Thoughts on the "My Martial Arts Journey" guy?

[Gerry Seymour]

Sure. I don't know what aikido is in question, I was just using it as a general example of trying to use wristlocks before you have control.

All aikido does that doesn't it?

Mine doesn't. Structure has to be broken before the lock is attempted. If the structure is stable (you don't have control of that limb), then you don't "finish".

 

[JowGaWolf]

I've seen a fair amount of Aikido that works really well against the kinds of attacks used in the dojo, but wouldn't translate (as learned) to a reasonable punch. Yet many folks think it will...because they've never received a reasonable punch to experiment against. Train those attacks you want to defend against, and you'll get a better idea of what you can really do.

I'm thinking Aikido may be similar to Kung being that in practice people rarely do the form from the perspective of fighting. Movements are usually much slower than what is needed for fighting and the movement is often cleaner. The intent to do harm and the warrior mentality is often missing. People can be good at it, but that special focus of aggression if often gone.

Here's one example. Same type of techniques I train but when I train and do my forms I'm actually visualizing me fighting and moving as I would if I was fighting. But as you can see in this video. This person is not thinking about beating the crap out of someone while doing the form.

Same issue here. Looks good, but it's not fighting movements. You can look at it and it doesn't have that feel that she's fighting.

Now take a look at this. Simple punches, but the focus is different. He looks like he's fighting an imaginary person.

Now aikido. This is not fighting movement. The urgency is not there. I can guarantee if an attacker lit off his attack like the shadow boxer then that Aikido slow movement is going to lose. If you don't train to deal with fast strikes coming in then you'll never develop the timing and adjustment required to do any of the techniques one may learn. And it's not just the hand speed, but the foot speed also has to be there. If the practitioner is never training those things then it's not happening. It doesn't mean the art isn't for fighting. It just means the person isn't training it as they should.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I've seen a fair amount of Aikido that works really well against the kinds of attacks used in the dojo, but wouldn't translate (as learned) to a reasonable punch. Yet many folks think it will...because they've never received a reasonable punch to experiment against. Train those attacks you want to defend against, and you'll get a better idea of what you can really do.

Like you stated "Train those attacks you want to defend against, and you'll get a better idea of what you can really do."

If there was a secret to martial arts this would be one of them. Straight forward.

Without knowing this guy's real fighting skills, I would bet that his timing for dealing with attacks is far better than most aikido practitioners. He moves his feet, his not trying to flow gracefully, he has some urgency about his foot work. He mixes kicks and punches in a similar manner that Chin Na is used. A punch to the face forces a person to think more about their face than about you grabbing the arm which makes it a perfect time to grab the arm.

Lets take away all of the fancy martial arts and techniques away and just look at the speed involved in fighting. Which Aikido practitioner is moving at the correct speed to interrupt a punch before a person is able to fully extend it. The person in the Op's videos moves at this speed.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Structure has to be broken before the lock is attempted.

I agree 100% with this.
Because of the way that joint lock demos are done, people just assume it's possible to just reach out grab someone's arm and then put them in a joint lock. One only has to look at Police officers to see how difficult that actually is. The locks work much better when the person isn't expecting it.

Simply making a tight fist and clinching it will make it nearly impossible to pull off a wrist lock. I used to have students do that when I was self-defense classes. It would prevent me from locking the wrist. That is until a threw a fake punch that made them think they were going to get hit and that's when I applied the wrist lock.

 

[drop bear]

Totally. Once you get control.

They can totally work from the ground.

Trying to gain control WITH a wristlock(aikido) is going to take some luck.

Yeah. That pretty much.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I agree 100% with this.
Because of the way that joint lock demos are done, people just assume it's possible to just reach out grab someone's arm and then put them in a joint lock. One only has to look at Police officers to see how difficult that actually is. The locks work much better when the person isn't expecting it.

Simply making a tight fist and clinching it will make it nearly impossible to pull off a wrist lock. I used to have students do that when I was self-defense classes. It would prevent me from locking the wrist. That is until a threw a fake punch that made them think they were going to get hit and that's when I applied the wrist lock.

This hits the nail on the head imo. Certain things (including wristloskcs) have a close to 0% chance of working if the person knows their coming. But if you distract them into thinkg something else will happen, they work without any issue. Thats basically the concept of half the bjj techs (trick them into defending against something else giving you the chance for the sub you want), which everyone recognizes as effective, so i dont understand why people find it so tough to believe with other techniques.

 

[drop bear]

Like you stated "Train those attacks you want to defend against, and you'll get a better idea of what you can really do."

