Aikido does have strikes, most of which simulate sword/knife attacks and can be easily adapted when wielding a weapon. That said, strikes in Aikido are often used not to physically hurt the attacker, as punches and kicks are used in other martial arts, but as distractions to open an opponent up to a grab or throw. Nothing puts someone off their guard like getting a quick slap on the face followed by being thrown on the ground, hehe.

Steven Seagal, though he is a terrible actor, is an amazing Aikidoka and is known to have a partucularily physical/brutal style of Aikido.

My faith in the awakeness of our species is being restored by comments such as those above. Age based upon fixed measurement of one aspect of being such as rotations of the earth around the sun, however, cannot be the definer of a person. I am months away from being 70 years alive. I am asked for ID if I claim "senior price" for an item. My physical state is such that I can accomplish repeated Aikido movements not possible for men less than half my age, and my libido drives my active affections three to four times weekly, if you know what I mean. O.K, O.K, I also dye my hair!! I guess my point is that identification with Zeitgeiss is as much a copout as identification with religion, job title, gender, credential, or other measurements provided from outside youself. Roberto Assigioli, MD, developer of Psychosynthesis, provided a guided technique in which you disconnect from submodalities of perception arriving at a point in which you perceive your true center being. The technique allows ballancing of submodality heirarchies with your center self in charge. O.K, O.K, Laura says more often than three to four.

>> ^kagenin:
Those cops are outright embarrassing. They seriously need to watch this. They were struggling WAYY to hard against him when there were MUCH simpler, easier techniques they could have applied to get this guy to submit.
A Taser only works if both probes hit. If one missed, which is likely what happened, then it won't really do anything. They're too close to him for that to work anyway, and risked back-shocking themselves.
And Drunken/Disorderly would be a start for this guy's rap sheet even if he doesn't have an outstanding warrant.


If you try that shit IRL when someone is resisting, there's a very high probability of breaking their elbow or dislocating their shoulder. It's only safe when the target knows wtf is going on and how to not get himself hurt.

Those cops are outright embarrassing. They seriously need to watch this. They were struggling WAYY to hard against him when there were MUCH simpler, easier techniques they could have applied to get this guy to submit.

A Taser only works if both probes hit. If one missed, which is likely what happened, then it won't really do anything. They're too close to him for that to work anyway, and risked back-shocking themselves.

And Drunken/Disorderly would be a start for this guy's rap sheet even if he doesn't have an outstanding warrant.

Yeah, I know it's been a while since someone last posted here, but I feel like sharing.

1) I was once ranked in the top 150 ExpertCTF for Quake2 players in the world by TheCLQ.com, and I did it on dial-up.

2) I am only a few credits shy of getting an AA. I don't consider myself a drop-out, but it has been a very long time since I was in school.

3) Every girl I've been with ranks me somewhere between "really awesome" and "the best they ever had" in bed.

4) I once got my car stuck in the middle of Tahoe National Forest.

5) I used to be a boy scout.

6) Both my girlfriend and I have an aversion to using firearms.

7) I sleep with a very sharp 18" black ninja sword next to my bed.

I once did security for a Taj Mahal concert. I got him and his band to sign my badge.

9) Like many other sifters I've also worked in community theater, mostly backstage work.

10) I've studied martial arts off and on, since I was 8. I have 4 years of experience in American Kempo Karate (the stuff Ed Parker taught Elvis), and 4 years of Aikido training. Aikido had a bigger impact on my life.

11) When I was in 8th grade, my Odyssey of the Mind team came in Second place in regional competition. Only our teacher's team did better than us in our category. I wore a tiger costume (an orange jumpsuit I made, and then drew stripes on).

12) For about 4 years, I worked in a place Mark Twain, and two presidents once slept.

13) My parents own a Yellow-naped Green Amazon parrot. I'll likely inherit him. He's been in the family since I was in 4th grade.

14) I have never had any urge to join the military.

15) I've walked through the red light district in Amsterdam.

16) As a waiter, I once served the author of Schindler's List.

17) I've had long hair for most of my life.

18) I enjoy dueling friends using a Shinai - a traditional bamboo training sword.

19) I'm addicted to Yahoo! Answers. It's sad, but there's so many noobs who need schooling. I got to level 6 answering a bunch of the same questions in the Wii category.

20) I used to have a pet Goose.

21) I didn't sleep at all last night.

22) I was told many times growing up I could have been a model. I would rather be known for contributing something more to the world than just my looks, though, so I never pursued it.

23) I have mastered the head-stall footbag technique.

24) I don't kick footbag as much since rolling my ankle a couple years ago.

25) When I was in 1st grade, my dad would sometimes guest host for a friend's late night community radio program. The couple times he took me along were awesome.

Reminds me of Ran-dori exercises back when I was training in Aikido.

Ran-dori is a multiple-attackers scenario, the goal of which is to prepare a student for the pure chaos of such a situation. Ran-dori is usually structured in a way to prevent injuries, as are all Aikido exercises, however, there is really no substitute for training for a multiple-attacker scenario than getting a bunch of fellow students to mix up their attacks. One of my favorite techniques for Ran-dori involves using joint locks to turn an opponent into a shield, and then throwing them into another foe to disrupt their balance and timing.

