Aikido.. The reality?

[Hanzou]

Titles that linked to articles you didn't expect anyone to read (like you didn't) and then you attempted to justify them by cherry picking quotations out of them that fit your argument when I called you out for being dishonest and not even reading what you were linking.

People are free to read the articles for themselves and clearly see that they were defending the practice.

You're defending the practice yourself by attempting to kill the messenger instead of addressing the message. This topic IS called "Aikido the Reality". Part of that is bizarre and looney practices like no-touch, which based on various reports, is rather common in Aikido circles.

Again, the main reason this is embraced and defended is because Ueshiba himself engaged in it.

But by all means, continue to troll instead of addressing the topic at hand.

 

[Shatteredzen]

People are free to read the articles for themselves and clearly see that they were defending the practice.

You're defending the practice yourself by attempting to kill the messenger instead of addressing the message. This topic IS called "Aikido the Reality". Part of that is bizarre and looney practices like no-touch, which based on various reports, is rather common in Aikido circles.

Again, the main reason this is embraced and defended is because Ueshiba himself engaged in it.

But by all means, continue to troll instead of addressing the topic at hand.

What Aikido syllabus are you getting this from? You are misrepresenting this like its a big part of the system, which it isn't. Even if Morihei Ueshiba is the guy in your 18 second video that you have no provenance for, he was into plenty of kooky things by the end of his life, so was Helio Gracie, it doesn't mean that they system is bad. You are and have been engaging in faithless rhetoric and intellectual dishonesty since your first comment because you simply came here for an Aikido dogpile. You flew into a blind rage when I commented on one of Rokas videos, because I was disrespecting him in your opinion, until it became obvious that he wasn't saying what you thought he was and now you link a video of him today, saying he was "drinking the koolaid" and showing something that he wasn't because you thought the video title supported your argument.

You obviously don't know anything about Aikido, you thought it was all wristlocks and once you were called out for that you have been jumping into any part of the discussion you can as if you were some kind of expert to misrepresent what is and isn't common in Aikido. You don't even have the attention span to find decent sources for your argument, you are simply relying on people not clicking through to your links and taking your words at face value. None of this stuff is part of Aikido and you are only saying that it is because you are entertaining yourself by putting the system down.

 

[Shatteredzen]

Here's the grading syllabus for the Hombu Dojo in Japan, the original Aikido school

Grading System | Aikikai Foundation

Notice the utter lack of no-touch striking and other parlor tricks, just specific, named techniques.

 

[Hanzou]

What Aikido syllabus are you getting this from? You are misrepresenting this like its a big part of the system, which it isn't.

Where did I say it's a big part of the system?

Even if Morihei Ueshiba is the guy in your 18 second video that you have no provenance for,

It was.

he was into plenty of kooky things by the end of his life, so was Helio Gracie, it doesn't mean that they system is bad.

This is a whataboutism that doesn't absolve the main point, and is in fact an attempt to deflect. I would never go so far as to say that Aikido is bad, but I will say that it has bad practices. No touch stuff is one such practice.

You are and have been engaging in faithless rhetoric and intellectual dishonesty since your first comment because you simply came here for an Aikido dogpile.

If there's a "dogpile" then clearly I'm not the only one in here being critical of the system.

You flew into a blind rage when I commented on one of Rokas videos, because I was disrespecting him in your opinion,

I don't believe asking you to do what Rokas has done since you claim to be a superior Aikidoka to him to be an example of "flying into a blind rage".

until it became obvious that he wasn't saying what you thought he was and now you link a video of him today, saying he was "drinking the koolaid" and showing something that he wasn't because you thought the video title supported your argument.

Yeah, when I linked the video I said plainly that the video dates before his conversion.

Are you purposely attempting to misrepresent what I'm saying, or are you simply ignoring what I'm typing because you have an urge to respond with whatever comes to your head?

You obviously don't know anything about Aikido, you thought it was all wristlocks and once you were called out for that you have been jumping into any part of the discussion you can as if you were some kind of expert to misrepresent what is and isn't common in Aikido.

And here we have another misrepresentation. Where did I say that Aikido was ALL wristlocks?

You don't even have the attention span to find decent sources for your argument, you are simply relying on people not clicking through to your links and taking your words at face value. None of this stuff is part of Aikido and you are only saying that it is because you are entertaining yourself by putting the system down.

