Aikido.. The reality?

[wab25]

Not really.

If for example I wanted to be a professional aikido fighting athlete. How would I go about that?

The same way everyone else does...
Get into professional fighting athlete shape. Identify the sport you want to compete in. Learn the rules. Practice with folks who compete in that sport. Karate guys, Judo guys, BJJ guys, wrestlers, kickboxers... they all do it the same way.

Why would it be any harder for an Aikido guy to get resistance sparring from an MMA guy than a karate guy or a kickboxer or a wrestler? Aikido techniques are just as easy to ramp up the resistance on as a guard pass.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Two dedicated counter fighters who basically stood there for three rounds waiting for the other guy to do something.

So it becomes the worst place to learn how to use someone else's force.

I can definitely see that. That's the one thing I used to hate with TMA schools growing up. It was always "self-defense." "Let the other person attack first" I grew up believing that and it made attacking a big effort.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Exept if both people are trying to use the others persons force all the time. You don't have resistance sparring. You have the izzy Romero fight.

Which then removes the grounding required to understand drills.

Which then removes the understanding of how to use someone's force.

Gradings of course are always notorious for this because who is going to risk your mates black belt just so you can be a duche.

But this for example has very little in the way of borrowed force.

I couldn't watch the entire thing. It just reminded me of why I don't like belts. The level of mastery is almost never what I have in mind before clicking play. Even when I should know better. It always gets me

 

[JowGaWolf]

Why would it be any harder for an Aikido guy to get resistance sparring from an MMA guy than a karate guy or a kickboxer or a wrestler? Aikido techniques are just as easy to ramp up the resistance on as a guard pass.

I don't think it's harder. I just think few actually do because of misconceptions that they have about the system.

If I were train to Aikido. I would learn the techniques then I would follow the same path that I did with learning Crazy Kung Fu Stuff lol. But seriously I would find someone who doesn't train Aikido punch at me in a friendly sparring match and I would see what comes out of that by working on and focusing on no more than 3 techniques and Basics things like kick punch, that I can use to help set up what I need. Not a fan of the profanity or the testosterone. But To sum it up, I have to train against what I'm most likely to get from someone fighting me in the streets.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Speaking as a BJJ practitioner, there is certainly potential validity in most of the Aikido techniques I've seen. I've even been caught by a couple of them on occasion. There's also value in the underlying principles.

That said, as an outsider looking in on Aikido practice there are some significant issues I see.

First, most of the techniques in the Aikido syllabus are highly situational. The right circumstances to apply them don't come up that often, especially against skilled fighters. From my outsider's perspective, it appears that a large percentage of Aikido practitioners don't understand those situational limitations, don't train with those situations in mind (except in a highly artificial way which doesn't translate well to actual application), and don't have the skill set to cover the majority of more likely combative situations (unless they have crossed trained in other arts).

Second, it seems that most Aikido schools I've seen have fallen into what I'll call the "Aiki trap."

For my purposes I'll define Aiki as that moment in a fight where everything comes together perfectly, you blend with your opponent's energy and timing so that your technique feels effortless - it really seems like your opponent just threw themself for you. Unfortunately in real life, you don't get to the point of being able to do this without a whole lot of non-Aiki rough and tumble experience. (You're also more likely to find those moments against opponents who are much less skilled.) Even a really skilled fighter who frequently manages to achieve Aiki moments in a fight can't get them all the time, or even most of the time.

The "Aiki trap" comes when practitioners of an art (and it doesn't have to be Aikido, I've encountered this in other arts), want to bypass the whole process of going through years of rough and tumble fighting or sparring in order to just occasionally be able to get those magical feeling Aiki moments. Instead, they just practice with having their training partners feed them highly stylized, overcommitted, unrealistic attacks that are comparatively easy to blend with and never have those training partners offer any realistic effort to defeat their techniques. It's a shortcut that gives the illusion of being able to reliably demonstrate Aiki, but tends to fall apart under real world pressure.

