Aikido.. The reality?

[Shatteredzen]

As for your teenage quip..I'm in my mid forties, and have been doing both TMA and MMA/BJJ for decades. I'm not some kid that has been enthralled by Rogan.

Secondly, I find your new argumentation vector a little strange. What does the average time spent in a fight have to do with the effectiveness of what is being done? Yes pro fighters tend to go longer. They have amazing cardio.

Are you saying aikido is only effective when neither party is tired? I fail to see the connection you seem to be trying to draw here.

Thirdly, 'self defense' is a weasel word that can mean anything from fighting to running away to situational awareness, which all and all seems unrelated. Fighting and sporting competition is the same but for the rules. A punch in a cage hurts the same as a punch in the bar, and uses the same mechanics. I can only assume you are implying the rules of sport fighting impede aikido from working there, which leaves me only to ask..which rules exactly?

There's no new vector, I'm trying to get you to drop the MMA is the final and only metric by which to gauge the effectiveness of a martial art. You are drawing too many assumptions here. I've been super clear with you, that the Aikido techniques work as advertised, in most situations. If you would like a real life analogy, I had a crackhead try to bury a screwdriver in another officer once, I used a textbook kote gaeshi to take him down, then I put his wrist behind his back and put handcuffs on him. No, I dont have it on film, no I'm not going to fight in some Kumite with Steven Segal to prove it. I have had numerous drunks and punks grab my shirt, my badge, my arm, etc and Aikido techniques have ALWAYS both taken the aggressor down and ended the confrontation without major harm to anyone, as advertised, in let's say a dozen or so real world fights. Is this irrefutable proof for a two karate guys on the internet argument? Nope. Do you have to believe me? Nope. I know its not proof, but I've been in multiple real life scenarios where the techniques worked, great, for me, or people I trained with. The point is, I'm not trying to win an internet argument with you, I'm simply telling you my side of things. Thats not a weasel argument and I don't care if Mr Kumite thinks Im full of poop. You make the claim that the techniques don't work, I say they do, I've told you that I'm a 37 year old with a dad bod who has been in the Marines in combat, served as a cop and fought lets say maybe a half dozen or so fights in muay thai in Thailand. I have no film to show you, but I have life experience where the **** worked right, exactly as advertised, the very first time, in a real scenario where 99.9% of the public and this forum are never ever going to be in and I've produced consistent, repeated results. You as another educated adult can choose to believe me, the other internet karate guy or not, that doesn't make your argument correct or your assessment correct or the system bad. Your opinion, like mine, is equally worthless.

Also, I've never EVER seen a martial artist in a street fight, does that mean it doesn't happen? Ive never fought anyone win or lose, for longer than maybe a minute or two in the real world. Tournament fighting is against other athletes in ideal circumstances, is it pressure testing yes, is it realistic? No, people dont fight like that and they dont stay up that long. Usually its maybe three or four hits and someone is done, so whose stupid? the guy who theorizes on the internet about a super ninja fight or a cage match that they and no one else is likely to be in or the statistical probability that IF they EVER get into a fight, what is actually likely to happen?

 

[JowGaWolf]

I think the question needs to be asked and answered. Otherwise you get this weird magical logic which generally doesn't solve anything.

I agree. If the person is trying to train for function, then it needs to be asked.

 

[Martial D]

