Aikido

[MrPoopy]

Anyone here ever done Aikido? I know that it takes a very long time to become effective in it. Does it mix well with BJJ? Some of the Aikido techniques I've seen seem like they would work and would compliment BJJ.

[Ice Phoenix]

Well it's got some throws and joint locks so it would kinda go with BJJ but it's really more of a religion than an effective fighting system and is completely unproven in it's effectiveness against resisting opponents, unlike BJJ for example, so I would be highly sceptical!

[Szczepankiewicz]

We have a student (and my instructor) who has taken some Aikido. The principles of flow that they use are nice, however, most of their throws and locks are executed away from the body. That's great if someone is charging at you and you can use their energy.

However for static or ground situations where grappling is involved it is my opinion that Judo and BJJ would be superior. You can use Judo and BJJ effectively in a few months and the mechanics are more reliable.

[Lightning&Earth]

aikido

utilizes the principles of nonviolence. which essentially means you avoid the violence. the tactics in aikido take a long time to master as the timing is everything in Aikido. and NO itsnot just a religion,,it is founded by a man that has seen more violence death and fighting that any of you MMA guys ever will. you should read his books and maybe learn from a true master. at 80 yrs old he could take a young guy out with little effort.

LIghtning and Earth

[Guest]

No offence, but my opinion is that all these stories of 80 year old guys taking out others with little effort is merely another example of mysterious martial arts mess.

No offence intended, but MA's are inundated with these types of tales.

As far as I am aware, neither Aikido nor an 80 year old from any art has made much of an impression in MMA competition. Aikido theories sound wonderfu, but in practice they have to grab your wrist first. That is pretty difficult to do when you are shooting in for a takedown..........

[doubleouch]

their techniques are fine. It is their training methods that are antequated. They never train against resistance and therefore never really test their techniques against and agressive attack. It is hard to be able to use anything unless you have experience actually fighting with it.

[Lightning&Earth]

WRONG

unfortunately Ueshiba is dead and died in late 60;s there are some videos of him taking on several people at once. its not mystical at all really. read up on the man before you make a snap judgment about an 80 yr old man. this was a hard dude, who fought in the Korean war and killed alot of people,,and some hand to hand.
its hard i know for us today to imagine that a senior could take out a young guy ,,but you have to understand that what this man, in his experience, was capable of was to KNOW what you were going to do before you did it. its the timing involved.
against aggresive attack aikido would utilize the tactics found in aikijuitsu. steven segal has shown this to us in his movies,,,choreographed as they were it still showed an aspect of how Ki aikido is utilized.

Lightning and Earth

[Szczepankiewicz]

Keep in mind that Ueshiba was trained in other arts before he formulated Aikido.

Just because there exists video of him handling multiple attackers doesn't 'prove' anything. Who knows how it was set up and executed.

I know he is very well regarded in the MA community, but then so is Bruce Lee. They are legends. But based on what exactly?


I have a read on Ueshiba's life and indeed he was a very talented man, however as an 80 year old man he may or may not have been able to trash three or more dojo clowns and he may or may not have been able to do the same to a pack of MMA fighters.

How we got this onto an attack/defense of the man himself is a digression away from the original topic: The utility of Aikido.

[Roland]

Re: WRONG

Originally posted by Lightning&Earth
this was a hard dude, who fought in the Korean war and killed alot of people,,and some hand to hand.

O'Sensei never fought in the Korean War - Japan's post-WWII constitution prohibited the use of Japanese Defense Force troops in anything but "self-defense". I think you are thinking of his wacky "adventures" in Manchuria pre-WWII when he was affiliated with some dodgy Japanese nationalist groups.

[Lightning&Earth]

i just read up on it

yeah it seems i was misinformed to a degree about his involvement. but it does show that he was stationed in Manchuria and that tour there is shrouded in mystery. although i have heard and read that he actually did see combat and did partake in engagements and killed either through rifle or hand to hand,,bayonette,,a good number of chinese army soldiers. which accounts for his refusal to stay in the military and accept a general discharge. he apparently was ill and depressed and secluded himself repenting on the actions done in his military tour.

the point is that the man was a hard little fighter. and experiance can pay off when dealing with aggressor.

Aikido gets a bad rap from most because most who are looking to get in to a "lets learn how to kick ass" frame of mind dont find that in a Aikido dojo. i would say that in order to become really proficient in aikido one would need to dedicate themselves to it for about 10 years,,,and since i am an advocate of cross training its good to have something else hidden in your tactics.

