Beautiful. Aikido is truly a beautiful art in action.

Good description, but I'd consider Yonkyo more of a pressure-point technique than a small joint technique, and an advanced technique at that. I never could find the point consistently in the four years I trained.

I should note that Aikido is very rarely taught like this - these are very advanced Aikido-ka demonstrating atemi techniques that aren't usually taught to beginners, and with good very reason. It is VERY easy to injure your partner practicing like this. You can see at the end that the kick seemed to catch the uke off guard.

http://www.fightingmaster.com/masters/ueshiba/quotes.htm

That page has a good selection of quotations from the founder of the art, but I had to do some digging for one that always stood out in my mind during training:

"Aikido is not a technique to fight with or to defeat the enemy. It is a way to reconcile the world and make human beings one family."

Would these really work in non-sport settings? In the first form he blocks a strike and has time to get in 3 strikes while his opponent remains frozen in time

In training I have seen a person score 5 knife thrusts in one encounter.

These are demonstrations. As with all demonstrations the target remains still, because if it were full on you could never see clearly what was being used.

In actuality you can get about three hits, with the last one being the weakest.

In boxing the most punches I can get off with good accuracy and targeting is three.

When people throw combinations in MMA or streetfights, they often don't all land because they're inaccurate (targeting in a fight with enough power behind the strike is harder than in demonstrations), are blocked or evaded, or their opponent lands a successful strike on them, goes into the clinch, or executes a take down.

I think the practitioners in this video wouldn't be prepared for that environment, because, unless I'm wrong, their training is exclusively in collusive demonstrations.

In some rare forms on Aikido there are competitions.

I wrestle and box on a regular basis, with training partners from Aikido, and judo.

But for the most part I have to separate the two because there are people there that could (Kick my ass) and I could in return kick ass.

I train with military and law enforcement types, so its not the crap you would see at a demonstration.

In an environment where there are rules one can expect an outcome.

In an environment were there are no rules one can expect a death or serious maiming. We could argue the drawbacks of MMA style and Aikido Style all day, and it would be a good discourse.

"There are many styles of Wushu. One style is not better than the other, there is only difference in skill." -Jet Li's Character in Fearless.

You would never see me in a street fight, because I would either mace, taze or shoot the assailant. No reason for me to get my hands dirty.

Many of us will never see a trained person in a real fight that does not involve emotion, we will unlikely see a confrontation with Wu Wei action. Because these confrontations usually end badly, for both parties.

What I do know is that in a life and death situation we can not be sure of any thing. There is no definite outcome.

I would never want to be on the ground with any one, once on the ground we are completely weak to attacks from other opponents.

Train to end all combat with in the instant it was started.

While Competition is for the most part shunned by the Aikido community, "Tomiki" Aikido was developed to introduce Aikido to Japanese School systems and to replace existing Judo programs by adapting it to a competitive setting.

Basically, Tomiki Aikido competition is performed with one competitor wielding a wooden dagger (a Tanto), while his opponent attempts to disarm him. Points are scored to the wielder for successful attacks with the dagger, and to the unarmed for performing successful takeaways - the dagger is then placed on the ground and he retreats to neutral territory to await the next attack. Halfway through the round, they switch roles.

As NordlichReiter pointed out, Aikido-ka are trained first and foremost to avoid confrontation. We are trained to diffuse situations with diplomacy to let cooler heads prevail.

Chilax, you would be VERY surprised to see just how effective these techniques are in "street" settings, and as I said before, these Aikidoka are very skilled. The techniques they demonstrate are based on concepts that are centuries old, and have survived the test of time. Not to mention that Aikidoka are trained to take falls and throws with control and grace. Most Yudansha (that is, those who have attained a first-degree black belt or higher, usually requiring 5+ years of dedicated training) gain not only the requisite toughness through ukemi (safe-falling), but the confidence to tap into their knowledge at a moment's notice. Irimi-nage, and Kote-Gaeshi, as well as the perennial hip-throw technique, Koshi-nage, are all swift techniques that use your opponents energy against them while exposing the user to very minimal risk, and Aikidoka are trained to initiate these techniques from a wide variety of attacks.

