Aikido in an Mma gym

Buka

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Use to work security in a hospital with Mental Health and Detox wards....been there done that...don't want to do it again.....tussled with a WWE guy one who was high on God knows what... not an experience I wish to repeat.... and don't get me started on the ones brought in to the ER, In cuffs, on a mental health warrant, that the police take the cuffs off, say he's all yours...and leave....

I feel your pain and know the feeling.....

A couple of my friends worked at Boston Hospitals with those very things, they worked the overnight shift. We would stop and see them when we were in town carousing. Man, those places were nuts. It was quite entertaining......because, you know, we were just watching and not actually working there.
 

Xue Sheng

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A couple of my friends worked at Boston Hospitals with those very things, they worked the overnight shift. We would stop and see them when we were in town carousing. Man, those places were nuts. It was quite entertaining......because, you know, we were just watching and not actually working there.

We ever meet up will have to swap stories :)
 

JowGaWolf

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Training is key.
It's what we have been saying for a while now. You have to spar and you have to spar against people outside of your system.
I'm not surprised that he figured out how to actually use Aikido only after he started sparring against people outside of the system. Can't learn how to use it if you are always doing style A vs style A. That's a very shallow approach with a low return.
 

Gerry Seymour

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There is nobody who can make that technique work outside a demo.

There is no evidence of that move working live. And especially in MMA where people can generally fight.

Aikido guy literally tried everything he could to make it work. And couldn't.

Mabye in ten years with a good grappling striking base he will understand the techniques to make Aikido work. But until then he is stuck learning fundamentals that actually work.
He said it happened during sparring a few times. At that MMA gym.

I've pulled it off a few times in sparring, too. It happens when my block drives the arm down a bit, dropping weight into that side of their body, which can (doesn't always) slow the retraction. If the drop is hard (the straight-down drop he showed) it leads to arm bars and stuff moving to the ground. If the drop isn't hard, it just gives me a quarter-beat to find a grip (sometimes), and the retraction opens up that technique.
 

Gerry Seymour

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we do a move just like that in karate, and it's one of them hmmmm moves, you'd need lightning fast reflexs, a substantial grip to catch hold of a sweaty wrist and you've still got to worry about getting clocked with the other hand.

I general say" do that on me" and if they can't, file it away as " interesting, " for the time im attacked by a manakin, a particularly slow moving manakin that over commits.
Actually, if you drop their weight forward with the block, it doesn't require lightning-fast reflexes. It's a small addition to the block, when you can actually get a block in, that sometimes (never always) makes an opening to get a grip.

Movement can also buy that time. If I manage to slip the punch and am moving toward him while he's retracting the punch, my movement speed subtracts from the speed of his arm, buying a little time. I'm not as good at that. I've seen boxers who slipped punches so well, I thought, "I could teach him that technique, and he could pull it off better than me."
 

Gerry Seymour

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there are some super humans out there, but if YOU are not one of them, you are not catching my wrist, and if you do, IL break the hold quicker than you can use the leverage against me, by using leverage
A good grappler should be able to leverage the motion you're talking about using. If he gets the grip in the first place, it should give him an advantage - either because he has the grip, or because he gets to make use of what you feed him in breaking the grip.
 

Gerry Seymour

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Hah, that's the same guy that triggered the entire aikido world with 'leaving aikido/why aikido sucks' YouTube series.

Good for him doing some real training. It's funny how that low % stuff starts to work when you have an actual fighting base. I'm not sure if he could pull that off at full speed, but the odds are way higher than they were before.
It's unlikely to be useful against a compact, powerful punch. But against a light OR over-powered punch, there's sometimes an opening.
 

Gerry Seymour

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No I really don't think you can train Aikido like a mma fighter and get the same result. The techniques are just too unwieldy.

There seems to be this idea that if people don't train very hard is somehow a reason a system is valid.

It is not logical. Because you can be not training hard and be doing an impractical system at the same time. They don't negate each other.
I'm not sure I followed anything after the first paragraph, DB. You seemed to be saying opposite things - maybe I'm just too tired to follow.
 

Gerry Seymour

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Whether we are talking an MMA fighter, or even an average Joe with a bit of striking experience, most people are going to retract that punch quickly, not leave it hanging out there to grab. So this might be viable technique to deflect / get out of the way of said punch, but depending on that wrist grab to work and not having a plan B would seem very foolish, to me. It seems like you could easily test it in some sparring though, so you could get a better idea of how realistic it is. I have more respect for this than some TMA stuff out there that seems almost impossible to demonstrate with a non-compliant partner (very specific reaction from partner needed for technique to make sense, overly long sequence of movements, etc)
This is where folks (even many in Aikido) miss a key point. You're not supposed to depend upon that wrist grip. This is what you do when you get it, not what you plan for. That's really the overall approach of most aiki arts - learn movements that can work, then learn to recognize the situation they work from. Then you don't manufacture the situation - you stay in the fight until one of those situations occurs. If you're good, there are a LOT of those situations, so unless the other person outclasses you, one will occur. (This whole thing, in my opinion, REQUIRES that you be good at handling a striking or grappling fight for a while from a defensive standpoint to truly leverage the principle.)
 