Yes, because an article that literally says it defends the practice of no-touch is not actually defending the practice of no-touch right?

However, what can you expect when you have someone like yourself who is in so much denial that they don't believe that this is Ueshiba;

When in fact it is actually Ueshiba.

 

[Shatteredzen]

Where did I say it's a big part of the system?



It was.



This is a whataboutism that doesn't absolve the main point, and is in fact an attempt to deflect. I would never go so far as to say that Aikido is bad, but I will say that it has bad practices. No touch stuff is one such practice.



If there's a "dogpile" then clearly I'm not the only one in here being critical of the system.



I don't believe asking you to do what Rokas has done since you claim to be a superior Aikidoka to him to be an example of "flying into a blind rage".



Yeah, when I linked the video I said plainly that the video dates before his conversion.

Are you purposely attempting to misrepresent what I'm saying, or are you simply ignoring what I'm typing because you have an urge to respond with whatever comes to your head?



And here we have another misrepresentation. Where did I say that Aikido was ALL wristlocks?



Yes, because an article that literally says it defends the practice of no-touch is not actually defending the practice of no-touch right?

However, what can you expect when you have someone like yourself who is in so much denial that they don't believe that this is Ueshiba;

When in fact it is actually Ueshiba.

I am not going to bother going back through almost 50 pages to refute you so that you can move on to your next straw man when you cannot be bothered to read the articles you link. You have repeatedly knocked Aikido in this discussion, above and beyond saying it was bad, calling it useless for the purposes of this conversation is functionally identical to using the term "bad". You have such an obsession with the topic it borders on being pathological. The biggest issue however is that you are attempting to misrepresent the entire art with a completely dishonest argument. Aikido as a system has plenty to offer, even in its traditional instruction but you have consistently tried to make it look like something it isn't. Are there bad Aikido schools? Yeah, they exist in every system.

Here's a link to the world Aikido federation, the original school, headed by Morihei Ueshiba's grandson, who is the schools 3rd Doshu
Home | Aikikai Foundation
Here's that man doing classical Aikido

I also already linked the syllabus for the Hombu Doju grading

Point to the no touch hitting, the false claims about lethality, any of the positions you have argued. You can't. I'm sure you can find links to something on the internet that might have the right title that you can link to misrepresent your point, but you wont find it in the actual system. We can debate the effectiveness of specific techniques, but I can simply watch that demo Doshu is doing and see that aside from some very well trained students, he is using enough pressure to correctly apply the techniques and his timing, force and speed are all on par with what it would take to use those same techniques in a realistic scenario.

You act like an expert and its pretty obvious from our interactions that you don't have experience in or around Aikido. You also have not been disabused of some pretty simple logic traps that you wouldn't have if you had that much experience in actual conflict, either competitive or situational. Heck, you commented in the Wing Chun thread saying you wouldn't try Muay Thai and would stick to BJJ because you wouldn't want to get a black eye or busted lip for work. People get those even doing Aikido and I have gotten both doing BJJ just from doing the techniques because of misplaced positioning or random arm/leg movement. So what type of low intensity feel good sparring are you doing? Yet you come in here talking about how Aikido doesn't work and you need to train in "combat" martial arts to win a real confrontation, etc. Pfff. I get it you want to feel better about yourself by making fun of a different system, Aikido is particularly popular right now because of the hate from the Joe Rogan crowd and there's a very egotistical sub section of the BJJ community that likes to bully around the traditional arts, even though the more accomplished BJJ practitioners and the Gracies don't do that.

What your doing though is low brow, its in poor form and it shows a casual level of disrespect and contempt for the rest of the Martial Arts community. You try and cloak it in pragmatism but its very thinly veiled, in your case, not veiled at all and its completely undeserved and unearned on your part. You don't have any accomplishments to make you an authority even with personal anecdote, yet you jump in and throw your two cents in with absurdism because it makes you feel good to try and position yourself over others. That's just the kind of thing you see from guys who just got their first belt or two and who like to posture for the other children around the water cooler. What annoys me is that your okay with being dishonest about it to prove your point, so we are incapable of having any meaningful discussion because we have you chirping in every so often to derail the thread and make it about you so that you get a little bit of attention when someone refutes one of your false positions.