Very well put. I think all of the Aikidoka I've seen would be better at their Aikido if they had 6 months of Judo - preferably before the Aikido. It is my opinion that what is seen as "techniques" in the aiki arts I've seen are actually a subset - just what was selected to give students a chance to practice the principles. But practitioners get stuck on those specific techniques (and many of them, on the specific situational applications they are taught), because of the way the classical drills are run (and the lack of training tools that have a different dynamic, like sparring/rolling/judo randori).

I like the classical training drills. I don't like limiting training to those, because it seems to foster bad habits and poor understanding.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

A good eye poke, seems to be very effective, if you can get it in. These are professional MMA fighters being eye poked... some of these would be game changers if the ref did not stop the fight for the poke.

The difficulty is getting them reliably. I think hunting for an eye poke might make a fighter miss opportunities for a good solid jab.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I have a different take on the "Aiki trap" as you call it. My take on the Aiki Trap, is thinking that Aikido is about the techniques. Aikido is about studying the things that go into that Aiki Moment and how to maintain the Aiki Moment. The idea being that if you study those things, you should be able to find more Aiki Moments in a fight, than if you had not studied how the Aiki Moment works. The techniques found in Aikido are great for studying and learning how to achieve that Aiki Moment.

If you have another background, where you have experience in resistance sparring / rolling / fighting... then the study of Aikido will improve your ability to find and capitalize on the available Aiki Moments in the fight. Those Aiki Moments will most likely not look like Aikido... but they will feel like Aikido... the effortless magic of the perfect blend.

The thing to remember about Aikido, is that you have to first survive long enough to be functional when the Aiki Moment arrives in the fight. This will not be easy to do, if you have only ever practiced the Aikido choreography. Two ways to fix this... first, start with some other training first, to learn how to fight, then supplement it with Aikido. Second, train Aikido and once you get down the choreography, fight and learn how to use it. This second option will not be nearly as efficient as the first and will be frustrating... mainly because you don't know how to fight or even know what to expect... let alone try to apply principles learned through an exercise on a resisting opponent.

To me, this sounds like another view of the same thing Tony is saying. But I'm kinda tired, so I may have missed some points that make them different.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Why is it okay for BJJ and MMA to have choreographed drills that they can use to ramp up the resistance with, until they are rolling / sparring / fighting... but Aikido is not allowed that same ramp? Just because you found some youtube video or tried a few dojos... does not mean that every Aikido dojo sticks strictly to the choreography. There are dojos that do not stick to the choreography and do get to rolling / sparring / heavy resistance... with other arts. I will grant you, that it is harder to find Aikido dojos like this, but they do exist. The lack of resistance training is a problem with the school / organization / instructor... not a problem with the art itself.

I thnk his point is that if all that is taught in an Aikido school is the aiki approach, then students aren't likely to bring significant aggression to randori. Without that, you have two people trying to borrow force neither is willing to commit. It's not an issue just for Aikido (or the aiki arts) - Judo suffers the same problem, even though they aren't aiki-focused. You get two Judoka in randori (or competition), and neither really wants to commit the weight that the other could use to execute some of the techniques. This has led to competition Judo only having a subset of what Judo contains (at least originally).

But it's more pronounced with the aiki arts, because we are working for moments that are already harder to find, and easier for a skilled practitioner to avoid providing (at least with Judo, there are many techniques that can be executed as a counter to your opponent's attempts at kuzushi). This is why Tomiki Aikido competition looks more like Judo thank mainline Aikido, and doesn't really show a ton of aiki moments.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

You mention this ramp. But then say that for a lot of schools there is no ramp. Just the choreography ending in more choreography.

If it is most schools. Then it is a problem with the art. The other's are outliers. And the art makes it very difficult for those outliers to train realistically.

Here is an example of people who can use each other's force against them.

Tomiki are about the only guys who train live.

I'd argue it's not the art, but the way it is being taught. The art doesn't really preclude that training, at all. It might be fair to lay that responsibility at the doorstep of major associations.

 

[drop bear]

I'd argue it's not the art, but the way it is being taught. The art doesn't really preclude that training, at all. It might be fair to lay that responsibility at the doorstep of major associations.

My point was you are not going to learn how to use a person's momentum against them by having them feed you attacks. You just will never get the right timing.