There's no new vector, I'm trying to get you to drop the MMA is the final and only metric by which to gauge the effectiveness of a martial art. You are drawing too many assumptions here. I've been super clear with you, that the Aikido techniques work as advertised, in most situations. If you would like a real life analogy, I had a crackhead try to bury a screwdriver in another officer once, I used a textbook kote gaeshi to take him down, then I put his wrist behind his back and put handcuffs on him. No, I dont have it on film, no I'm not going to fight in some Kumite with Steven Segal to prove it. I have had numerous drunks and punks grab my shirt, my badge, my arm, etc and Aikido techniques have ALWAYS both taken the aggressor down and ended the confrontation without major harm to anyone, as advertised, in let's say a dozen or so real world fights. Is this irrefutable proof for a two karate guys on the internet argument? Nope. Do you have to believe me? Nope. I know its not proof, but I've been in multiple real life scenarios where the techniques worked, great, for me, or people I trained with. The point is, I'm not trying to win an internet argument with you, I'm simply telling you my side of things. Thats not a weasel argument and I don't care if Mr Kumite thinks Im full of poop. You make the claim that the techniques don't work, I say they do, I've told you that I'm a 37 year old with a dad bod who has been in the Marines in combat, served as a cop and fought lets say maybe a half dozen or so fights in muay thai in Thailand. I have no film to show you, but I have life experience where the **** worked right, exactly as advertised, the very first time, in a real scenario where 99.9% of the public and this forum are never ever going to be in and I've produced consistent, repeated results. You as another educated adult can choose to believe me, the other internet karate guy or not, that doesn't make your argument correct or your assessment correct or the system bad. Your opinion, like mine, is equally worthless.

Also, I've never EVER seen a martial artist in a street fight, does that mean it doesn't happen? Ive never fought anyone win or lose, for longer than maybe a minute or two in the real world. Tournament fighting is against other athletes in ideal circumstances, is it pressure testing yes, is it realistic? No, people dont fight like that and they dont stay up that long. Usually its maybe three or four hits and someone is done, so whose stupid? the guy who theorizes on the internet about a super ninja fight or a cage match that they and no one else is likely to be in or the statistical probability that IF they EVER get into a fight, what is actually likely to happen?

Well, that's that then. You have anecdotes, which does little to advance the discussion.

I have questions which you have chosen not to answer.

If you are satisfied with that so be it.

 

[Shatteredzen]

Well, that's that then. You have anecdotes, which does little to advance the discussion.

I have questions which you have chosen not to answer.

If you are satisfied with that so be it.

Which questions have I not answered? I can answer questions, Im not going to argue against positions I have not taken. For the purposes of internet discussion its all opinion and anecdote, your mileage will vary but I was pretty clear with drop bear, before our diacussion started, that you cant prove or disprove an internet martial arts argument. So if you have questions, ask them. I will answer in good faith and you can choose to believe or disbelieve my answers.

 

[geezer]

I saw that video to. I was like. "Please say Jow Ga,, Please say Jow Ga. lol." I was surprised that he called out Wng Chun.. I was like, "Soooo the guy who can't jab is going to call out the Wing Chun group."It was almost like he was saying that just because he didn't get good training meant that everyone else didn't either. He was so willing to put so many other groups in the same boat that he was in.

Sooo ...in the newest video he backtracks and says, "Yeah. it looks like there is some WC out there that is being trained with resistance and is useful for fighting...". Gotta respect a guy who is willing to look at evidence and change his mind.

 

[drop bear]

There's no new vector, I'm trying to get you to drop the MMA is the final and only metric by which to gauge the effectiveness of a martial art. You are drawing too many assumptions here. I've been super clear with you, that the Aikido techniques work as advertised, in most situations. If you would like a real life analogy, I had a crackhead try to bury a screwdriver in another officer once, I used a textbook kote gaeshi to take him down, then I put his wrist behind his back and put handcuffs on him. No, I dont have it on film, no I'm not going to fight in some Kumite with Steven Segal to prove it. I have had numerous drunks and punks grab my shirt, my badge, my arm, etc and Aikido techniques have ALWAYS both taken the aggressor down and ended the confrontation without major harm to anyone, as advertised, in let's say a dozen or so real world fights. Is this irrefutable proof for a two karate guys on the internet argument? Nope. Do you have to believe me? Nope. I know its not proof, but I've been in multiple real life scenarios where the techniques worked, great, for me, or people I trained with. The point is, I'm not trying to win an internet argument with you, I'm simply telling you my side of things. Thats not a weasel argument and I don't care if Mr Kumite thinks Im full of poop. You make the claim that the techniques don't work, I say they do, I've told you that I'm a 37 year old with a dad bod who has been in the Marines in combat, served as a cop and fought lets say maybe a half dozen or so fights in muay thai in Thailand. I have no film to show you, but I have life experience where the **** worked right, exactly as advertised, the very first time, in a real scenario where 99.9% of the public and this forum are never ever going to be in and I've produced consistent, repeated results. You as another educated adult can choose to believe me, the other internet karate guy or not, that doesn't make your argument correct or your assessment correct or the system bad. Your opinion, like mine, is equally worthless.

