ScottUK

I have just been reading some of your other posts. The cheese has definitely slid off your cracker, fella.

I guess I am done responding to you.

jubaji

...................................................


'bout time, now stfu.

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ScottUK

<ignore>wanker above</ignore>

jubaji

Well, didn't take long to lose that resolve...

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The_Judo_Jibboo

come one jubaji, you know that on the internet it's no fun ignoring someone unless you frequently remind them just how rigorously you are ignoring them.

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So the real message here is that in a SD situation you should always take off your trousers...
-jubaji

jubaji

LOL! So it seems!

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Red Rum

My disappointing experience with Aikido was this. Two friends of mine who claim to be high ranking Aikido practitioners (I truly hope they were lying) were training with me and I asked about Aikido. They said that I should grab their arm. I did. They then said 'No, no, no' grab me like this or it won't work. (!!!!)
I grabbed them like they said and they tried to twist my arm. I just folded my arm (using wing chun) and they couldn't do anything.

They then tried to do another move by holding my arm behind my back (like a bouncers grip). Again I turned round and relaxed my arm and they couldn't do anything.

Since then I have seen a couple of Aikido people at SENI, relative martial art fairs and gyms. They have been exceptionally poor. They are okay at close quarter clinch work but rely on the attacker doing certain things and in certain situations

There are far better arts out there (ie if I want a clinch use BJJ. If you want to throw someone use Judo. And as for striking - just train boxing)

Segal has doen martial arts other than Aikido including karate, judo and kendo. I know he has doen a lot of weaponry work as well. Also, if you have done any martial art for as long as he has, than you had better be good or you'd be a laughing stock!

Mr. Arieson

Aikido is more then just "twisting an arm". I used to think that, until I started researching. It is about speed, timing, accuracy and spherical movement. An Accomplished Aikido expert (Minimum 10 years experience) will use a lot more then a simple arm twist to bring you down.

I won't argue that as self-defense, it takes too long to learn. Judo and BJJ will get you there faster. But I can explain why they say "No, grab me this way". It is because they are trying to show you a technique. This was not NHB fighting, was it?

Red Rum

I don't know what NHB stands for, so please forgive me.

As for the demo. They asked me to grab their arms. It wasn't like I was holding them as hard as I could or trying to be difficult. I grabbed them in a normal way and they couldn't handle it. In wing chun demos, I ask students to throw in a punch and it could be a hook, straight punch, low punch etc.

I asked them to show me defences against grabs - I asked what they would do if I grabbed them. And they didn't come up with an answer

It just wasn't at all impressive.

Mr. Arieson

As I said, it was just someone trying to show you something, and you got rebeliious and twisted out of it to be a smart alek.

The way Aikido works best is when it is done fast. Very fast, and very unexpected. You don't just control the arm, but your opponent's whole body, with your whole body. It is controling the arm, then rotating or dropping your body weight below the other's centerline, causing him to become off balance. The same technique that Judo and JuJutsu uses.

This is very hard to do with only a little practice. You have to have excellent Ma-i (fighting distance), speed and accuracy. And Aikido does not just try the one technique. A great practicioner knows he may have to shift to another technique if it does not work right.

My point is that you horsing around with your friends is not an accurate depiction of what Aikido is. Now, will you see it in the UFC? NO WAY! Aikido is non aggressive, and those guys are basically professional gladiators. I highly doubt I will ever be getting in a bar fight with one of those guys. Therefore Aikido works for me. Someone grabbing me or my wife or child, or just trying to shove me around, is going to get a real nice suprise from me. And it may work, because it is a suprise. He thought he would grab my shirt and try to punch me. He thought he might shove me, grab me by the throat or get me in a headlock. These are all the common attacks that Aikido works for. Now, if someone drops into a Muay Thai fighting position, I use another really great technique. I can run real fast!!!!

Red Rum

Not at all - the guys I was with asked me to try and get out of it. I wasn't even trying that hard.

When I train, I train sensibly and I am always keen to learn things about martial arts. I would never try to make things difficult for a martial artist (trying to catch them out etc) unless they asked me to.

Admittedly this is one of the only times I have seen Aikido (I did attend a class once, but it looked amateurish, so it's not a good example).

Everyone I have spoken to on the Aikido subject have said that it doesn't show you anything that you can't learn through other arts

Mr. Arieson

Most of what we think about as being police controlling tactics and "come alongs" came from Aikido, or are influenced by them. True, Trad jujutsu had them too, but Aikido perfected those techniques and really put a focus on them. The only really close relative (INMHO) would be Hapkido, but trying to find a decent Hapkido dojang that is not just a TKD McDojang with Hapkido added on is really very difficult. For the most part, most Aikido dojos are traditional and excellent.

But, it you are trying to learn MMA, I would avoid Aikido. It's reallya different mindset. I just don't like hearing that someone had a few examples of Aikido, and based an opinion solely on it. As I said, Aikido takes a long time to get good at. I would basically say that only someone black belt and above will be able to hold his own against a really skilled fighter. The techniques are really that hard to learn! I doubt anyone under the rank of black belt would have been able to effectively demonstrate these techniques on you.

My BJJ/Boxing instructor is an accomplished streetfighter/bouncer, and he swears by Aikido. And this guy is a pitbull, in top fighting shape. You would think he would only be interested in the BJJ, but he is not. He does JKD, Muay Thai,Boxing, BJJ and Aikido.

ScottUK

I have to say I always enjoyed David Rubens' aiki (Yoshinkan trained in Japan) demo at SENI - very nice stuff, aggressive and dynamic. No 'students flying through the air under their OWN steam' with that guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_OjcQtN_TM

jeff5

I'd say as far as combativeness goes, akikido rates pretty low. I actually like it as an art, just that I don't know how good it is from a self defense aspect. This is mainly because of the historical development of Jujitsu and Aikido.

In Japan you had professional warriors, the Samurai. They fought with Bow, Spear, Sword, etc. They had their primary weapons, secondary weapons, and when all else failed empty hand. The empty hand portion was a very small subset, because as a warrior you obviously don't want to put down your weapons. Most of the close in grappling that they did would be reminiscent of Shui Jiao, Western Wrestling, or Judo just from the very nature of the armor they were wearing and how melee fighting progressed.

Once Japan was at peace, many of the houses and schools got very stylized and very specialized. Remember, they had a period of hundreds of years where they really didn't use their skills for actual combat very much. Daito-Ryu Aikijujitsu, which is the forerunner of Aikido, was codified during this time. I'm not saying that the old Jujitsu Ryu weren't combative, because from what I've read training in them was extremely hard and there was still the "kill your enemy" mind-set.

Then from Daito-Ryu we have Aikido. Aikido was not developed as a combat art, it was developed as a Do, a way to personal development and sefl perfection. Any actual combat or self defense techinques in it were secondary.

So yes I think its easy for lots of us today to criticsize Aikido. But I also think that we aren't looking at it correctly for what it actually is.

Hardball

George Kirby is still around. In fact he is the Grandmaster and Founder of the very prosperous American Jujitsu Association. www.americanjujitsuassociation.org

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