 

[Hanzou]

I
Here's a link to the world Aikido federation, the original school, headed by Morihei Ueshiba's grandson, who is the schools 3rd Doshu
Home | Aikikai Foundation
Here's that man doing classical Aikido

I also already linked the syllabus for the Hombu Doju grading

And this is the late Noboyuki Wantanabe, 8th dan and highly respected sensei from the exact same organization;

Point to the no touch hitting, the false claims about lethality, any of the positions you have argued. You can't. I'm sure you can find links to something on the internet that might have the right title that you can link to misrepresent your point, but you wont find it in the actual system. We can debate the effectiveness of specific techniques, but I can simply watch that demo Doshu is doing and see that aside from some very well trained students, he is using enough pressure to correctly apply the techniques and his timing, force and speed are all on par with what it would take to use those same techniques in a realistic scenario.

I've posted multiple sources showcasing no touch Aikido. Everyone else in this thread has stated it to be a problem with modern Aikido. The only person who seems to be in denial is you.

You act like an expert and its pretty obvious from our interactions that you don't have experience in or around Aikido.

Typical response from someone who wants to deflect instead of discuss the issue at hand......

Even if I didn't have experience in the martial arts, I would hope that I'm knowledgable enough to recognize that what I'm seeing in that gif above is complete BS.

 

[Shatteredzen]

And this is the late Noboyuki Wantanabe, 8th dan and highly respected sensei from the exact same organization;

I've posted multiple sources showcasing no touch Aikido. Everyone else in this thread has stated it to be a problem with modern Aikido. The only person who seems to be in denial is you.



Typical response from someone who wants to deflect instead of discuss the issue at hand......

Even if I didn't have experience in the martial arts, I would hope that I'm knowledgable enough to recognize that what I'm seeing in that gif above is complete BS.

Ok dude, cool story, Watanabe is a known quantity and regardless of where he got his black belt, his snake oil peddling isn't being taught at the Hombu Dojo, but way to be disingenuous again and "deflect" the entirety of my post as you have been doing in favor of making absurd statements as fact and misrepresenting your earlier posts as being well vetted sources you cited instead of randomly picked articles which didn't say what you say they did except in the titles.

 

[Hanzou]

Ok dude, cool story, Watanabe is a known quantity and regardless of where he got his black belt, his snake oil peddling isn't being taught at the Hombu Dojo, but way to be disingenuous again and "deflect" the entirety of my post as you have been doing in favor of making absurd statements as fact and misrepresenting your earlier posts as being well vetted sources you cited instead of randomly picked articles which didn't say what you say they did except in the titles.

LoL! He was an instructor at the Hombu for decades. The idea that he didn't teach that stuff there is absurd.

Denial isn't just a river Egypt.....

 

[Shatteredzen]

LoL! He was an instructor at the Hombu for decades. The idea that he didn't teach that stuff there is absurd.

Denial isn't just a river Egypt.....

Cool Story Bro

 

[drop bear]

Here's the grading syllabus for the Hombu Dojo in Japan, the original Aikido school

Grading System | Aikikai Foundation

Notice the utter lack of no-touch striking and other parlor tricks, just specific, named techniques.

So Hombu is the benchmark?
Can you show some sparring from that schoo

 

[O'Malley]

On a side note, I think you've maybe pointed out a common mis-usage in NGA. We use the term "ura" for reversal. In your understanding is that a mis-use of the term? I suspect we have a number of places where the terms have become loan words with only a shade of their original meaning. Which is fine within the art - words only mean what folks agree they mean.

If I understand correctly, "ura" means "back" as in the front and back of a playing card. It means a variety of things in different arts but, as far as Ueshiba's aikido is concerned, "ura" refers to techniques where you place yourself in your opponent's back/outside. Here are examples:

This is the "omote" (front) version, where you step directly towards the front/inside of the opponent:

This is the "ura" version:

Interestingly, Seigo Okamoto of Daito-ryu Roppokai seems to have used "ura" for "reversal", similarly to the sumo saying "all 48 techniques have a back and a front" : The Essence of Aiki: an Interview with Seigo Okamoto Soshi - Part 2 - Aikido Sangenkai Blog

Where did I say it's a big part of the system?



