How appliable is aikido for self-defense?

[Flying Crane]

That would not be an agnostic stance. By your assumption there, nobody can ever change their minds. If we go by the way agnostic is commonly used, he has decided he doesn't know and has accepted that the answer may be unknowable. That doesn't mean he'll reject evidence of good Aikido, but that he'll be skeptical of it - which we should all be skeptical when reviewing any MA. That skeptical analysis is what lets us learn from other styles.

This is not worth debating.

 

[Flying Crane]

To Gpseymour: seriously? You want to debate the definition of agnostic in the context of this, and compare it's meaning in a religious sense with what is being discussed here?

My point was, if Steve has decided that good aikido is unknowable, well then he has made up his mind and likely is not open to acknowledging good aikido even if he sees it.

I really don't care if anyone thinks I've mis-defined agnostic.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

One interesting thing I've noticed is that some of the ways people counter takedowns can leave them open to an aiki technique. I'm not sure if it's a flaw in the approach of the individual or a truism of some takedown counters, but I remember some instances of someone preventing a takedown I was trying, but ending up with a big enough "void" for me to drop into aiki-mode. It has been rare, and I keep hoping a student will do that during class so I can explore what really happened, because I didn't stop to do so at the time.

What sort of takedown defenses are you seeing that with?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

What sort of takedown defenses are you seeing that with?

I'm not sure what they did to counter the takedowns - as I said, I didn't stop at the time to explore it, but I wish I had. As I recall, a couple of them were counters to variations of an arm drag, and the others were to single-leg takedowns and hip throws. In each of the cases I remember, as soon as they stymied the takedown and I started moving my weight out of it (to close the opening it had presented), I immediately felt that "void" that tells me there's an easy aiki opportunity. I shifted their weight into it and they dropped without effort. I can only remember this occurring a handful of times.

It might have been simply an overcommitment to the counter by shifting their weight against it (which would easily produce the effect), or it might be that whatever counter they used would put their weight in the right spot every time. I wish I knew, both as a possible opening and as something to avoid, myself.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

The key to getting someone to commit is to do some thing that makes them enraged. A boxer will box and not over commit until you have triggered his adrenaline, enraged him and gotten him to commit because of it. People when enraged, not thinking clearly, riding adrenaline will commit and you can take advantage of it. You just need to know how to get them there! Or they might already be there and you can take advantage of it. Remember, we are talking about self=defense and not sparring!

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Actually, I've played around a little with my friend who won the Golden Gloves boxing title back in Ohio in the late 80's...I boxed with him back then, and usually lost.. It's really, really hard to get him to commit. To be honest, I simply wouldn't fight someone like that with my bare hands. I'd use a weapon. There are times when any unarmed approach is simply untenable....but that's my opinion.

That's why I made the distinction between "committing" and "overcommitting". If someone can land a hard blow on an opponent who is trying to defend, then they have committed to the attack. If they compromise their balance or structure while attempting to do so, then they have overcommitted. A skilled fighter will be good at doing the first without doing the second.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

The key to getting someone to commit is to do some thing that makes them enraged. A boxer will box and not over commit until you have triggered his adrenaline, enraged him and gotten him to commit because of it. People when enraged, not thinking clearly, riding adrenaline will commit and you can take advantage of it. You just need to know how to get them there! Or they might already be there and you can take advantage of it. Remember, we are talking about self=defense and not sparring!

That's the key difference for me between sparring/competition and self-defense. There's much more likely to be anger, etc. already present in a defense situation. That, as you point out, leads to more over-commitment.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

There's an iconic picture of Ali far over-extended into a punch, probably at a moment when there was little risk of being countered, because he'd already put the opponent on his heels with a previous punch.

That's a good point. There are some professional fighters who seem to overcommit to punches more than you would expect of someone at that level. The key is that they have the experience to know when they can take that chance because their opponent isn't in a good position to take advantage.

Of course, sometimes they are incorrect in that assessment and get knocked out as a result.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I'm not sure what they did to counter the takedowns - as I said, I didn't stop at the time to explore it, but I wish I had. As I recall, a couple of them were counters to variations of an arm drag, and the others were to single-leg takedowns and hip throws. In each of the cases I remember, as soon as they stymied the takedown and I started moving my weight out of it (to close the opening it had presented), I immediately felt that "void" that tells me there's an easy aiki opportunity. I shifted their weight into it and they dropped without effort. I can only remember this occurring a handful of times.

It might have been simply an overcommitment to the counter by shifting their weight against it (which would easily produce the effect), or it might be that whatever counter they used would put their weight in the right spot every time. I wish I knew, both as a possible opening and as something to avoid, myself.

I can relate. On the rare occasions when I've had a perfect "aiki moment" that sent my sparring partner flying without effort, I've had only the roughest memory of what just happened. It seemed that I was so much in the "zone" of moving intuitively that my analytic brain was shut off.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I can relate. On the rare occasions when I've had a perfect "aiki moment" that sent my sparring partner flying without effort, I've had only the roughest memory of what just happened. It seemed that I was so much in the "zone" of moving intuitively that my analytic brain was shut off.

And that's more likely to happen when you're in what I call "the grey areas between techniques" - that space we end up in when two nearby techniques are not available, but some composite of the two is. That's usually the result of mostly un-conscious reactions, making memory not terribly useful in recreating it.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

The key to getting someone to commit is to do some thing that makes them enraged. A boxer will box and not over commit until you have triggered his adrenaline, enraged him and gotten him to commit because of it. People when enraged, not thinking clearly, riding adrenaline will commit and you can take advantage of it. You just need to know how to get them there! Or they might already be there and you can take advantage of it. Remember, we are talking about self=defense and not sparring!