You can divide basic hand-to-hand attacks into two basic categories: grabs, and strikes. Strikes can be further subdivided into at least three deliveries - from a tsuki, or thrusting attack (like a punch), shomen-uchi (a vertical-motion attack, like a hammer swinging downward), and yokomen-uchi (a horizontal-slashing attack, like a slash with a dagger or sword). Grabs are more numerous: same-side grabs to your wrist, cross-side wrist grabs, both wrists grabbed at the same time, two-hands grabbing one wrist, lapel grabs, chokes, grabs from behind like sleeper-holds... the list goes on. Aikidoka learn the basic techniques, such as Ikkyo, from simple grabs and shomen-uchi strikes in the beginning, and move on the more advanced techniques from stronger attacks as they progress.

You don't start by teaching a white belt hip-throws before they know the basic concepts of ma-ai (literally "distance harmony" or your basic attack range - I'm 6'1", so my ma-ai is going to be wider than someone say 5'5"), the importance of being centered and grounded (you're going to be supporting the weight of your attacker on your hip, if you don't know how to keep your feet and knees, you'll buckle under their weight), or the ukemi to take the fall without injuring yourself.

Thanks for taking my questioning in good spirit; I do agree with you guys on a number of points.


If there are any videos of Aikido applied in real situations, not just collusion sped up, I would be interested in seeing them. I searched for Tomiki Aikido and just found YouTube videos that are collusive or not resembling realistic struggle (e.g., e.g.2), which is fine, but just not what I'm looking for.

After the first UFCs, we didn't have to just take on faith the claims of different martial arts. The result was generally that in a 1 on 1 fight, an unarmed combatant not trained to defend against take downs and submissions was relatively powerless (sometimes humorously so) against the ground game of brazilian ju-jitu. Since then, strikers have become more well-rounded in that respect and have been more successful.

The claims that non-collusive sparring can't be done using Aikido without hurting the opponent too badly can be tested easily against a mixed martial artist willing to risk broken arms, wrists, fingers etc. (he won't think it's much of a risk). I believe this issue is only going to grow, as mixed martial arts is growing rapidly, with viewership of the monthly UFC events eclipsing boxing and sometimes even baseball viewership among the under 40 generation.


Isn't it a good cause to encourage Aikido to back up its claims, or to utilize more realistic sparring? UFC champs become millionaires, so there does seem to be ample incentive to participate.

Thanks again; I understand you guys are very experienced, so I have found your responses interesting.

Many of the people involved in aikido are not heavy trainers. I train 4 days a week, and do other things on my off time.

I have thought about the sparring aspect of aikido. We do resistance training, but for the most part there are only a few of us that do this sort of training.

Many of the practitioners are simply not fit for that kind of training. Those who train "for real", have a background in some other school.

Moving this video to NordlichReiter's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

The atmosphere I've encountered for aikido is one that tends to discourage competition, and favors personal growth and the growth of others. There are exceptions, of course, but from what I can tell, the drive to compete is just not a part of the art.

>> ^chilaxe:
The claims that non-collusive sparring can't be done using Aikido without hurting the opponent too badly can be tested easily against a mixed martial artist willing to risk broken arms, wrists, fingers etc. (he won't think it's much of a risk). I believe this issue is only going to grow, as mixed martial arts is growing rapidly, with viewership of the monthly UFC events eclipsing boxing and sometimes even baseball viewership among the under 40 generation.

This would be ridiculous, because aikido is practiced as a defensive art. Also see my points below. As an anecdote, there was such a duel arranged between one of Osensei's student and an american judo champion for a film on aikido in the 1960's. The judo guy was told not to attack since aikido was a defensive art. So he didn't. But the aikido representative (Akira Tohei), feinted an attack to create an opening and finally got the much bigger American judo guy on the ground. Still afterwards he was scolded by Osensei who said "You should have waited for an attack no matter what!". This is to say that there is no point in fighting if it's not to defend your life (or honor, since for the old Japanese the two are equal).


Isn't it a good cause to encourage Aikido to back up its claims, or to utilize more realistic sparring? UFC champs become millionaires, so there does seem to be ample incentive to participate.

Japanese bushi (samurai) did not participate in "realistic sparring" with their jujutsu techniques, yet the best of them could have probably killed any UFC champ. Why? Because they were ready to die at anytime. At that level, an untrained and sloppy but sudden and unexpected eye poke, for example, can become a lethal tool.