So drills = bad for aiki.

Otherwise the argument that it is not all of Aikido just most of it. Or just the major organisations. Honestly sounds a bit desperate.

 

[drop bear]

I couldn't watch the entire thing. It just reminded me of why I don't like belts. The level of mastery is almost never what I have in mind before clicking play. Even when I should know better. It always gets me

Yeah. That was a good example of bad aiki. You could Literally see where he just stops. And then goes again.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

My point was you are not going to learn how to use a person's momentum against them by having them feed you attacks. You just will never get the right timing.

So drills = bad for aiki.

I disagree with this. The drills are about being able to recognize the moment - to feel the availability of a given technique or principle. I think they do a good job of this, if the feed is good. All two-man drills are about someone feeding the right position/attack/momentum, regardless of style. And all become less useful if the feed doesn't match what you're trying to train to work with.

Otherwise the argument that it is not all of Aikido just most of it. Or just the major organisations. Honestly sounds a bit desperate.

I guess it depends how you define "art". To me, the art is the collection of techniques and principles. Those can be taught in various ways. An association will tend to influence the approach to an art.

I don't think Aikido would cease to be Aikido if it was taught with a foundation of non-aiki grappling and striking. It would cease to be the Aikido I've run into in most places, but it would still be the same art.

 

[drop bear]

I disagree with this. The drills are about being able to recognize the moment - to feel the availability of a given technique or principle. I think they do a good job of this, if the feed is good. All two-man drills are about someone feeding the right position/attack/momentum, regardless of style. And all become less useful if the feed doesn't match what you're trying to train to work with.

Lots of people think that way. But it just doesn't seem to work that way.

You will learn an approximation of the technique by drills. And this is all styles. Go do pad work for 6 months then box. You have this huge adjustment.

You learn enough that you can then have something to try during sparring. But you will never learn the timing or the feel of the action unless you are really doing it live.

Basically all the things that aiki really relies on happens in a different place than pretty much where all of Aikido is trained.

Which is why Aikido guys are so bad at it. Like that guy in the grading. Where he takes the feed. Stops. Does the technique. He literally has no idea how his uke is moving or how to take advantage of it.

I am surprised you guys don't do flow rolls at the least.

Which should be what randori is. But often randori winds up being a demo rather than an exercise.

(I mean this one is actually a demo I think. But you know what I mean)

 

[drop bear]

Lots of people think that way. But it just doesn't seem to work that way.

You will learn an approximation of the technique by drills. And this is all styles. Go do pad work for 6 months then box. You have this huge adjustment.

You learn enough that you can then have something to try during sparring. But you will never learn the timing or the feel of the action unless you are really doing it live.

Basically all the things that aiki really relies on happens in a different place than pretty much where all of Aikido is trained.

Which is why Aikido guys are so bad at it. Like that guy in the grading. Where he takes the feed. Stops. Does the technique. He literally has no idea how his uke is moving or how to take advantage of it.

I am surprised you guys don't do flow rolls at the least.

Which should be what randori is. But often randori winds up being a demo rather than an exercise.

(I mean this one is actually a demo I think. But you know what I mean)

And on a tangent. Is this difference because of capoeira? Which are basically the masters of the flow roll concept.

 

[JowGaWolf]

You learn enough that you can then have something to try during sparring. But you will never learn the timing or the feel of the action unless you are really doing it live.

This is how I feel as well. I like drills and drills are useful to me and I think they are important, but they are clean. By this I mean live sparring / fighting has a lot of other "junk" (other movements and challenges) that drills don't have. One can try to add the "junk" into the drill but it's not the same. Drill timing is not the same as sparring / fighting timing.

A good way to see the effects of this is to do a drill. Then after 5 minutes of that drill only add feints. Drills = walking into a room with nothing in it. You use the "walking drill" to navigate the room. Sparring /Fighting = walking into a room with junk on the floor and stuff hanging from the ceiling. Now you have to walk in a way and do things that weren't in the "walking drill." You add those things in a drill, but everyone has their own "junk" in different places even if the rooms are the same sizes. Unfortunately some room have junk and no lights on, and that occurs when you don't have an idea of what the other person does so you feel around until you locate the light switch that may be on the wall some where or hanging from the ceiling.

