same. Watch the footage of Gozo Shioda or some of Ueshiba's other pre-war / pre-enlightenment uchi-deshi. Their aiki is still very powerful and less "gentle-looking." Steven Seagal's aikido is also a harder version of aikido.

My next point has more to do with the physiology and psychology of fighting. In general, any martial art that employs joint manipulations as do aikido, aikijutsu, small circle jujutsu, chin na, etc., require a tremendous amount of proficiency. They have to be proficient to the point of one being able to perform them without thought.

When someone is under a high amount of stress, like in a self defense situation, your body immediately kicks into Fight or Flight mode. That happens because of the massive adrenaline rush that enters your blood stream. At that point your body and mind are concerned with only one thing--SURVIVAL. Because of that, your body loses it's ability to utilize its fine motor skills. It's only concerned with gross motor skills LIKE RUNNING. So the ability to use finely coordinated hand movements to subdue an opponent basically goes out the window. It's like in all the horror film, where the "soon to be chopped into bitty pieces" teen fumbles with the keys trying to get them into the car's ignition. That's exactly what will happen, UNLESS through constant repetitive practice of both the physical and mental sorts, you are ablr to control that adrenaline rush. It's difficult to do, but not impossible. The key is repetition, and practice under duress. And even then, there is no guarantee that one will be able to do it.

There are some fascinating books on the psychology of combat and the effects of stress on the body's ability to cope. Hans Selye, the father of Stress Theory, was a genius. He figured alot of this stuff out and many others have followed his lead.

Those are just my two cents.

Osu,
Miguel Rios
Karatedo Shurenkan

[ANTSAN]

Great post shurenkan.

Interestingly Hapkido is an offshoot of Aikido which was supposedly introduced to Korea during the Japanese occupancy. The difference in names is due to the Chinese character for "Ai" being pronounced as "Hap" in Korean. It seems though that Hapkido has followed a different path in modern era to that of Aikido, there is a Hapkido dojo downstairs from my Kyokushin dojo, there seems to be plenty of TKD style kicking and punching combined with the joint lock and throws shown in the video above. Perhaps Hapkido has maintained more of its original roots with that of Ueshiba Sensei's style??

Osu!

[spanky11]

As someone who has trained in both knockdown karate and aikido quite extensively, I have mention that orginally O-Sensei demanded that he students at least had a shodan in one other art before he would start to train them in Aikido - and I couldn't agree more. The other students at the Aikido dojo had not trained in any other art before, and basically had no idea what it is like to be hit...and this is never a good thing.

The people that have trained in other arts actually got the most out of aikido, as they had the ability to see what will work, and what won't.

I do think it is a great style - but mostly for ppl that have a solid grounding in another style - ideally a striking style.

[Dent]

Osu!

As someone who has trained in both knockdown karate and aikido quite extensively, I have mention that orginally O-Sensei demanded that he students at least had a shodan in one other art before he would start to train them in Aikido - and I couldn't agree more. The other students at the Aikido dojo had not trained in any other art before, and basically had no idea what it is like to be hit...and this is never a good thing.

The people that have trained in other arts actually got the most out of aikido, as they had the ability to see what will work, and what won't.

I do think it is a great style - but mostly for ppl that have a solid grounding in another style - ideally a striking style.

I like what you have to say about needing to get hit, Spanky11.

Now, could you explain why you think Aikido is a great system?

Osu!

[ksan]

Talking about aikido.. anyone read robbert twigger`s book "angry white pyjama`s"?

Osu

[Dent]

Osu!

Talking about aikido.. anyone read robbert twigger`s book "angry white pyjama`s"?

Osu

Yup. Interesting book. Very different view of training.

Osu!

[kidflash]

Could you tell more about mixing Karate and Aikido, spanky11? Do you think you could use Aiki-Style movements against a fierce attacker?

Because I think in most Aikido demos (the one posted above seems to be a joke to me, too) it's looking great and I don't think they fall on purpose. But they mostly attack the performer by just running towards him with their arm in the air. That doesn't seem to be the way an experienced striker would approach, does it?

Osu!

[spanky11]

Could you tell more about mixing Karate and Aikido, spanky11? Do you think you could use Aiki-Style movements against a fierce attacker?

Because I think in most Aikido demos (the one posted above seems to be a joke to me, too) it's looking great and I don't think they fall on purpose. But they mostly attack the performer by just running towards him with their arm in the air. That doesn't seem to be the way an experienced striker would approach, does it?

Osu!


Apologies for not getting back earlier on this thread - the family, house, work have all come in hard the last few days..

I guess I never trained in Aikido for it to be a pure "fighting art" as I think that I have have that backround in myself already from Karate. I always saw Aikido I guess in a way adding to my karate knowledge. I know that I will always "think" like a karateka.

As for combining the 2, I think Aikido gives a good feeling for body movement as you need to learn to redirect an attack, and turn that movement back against the attacker.

Of course, in training (especially gradings for people going for shodan, and they were just used to people trying to grab their wrist, etc) where they allowed jiyu kumite, there were times when I just wanted to throw a hard shitu tsuki-jodan mawashi-low kick combo, but I generally refrained from doing so :-) old habits die hard...

I think Ashihara and Enshin do a nice job of incorporating both basic aiki movements and Kyokushin. I do think its a good idea for people wanting to try it out - but as I said earlier, Aikido is best for people with a strong background in a striking art to get the most out of it.

[jcbel]

I did an Aikido intro course that ran for a month just to see what it was like and I really liked the joint manipulation techniques (something I always struggle with during Goshin Jitsu training). I felt learning the mechanics of how to fall safely were also valuable - I think we should teach this in Kyokushin before teaching people how to perform takedowns!