It was.



This is a whataboutism that doesn't absolve the main point, and is in fact an attempt to deflect. I would never go so far as to say that Aikido is bad, but I will say that it has bad practices. No touch stuff is one such practice.



If there's a "dogpile" then clearly I'm not the only one in here being critical of the system.



I don't believe asking you to do what Rokas has done since you claim to be a superior Aikidoka to him to be an example of "flying into a blind rage".



Yeah, when I linked the video I said plainly that the video dates before his conversion.

Are you purposely attempting to misrepresent what I'm saying, or are you simply ignoring what I'm typing because you have an urge to respond with whatever comes to your head?



And here we have another misrepresentation. Where did I say that Aikido was ALL wristlocks?



Yes, because an article that literally says it defends the practice of no-touch is not actually defending the practice of no-touch right?

However, what can you expect when you have someone like yourself who is in so much denial that they don't believe that this is Ueshiba;

When in fact it is actually Ueshiba.

I've got mixed feelings about this video. I do understand some of it: the push demonstrations are nothing extraordinary once you know what's happening, and one or two tricks are just about masterful bodyweight transfer. The last no touch throw is a feint playing on the student's habits (he tries to grab the hand in a particular way, with some momentum, and is caught off guard). But for the no-touch throws at the beginning, I'm puzzled. I mean, it's obvious that the students are tanking for him, I just can't understand why. Can be a religious thing, can be a way to trick gullible crowds, can be a sensitivity exercise, etc.

Ueshiba in general was hard to understand. He'd experiment with shamanistic possession rituals and other weird stuff as part of his spirituality. He'd also trick people (and himself?) into thinking he had magical powers (by "accurately" predicting that someone was waiting for him at the train station, for example). He might even had done this kind of magic trick for the fun of it (in his place, I might have). Also, I don't think that he was really interested in openly teaching what he could do, as illustrated by him hiding his footwork under a hakama (skirt). Moreover, his dojo was regularly challenged by outsiders so he may have been cautious not to give onlookers clues about what he did (I've heard rumors about this, although none from reliable sources). So his policy could well have been "ok I'll fool around for the crowd and look awesome, then I'll teach the people I like. Or not. The talented ones will pick stuff up anyways."

So, what to do with such demonstrations? My approach is to try and understand whether there's useful stuff in there. In my opinion, this does not include believing in magical energy balls that topple opponents, nor expecting a non-cooperative opponent to fall down like this.

And this is the late Noboyuki Wantanabe, 8th dan and highly respected sensei from the exact same organization;

I've posted multiple sources showcasing no touch Aikido. Everyone else in this thread has stated it to be a problem with modern Aikido. The only person who seems to be in denial is you.



Typical response from someone who wants to deflect instead of discuss the issue at hand......

Even if I didn't have experience in the martial arts, I would hope that I'm knowledgable enough to recognize that what I'm seeing in that gif above is complete BS.

To be fair to Watanabe, he never claimed to be able to do that on uncooperative opponents, or to have magical powers. This is a demonstration with one of the students at his private dojo, who know the purpose of the practice. According to all sources, his classes at the Hombu dojo were normal aikido kata. So I'm 90% sure this is a sensitivity drill.

Here are a few interesting quotes from Watanabe:

"Reaction moves right into movement. People today don’t have that sensitivity. The Founder would suddenly look at your eyes, and people whose reaction was slow wouldn’t be used for a while, so there was a sense of tension that we always had to be watching the Founder’s hands and feet. The Founder would make skillful use of the energy of people’s watching."

"It’s no good if you are just throwing or being thrown like an object, and being proactive and throwing yourself doesn’t work either. It is training in feeling and detecting a sense of your partner at the time. Now we have training in throwing and training in being thrown. Both sides ought to be working on their sensitivity, but they just cut it off and throw."

"[The Founder]was strongly opposed to Kata practice like “do this and then do this”."

"[Aikido techniques are] for conditioning your body and developing your senses. So if you think “what is Aikido?”, in the end it must be to know yourself, to live your life."

