Nice video, great job keeping it positive and friendly.Hey Guys, after the first video, I got loads of comments that I wanted to address. It involves certain things such the use of the term "Sensei" and has a brief look at Yoshinkan and Shodokan Aikido. Let me know what you think.
So I think it can be very effective in the right hands, but that's less about the art and more about the practitioner than is the case for a lot of other arts.
Getting tired of saying it but no, Ueshiba's students were not "all experienced martial artists". A lot of them were just kids (Shioda, Shirata, Kuroiwa, Tadashi Abe, Tohei, Tada, etc.). Ueshiba himself had relatively little formal training outside of Daito Ryu and he just taught his particular flavour of that art.It always seemed to me that the biggest issue with Aikido as a fighting style is that popular (and very contentious) quote stating that Aikido is 90% atemi (Ueshiba).
Whether "atemi" is the Aikido's use of some type of strike to create an opening, positioning or feints to draw the attacker into committing to a strike that offers more to work with, etc, the sad fact is that by and large, that element of the art is just not investigated sufficiently by a lot of practitioners.
As stated in the 2nd video, Ueshiba's students were all experienced martial artists in their own right before beginning Aikido training. They all knew how to handle themselves. So ignoring that element may have made sense to them, but not to the John Q Citizen who doesn't have that.
Yes, it's hard to learn effective kuzushi, especially when most of your art is reactive. You need big movements to work with, especially at the start. But entrenching the ritual of "slow", telegraphed strikes into the training limits the progress most students make, and gives your average student an unrealistic idea of their chances in a real situation.
So I think it can be very effective in the right hands, but that's less about the art and more about the practitioner than is the case for a lot of other arts.
Getting tired of saying it but no, Ueshiba's students were not "all experienced martial artists". A lot of them were just kids (Shioda, Shirata, Kuroiwa, Tadashi Abe, Tohei, Tada, etc.). Ueshiba himself had relatively little formal training outside of Daito Ryu and he just taught his particular flavour of that art.
Aikido doesn't work as a fighting system because the training method was crap to begin with. Ueshiba was more interested in ascending to godhood than actually being a good martial arts instructor. Some lineages have tried to correct this but IMO only the Tomiki line managed to significantly improve the training model. As for the mainline, it went down a path completely divorced from fighting application, and the decision to market aikido as "non-competitive" consolidated this.
The "aikido is 90% atemi" quote is hollow, as I have yet to see an aikido instructor teach anything substantial regarding the timing, positioning or power delivery of strikes.
Aikido circular motion is valuable to learn and adds to a punching art. Many of their joint locks are valuable and should be added to a striking and kicking art, if you do not have any joint locks.Really glad that you are stepping up responding to challenges put out by martial arts enthusiasts.
I don't view aikido as a tool for fighting at all. Never have.
Isoyama started aikido at 12, T. Abe at 16, Shioda at 17, Kuroiwa started in highschool as well IIRC. Even Ueshiba himself didn't have a lot of formal martial training prior to starting daito ryu (same for Yukiyoshi Sagawa who started at 12 and was Ueshiba's peer skill-wise). Yes times were different: they'd spar during and after training, and they'd fight in the streets as well.These "kids" as you put it were all still round 19-20 and had trained all through high-school in judo. Hardly your average punter walking in off the street.
As for the crap training method, that was my main point. They still tested each other in the early days because they (the students) lived in more challenging times with an attitude to match, but as they progressed and formed their own off-shoots, they forgot their roots and taught as they trained, except now with largely 1st timers.
Tomiki randori does put the combative element back in to an extent: at least the use are trying to attack without offering themselves up as sacrificial lambs. But some of the "multi-attacker" stuff demonstrated by dan ranks is just embarrassing: a group of attackers deliberately working individually with weak attacks, sometimes throwing themselves in response to a little tweak or tap.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
They don't teach effective striking (because to them, it's providing enough of an opening for a technique to occur), so their students don't learn to to throw or handle any sort of real heat. The irony is that ukemi is practised religiously for that very reason.
If Aikido was taught with a Systema mindset, it would be whole different animal.
I've trained in both, and I found that you were encouraged to keep an open mind and experiment during Systema. Both understand that you want to have your brain fades, freeze ups, absolute stinkers in the dojo instead of outside. But 1 recognises you have to get real to be real. An opponent who wants to hit you (hard!) and protect themself and adapt is real. Unknowns are real. Fear is real. Getting hit and having to overcome it in real time is real.What do you mean by "Systema mindset"?