80% isn't everything. And I doubt a single technique (other than a straight punch) really fills that much. That sweep won't cover a tackle, shoot, kick from range, or someone whose footwork puts them in range before you can set the sweep. I like a foot sweep, but it's not that universal. If it were, we'd see competitions where the first move was a successful foot sweep over and over.
This is a dangerous argument, Ryback. How do you define "enough skill"? Someone with enough skill can successfully defend themselves with a saucepan of water. They'll need skill that's entirely unrelated to the saucepan of water, though.
I've never liked this argument. It's philosophical at best, and specious. What is "the way of the warrior", and who gets to define it? Some martial sports have a background in competition among soldiers during peacetime, and others have a background in people learning to defend themselves and testing their techniques against each other. Sparring is a training tool, and excluding it on philosophical basis is like deciding to leave out an ingredient from a cake because of the color of the box.
If you're talking about the one I'm thinking of, you've missed everything important in it - including what the Aikidoka said. It's never going to be useful to try classical Aikido movement against a boxer, and rarely so against a Muay Thai fighter (those being the most common stand-up fighting bases in MMA).
This conclusion was drawn by some folks with a lot more insight and experience into the art than either of us. Aikido's culture is to try to follow Ueshiba's teaching. That includes trying to figure out why he made some decisions. Without that, it's just a religion.
Because punches are simple and have a wide margin for error. Bad punches are still dangerous.
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I mostly agree. The only part I disagree with is, "They are still coming too fast to deal with properly." People deal with punches all the time, sometimes quite properly. As ND has often said, it won't be classical Aikido (what I call "dojo Aikido", which focuses on flow and feel), but Aikido can deal with these. The skill needed includes - which I think you're getting at - the ability to recognize and move with a punch. If someone can do a slip on a punch, they're halfway to accessing Aikido techniques (the other half is knowing the techniques).
This is still choreography.
I'll have to try this out, but I think you're spot on with both points. Techniques like that do have that risk of face-planting. Heck, look for videos of drop seoi nage in Judo competition - even those folks sometimes get an ugly landing out of it. It's a strength and weakness for sutemi waza - there's very little control once you get going, because you commit your whole weight into it. As for the grip, it probably can be done on skin, but sweaty skin would be a problem. I'm sure I can do it without the sleeve grab, so long as the fabric is there to provide grip. Offhand, I'm not sure about doing it without the fabric. It might be possible to get enough purchase in the crook of the elbow to at least get them into a full stumble (sufficient for the purpose, and should provide other opportunities, if only to get up), but I'd need to try it out.
ND, he's actually making a valid point. Without pressure testing, there's a lot that seems feasible that has big problems. I find that classical training sometimes (perhaps most often) ignores what I call the "failure mode" of a technique: what happens when it fails, and how likely is it to fail. That sutemi waza response from the clinch is a good answer, if the failure mode isn't too dangerous. So, what happens if you fail at that? There are two likely "failure" outcomes: they only stumble badly (not a bad failure mode, probably), or you slip off and end up at their feet (very bad failure mode). How likely are those? It takes some testing, including someone trying to do stuff from clinch and nage trying to pull this off (among other possible responses). Sometimes, uke knowing what's coming makes things harder to do (uke consciously or unconsciously counters the exact move they know is coming), and sometimes it makes them easier to do (uke sometimes unconsciously just starts too early into the fall). This is why, when demonstrating in class, I often only instruct the attack, and don't tell them what response I'm bringing the first time. Not a full solution, but part of one.