This is with all martial arts. It's not just an Aikido Thing. I think drills are clean for a reason. They help the practitioner focus on one or two things. It cleans up the noise so that there is very little distraction. I think this is the fastest way to learn a technique. But most stop there and fail to train how to apply the technique which is different than learning it. It's not until we walk in those "rooms" that we gain a larger understanding.

 

[JowGaWolf]

And on a tangent. Is this difference because of capoeira? Which are basically the masters of the flow roll concept.

I was actually impressed with that one. I usually only see the standard stuff. But even though what they did was great it's style A vs style A. A continuous drill. And like everyone else, there's that Room we all have to walk into if we want to get to the next level.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Lots of people think that way. But it just doesn't seem to work that way.

You will learn an approximation of the technique by drills. And this is all styles. Go do pad work for 6 months then box. You have this huge adjustment.

You learn enough that you can then have something to try during sparring. But you will never learn the timing or the feel of the action unless you are really doing it live.

Basically all the things that aiki really relies on happens in a different place than pretty much where all of Aikido is trained.

Which is why Aikido guys are so bad at it. Like that guy in the grading. Where he takes the feed. Stops. Does the technique. He literally has no idea how his uke is moving or how to take advantage of it.

I am surprised you guys don't do flow rolls at the least.

Which should be what randori is. But often randori winds up being a demo rather than an exercise.

(I mean this one is actually a demo I think. But you know what I mean)

Actually, nothing you said contradicts my post. I agree that drills are not sufficient for reliably developing fighting skills (I think it's possible, but don't know how you'd know without sparring).

Aikido's "randori" isn't the same thing as Judo's. It's a different kind of drill, with more dynamic feeds, but isn't anything like sparring/rolling/Judo randori. I prefer Judo's use of the term.

I am surprised you guys don't do flow rolls at the least.

You do this a lot. You're citing a different art than what I trained in. They'd be fast to draw that distinction. I do use flow drills. They are a favorite tool of mine. I learned them from two of my instructors, though I use them more than either of them did. I also use sparring (strikes only), rolling (groundwork only), randori (grappling only, Judo-style), and free sparring (any and all of the above). But you should know all of that, since I've told you before. You just choose to ignore it and cling to your early assumptions about what I teach. Kinda lazy.

 

[O'Malley]

Sorry in advance for the long post.

I'll start with a quick intro, so that you know what I'm talking about (I'll have to simplify to keep it short so please bear with me).

Aikido is a variant of daito-ryu aikijujutsu (DR), a martial art founded by Sokaku Takeda. Takeda was a wandering martial artist with formal training in classical Japanese swordsmanship and in a family martial conditioning method, probably of Chinese origin, that is known in DR as "aiki". Aiki means "to unify forces" and, in this context, it means "creating a balance of mutual opposing forces within the body". It's an internal "tensioning" process that makes it harder to apply force on the user and conversely puts the user's entire body into his movements. Aiki happens within the body and has nothing to do with "blending with the opponent". It's actually a Chinese concept: a crucial teaching of aikido is to stand in "roppo", which is called "liu he" in Chinese and means "six directions". Tai chi and xing yi practitioners should know the idea. [Edit: the concept exists in internal CMA but I'm not sure it's called liu he]

Takeda also loved sumo and despite his small size, he could do frontal force outs (yorikiri) on much bigger opponents, probably due to the aforementioned conditioning. In seminars, he would make people pay a fee per technique and so to earn more money he'd make up stuff on the spot. Sometimes he would imitate techniques he had seen in other styles. That's why DR has a very high number of techniques (118 basic kata in mainline DR, over 500 in the Takuma line).

Enter Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido, who was essentially a DR instructor. Like Takeda and his top students, he also displayed the ability to shed off forces and uncanny full-body power (the abovementioned "aiki"). This made him famous and earned him some top-level politicians and martial artists as students. He renamed stuff several times, including the art, and the name "aikido" stuck. Also, he was a religious fanatic and had close ties with extreme right-wing and ultranationalist movements. His vision of "peace" and "harmony" involved a world unified under the rule of the Japanese emperor, which descends from the gods.