Sources: Interview with Aikido Shihan Nobuyuki Watanabe, Part 1 and Interview with Aikido Shihan Nobuyuki Watanabe, Part 2

 

[Hanzou]

I've got mixed feelings about this video. I do understand some of it: the push demonstrations are nothing extraordinary once you know what's happening, and one or two tricks are just about masterful bodyweight transfer. The last no touch throw is a feint playing on the student's habits (he tries to grab the hand in a particular way, with some momentum, and is caught off guard). But for the no-touch throws at the beginning, I'm puzzled. I mean, it's obvious that the students are tanking for him, I just can't understand why. Can be a religious thing, can be a way to trick gullible crowds, can be a sensitivity exercise, etc.

Ueshiba in general was hard to understand. He'd experiment with shamanistic possession rituals and other weird stuff as part of his spirituality. He'd also trick people (and himself?) into thinking he had magical powers (by "accurately" predicting that someone was waiting for him at the train station, for example). He might even had done this kind of magic trick for the fun of it (in his place, I might have). Also, I don't think that he was really interested in openly teaching what he could do, as illustrated by him hiding his footwork under a hakama (skirt). Moreover, his dojo was regularly challenged by outsiders so he may have been cautious not to give onlookers clues about what he did (I've heard rumors about this, although none from reliable sources). So his policy could well have been "ok I'll fool around for the crowd and look awesome, then I'll teach the people I like. Or not. The talented ones will pick stuff up anyways."

So, what to do with such demonstrations? My approach is to try and understand whether there's useful stuff in there. In my opinion, this does not include believing in magical energy balls that topple opponents, nor expecting a non-cooperative opponent to fall down like this.

I think when we get to the point where we have Aikidoka questioning whether or not they can throw magical energy balls that can topple opponents, you've entered problematic territory, and you begin to damage the system. There's numerous accounts of Aikidoka experiencing this no-touch practice, and having very negative feelings towards it because they know its ridiculous, and they feel that it damages the validity of their style. Compound that with the dubiousness of Aikido's effectiveness in the eyes of the MA community as a whole, and the general drive of the Aikido community to make their art effective, and you have a problem.

As I said, this all stems from a lack of a foundation or standard for what is effective Aikido. Who would we consider to be an elite Aikidoka? Where can we see Aikido being objectively applied in a violent situation on a consistent basis? What does "real" Aikido look like? As long as the answers to these questions are evasive, we're going to continue to have these issues.

To be fair to Watanabe, he never claimed to be able to do that on uncooperative opponents, or to have magical powers. This is a demonstration with one of the students at his private dojo, who know the purpose of the practice. According to all sources, his classes at the Hombu dojo were normal aikido kata. So I'm 90% sure this is a sensitivity drill.

Here are a few interesting quotes from Watanabe:

"Reaction moves right into movement. People today don’t have that sensitivity. The Founder would suddenly look at your eyes, and people whose reaction was slow wouldn’t be used for a while, so there was a sense of tension that we always had to be watching the Founder’s hands and feet. The Founder would make skillful use of the energy of people’s watching."

"It’s no good if you are just throwing or being thrown like an object, and being proactive and throwing yourself doesn’t work either. It is training in feeling and detecting a sense of your partner at the time. Now we have training in throwing and training in being thrown. Both sides ought to be working on their sensitivity, but they just cut it off and throw."

"[The Founder]was strongly opposed to Kata practice like “do this and then do this”."

"[Aikido techniques are] for conditioning your body and developing your senses. So if you think “what is Aikido?”, in the end it must be to know yourself, to live your life."

Sources: Interview with Aikido Shihan Nobuyuki Watanabe, Part 1 and Interview with Aikido Shihan Nobuyuki Watanabe, Part 2

Yeah, I'm not going to be fair to Watanabe. His position gives him authority, and again since we actually have a debate over the validity of this silliness, he was never clear on the truth behind what he was doing. In short, he was being irresponsible. As I've always said, theory is nice, but we need to see that theory be applied. Demonstrating your theory on compliant sheep is not applying or testing the theory, and simply leads to serious problems.

 

[O'Malley]

By the way (I've just read through the articles in defense of "no touch" aikido quoted by Hanzou), I don't buy the "disrupting the enemy's energy" thing.

I've myself also done a couple of no touch throws inadvertently, by placing myself just out of reach of someone wanting to grab me, by removing something they expected to rely on for balance or by entering with unexpected rythm or distance but each time they were the ones unbalancing themselves. It's not like I had any control over it.