As far as training and demos go, I was told that the attacker needs to be compliant with the defender's technique or they risk injury. I think this is a valid point but I don't think people train very much (at least from what I saw) for non-compliant attackers, which is probably 100% of people you will run into on the street, etc...

[kidflash]

Thanks for sharing your experience, spanky11!

Osu-EN1

[Dent]

Osu!


As far as training and demos go, I was told that the attacker needs to be compliant with the defender's technique or they risk injury. I think this is a valid point but I don't think people train very much (at least from what I saw) for non-compliant attackers, which is probably 100% of people you will run into on the street, etc...

I think this is the difficulty inherent in developing a system of technical progression. True sparing in the Dojo isn't the same as a real fight, but there must be different levels that start light, and progress to fairly realistic levels.

IMO, that realism is the dangerous part though. Not because of injury, but because of fear...

Osu!

[Martin H]

I am fairly sure that this was a attempt to poke fun at the aikido compliance commonly seen in aikido demos by overdoing it a bit. Atleast I HOPE so.

But as I have as a .sig somewhere.
If the opponent gets up after the technique and smiles, it is DO
If he stays on the ground in agony, it is JUTSU.

[powerof0ne]

Great post shurenkan.

Interestingly Hapkido is an offshoot of Aikido which was supposedly introduced to Korea during the Japanese occupancy. The difference in names is due to the Chinese character for "Ai" being pronounced as "Hap" in Korean. It seems though that Hapkido has followed a different path in modern era to that of Aikido, there is a Hapkido dojo downstairs from my Kyokushin dojo, there seems to be plenty of TKD style kicking and punching combined with the joint lock and throws shown in the video above. Perhaps Hapkido has maintained more of its original roots with that of Ueshiba Sensei's style??

Osu!

Hapkido doesn't claim to be an offshoot of Aikido but that of Daito Ryu..the founder of Hapkido claimed to have learned from Takeda but no documents exist to prove those claims.
History of Hapkido: Hapkido History (http://www.hapkido-info.net/html/history.html)

It really depends on what "style" of Hapkido you do and what it focuses on. Some styles look almost identical to TKD with a few joint locks/throws thrown in while others focus more on the joint locks/throws with hardly any kicking.

[smoothsake]

I am fairly sure that this was a attempt to poke fun at the aikido compliance commonly seen in aikido demos by overdoing it a bit. Atleast I HOPE so.


Here's hoping, but I doubt it very much. The Japanese do not rarely "poke fun" at anything unless it is full blown comedy and it is obvious. Subtle humor isn't really in the DNA. The laughs in the crowd are more the audience not understanding what is going on, but I believe the performers are 100% serious.

[tmd]

Talking about aikido.. anyone read robbert twigger`s book "angry white pyjama`s"?

Osu

I am not a great reader of any kind of publication without pictures ;) but this was a facinating read for me really enlightened me to the Udashi mentality - especially the line on Kyokushin, "should we try that? No it's to brutal"

Interestingly this book highlights that the Japanese Riot squad use this training so it must have a practical side to it?

[tmd]

As far as training and demos go, I was told that the attacker needs to be compliant with the defender's technique or they risk injury. I think this is a valid point but I don't think people train very much (at least from what I saw) for non-compliant attackers, which is probably 100% of people you will run into on the street, etc...

This to me is why it looks so fantastical and doesn't have a practical edge -

your training partner has to be soooo compliant as to roll away at the slightest touch you are never going to know what actually works - we were discussing the Kyokushin Syllabus after training tonight as to what works and what doesn't and the truth is; it all works and none of it works it's our ability to apply it at the right time that makes anything work.

I remember years ago doing some street fighting classes with this guy who was a dan graded in all sorts - it was getting fairly heavy when I did this series of moves in which I kicked him in the jaw and threw him to the ground landing in an arm bar - 'that was fantastic!' he said, once I'd let him up 'what was it?' - 'I don't know, instinct?' was all I could say what I remember was it was all effortless - I think this should be core of all MA training.

[James]

I agree with the people saying that it is more suited to people with a good grounding in martial atrs already.
Apparently, the guy who created tai chi, was a advanced master in shaolin kung fu, and his personal ability to perform tai chi was a direct result of all those years of hard training. Even the author of the book on tai chi where i found that info was all ready advanced in shaolin and said it was better than tai chi but not many people are up for the hard training.

[TRK]

I am one of those people who started in Aikido. I have branched out to Japanese jujutsu and am now looking for a karate dojo. I think Aikido can be an effective martial art. I did a seminar with Frank Doran sensei recently and was reminded how effective it can be. However, he has trained in other arts, including hand to hand combat in the military. I think it is this experience that gives him a lot of his effectiveness and Aikido is a philosophical refinement of that ability with a focus on non-lethal techniques. I think jujutsu and Aikido techniques, if applied forcefully to an untrained, non-compliant attacker are likely to result in serious injury, which is why it is unsafe to do full-speed, full contact sparring in those arts. But too often that results in ineffective technique and a dance-like result that looks great on the mat and won't work on the street. More and more I think cross-training is vital to become a complete and effective martial artist.

edit: Aikido attackers are notorious for doing the strike the teacher showed, then patiently sitting there while tori gets himself into the right position. It is one of the things I was never comfortable with.

[spanky11]

I think it is this experience that gives him a lot of his effectiveness and Aikido is a philosophical refinement of that ability with a focus on non-lethal techniques. I think jujutsu and Aikido techniques, if applied forcefully to an untrained, non-compliant attacker are likely to result in serious injury, which is why it is unsafe to do full-speed, full contact sparring in those arts.

Agree 100%.

Aikido can be great - but I strongly believe that to get the most out of it, you need to have a strong backround in another "striking" art.