Kisshomaru Ueshiba (Morihei's son) was the second head of aikido. In an occupied Japan, he swept the religious blabbering of his father under the rug and pushed the narrative of "old master Morihei invented the peaceful art of aikido". He simplified the techniques, made them flowing and circular, taught that "there's no attack in aikido", etc. That's where the emphasis on "blending with the opponent's energy" comes from. In a sense, he was more of an innovator than his father.

Fast forward today. Most dojos teach Kisshomaru's version of aikido, which was never meant to be functional (and in many ways has even been "defanged"). You can still find aikido groups that branched off pre-Kisshomaru that teach the older forms from DR (Iwama, Yoshinkan, etc.) or their own stuff (Tomiki). To make things even more complicated, Kisshomaru kept his father's top students in his organisation and let them do their own thing (many were senior to him) so there is strong variation even in mainstream aikido. And since there's no competition, there's no "metagame" that makes aikido technique converge. Lines that descend from Morihei's first disciples tend to have more mechanical validity but also have their own bad practice (e.g. lack of live training). As for the aiki that allowed Takeda and Ueshiba to be so strong in the first place, it's mostly lost today, although some people do preserve the method.

Here's the first first one. I found. To me this looks like Aikido concepts applied and it looks abrasive. It doesn't flow the same way that we see it in a demo. I personally think the "Flow" part is something that you have to experienced. I know that's the case with Muay thai. To the outside it may look like a simple clinch but to the person in the clinch it could feel like your balance is easily being robbed from you before the throw occurs.
This is what I expect to see in a fight on the street (the struggle)

Tohei was strong, and had some good aiki. In the video you posted, he couldn't risk injuring his clearly unskilled sparring partner. Here's an excellent article on this incident: It Aint Necessarily So: Rendez-vous with Adventure

In contrast. We can see that he's trying "flow" similar to what they do in training and demos (not sparring). You can also see that he's uncomfortable with punches coming towards him. It's clear that he doesn't quite know how to handle them. From a function perspective it would make sense that Aikido would have some kind of striking or understanding of "how to enter into grappling"

Yep. For context, the guy learned aikido from this teacher:

Most aikido lines don't teach striking. This is because their practice focuses on the collection of kata inherited from DR (and if you've read the above, you know that these were not designed as a complete functional fighting system in the first place) and/or modified by Kisshomaru. But Morihei Ueshiba considered that "in a real fight, aikido is 70% striking" (in a large sense, this includes also shoves/throws, remember Takeda's sumo background?). Some lines do teach striking, though. Here are two aikido headbutt entries by Tadashi Abe:

Speaking as a BJJ practitioner, there is certainly potential validity in most of the Aikido techniques I've seen. I've even been caught by a couple of them on occasion. There's also value in the underlying principles.

That said, as an outsider looking in on Aikido practice there are some significant issues I see.

First, most of the techniques in the Aikido syllabus are highly situational. The right circumstances to apply them don't come up that often, especially against skilled fighters. From my outsider's perspective, it appears that a large percentage of Aikido practitioners don't understand those situational limitations, don't train with those situations in mind (except in a highly artificial way which doesn't translate well to actual application), and don't have the skill set to cover the majority of more likely combative situations (unless they have crossed trained in other arts).

This is the direct result of how the curriculum was formed, and of people mistaking it for a complete fighting system.

For my purposes I'll define Aiki as that moment in a fight where everything comes together perfectly, you blend with your opponent's energy and timing so that your technique feels effortless - it really seems like your opponent just threw themself for you. Unfortunately in real life, you don't get to the point of being able to do this without a whole lot of non-Aiki rough and tumble experience. (You're also more likely to find those moments against opponents who are much less skilled.) Even a really skilled fighter who frequently manages to achieve Aiki moments in a fight can't get them all the time, or even most of the time.