Feints certainly work, and with a bit of luck, observation and practice you can sometimes feint an opponent so that he's off-rythm, off-balance and/or off-structure for a moment. Here are some examples in basketball:

That said, the justification I've seen in one of these articles is absurd. The reasoning i as follows:

I should also add that I have on many occasions been the recipient of Aikido no-touch techniques. Based on this experience, I can assure the reader they are quite effective and have nothing to do with science fiction or mystic rays.

Essentially what happens is that the nage (i.e. the person doing the technique) neutralises the uke’s attack by executing a strike in such a way that the uke has the option of taking a fall instead of being hit. This takes considerable skill on the part of the nage, both in terms of timing and delivery. Specifically, the strike has to be fast enough such that it cannot be deflected, but slow enough so that the uke has the option of taking the fall to get out of the way of the incoming blow.

In real life, an untrained attacker will most likely be hit rather than choose to fall to avoid the strike. The nage must therefore also be trained in delivering the strike (which in fact is typically more a cut) so as to not suffer injury to their hand or arm when delivering it.

In a dojo setting, a uke well versed in ukemi (falling) is also critical. In essence the uke must respond to the strike as if it were a throw – something requiring some practice to do well.

According to this reasoning, for a no-touch throw to work, two conditions must be met:

1) Uke must perceive the strike and react to it;
2) Uke's reaction must be to take the fall rather than take the strike.

Striking arts have been around for millennia, yet I've yet to hear of anyone who hits so hard than their opponent would choose taking a fall over being hit. There's no martial art that advocates this as a defensive tactic. If a trained fighter sees the strike coming, he'll have much better reactive options than unbalancing himself. Untrained opponents will not take the fall as well. So, if neither trained or untrained opponents will take the fall, on whom is this supposed to work? "Assuring the reader" that this is "quite effective" is why aikido people are not taken seriously.

The last part is dumbfounding. Why the hell would you want to train uke to respond to strikes as if it were a throw? This actually makes you worse at fighting.

 

[Shatteredzen]

By the way (I've just read through the articles in defense of "no touch" aikido quoted by Hanzou), I don't buy the "disrupting the enemy's energy" thing.

I've myself also done a couple of no touch throws inadvertently, by placing myself just out of reach of someone wanting to grab me, by removing something they expected to rely on for balance or by entering with unexpected rythm or distance but each time they were the ones unbalancing themselves. It's not like I had any control over it.

Feints certainly work, and with a bit of luck, observation and practice you can sometimes feint an opponent so that he's off-rythm, off-balance and/or off-structure for a moment. Here are some examples in basketball:

That said, the justification I've seen in one of these articles is absurd. The reasoning i as follows:



According to this reasoning, for a no-touch throw to work, two conditions must be met:

1) Uke must perceive the strike and react to it;
2) Uke's reaction must be to take the fall rather than take the strike.

Striking arts have been around for millennia, yet I've yet to hear of anyone who hits so hard than their opponent would choose taking a fall over being hit. There's no martial art that advocates this as a defensive tactic. If a trained fighter sees the strike coming, he'll have much better reactive options than unbalancing himself. Untrained opponents will not take the fall as well. So, if neither trained or untrained opponents will take the fall, on whom is this supposed to work? "Assuring the reader" that this is "quite effective" is why aikido people are not taken seriously.

The last part is dumbfounding. Why the hell would you want to train uke to respond to strikes as if it were a throw? This actually makes you worse at fighting.

That's because he is not advocating it for fighting, he is explaining that it happens in the dojo as a side effect of a trained uke anticipating the strike and reacting. He is explaining phenomenon that occurs in the drills, not explaining how to use it for fighting.

 

[O'Malley]

I think when we get to the point where we have Aikidoka questioning whether or not they can throw magical energy balls that can topple opponents, you've entered problematic territory, and you begin to damage the system. There's numerous accounts of Aikidoka experiencing this no-touch practice, and having very negative feelings towards it because they know its ridiculous, and they feel that it damages the validity of their style. Compound that with the dubiousness of Aikido's effectiveness in the eyes of the MA community as a whole, and the general drive of the Aikido community to make their art effective, and you have a problem.