Also, I've never EVER seen a martial artist in a street fight, does that mean it doesn't happen? Ive never fought anyone win or lose, for longer than maybe a minute or two in the real world. Tournament fighting is against other athletes in ideal circumstances, is it pressure testing yes, is it realistic? No, people dont fight like that and they dont stay up that long. Usually its maybe three or four hits and someone is done, so whose stupid? the guy who theorizes on the internet about a super ninja fight or a cage match that they and no one else is likely to be in or the statistical probability that IF they EVER get into a fight, what is actually likely to happen?

I assume you mean never seen another martial artist in a street fight.

 

[drop bear]

- Aikido isn't any good, by itself, in mixed martial arts (I have said this, multiple times now), it has no "finishing moves" and the way its being practiced in all of your examples, its not using striking. So lets ask ourselves, why is no one going into an MMA ring and attempting to just throw the other guy around for the entire match until he gives up?

Have you heard of gsp?
Or Ben Askren?

 

[Martial D]

Which questions have I not answered? I can answer questions, Im not going to argue against positions I have not taken. For the purposes of internet discussion its all opinion and anecdote, your mileage will vary but I was pretty clear with drop bear, before our diacussion started, that you cant prove or disprove an internet martial arts argument. So if you have questions, ask them. I will answer in good faith and you can choose to believe or disbelieve my answers.

I've been asking why you do not see aikido being successfully used in competition. You have sidestepped this question 5 ways from Sunday, but you haven't answered it. You have said it's just different in competition, alluded to rules(which can also be inferred as the rules are the only difference) yet did not answer which rules interfere with its potential success. Instead you gave me anecdotes.

 

[Flying Crane]

In your opinion, what can Aikido offer that Judo or wrestling can't?

If the answer was “nothing,” would it matter? Because then you would also need to ask: what can judo or wrestling provide that aikido can’t? The answer would again be “nothing.”

 

[Shatteredzen]

I assume you mean never seen another martial artist in a street fight.

LOL, yes, but its fine as is, going by the conversation Im just waving hands around in interpretive dance and using healing crystals. Read it however works for you

 

[Shatteredzen]

I've been asking why you do not see aikido being successfully used in competition. You have sidestepped this question 5 ways from Sunday, but you haven't answered it. You have said it's just different in competition, alluded to rules(which can also be inferred as the rules are the only difference) yet did not answer which rules interfere with its potential success. Instead you gave me anecdotes.

Bro, Ive gone over specific rules, Ive said its not a good fit for MMA. I dont know how ELSE to answer that. I dont think vanilla Aikido will work in MMA, who the hell would pay to see one guy get tossed around for a few minutes? Once you mix Aikido with anything else it isnt going to look like the videos of interpretive dance anymore, so then its going to be an argument of "it wasnt the aikido is was the other stuff" although to be fair I can tell by watching those uke nage videos who is doing the technique in a way that will actually work. Some guy posted a video of some old Japanese dude that was pretty solid technique.

I think we could see Aikido do well with other martial arts, maybe someone with Aikido, Judo and more traditional Ju-Jitsu or Karate? If we go on the current syllabus only like 60 techniques get taught nowadays, if that, if we are going to evaluate only those techniques I dont sew how you could get it to work without some other BJJ/Judo or whatever experience. A traditional Aikido guy with nothing else has no defenses against modern wrestling/BJJ takedowns and anything on the ground, so just like any fighter nowadays has to practice striking AND ground fighting to be competitive, I dont see how you could make Aikido work without the same thing. That doesnt mean it doesnt work as a combative art, maybe it makes the argument about it needing to get with the times, for that we did specific things like integrating judo, BJJ into the system. I still need to look at lists of Aikido and Judo techniques to see where every technique falls, because I learned it along side the Judo. I think we need more people like the budo brothers who advocate training in lots of different styles before we see a see change in MMA and "competitive" martial arts. Filipino martial arts, in my opinion, are the next "big thing", we dont see them in MMA at all, ever, but we know Kali, Escrima, Panatuken, etc works, it was used very effectively against the Spanish, the US, and the Japanese learned to fear little men running around with bamboo sticks and they were a very modern army. What I think we see in modern MMA is a very bottlenecked system of fighting that works very well under the UFC rules and that only really includes BJJ, Boxing, wrestling, and some (very little) karate and muay thai. I dont see this as proof that those are the only things that work, just that is what is being trained and used in current sporting events. Is that transparent enough?