The "Aiki trap" comes when practitioners of an art (and it doesn't have to be Aikido, I've encountered this in other arts), want to bypass the whole process of going through years of rough and tumble fighting or sparring in order to just occasionally be able to get those magical feeling Aiki moments. Instead, they just practice with having their training partners feed them highly stylized, overcommitted, unrealistic attacks that are comparatively easy to blend with and never have those training partners offer any realistic effort to defeat their techniques. It's a shortcut that gives the illusion of being able to reliably demonstrate Aiki, but tends to fall apart under real world pressure.

I agree with your analysis but, for these very reasons, I think that "your" definition of aiki is harmful. If aikido practitioners keep understanding aiki that way, they are hosed. Judo, for example, is much better equipped to train "that" aiki, because that concept is simply the "ju" in "judo"!

One thing I will note that shouldn't be surprising to folks who've trained a while in Aikido: Aikidoka are better at grappling defense (keep good structure and balance, and don't over-resist) than grappling attack. Given that Aikido (all of the versions I've seen except Tomiki) put so much emphasis on accepting the attack and working with it, it makes sense they aren't great at bringing the attack.

Non-Kisshomaru lines take the initiative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEyrDYwC5D8

I don't think Aikido would cease to be Aikido if it was taught with a foundation of non-aiki grappling and striking. It would cease to be the Aikido I've run into in most places, but it would still be the same art.

In fact, non-Kisshomaru lines (and other branches of DR) train their techniques statically, without relying on overcommitment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W8Vp1zSLss

Lots of people think that way. But it just doesn't seem to work that way.

You will learn an approximation of the technique by drills. And this is all styles. Go do pad work for 6 months then box. You have this huge adjustment.

You learn enough that you can then have something to try during sparring. But you will never learn the timing or the feel of the action unless you are really doing it live.

Basically all the things that aiki really relies on happens in a different place than pretty much where all of Aikido is trained.

Which is why Aikido guys are so bad at it. Like that guy in the grading. Where he takes the feed. Stops. Does the technique. He literally has no idea how his uke is moving or how to take advantage of it.

I am surprised you guys don't do flow rolls at the least.

Which should be what randori is. But often randori winds up being a demo rather than an exercise.

(I mean this one is actually a demo I think. But you know what I mean)

Agreed. Such training methods would benefit the art's functionality, if that's what people are after (many are very happy practising the flowing aikido, and that's completely ok).

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Sorry in advance for the long post.

I'll start with a quick intro, so that you know what I'm talking about (I'll have to simplify to keep it short so please bear with me).

Aikido is a variant of daito-ryu aikijujutsu (DR), a martial art founded by Sokaku Takeda. Takeda was a wandering martial artist with formal training in classical Japanese swordsmanship and in a family martial conditioning method, probably of Chinese origin, that is known in DR as "aiki". Aiki means "to unify forces" and, in this context, it means "creating a balance of mutual opposing forces within the body". It's an internal "tensioning" process that makes it harder to apply force on the user and conversely puts the user's entire body into his movements. Aiki happens within the body and has nothing to do with "blending with the opponent". It's actually a Chinese concept: a crucial teaching of aikido is to stand in "roppo", which is called "liu he" in Chinese and means "six directions". Tai chi and xing yi practitioners should know the idea.

Takeda also loved sumo and despite his small size, he could do frontal force outs (yorikiri) on much bigger opponents, probably due to the aforementioned conditioning. In seminars, he would make people pay a fee per technique and so to earn more money he'd make up stuff on the spot. Sometimes he would imitate techniques he had seen in other styles. That's why DR has a very high number of techniques (118 basic kata in mainline DR, over 500 in the Takuma line).

Enter Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido, who was essentially a DR instructor. Like Takeda and his top students, he also displayed the ability to shed off forces and uncanny full-body power (the abovementioned "aiki"). This made him famous and earned him some top-level politicians and martial artists as students. He renamed stuff several times, including the art, and the name "aikido" stuck. Also, he was a religious fanatic and had close ties with extreme right-wing and ultranationalist movements. His vision of "peace" and "harmony" involved a world unified under the rule of the Japanese emperor, which descends from the gods.