If there was a secret to martial arts this would be one of them. Straight forward.

Without knowing this guy's real fighting skills, I would bet that his timing for dealing with attacks is far better than most aikido practitioners. He moves his feet, his not trying to flow gracefully, he has some urgency about his foot work. He mixes kicks and punches in a similar manner that Chin Na is used. A punch to the face forces a person to think more about their face than about you grabbing the arm which makes it a perfect time to grab the arm.

Lets take away all of the fancy martial arts and techniques away and just look at the speed involved in fighting. Which Aikido practitioner is moving at the correct speed to interrupt a punch before a person is able to fully extend it. The person in the Op's videos moves at this speed.

None of them are moving fast enough.

 

[drop bear]

This hits the nail on the head imo. Certain things (including wristloskcs) have a close to 0% chance of working if the person knows their coming. But if you distract them into thinkg something else will happen, they work without any issue. Thats basically the concept of half the bjj techs (trick them into defending against something else giving you the chance for the sub you want), which everyone recognizes as effective, so i dont understand why people find it so tough to believe with other techniques.

Because in general it isn't done right. And so if the specialists can't do it. Then it is considered pretty hard to do.

Wrestlers can do it. But they generally don't in favor of higher percentage stuff.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I'm thinking Aikido may be similar to Kung being that in practice people rarely do the form from the perspective of fighting. Movements are usually much slower than what is needed for fighting and the movement is often cleaner. The intent to do harm and the warrior mentality is often missing. People can be good at it, but that special focus of aggression if often gone.

Here's one example. Same type of techniques I train but when I train and do my forms I'm actually visualizing me fighting and moving as I would if I was fighting. But as you can see in this video. This person is not thinking about beating the crap out of someone while doing the form.

Same issue here. Looks good, but it's not fighting movements. You can look at it and it doesn't have that feel that she's fighting.

Now take a look at this. Simple punches, but the focus is different. He looks like he's fighting an imaginary person.

Now aikido. This is not fighting movement. The urgency is not there. I can guarantee if an attacker lit off his attack like the shadow boxer then that Aikido slow movement is going to lose. If you don't train to deal with fast strikes coming in then you'll never develop the timing and adjustment required to do any of the techniques one may learn. And it's not just the hand speed, but the foot speed also has to be there. If the practitioner is never training those things then it's not happening. It doesn't mean the art isn't for fighting. It just means the person isn't training it as they should.

Much of this is the range of focus. Pretty much everything starts from more than a step away (attacker needs a step and a reach to connect), so it creates the time for those movements. And the attacks used are, by nature, telegraphed, creating more time.

Change the attacks up, and the responses have to change. Ueshiba said Aikido is 80% (I think that’s the % he used) atemi (focused striking). This is not in evidence in most Aikido dojo.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

This hits the nail on the head imo. Certain things (including wristloskcs) have a close to 0% chance of working if the person knows their coming. But if you distract them into thinkg something else will happen, they work without any issue. Thats basically the concept of half the bjj techs (trick them into defending against something else giving you the chance for the sub you want), which everyone recognizes as effective, so i dont understand why people find it so tough to believe with other techniques.

It’s a basic concept in Judo, as well. Most Aikido training doesn’t seem to teach this directly, though it is in the movements, if the practitioner discovers it. I think this is why some folks only find their Aikido useful after they’ve had other training.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Like you stated "Train those attacks you want to defend against, and you'll get a better idea of what you can really do."

If there was a secret to martial arts this would be one of them. Straight forward.

Without knowing this guy's real fighting skills, I would bet that his timing for dealing with attacks is far better than most aikido practitioners. He moves his feet, his not trying to flow gracefully, he has some urgency about his foot work. He mixes kicks and punches in a similar manner that Chin Na is used. A punch to the face forces a person to think more about their face than about you grabbing the arm which makes it a perfect time to grab the arm.

Lets take away all of the fancy martial arts and techniques away and just look at the speed involved in fighting. Which Aikido practitioner is moving at the correct speed to interrupt a punch before a person is able to fully extend it. The person in the Op's videos moves at this speed.

I like his urgency better. I’d like to see better attacks.

 

[hoshin1600]

Because in general it isn't done right. And so if the specialists can't do it. Then it is considered pretty hard to do.

Wrestlers can do it. But they generally don't in favor of higher percentage stuff.