 

[dunc]

Hi @Shatteredzen

Just sharing my perspective on the original question

The first style I studied was Aikido, for about 2 years, and it absolutely gave me an advantage in my teenage school ground scraps (as did rugby)
I switched from Aikido to traditional Japanese MA and have trained in this for 30 years and more recently added BJJ (for the last 10 years)

I’ve experimented a lot in applying the old techniques/principles in resistive situations with a particular interest in finding the most applicable methods for a self defence context
My conclusion is that styles like aikido removed important elements of the older techniques in order to make them more socially acceptable &/or safer to train
Unfortunately removing elements of martial technique almost always reduces the technique’s efficacy....

Sharing a video of one of the exercises that we use to train two fundamental wrist locks. Starting from a collar grab uke’s job is to resist the wrist lock that they know is coming and do their best to strike tori with the other hand
Apologies as it’s not a very good quality video (I found some old clips from training and bunged it up for my students during covid), but hopefully shows the general idea
If you’re interested in having a practical martial art then I’d strongly recommend introducing exercises like this to make sure that your foundational technique is solid. You don’t need to get stuck in the box of a competition format if your objectives are different to that format

 

[Shatteredzen]

Hi @Shatteredzen

Just sharing my perspective on the original question

The first style I studied was Aikido, for about 2 years, and it absolutely gave me an advantage in my teenage school ground scraps (as did rugby)
I switched from Aikido to traditional Japanese MA and have trained in this for 30 years and more recently added BJJ (for the last 10 years)

I’ve experimented a lot in applying the old techniques/principles in resistive situations with a particular interest in finding the most applicable methods for a self defence context
My conclusion is that styles like aikido removed important elements of the older techniques in order to make them more socially acceptable &/or safer to train
Unfortunately removing elements of martial technique almost always reduces the technique’s efficacy....

Sharing a video of one of the exercises that we use to train two fundamental wrist locks. Starting from a collar grab uke’s job is to resist the wrist lock that they know is coming and do their best to strike tori with the other hand
Apologies as it’s not a very good quality video (I found some old clips from training and bunged it up for my students during covid), but hopefully shows the general idea
If you’re interested in having a practical martial art then I’d strongly recommend introducing exercises like this to make sure that your foundational technique is solid. You don’t need to get stuck in the box of a competition format if your objectives are different to that format

Very good points. I agree. In my personal style/school, we modernized the techniques by introducing Judo, BJJ, FMA, muay thai and some other stuff. I like training Aikido in the traditional way for form and technique but when I have learned and taught, its done with the instructor teaching the technique at low speed/power, then progressively faster until people are doing each technique against each other as hard, fast and with as much resistance as can be done safely. We also make people of different body types and weights, etc, do the techniques to each other, some techniques require tweaking and Ive had some small women where Ive had to say "if you gotta do this to someone too much bigger your maybe better off just stabbing the guy and articulating why you had to do that to the cops". That said, I have had some seriously vanilla Aikido work in very real altercations and it worked better than I expected. I do think that the average Joe who puts the time in can make regular Aikido work for whatever they are likely going to face in the course of their life to keep them and others safe. This doesnt excuse bad schools, bad training and bad technique, but you can go to plenty of Mc Dojos in plenty of styles and get the same not earned belts that will look good for instagram but not win the lamest parking lot scuffle with your drunk cousin who wants to drive home.

 

[drop bear]

LOL, yes, but its fine as is, going by the conversation Im just waving hands around in interpretive dance and using healing crystals. Read it however works for you

How do you think a person who does healing crystals would support the idea that they work?