Depends on your goals. If your goal is not related to martial applicability, this is not a problem. The problem is people who make claims about effectiveness that they can't deliver on.

As I said, this all stems from a lack of a foundation or standard for what is effective Aikido. Who would we consider to be an elite Aikidoka? Where can we see Aikido being objectively applied in a violent situation on a consistent basis? What does "real" Aikido look like? As long as the answers to these questions are evasive, we're going to continue to have these issues.

Oh I agree, as I'm interested in aikido's technical (and thus martial) aspects. And, so far, the aikido community (including yours truly and the bunch of guys claiming to teach "real aikido") hasn't been able to give any decent answer to these questions.

Yeah, I'm not going to be fair to Watanabe. His position gives him authority, and again since we actually have a debate over the validity of this silliness, he was never clear on the truth behind what he was doing. In short, he was being irresponsible. As I've always said, theory is nice, but we need to see that theory be applied. Demonstrating your theory on compliant sheep is not applying or testing the theory, and simply leads to serious problems.

Watanabe didn't teach this to the regular people who came and trained with him at Hombu, so he didn't teach this as a 7th (6th?8th?) dan. He did it with his private students, in his private dojo. The guy in your gif doesn't look like he believes in his teacher's magic power, it looks like he's actively trying to follow Watanabe's movements and rythm. It's a sensitivity drill and it's fine in my book. We could argue about the opportunity of showing this in demonstrations but it doesn't seem like he was tricking anyone. If people want to believe in fairy tales, it's not Watanabe's fault.

 

[O'Malley]

That's because he is not advocating it for fighting, he is explaining that it happens in the dojo as a side effect of a trained uke anticipating the strike and reacting. He is explaining phenomenon that occurs in the drills, not explaining how to use it for fighting.

He says: "In essence the uke must respond to the strike as if it were a throw – something requiring some practice to do well."

This clearly means that uke has to practice so that he responds to the strike as if it were a throw.

There is no practical purpose to this. Quite the contrary, it makes you less able to defend yourself than if you were untrained.

 

[Grenadier]

Admin's Note:

Last warning, y'all. Snipes, off-topic (including political) postings, etc., will get this thread locked, and earn some of you a healthy dose of warning points.

Ignoring a staff member's warning is a surefire way to get smacked by the Ban Hammer, and you've been given plenty of grace as it is.

 

[drop bear]

I've got mixed feelings about this video. I do understand some of it: the push demonstrations are nothing extraordinary once you know what's happening, and one or two tricks are just about masterful bodyweight transfer. The last no touch throw is a feint playing on the student's habits (he tries to grab the hand in a particular way, with some momentum, and is caught off guard). But for the no-touch throws at the beginning, I'm puzzled. I mean, it's obvious that the students are tanking for him, I just can't understand why. Can be a religious thing, can be a way to trick gullible crowds, can be a sensitivity exercise, etc.

People routinely tank in demo's. Touch or no touch makes very little difference.

 

[Xue Sheng]

"And by the way, I don’t think the disadvantages or weaknesses of an art discounts its value. Every art has to specialize in something. For example, I’ve seen some stuff on the Internet where people criticize Aikido because it doesn’t do well in an MMA ring. Well that‘s not the point. I personally don’t think you should do that because you’re looking at an art out of context and asking it to perform in an environment it’s not designed for. " --- Dan Inosanto

 

[drop bear]

"And by the way, I don’t think the disadvantages or weaknesses of an art discounts its value. Every art has to specialize in something. For example, I’ve seen some stuff on the Internet where people criticize Aikido because it doesn’t do well in an MMA ring. Well that‘s not the point. I personally don’t think you should do that because you’re looking at an art out of context and asking it to perform in an environment it’s not designed for. " --- Dan Inosanto

I don't see evidence that Aikido does Aikido well. This is my biggest contention.

In the sense that you are supposed to learn some sort of mechanic that allows through timing and technique to manipulate another person in to going where you want.

There was a definition of Aiki where it was described as someone sits in a chair and you pull the chair out. And it is this mechanic I am describing.

And drills do not teach this function.

Drills teach technique. And technique is the least important aspect of trying to make that chair pull scenario work.

Even in that actual chair pull example.

And instead creates a false environment where this process will work. So that the method is justified.

And because of this false environment I am not surprised no touch is a thing.