How appliable is aikido for self-defense?

[drop bear]

To be honest, I no longer know what you are trying to assert. All I know is, most of what happens in the world is never filmed and posted on YouTube. Is that something you can agree with?

Lots of Akido is Filmed and posted on you tube. It is not a Tasmanian Tiger.

 

[Flying Crane]

Lots of Akido is Filmed and posted on you tube. It is not a Tasmanian Tiger.

It was a yes-or-no question. Can you give a yes-or-no answer?

 

[drop bear]

It was a yes-or-no question. Can you give a yes-or-no answer?

Ok. Fine i will play along.

I Agree.

 

[Steve]

To be honest, I no longer know what you are trying to assert. All I know is, most of what happens in the world is never filmed and posted on YouTube. Is that something you can agree with?

I'm suggesting that what is posted on YouTube is evidence. It feels a little like you're being intentionally obstinate.

And I'm not sure that, in 2016, it's true that most of what happens is never filmed and out on YouTube. There are something like 300 hours of video being added every minute. Billions of videos are available, and growing exponentially.

10 years ago? Sure. I hear you. But YouTube is pervasive, and the odd of not being able to find at least one example of pretty much anything is pretty low. The odds are that someone, somewhere, has pulled out their phone, tablet, or camera, and recorded it.

 

[Steve]

Ok. Fine i will play along.

I Agree.

If our only choices are yes or no, I'd land on no. It's to the point where it's a little odd NOT to find at least one example on YouTube. Not impossible, but kind of odd.

 

[Flying Crane]

Ok. Fine i will play along.

I Agree.

Thanks.

 

[Flying Crane]

If our only choices are yes or no, I'd land on no. It's to the point where it's a little odd NOT to find at least one example on YouTube. Not impossible, but kind of odd.

Ok, so every one of your training sessions are posted on YouTube? Every competition you entered? When you learned to ride a bike is posted on YouTube? The last 6000 times you took a crap is posted on YouTube?

Really Steve, you can't agree that most of what happens in life never makes it into YouTube?

 

[Hanzou]

Watanabe isn't really taken seriously anymore in the greater Aikido community because of this. Here was the eminent Tissier Shihan's statement on this a few years back...

Sensei Christian Tissier visited South America last December, Article, Christian Tissier Shihan 7° Dan Aikïkaï, Aïkido

"Mario Lorenzo - In South America we can see that those who emphasize too much on the “KI” in their practice are not technically serious. Do you see this in other countries? And what do you think of Watanabe Sensei‘s “no touch Aikido”?
Sensei Tissier : They are two different things. On the one hand people who talk about ki, and on the other the ones who practise aikido like Sensei Watanabe. He developed something in which he is especially interested in: it isn’t a ki work but one of anticipation, sensations, whether you like it or not, or whether it works or not. It works when you know the code, but martially it doesn’t work. Being in Japan I worked a lot with him, Watanabe wasn’t like this before. He is a physically solid practicant who wanted to develop something different. I think that if I were head of an examination table I wouldn’t take what he produces.

Now, people who talk and make constant reference on ki around the world are looking for something to justify their lack of technique. Because we all have ki, everything is ki (opening his arms), the problem with ki is its fluency. How does ki flow? When there is no block. When somebody is doing a technique and doesn’t handle it, this person doesn’t have an unblocked body. The objective of the technical aspect of the sport is to unlock every body part where there might exist a block. Someone who performs an exercise with stiff shoulders will not have a real ki flow."

Essentially, he is calling Watanabe's ki practice a fraud, just a in a rather polite way. Are there people like this in the Aikido world? Absolutely.....just like there are some in the Karate world, and fraudulent BJJ blackbelts....

Well the difference here is that Nobuyuki Watanabe is a senior instructor at the Aikikai, so it's a little different than some random clown wrapping a black belt around his waist and claiming that he's an expert. It would be the equivalent of one the Gracie brothers beginning to do no-touch ki nonsense, and large numbers of Bjj practitioners actually believing it.

That being said, I think many of you are missing something. I know of virtually no one in the Aikido world that is training to fight. No one. They are training for a whole host of other reasons...for some, it is a meditative practice, for others exercise and camaraderie, among a whole host of personal reasons.. In my dojo we actually tell new people that Aikido isn't really a self defense course that you can learn quickly and be good at. We try and downplay the self defense aspect. I tell people if that is all they are interested in, buy a good handgun

Thank you for that insight. That's pretty much what Aikidokas I've rolled with have told me as well.

 

[Hanzou]

I'm on my phone and not going to waste my data on watching videos, but for the moment I will accept on faith that the video shows what you suggest it shows.

Do you believe all aikido schools do that? As I've said, I've never witnessed it. Are you insightful enough to recognize that bad schools and bad teachers exist, as well as good ones? Are you insightful enough to understand that? A simple yes or no will do.

Again, Nobuyuki Watanabe is a senior instructor at the Aikikai Hombu Dojo in Japan, the largest branch of Aikido in the world, and the branch of the art's founder. This isn't some random clown in a strip mall.

 

[Steve]

Ok, so every one of your training sessions are posted on YouTube? Every competition you entered? When you learned to ride a bike is posted on YouTube? The last 6000 times you took a crap is posted on YouTube?

Really Steve, you can't agree that most of what happens in life never makes it into YouTube?

Come on, man. You're completely around the bend. Are you truly so close to this?

In the billions of videos posted, there are examples of just about everything. Is every wedding posted? No, but weddings are posted, so we can know they occur.

Said another way, your position is essentially that aikido for self defense is as rare as the yeti or Sasquatch. That seems a bit extreme to me.