 

[Shatteredzen]

How do you think a person who does healing crystals would support the idea that they work?

I'm not arguing healing crystals with you drop bear, sorry. But here is a video I just found thanks to Geezers thread which shows a guy here in the states trying to show/train Aikido in a more practical fashion. My opinion on this specific video is that its good, the guy is making cogent points that I can agree with for the most part. Maybe you would like to discuss this since its the only video of MMAish, resistance training Aikido I can find. I like Aikidoflows video's, but this seems more scientific and more inline with what what you are looking for:

 

[Shatteredzen]

Also, here's a great conversation along the lines of what we are having from MA Journey's channel

 

[jobo]

LOL, yes, but its fine as is, going by the conversation Im just waving hands around in interpretive dance and using healing crystals. Read it however works for you

non of the people telling you , you should try your skills in a UFC contest have bothered to try their skill in a ufc contest, they just think it would work as they have seen them work on the tv

in fact asking them to post their fight record at any level mma may be revealing

 

[Shatteredzen]

Hi @Shatteredzen

Just sharing my perspective on the original question

The first style I studied was Aikido, for about 2 years, and it absolutely gave me an advantage in my teenage school ground scraps (as did rugby)
I switched from Aikido to traditional Japanese MA and have trained in this for 30 years and more recently added BJJ (for the last 10 years)

I’ve experimented a lot in applying the old techniques/principles in resistive situations with a particular interest in finding the most applicable methods for a self defence context
My conclusion is that styles like aikido removed important elements of the older techniques in order to make them more socially acceptable &/or safer to train
Unfortunately removing elements of martial technique almost always reduces the technique’s efficacy....

Sharing a video of one of the exercises that we use to train two fundamental wrist locks. Starting from a collar grab uke’s job is to resist the wrist lock that they know is coming and do their best to strike tori with the other hand
Apologies as it’s not a very good quality video (I found some old clips from training and bunged it up for my students during covid), but hopefully shows the general idea
If you’re interested in having a practical martial art then I’d strongly recommend introducing exercises like this to make sure that your foundational technique is solid. You don’t need to get stuck in the box of a competition format if your objectives are different to that format

Something I noticed with your video, good show of the techniques IMO, one thing I was taught which helps with leverage is what we called "tracing the C" when you go to execute the lock/throw, you trace an exaggerated "C" with your rear foot clockwise or counter clockwise depending on positioning but away from your opponent, in the direction you want them to go. and this helps provide more force/leverage/momentum as you roll through the technique. In the video, my one critique is that his stance is very closed and he visibly struggles to get leverage at some points. Otherwise, yes, the way he defends from the opposite side punches with movement and body positioning is great also.

 

[Shatteredzen]

non of the people telling you , you should try your skills in a UFC contest have bothered to try their skill in a ufc contest, they just think it would work as they have seen them work on the tv

in fact asking them to post their fight record at any level mma may be revealing

Indeed, I'm just being cheeky with drop bear since he's coming around and communicating more than grunts and clicks, to be fair, only one person told me I had to fight in a death Kumite, drop bear just said he would like to see it, which is fair, there should be one sacrificial old/dad bod arthritic veteran in every UFC who just throws a beer and gets taken out by someone on the title card.

 

[drop bear]

I'm not arguing healing crystals with you drop bear, sorry. But here is a video I just found thanks to Geezers thread which shows a guy here in the states trying to show/train Aikido in a more practical fashion. My opinion on this specific video is that its good, the guy is making cogent points that I can agree with for the most part. Maybe you would like to discuss this since its the only video of MMAish, resistance training Aikido I can find. I like Aikidoflows video's, but this seems more scientific and more inline with what what you are looking for:

Very hard to get over the fact he is a screaming duche who grapples tomato cans. And is building a rep off that.

But that being said. It is this sort of suff that is much more convincing in favour of building a case for Aikido.

And the difference is that you can see what works. How the moves are being set up and what it actually takes to make these Aikido techniques in to real usable techniques.

So for example that elbow crank is considered a big guy move. I have been got with it. But have almost never caught anyone else because I don't have the muscle.