# First Aikido Class



## lemon_meringue (Mar 24, 2009)

I finally decided to give aikido a try tonight for the first time. I've been meaning to go along for ages, but have been put off by people telling me it would be pretty much useless and a waste of time. Even so, I tried my best to go in with an open mind and see what I could get out of my first session. By the way, the style was Shodokan- although I hear it is sometimes referred to as Tomiki after it's founder. 

After a quick warm up we started off with basic foot movements- unsoku- which I found really difficult! I have terrible co-ordination at the best of times, so felt a bit lost here. I managed to find a video of exactly what we were doing (although this is not the same dojo, it is the same style) so I will watch it and practise at home: 




After that we went through some basic breakfalling, which was not a problem for me because I do the same ones in ju-jitsu. Something I didn't realise going in was that this is basically "sport aikido". The main focus is on randori, in which pairs aim to stab the torso with a rubber tanto to score points. The rest of the class was spent applying the foot movements from the beginning to the randori, so we could avoid the tanto. Some basic hand movements were thrown in briefly as well. Then we had a cool down and it was over. I was quite surprised that I didn't even break a sweat the entire time- a nice change from the ju-jitsu sessions that leave me half dead at the end! lol

I enjoyed the class, and will be going back in a couple of days for another go. I do have a couple of concerns though, which I hope you guys can help me with:

First of all, is this style of aikido any good for self defence? It seems very centered around competition, and the rules make it somewhat restricted and less realistic. For example, you may only stab to the body and not the face. Does anyone practise this style? Can you tell me more about it?

Also, I have only been doing my current style of ju-jitsu for about 6 months. I trained previously in a different style for a couple of years, but had to change when I moved. Will learning a different martial art at this stage hinder my progress in either?

Thanks for your help! 

P.S. I know pretty much nothing about aikido, so if I've displayed any extreme ignorance I do apologise!


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