 

[Flying Crane]

Again, Nobuyuki Watanabe is a senior instructor at the Aikikai Hombu Dojo in Japan, the largest branch of Aikido in the world, and the branch of the art's founder. This isn't some random clown in a strip mall.

It's a yes or no question. Are you capable of an answer?

 

[Hanzou]

It's a yes or no question. Are you capable of an answer?

It actually isn't, unless you want to argue that the largest and most widespread branch of Aikido in the world is a "bad".

 

[Flying Crane]

Come on, man. You're completely around the bend. Are you truly so close to this?

In the billions of videos posted, there are examples of just about everything. Is every wedding posted? No, but weddings are posted, so we can know they occur.

Said another way, your position is essentially that aikido for self defense is as rare as the yeti or Sasquatch. That seems a bit extreme to me.

No, my position is that whatever gets posted on YouTube is a very small fraction of the total training that happens. So small as to be an unreliable sample of the whole. And a high likelihood of being a skewed sample, at that.

How many postings are done by someone with an axe to grind, who cherry-picks the worst examples he can find? Or posted by people with an ego inflated enough that they think they are good, when they are not. YouTube is a bizarre phenomenon in that it is a channel that appeals to the exhibitionist in human nature. A shockingly high number of people give in to that temptation and post their crap on YouTube, because they think they've got something good, when most don't, and they think the world wants to see it, when most of the world doesn't.

As I've said countless times, bad samples are rampant on YouTube.

But there are far far more schools and people who quietly go about their training and don't care what the world thinks and have no urge to show it off and never post on YouTube. Vastly far more than who do post. And that is what you and Hanzou and Drop Bear will never see. But you want to judge the whole based on a very small and unreliable sample.

Are you so myopic that you really believe that most of aikido is on YouTube? That the best that aikido has to offer is on YouTube? Do you really believe that?

Or have you really filmed and posted every time you took a crap?

 

[Flying Crane]

It actually isn't, unless you want to argue that the largest and most widespread branch of Aikido in the world is a "bad".

Oh, it's very simple, actually.

 

[Steve]

No, my position is that whatever gets posted on YouTube is a very small fraction of the total training that happens. So small as to be an unreliable sample of the whole. And a high likelihood of being a skewed sample, at that.

How many postings are done by someone with an axe to grind, who cherry-picks the worst examples he can find? Or posted by people with an ego inflated enough that they think they are good, when they are not. YouTube is a bizarre phenomenon in that it is a channel that appeals to the exhibitionist in human nature. A shockingly high number of people give in to that temptation and post their crap on YouTube, because they think they've got something good, when most don't, and they think the world wants to see it, when most of the world doesn't.

As I've said countless times, bad samples are rampant on YouTube.

But there are far far more schools and people who quietly go about their training and don't care what the world thinks and have no urge to show it off and never post on YouTube. Vastly far more than who do post. And that is what you and Hanzou and Drop Bear will never see. But you want to judge the whole based on a very small and unreliable sample.

Are you so myopic that you really believe that most of aikido is on YouTube? That the best that aikido has to offer is on YouTube? Do you really believe that?

Or have you really filmed and posted every time you took a crap?

Whoa. Okay. My opinion is that the person with an axe to grind here is you. You're not making any sense whatsoever.

 

[drop bear]

Thanks.

So. My lazer eyes system of self defence. Is also a viable form of martial arts used by special forces around the world.

The thing is because of its incredible effectiveness it is trained secretly and it has never been documented on you tube.

Luckily not everything has neen documented on you tube. So we have to assume I am legit.

Right?

 

[drop bear]

Whoa. Okay. My opinion is that the person with an axe to grind here is you. You're not making any sense whatsoever.

No axe. The celestial tea cup argument is the benchmark for discerning dogma.

The dude believes it.

 

[Steve]

So. My lazer eyes system of self defence. Is also a viable form of martial arts used by special forces around the world.

The thing is because of its incredible effectiveness it is trained secretly and it has never been documented on you tube.

Luckily not everything has neen documented on you tube. So we have to assume I am legit.

Right?

I'm in. Can I buy your DVDs?

 

[punisher73]

At about the 9 minute mark.

Most of the people I know that train in Aikido, train to get OUT of fights and not get into them. They usually don't frequent the places that violence occurs. Most of what is posted on youtube is "consensual" ego fights. The exact type of thing that someone who studies aikido is going to try and avoid. How many videos do you see posted on youtube where one guy de-escalates with another guy and they both just walk away? Probably not going to be on there.

I agree though, that many people mistrain/misapply their aikido and forget that Ueshiba said that you must use atemi (strikes) before applying the rest of the technique. But, if we showed someone sidestepping and striking or moving in and striking people would say that it wasn't aikido.

I think that Aikido falls into the same trap as many other MA's though. Because there is such subtlety that is worked on with compliant people, many places don't put it back into context or train for an uncooperative person.

 

[moonhill99]

Is aikido more about competitions and not really focused on real self-defense?

And how long does it take to learn enough aikido stuff so that you could defend yourself?

Does aikido also offer solutions for ground fighting?

Also, how hard is aikido on the body? Are you likely to hurt yourself when you're being thrown over
someone's shoulder? Since I'm rather fragile I don't know if I could even withstand such a training.

I think aikido looks pretty interesting but I don't know if it's good for self-defense.

You should spend some more time reading past threads here and elsewhere all these questions have been talk about.

But it going come down to you if you like throws and take downs. If you hate throws and take downs than Aikido or Judo is not for you.