Gerry Seymour

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Wel, Rokas has posted a follow-up video. Apparently the first video was a trick to test people’s critical thinking and see whether they would believe in the Aikido technique when it was vouched for by an MMA coach.
(The first part of this video is the same. Jump to around 2:55 for the real story.)
I like that he's thinking about things critically now. But they are still talking about making it happen - going for the technique. The only way that kind of technique works is when the block (and yeah, it has to be when you can actually block) can add some down force, which weakens the ability to pivot. If there's no "connection" - to make the grip a real possibility - then the technique is never available. Trying the technique when it isn't available isn't a very good test.

The best critique of this technique is how rarely it is available against a striker who has control, not that it fails when you try to force it.
 

Gerry Seymour

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Well actually that's kinda reassuring. ...'cause I 've never been fast enough to catch a real punch. Nice to know that others can't either.
The issue (and this is an issue with how those are taught) is that you shouldn't be trying to catch a compact punch. Ever. There are situations where (with the right block) that kind of technique can become available. A good striker isn't often going to provide one. The times I've manage that in sparring, it was either because I set up a situation that led to over-reaching with a strike (I'm good at playing distance), or because the other person wasn't a very skilled striker (easier to track and trap hands).
 

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There's some grey area between "can't fight" and "highly trained".
Well, yes and no. There are some "highly trained" people that couldn't beat a ten year old, and some completely 'untrained' people that will eat your face in under a minute. That doesn't really address the question though. If a systems stated purpose is to give you fighting skill(a huge if mind you), and YOU don't believe..you..the one spending your time and money to train..you don't believe it will work on anyone if they are good at fighting, or even sober...

I dunno. It seems like an odd choice to me, if you at the same time acknowledge there is training that requires similar investments that will impart tools to deal with the drunks AND maybe stand a chance against the sober guy that knows how to box..

At this point wouldn't sticking with the former be placing an intentional handicap upon yourself?(again, assuming training is for function)
 

Gerry Seymour

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Well, yes and no. There are some "highly trained" people that couldn't beat a ten year old, and some completely 'untrained' people that will eat your face in under a minute. That doesn't really address the question though. If a systems stated purpose is to give you fighting skill(a huge if mind you), and YOU don't believe..you..the one spending your time and money to train..you don't believe it will work on anyone if they are good at fighting, or even sober...

I dunno. It seems like an odd choice to me, if you at the same time acknowledge there is training that requires similar investments that will impart tools to deal with the drunks AND maybe stand a chance against the sober guy that knows how to box..

At this point wouldn't sticking with the former be placing an intentional handicap upon yourself?(again, assuming training is for function)
I tend to agree. The system should be able to handle both. With Aikido, it's long been my opinion that it was never designed to do so, because most early students could already handle skilled fighters. Aikido training simply added efficiency and new options.

Individual techniques, however, I don't think have to always meet that same standard. I'm okay with some techniques being most likely to work against someone unskilled at striking. Just as some of my grappling techniques are more likely to work against a boxer than a Judoka.
 

drop bear

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I'm not sure I followed anything after the first paragraph, DB. You seemed to be saying opposite things - maybe I'm just too tired to follow.

Yeah it is a weird concept.

if the guy is a dud then the system must work.
 

drop bear

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I like that he's thinking about things critically now. But they are still talking about making it happen - going for the technique. The only way that kind of technique works is when the block (and yeah, it has to be when you can actually block) can add some down force, which weakens the ability to pivot. If there's no "connection" - to make the grip a real possibility - then the technique is never available. Trying the technique when it isn't available isn't a very good test.

The best critique of this technique is how rarely it is available against a striker who has control, not that it fails when you try to force it.

Or it working anywhere ever.
 

drop bear

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He said it happened during sparring a few times. At that MMA gym.

I've pulled it off a few times in sparring, too. It happens when my block drives the arm down a bit, dropping weight into that side of their body, which can (doesn't always) slow the retraction. If the drop is hard (the straight-down drop he showed) it leads to arm bars and stuff moving to the ground. If the drop isn't hard, it just gives me a quarter-beat to find a grip (sometimes), and the retraction opens up that technique.

Then show it done live.
 

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