Lightning and Earth

[MrPoopy]

my instructor has showed us a few (only a few) aikido techniques. maybe he has taught us more and just didn't tell us it's aikido. but the few that he showed us do work. one technique had us grabbing our opponents bicep as he reached in, then pulling him around and moving to his back. from there you could slide your arm through for a choke and hit the small of his back to bend him backwards and off balance, or just take him straight down. I used this technique while grappling.

[Lightning&Earth]

its a good technique mr poopy

the harder version of that move is in praying mantis where if the person reached in you hook the bicep,,them slap the arm down and hold then as you move in you throw in a punch to the side of the face and immediately get around and apply the choke and either take him down or lift up to choke.

kind of hard to explain ,,but hopefully you have an idea.

Lightning and Earth

[Brokenmace]

I've done some informal studying of biomechanics, plus what my brother has shown me (an aikido practitioner).

I've come to the conclusion that almost any art can flow into any other art. It's a matter of mindset and commitment to discovering the linkages. Kali flows very obviously into JKD, BJJ flows quite obviously into Greco-Roman wrestling. All of them flow well enough into kickboxing, given the proper approach.

Most folks got two arms, two legs, and one brain, and the joints only go but so many ways.

[Guest]

I guess it won't be too long before an Aikidoka enters a Mixed Martial Arts competition then.

Not.

Aikido works in a dojo when you have willing training partners that know how to offer you their wrists and then roll about. I have seen demonstrations in books of the old master. The students he demonstrated on were all stood where he told them to stand, and they all came at him one at a time.

I have seen Bruce Lee defeat multiple attackers on film. But he admitted that it was all choreographed.

Wake up and look at REAL evidence, not propoganda.

And what if he was in a war and killed people? So was my old Grandad. That proves nothing.

Lastly, I recently attended a course on Close Quarter Combat. It is a system taught to British Commandos in WW2. The instructor had me scratching my head when the first technique he had us do was a wrist lock. After a while everyone said that they "had" the technique and were confident they could apply it. Then he asked us to do it again, but told our training partners to really resist. Guess what, none of us could aply it. He went onto make the point that we do too many techniques in Martial Arts were we unwittingly LET our opponents apply a technique, when the thing would have no chance working for real.

We spent the rest of the seminar learning strikes to the neck, eyes, jaw, groin and knees. Now they really DO work.

I know I'm ranting on, and I don't mean any offence. But I get frustrated that people want to believe all these tales of mystery so much that they spend thousands on learning how to get their arses kicked in a real fight. And worse than that, there are those being paid thousands to do the teaching.

Fighting is not rocket science, nor is it mysterious.

K.I.S.S.

[Brokenmace]

First off, there is no mystery or fantasy here. Aikido takes many years to become even marginally effective, and one must dedicate himself to the spiritual side also. This is what prepares the mind to accept and guard against sudden danger. It helps deal with survival stress, allowing the mind to operate on a steady field. This is not mysticism. It is psychology.

Second, your right that we sometimes learn too many techniques, and you are also right that we sometimes learn them without resistance. However, your CQC instructor should have known that a wristlock never works against a weary resisting apponent. That's why you hit or distract them first! If you've done your job, the wristlock goes critical before they have a chance to recover. Throw a drink in their eyes, eye jab them, stomp their feet, apply pressure in the opposite direction of the wristlock so that their resistance complies with the wristlock. Think.

My Sifu teaches defensive tactics to our local police department, and another of my instructors is a S.W.A.T. team member who has made many of his techniques work, wristlocks and all, while under threat of death. You have to use your mind. It is the real weapon.

Also, many techniques and drills aren't meant for direct application in combat. Take the Hubud Lubud of Kali. No one will strike at you like they do in that drill. It is simply meant to train a neurological response to an attack from a certain angle. Many of the knife disarms don't work if you have to think about them, and we are taught not to look for them unless we have no other option and are without a weapon of any kind. They happen because of the chaos of combat. If something I do causes my opponent to pause for a split second (say I jibber insanities at him whilst foaming at the mouth), I could pull off a disarm. Or if I cut him, and he is not prepared for it, his wrist goes limp, I could then disarm him. etc. etc. etc.

And by the way, I'll finish this tirade by saying that my brother's Aikido instructor did train for resistance. He trains his students for the street, and many of his techniques don't even require a clinched wrist to work. What you saw were simply demonstrations. You can't judge an art by a few minutes of video. You have to experience it with a teacher commited to the path you wish to follow. Aikido instructors are not robots.

P.S. NHB competition isn't the end-all-be-all of realistic combat. There are so many restrictions in any sane competition that believing you'll win in the street as a result of winning in an octagon is laughable. If you don't train to kill, you're going to get killed. Submissions don't work when the person your mounting crushes your balls or slits your wrist, or tears out your throat. No offense, but I doubt that supposition can be easily argued.

Respect.