Kisshomaru Ueshiba (Morihei's son) was the second head of aikido. In an occupied Japan, he swept the religious blabbering of his father under the rug and pushed the narrative of "old master Morihei invented the peaceful art of aikido". He simplified the techniques, made them flowing and circular, taught that "there's no attack in aikido", etc. That's where the emphasis on "blending with the opponent's energy" comes from. In a sense, he was more of an innovator than his father.

Fast forward today. Most dojos teach Kisshomaru's version of aikido, which was never meant to be functional (and in many ways has even been "defanged"). You can still find aikido groups that branched off pre-Kisshomaru that teach the older forms from DR (Iwama, Yoshinkan, etc.) or their own stuff (Tomiki). To make things even more complicated, Kisshomaru kept his father's top students in his organisation and let them do their own thing (many were senior to him) so there is strong variation even in mainstream aikido. And since there's no competition, there's no "metagame" that makes aikido technique converge. Lines that descend from Morihei's first disciples tend to have more mechanical validity but also have their own bad practice (e.g. lack of live training). As for the aiki that allowed Takeda and Ueshiba to be so strong in the first place, it's mostly lost today, although some people do preserve the method.



Tohei was strong, and had some good aiki. In the video you posted, he couldn't risk injuring his clearly unskilled sparring partner. Here's an excellent article on this incident: It Aint Necessarily So: Rendez-vous with Adventure



Yep. For context, the guy learned aikido from this teacher:

Most aikido lines don't teach striking. This is because their practice focuses on the collection of kata inherited from DR (and if you've read the above, you know that these were not designed as a complete functional fighting system in the first place) and/or modified by Kisshomaru. But Morihei Ueshiba considered that "in a real fight, aikido is 70% striking" (in a large sense, this includes also shoves/throws, remember Takeda's sumo background?). Some lines do teach striking, though. Here are two aikido headbutt entries by Tadashi Abe:

This is the direct result of how the curriculum was formed, and of people mistaking it for a complete fighting system.



I agree with your analysis but, for these very reasons, I think that "your" definition of aiki is harmful. If aikido practitioners keep understanding aiki that way, they are hosed. Judo, for example, is much better equipped to train "that" aiki, because that concept is simply the "ju" in "judo"!



Non-Kisshomaru lines take the initiative:

In fact, non-Kisshomaru lines (and other branches of DR) train their techniques statically, without relying on overcommitment:

Agreed. Such training methods would benefit the art's functionality, if that's what people are after (many are very happy practising the flowing aikido, and that's completely ok).

What an excellent breakdown of Aikido's history. I knew some of this at a higher level, but this is some great insight into that progression. And that's a start of an explanation of "aiki" I haven't heard. My concept of it is hard for me to put in words, and is a combination of some comments by the elder Kondo of Daito-ryu, my experience with that "ju" in Judo, and some other bits that fit with the overall usage of the term in NGA....which I suspect is not much in line with the original usage in DR, for a number of reasons.

 

[O'Malley]

What an excellent breakdown of Aikido's history. I knew some of this at a higher level, but this is some great insight into that progression. And that's a start of an explanation of "aiki" I haven't heard. My concept of it is hard for me to put in words, and is a combination of some comments by the elder Kondo of Daito-ryu, my experience with that "ju" in Judo, and some other bits that fit with the overall usage of the term in NGA....which I suspect is not much in line with the original usage in DR, for a number of reasons.

The principle is actually illustrated with gross body movement in aikido's fundamental exercises, where you move along two equal opposing force vectors around the point of contact (on your wrist).

This removes the slack from your opponent's body and binds you together, allowing you to move him with your full-body power. This is called "musubi" ("knot").

In a fight, aikido is irimi (entering), atemi (striking), awase (moving in relation to other things, which includes timing) and musubi (the knot). All of these must be done with aiki (unified opposing forces) inside your body. This is called takemusu ("birth of martial") aiki, i.e. spontaneous martial techniques. As long as you respect these principles, your movement will turn into an aikido technique. This also means that as long as you respect those principles, you can use punches, kicks, single legs or machine guns and it will still be aikido. That's also one of the reasons why we practice with different weapons.