Musashi also talks about dealing with multiple attackers in his epic martial arts manual, The Go Rin no Sho, known here in the west as "A Book of Five Rings." He goes over the tactics of herding your foes in front of you, and knowing what is behind you when you need to backpedal to keep everyone in front of you. The combatant in this video illustrates both of these tactics very well.

When the guy in white fails at delivering a kick, he gets throw down to the ground very easily, and the next attacker struggles to step over him. His balance is disrupted for just long enough for the object of everyone's aggression to deliver a strong jab.

I would not be surprised if this guy had some martial arts background, judging from his stance, posture, and movement.

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.

Systema - I like a good hybrid martial art.

I saw things from Aikido, Karate, Wing Tsun, and they even had multiple attackers.

But some of the things I saw, looked like bullshit. Especially those pressure points, or what ever the hell it was. The disarms where very good.

The punch they were showing was very good, there is nothing special about it only the target area they choose. The abscess right below the bottom of the sternum. That's not something you practice on friends, because it can cause damage to organs.

Every ones body is different, and some people may not react the same way as others do to pressure points or pain.

Take the chance to work with some one who has strange flexibility.

^îf you want to promote
http://www.videosift.com/video/Steven-Seagals-Aikido-teachings
be my guest;)
seagal + martial arts

Let's make a group playlist for martial arts and let the * actionpack + * sports
channels do their work..
http://www.videosift.com/talk/Channel-combinations-are-sub-channels-lets-make-a-list

"ASU aikdio"

Maybe this very scene was the basis of Saotome-sensei's kata then! Wouldn't surprise me in the least. After all it was staged by one of Katori Shinto ryu's most distinguished proponents.

Saotome-sensei's bokken and jo are very different though from Saito-sensei's, who was taught the most by Osensei in bukiwaza matters. Osensei based most of his swordplay (he didn't teach any sword kata per se) on Kashima Shinto, in which style he briefly enrolled. The Kashima shrine is directly on the opposite side of the river from Katori shrine, so maybe Saotome-sensei saw fit to bring something from Katori in aikido too? But Saotome-sensei seemed at one time to follow Kashima Shinto (viz. the bokken shape)... Anyways, Katori and Kashima are like cousin-ryu so the basics remain the same.

"You should relax your wrists."

Well, it's not because is wrist is bent that it's tense. Apply nikyo ura to your own wrist (like we do in warming-up) or have it applied to you by someone else. Your wrist is bent but still your keep your wrist relaxed, or at least you should to avoid injury. But here again, in waki kamae the point is moot since you will need to change your grip before striking, even if you strike from below.

"And every kumitachi can be done differently from Dojo to Dojo depending on the teachers."

Yes I know full well, hence the question. It's simply that I do not practice ASU kata, only Iwama (I practiced ASU nito at two seminars but that's it).

First, Kumi Tachi ni of what style? Aikido? Then what style of aikido?

Second, it's not a habit it's called a style. How you hold your sword in waki kamae (that's the usual name, gedan hasso is rarely used and its used mostly in aikido circles) is moot anyway since its not a striking stance but a waiting and inviting stance, i.e. you have to take another stance before striking, even if only for an instant. Here he switches to jodan before striking the ronin down. Yoshio Sugino of Katori Shinto Ryu was swordplay instructor so I do not think the left hand making an L is a mistake, though this doesn't seem to be the waki kamae of Katori Shinto.

Third, the ronin's stance is jodan, not hasso. It's not a foolish stance, but of course the ronin is not very good at it.

Fourth, it's called aiuchi. And it's not like he held back with the bokken. It's just that a bokken doesn't cut like a katana, so you have to give a blunt hit to show you touched the other guy. If Kyuzo had pulled back like he did the second time it would have looked as if they had both missed each other. Pulling back and missing by inches is how you'd practice the kata with friends, but this was a match.

Still, a great movie and a great sequence so upvote from me too.

>> ^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).

That's Ki Society stuff.

Not East Coast Aikido, the farther west you go the more watered down it becomes. Ive been to several schools, and I continue to go to the one where they teach a more physical version of aikido. They get straight to the point.

That video, guy got owned, he deserved it!


In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
I direct your attention to http://www.videosift.com/video/Kiai-Master-Gets-Owned

Yes thats not Aikido

Ive trained for some time, and I can say that the two schools that I mentioned with (combat) is that there are schools that teach watered down pussyfooting versions of them.

So what it has to do with combat is the same thing as this video. There are schools that teach flim flam and schools that teach quality stuff.

I dislike this MMA fad that has sprung up in the united states, because it harbors rules and set situations.

Sure you can take some one to the ground and choke them out, but can you still deal with his friends that are coming to his aid?

MMA fighting is a fallacy just like the rest of these styles.

What is taught at the school I attend is how to dispatch an enemy as quickly and effortlessly as possible, and to be ready for his Allies.
But that is what Aikido was designed for, before the founder was older. When he became older he began to do hocus pocus.

Much like Krav Maga and their multiple attacker drills.