In my eyes, Judo and MMA competitions are much more dance-like than aikido practice. They're "freeform" dances. In judo and MMA you both have freedom from kata, but you lose that freedom because of 1) rules and 2) the "fair duel" setup, i.e. two guys that know when they will be fighting each other and even sometimes know what techniques the other favors. Aikido on the contrary doesn't require a "fair duel" situation to be effective. In fact, many (dan level) techniques are done with two or three opponents. We also practice with 4 or more opponents to make sure our techniques can flow instinctively under pressure. Karate still has kata with many opponent situation but most student don't even know they're fighting more than one "shadow" opponent in their kata. In comparison, in aikido we practice our "kata" (techniques) with a partner. This is because jujutsu is a skin-to-skin contact art, so you have to train your somatic sensations, up to being able to execute a technique in full darkness (this is practiced in many dojo in fact).

On the other hand, what is difficult with both competition and kata practice is to understand that in a non-comptetition or non-practice situation, you do not have to conform to kata or techniques. You execute them when the occasion presents itself, otherwise you try to create, in the heat of the moment, such an occasion (with atemi or some other distraction). In the end, the best teachers are real situations: if you really want to know if you're ready, go catch some criminals or kill some terrorists.

P.S. I know true judo (as done by Kano and Mifune for example) and many of the arts practiced in MMA by themselves don't need the "fair duel" setup to be effective, but the way they train for competitions makes it so (in fact Gracie jujutsu was made for fair duels. That's how they became famous in Brazil, by dueling. Saying that BJJ is good on the street is like saying a rapier is good on a battlefield: complete nonsense).

There's no reason why many Aikido techniques shouldn't work in a sport setting. Sure there may be some things they do that are illegal - but lots of it is sport-legal strikes and holds designed to protect against the very same attacks used in sport fighting.

For example, the first part of this video shows a counter to a guy punching (the air a ways from) your face. Surely if you were able to block a punch like that and then do a whole bunch of crap before the guy reacted, you could just block that punch and punch him back (and do very well in a sport fight situation).

I mean, couldn't you do some Aikido training by having a guy really trying to punch your face? Wouldn't that do a better job of getting you ready? Or at least do that some of the time to get a feel for a real fighting situation. I mean, sure you wouldn't be poking his eyes out or something - but at least you could practice that first part where you counter his punch by touching his shoulder and then holding your other arm up there. You know, see if that actually works: feel what it feels like to do in real life.

I can't imagine training this way. I mean, imagine training basketball only in drills. Imagine training wrestling only with collusive opponents. I realize those things aren't exactly the same, but they're a lot the same. And sure there is going to be distortions when sport competition becomes prevalent, but I think that can be managed.

Other arts aren't perfect. Surely boxing isn't a lot like a "to-the-death" fight with 100 opponents with bottles (or whatever fantasy situation we're imagining)... but the key is that someone who practices boxing (or anything) is going to be used to feeling pain, used to having a real punch coming at them, and is actually going to be used to using their "weapon" on an unwilling opponent. They're going to have something they can pull out - whether that's a single-leg takedown, a straight left, or whatever - that they've really hurt unwilling people with before. I think that's huge.

In the end, the sad defense of these arts is usually "they were used for 100s of years and blah, blah, blah". The problem is is that for those periods, it's not like there was anyone collecting statistics, nor was it like these were the default modes of combat in those times.

There is no time in human history when war in general was conducted without weapons. It's not like we ever had two unarmed groups running at each other and we could see whose training worked out better. If unarmed defense was ever practical against armed defense, any study of it was always anecdotal and almost certainly biased. It couldn't not be - you can't repeat the experiment with the same people 10 times if the experiment involved serious injury (and learning between trials, and random choosing of specific strategy).

Edit: my point is is that the same "it's been studied hard for ages" could be said about Chinese medicine. Sure it's been around for 100s of years, but it wasn't really studied scientifically or rigorously - and as such you get some good things that clearly work, some things that kind of work (but probably rely heavily on placebo effect), but also a lot of nonsense, horrible theory, very little progress over time, and some things that are completely backwards.

PS: Gah, I just watched some of the video again. In one part, buddy throws a right and pretty much gives up his whole back to the other guy. I mean, you might as well train a counter for the situation where you duck down to avoid a punch and the other guy follows your head down and ends up in a handstand. How anyone can take this seriously is beyond me and I regret having wasted so much text on it.

you dont need to know science to obey physics or explore them with your body (or someone elses). if it works, it works.

you dont need to know science to obey physics or explore them with your body (or someone elses). if it works, it works.

Well, that's exactly my point (not sure if you were intending to argue with me or not). You could study fighting by looking at physics and what not - but more broadly science is about experiment. The science of fighting is having people try to hurt each other in different ways and seeing how it goes (like you say, "if it works, it works").