Fixing the training model

[Steve]

Aikido never framed itself (at least to my knowledge) as any kind of dueling art.
It makes use of limb and joint manipulation but it's main focus is harmonising with the opponents force. A method of dealing with conflict given form.

I'm not saying it's magic that is super effective given enough training, just that it has a million and one differences, not least of all that it's not intended for duelling.

Dueling seems like a very specific choice of words. Is that purposeful?

 

[Hanzou]

Aikido never framed itself (at least to my knowledge) as any kind of dueling art.
It makes use of limb and joint manipulation but it's main focus is harmonising with the opponents force. A method of dealing with conflict given form.

I'm not saying it's magic that is super effective given enough training, just that it has a million and one differences, not least of all that it's not intended for duelling.

BJJ isnt for "dueling" either. It's for self defense, just like Aikido is purported to be.

 

[hoshin1600]

BJJ isnt for "dueling" either. It's for self defense, just like Aikido is purported to be.

To be specific BJJ is about self defense, the founders said so. Aikido on the other hand .....Ueshiba made it quite clear in his talks and in his writings that Aikido is for human development and was fully against competition and conflict.
People now will argue, well yes BUT.....
If the founder never intended his art to be about self defense then people looking for self-defense are putting make up on a pig.
I would advise those people to train Daito ryu or make your own style.

 

[DaveB]

BJJ isnt for "dueling" either. It's for self defense, just like Aikido is purported to be.

Fair enough, I've only seen the rolling around on the floor side of BJJ. I was under the impression it was developed for fighting in Brazilian nhb competition.

That would make its effectiveness in competition a great stroke of luck.

That being said, it's still a very different animal to Aikido as Hoshin points out.

 

[DaveB]

Dueling seems like a very specific choice of words. Is that purposeful?

Yes, I use the term to describe pre-arranged/consensual one on one fighting, whether competition or challenge match, or "monkey dance".

 

[Steve]

Yes, I use the term to describe pre-arranged/consensual one on one fighting, whether competition or challenge match, or "monkey dance".

It’s not a fight anymore? This feels a lot like parsing words to make things that are the same seem different. Considering the topic of this discussion, do you think aikido is effective at teaching people how to fight in any context?

 

[Hanzou]

Fair enough, I've only seen the rolling around on the floor side of BJJ. I was under the impression it was developed for fighting in Brazilian nhb competition.

That would make its effectiveness in competition a great stroke of luck.

That being said, it's still a very different animal to Aikido as Hoshin points out.

Old school Bjj has quite a few standing techniques:

While Hoshin and others may argue that Ueshiba wasn't attempting to create a self defense system, his disciples have certainly marketed Aikido as a form of self-defense.

 

[DaveB]

It’s not a fight anymore? This feels a lot like parsing words to make things that are the same seem different. In the context of this discussion, do you think aikido is effective at teaching people how to fight in some other context?

How does the phrase "consensual one on one fighting" suggest it's not a fight anymore?

As for aikido, every encounter I had policing in London where I was attacked first I defended with Aikidoesq techniques, redirecting body charges mostly.

I also previously posted a video of a guy explaining how to modify aikido training so that you can use it in more contexts.

I do think that in simple self defense a well trained aikidoka can defend himself but I fully acknowledge that it's hard. I definitely think the aikidoka has a much better chance against the aggressive drunk or untrained robber than the cage fighter.

Aikido is imo more of a philosophy than a fighting style.

I think it's a great skill refinement exercise for advanced martial artists of other disciplines.

 

[Steve]

How does the phrase "consensual one on one fighting" suggest it's not a fight anymore?

As for aikido, every encounter I had policing in London where I was attacked first I defended with Aikidoesq techniques, redirecting body charges mostly.

I also previously posted a video of a guy explaining how to modify aikido training so that you can use it in more contexts.

I do think that in simple self defense a well trained aikidoka can defend himself but I fully acknowledge that it's hard. I definitely think the aikidoka has a much better chance against the aggressive drunk or untrained robber than the cage fighter.

Aikido is imo more of a philosophy than a fighting style.

I think it's a great skill refinement exercise for advanced martial artists of other disciplines.