This clip was nice. That's a good example of how it should work. But I'm going to stick with my earlier comment that most of the practitioners of Aikido are not into that. Aikido is self proclaimed as the art of cooperation. You are required by an un spoken(or somtimes verbalized) code to cooperate with your partner. This means even if the throw or lock is lousy you still go with it and fall down. That begs the question of why they would practice like that. We all know pressure testing is the correct method for effectiveness. O Sensei was completely against that method. Again it begs the question of, why.

 

[drop bear]

This clip was nice. That's a good example of how it should work. But I'm going to stick with my earlier comment that most of the practitioners of Aikido are not into that. Aikido is self proclaimed as the art of cooperation. You are required by an un spoken(or somtimes verbalized) code to cooperate with your partner. This means even if the throw or lock is lousy you still go with it and fall down. That begs the question of why they would practice like that. We all know pressure testing is the correct method for effectiveness. O Sensei was completely against that method. Again it begs the question of, why.

People still think O sensai,s method works. It is very easy to believe if you are not exposed to anything else.

And even then very easy to argue an excuse for it to work.

I mean we could also ask why Krav, defendo, and SCARS trained in that dead compliant manner.

Aikido guys journey is a perfect example. Trains for yeas is a live in student is a teacher and can't fight his way out of a wet sack.

Does a short program in another style and suddenly meteoric rise in functionality. I think he fought after a year.

And still gets grief from Aikido guys about how he is wrong because of Aikido logic.

His response is "show me"

And theirs suddenly becomes a wasteland of nothing.

 

[hoshin1600]

I mean we could also ask why Krav, defendo, and SCARS trained in that dead compliant manner.

i get your point but but i dont think those arts are on the same level. they dont attract the same type of people. i dont have any experience in Krav but from what i have seen, the legit guys seem ok. defendo is kind of old and out dated like the 1950's FBI stuff. you know the karate chop to the neck to knock someone out. and SCARS should have an M not an R. Jerry Peterson started with a good concept then let his ego carry him out into left field trying to be an expert in areas he didnt belong.

 

[drop bear]

i get your point but but i dont think those arts are on the same level. they dont attract the same type of people. i dont have any experience in Krav but from what i have seen, the legit guys seem ok. defendo is kind of old and out dated like the 1950's FBI stuff. you know the karate chop to the neck to knock someone out. and SCARS should have an M not an R. Jerry Peterson started with a good concept then let his ego carry him out into left field trying to be an expert in areas he didnt belong.

Yeah. But let's suggest that at least until the 1950s people really thought this sort of training was the ducks nuts.

So there is a commonality in training doctrine and how people think. And what they thought worked as a training method.

And look I did RBSD and I thought it worked and it was just sports fighters were born better. And it wasn't untill i started doing sports fighting in the streets that i realised there are inconsistencies in the training itself.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

This clip was nice. That's a good example of how it should work. But I'm going to stick with my earlier comment that most of the practitioners of Aikido are not into that. Aikido is self proclaimed as the art of cooperation. You are required by an un spoken(or somtimes verbalized) code to cooperate with your partner. This means even if the throw or lock is lousy you still go with it and fall down. That begs the question of why they would practice like that. We all know pressure testing is the correct method for effectiveness. O Sensei was completely against that method. Again it begs the question of, why.

My slight knowledge (reading articles, etc.) suggests his attitude changed considerably over time. Early at his dojo, apparently it wasn't unusual to have injuries, because they trained hard. Later, training apparently softened, and his approach became less about fighting, and more about exploring "aiki".

 

[Gerry Seymour]

i get your point but but i dont think those arts are on the same level. they dont attract the same type of people. i dont have any experience in Krav but from what i have seen, the legit guys seem ok. defendo is kind of old and out dated like the 1950's FBI stuff. you know the karate chop to the neck to knock someone out. and SCARS should have an M not an R. Jerry Peterson started with a good concept then let his ego carry him out into left field trying to be an expert in areas he didnt belong.

I'm 12. I laughed like a school kid when he drew on his groin.

 

[Buka]

i get your point but but i dont think those arts are on the same level. they dont attract the same type of people. i dont have any experience in Krav but from what i have seen, the legit guys seem ok. defendo is kind of old and out dated like the 1950's FBI stuff. you know the karate chop to the neck to knock someone out. and SCARS should have an M not an R. Jerry Peterson started with a good concept then let his ego carry him out into left field trying to be an expert in areas he didnt belong.

Oh, God, that was a CLASSIC film clip!

I needed that. Thank you.

 

[hoshin1600]

I'm 12. I laughed like a school kid when he drew on his groin.

Me too, but I find the entire clip funny as hell. Some of the techniques are still somewhat valid but the action clips are priceless.