I will post more when i can, but jist. Quick reaction it seems like your post abive has a lot to do with fixing the typical aikido training model by adding application. I'll read yiur post more carefully when I have more time.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I think it might aid the discussion if we take a more granular approach to breaking things down ...

"Self-defense" is such a broad category that no one can reasonably be expert in all potential scenarios. Depending on how you define the term, a few examples might be:
Calming down an irate drunk
Fending off a rapist while on a date
Escaping a gang of armed assailants
Knocking down a schoolyard bully
Anticipating and evading a sucker punch
Recovering from a sucker punch that you didn't anticipate
... and so on and so on.

Attackers may be singular or multiple, armed or unarmed, casual bullies or professional predators. There is no one size fits all solution.

Furthermore, as Steve points out, there are not many seasoned veterans with tons of experience in even the more common forms of civilian self-defense.

Coming at it from the other end, it's a bit reductive to say "martial art X is just about training for Y", where Y may be self-defense, competition, fitness, cultural tradition, discipline, whatever. Wrestling training may prepare you for wrestling tournaments, but it does a lot else besides.

What I would suggest is examining the individual testable skills and attributes developed in training a given system. If you are interested in whether your training will help you prepare for self-defense, then look at common self-defense situations and see whether those skills and attributes could be helpful. (Also consider how you have tested those skills.)

I'll list a couple of examples from my own background ...

I know that if I am on the ground with someone on top of me trying to hit me or choke me or hold me down, I have a reliably high level of skill in protecting myself and escaping the position. This is testable. I've tested it with hundreds of people, with all kinds of body types and training backgrounds. I've tested it in high intensity, unscripted exercises with partners who were doing their best not to let me win. I've done it when I'm tired. I've done it against bigger, stronger opponents. I've done it on varied surfaces, indoors and outdoors.

Could this help me in a self-defense context? I would hope to never end up in that position in a real world attack, because it's a bad place to be. Still, a survey of real world assaults shows that it's a position that happens pretty regularly, so if an assailant were to tackle me and jump on top of me, those skills would likely be pretty helpful. In a different situation, those abilities might never come up.

I also know that I am reasonably proficient in escaping leg locks. I have a fair amount of experience doing this against some skilled leg lockers.

Could this help me in a self-defense context? Probably not. I've never heard of a mugger jumping out of a dark alley and diving for a heel hook. There could be an indirect benefit in that learning to escape leg locks has made me better at applying them and there could be a conceivable scenario where I found it necessary to apply a leg lock. It's unlikely, though.

 

[Hanzou]

I know that if I am on the ground with someone on top of me trying to hit me or choke me or hold me down, I have a reliably high level of skill in protecting myself and escaping the position. This is testable. I've tested it with hundreds of people, with all kinds of body types and training backgrounds. I've tested it in high intensity, unscripted exercises with partners who were doing their best not to let me win. I've done it when I'm tired. I've done it against bigger, stronger opponents. I've done it on varied surfaces, indoors and outdoors.

Could this help me in a self-defense context? I would hope to never end up in that position in a real world attack, because it's a bad place to be. Still, a survey of real world assaults shows that it's a position that happens pretty regularly, so if an assailant were to tackle me and jump on top of me, those skills would likely be pretty helpful. In a different situation, those abilities might never come up.

As someone who has been in a self defense situation on the ground with an armed person on top of me, I can attest to this. Without my knowledge of ground fighting from Bjj, I'd probably be in a casket right now. I think one of the worst things an instructor can tell a student is that the best defense for ending up on the ground is to not end up on the ground. I'm a decent sized person, I'm reasonably athetlic, and I was trained and I ended up on the ground in the blink of an eye.

If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Probably. You would figure out very quickly how to apply things

Or, at least, which things don't have a quick path to application (and spending too much time on those slows overall competency development).

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I hear what you're saying, but would disagree. Resistance training is the means to the end. Competition is the end goal. If you don't have an end goal, the training becomes the end goal, which is exactly why some arts fail to produce reliable results. My hypothesis here is that, if you add an end goal to any training, it will make the training more effective, and the result will be faster, more reliable results.

You and I have talked about this before, Steve. I don't think this is a true dichotomy (competition as the end goal, or essentially nothing as the end goal). It's entirely possible for someone to train with resistance, never compete, and still have the goal of being able to perform the techniques against someone who doesn't want them to do that.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

This seems weird to me though. In every martial art, at least the vast majority, there are at least overtones of learning some sort of fighting skills. Even if you never want to use them, you still want the skills. Otherwise what are you even doing?

Imagine taking ballet, but you don't care if what you are learning can actually help you dance. You might never want to dance at all, but you should at least know how when you leave the studio. In other words, pretense without delivery is sorta pointless.

I think a better analogy might be taking dance classes based on ballet, and not knowing if what you're learning would really serve you in performing in a ballet. If you're not planning to perform in a ballet, you might not care, so long as you enjoy the movement and like what you're doing.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

What It Takes to be Number One
"Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all of the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that's first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don't ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.

Every time a football player goes to ply his trade he's got to play from the ground up - from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That's O.K. You've got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you've got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second.

Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization - an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win - to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don't think it is.

It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That's why they are there - to compete. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules - but to win.

And in truth, I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.

I don't say these things because I believe in the ‘brute' nature of men or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man's finest hour -- his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear -- is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious."

- Coach Vincent T. Lombardi

What It Takes to be Number One | Vince Lombardi

I've never been able to buy into that. I enjoy competing against people who are better than me. Sometimes I actually win. More often - under those circumstances - I lose and learn something. For most people, the only way to never lose is to never accept a challenge that really tests us.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Lombardi’s What It Takes to be Number 1 probably deserves its own thread, but I found its appropriate here, with all the talk of winning and all.

I think it’s 100% on the money. My take on it is what is winning? If all it is is your hand raised at the conclusion of the match, that’s a pretty shallow definition.

My idea of winning is giving it everything you’ve got. When everyone’s left and you’re alone looking in the mirror, you know you did at least everything you know you’re capable of. Even more, you surprised yourself and outdid what you thought you could do. That’s winning.

When I compete, the judges will score however they want. I can’t control that. The competition field might suck, might be world-class, or somewhere in between. I can’t control that. All I can do is get out there and do my thing to the best of my ability. I do that, and I won. Anything short of that, and I lost. I’d rather get completely outclassed and walk away knowing I left it all on the floor than beat a bunch of bums without breaking a sweat.

Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.

Okay, I can accept that interpretation. I like competing (though not always formally) - I enjoy the striving and putting my best forward. I even enjoy being beaten by someone better, so long as I was able to do my level best along the way. The only time I don't enjoy it is when I feel the limiting factor was actually me (an injury, or under-commitment), or because I'm simply not interested in what "winning" requires.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

A tie means that your life time tournament winning record has been broken. If you have a perfect tournament winning record, you will try very hard to protect it (even with your life).

If your best skill won't work on your opponent, -> your opponent's best skill may work on you. -> You may lose.

Sorry, but I personally dislike this view. It leads to not being willing to take a challenge that really tests skill. I'm far more interested in the mindset of someone who continues to win after a loss, than someone who gives up after a tie.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Training for sport is the path. Combat is the goal.

If your goal is to extend your head out like this when you fight, your training are deadly wrong. In other words, even if punching is not allowed, you still have to assume that fists are flying.

Not if you're training for that particular sport. Those guys put their heads forward, because it works well in that context. There's nothing wrong with their training, if that competition is the end goal.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

You have it exactly right. I don’t disagree at all. The point is not that every sport makes one a fighter. The point is that competition is application of technique which builds actual skill. So,, a guy who competes in point fighting will be able to do what they train under pressure, It might not be fighting, but it will be real skill. People who don’t compete, or otherwise using the skills in context, are not ever moving out of training, And so, we get people who are experts in martial arts styles who cannot fight. Further, we get entire styles where this is a problem. And it’srelevsnt that these same styles argue that this is because they are somehow harder or take longer by design.

I don't think it's the competition that builds the skill. It motivates and adds urgency, but almost no time is spent in competition, so the skill is built outside that setting. That's a key point, IMO.

Beyond that point, I agree wholeheartedly.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I am sure there are some out there but you don't see BJJ very much east of the Mississippi.

If you mean competitions, I can't speak to that. If you mean schools/gyms/programs, I can think of close to a dozen within 4 hours of my house - and that's just what I'm personally aware of.