That's the key difference for me between sparring/competition and self-defense. There's much more likely to be anger, etc. already present in a defense situation. That, as you point out, leads to more over-commitment.

This is why you occasionally find footage of a professional fighter doing poorly in a street encounter. It's typically a situation where the fighter is intoxicated and enraged rather than fighting smart the way he would in the ring or cage.

The fighters who would do a better job of staying calm and using their professional skills probably aren't the ones who would be getting drunk and getting into street fights in the first place.

 

[frank raud]

Where do you recommend?

I'm NOT Flying Crane, but according to Moonboy, I might be Most of my experience with Aikido is via seminars with Yoseikan or Chudokan Aikido. Patrick Auge used to teach in a dojo in walking distance of my house. My favourite Aikido instructor is Kevin Blok.

 

[frank raud]

But like YOU SAID in other post Aikido can not be made into sports like tournament, olympics, ‪Grapplers Quest‬, North American Grappling Association, MMA so on like Judo, BJJ, Gracie Barra, wrestling or 10th planet jiu jitsu so on.

Because people have broken wrist if they resist..

Shodokan Aikido (昭道館合気道, Shōdōkan Aikidō?) is the style of Aikido founded in 1967 by Kenji Tomiki (富木 謙治 Tomiki Kenji, 1900–1979).[1] Shodokan Aikido is sometimes referred to as "Sport Aikido" because of its use of regular competitions, from Shodokan Aikido - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tony has already mentioned you are working on some bad assumptions. Another is that Aikido cannot be made into a sport, when it has been done for nearly 50 years.
MOST styles of Aikido choose not to have competitions, does not mean it can't be done.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Shodokan Aikido (昭道館合気道, Shōdōkan Aikidō?) is the style of Aikido founded in 1967 by Kenji Tomiki (富木 謙治 Tomiki Kenji, 1900–1979).[1] Shodokan Aikido is sometimes referred to as "Sport Aikido" because of its use of regular competitions, from Shodokan Aikido - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tony has already mentioned you are working on some bad assumptions. Another is that Aikido cannot be made into a sport, when it has been done for nearly 50 years.
MOST styles of Aikido choose not to have competitions, does not mean it can't be done.

I might point out that I never said Aikido couldn't be made into a sport (contrary to Moonhill's assertion). My points were about how parts of the art (and parts of NGA) don't move well into sport, and that creates a disadvantage, since someone training in those arts wouldn't be training for sport. Tomiki's version of Aikido looks different (IMO, less "aiki" in it) because it's designed to work against someone who knows the art (much as with Judo, BJJ, etc. where in-style competition is very common).

What I did say was that the training from NGA and Ueshiba's Aikido didn't translate well to sport, and that some of the techniques are simply not usable (at least not the way we train them) in sport.

 

[Hanzou]

That's a pretty good comparison, Hanzou. In fact, one of the principles I teach is "small to large" - meaning we use a small part of the body to get a larger part to move. One execution of that would be a wrist lock being used to move a shoulder, to get the spine off-center for a throw.

I think the BJJ and Judo versions are just as effective where they overlap. The main difference is that they seem to have been designed to be safe for submission - there's a good base to hold the pain/lock to give the opponent time to resist a bit then give up and tap out. I don't see any that wouldn't be usable within NGA (some in fact are pretty much the same for us), though many wouldn't fit into the larger circles I see used in Aikido. The main difference is that we (in NGA, and to some extent in Aikido) tend not to look for a submission base with them. We depend upon the pain to work (similar thought process to some submissions) or we move directly to destruction. Where the pain doesn't work, the attacker resists himself directly into the destruction.

I'm curious Gpseymour, is the issue that Aikido was originally taught as a capstone for Judo training, but many modern Aikido practitioners don't learn Judo first? Has that caused a degradation of the art?

I'd be very curious to see what the difference would be between an Aikido black belt with a Judo background, and an Aikido black belt without a Judo background.

 

[drop bear]

That's the key difference for me between sparring/competition and self-defense. There's much more likely to be anger, etc. already present in a defense situation. That, as you point out, leads to more over-commitment.

If you are fighting for the realz regardless of it being competition or self defence. then there is more over-commitment. You are also more likley to be more conservative and so not be as able to take advantage of that over-commitment.

So you are more likley to want to knock a guys head off with a big punch. But are less likley to want to risk eating that punch to counter with something clever.

 

[drop bear]

I'm curious Gpseymour, is the issue that Aikido was originally taught as a capstone for Judo training, but many modern Aikido practitioners don't learn Judo first? Has that caused a degradation of the art?

I'd be very curious to see what the difference would be between an Aikido black belt with a Judo background, and an Aikido black belt without a Judo background.

Parallel to krav that by the way. Imi. had all sorts of a solid background in stuff.
Imi Lichtenfeld - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually also parallel to how the military is training a bit at the moment as well.

 

[drop bear]

This is why you occasionally find footage of a professional fighter doing poorly in a street encounter. It's typically a situation where the fighter is intoxicated and enraged rather than fighting smart the way he would in the ring or cage.

The fighters who would do a better job of staying calm and using their professional skills probably aren't the ones who would be getting drunk and getting into street fights in the first place.

As a side note. This is why I think that those who train as if they are going to get killed in a street fight work against themselves a bit. And while it sounds good in the dojo when you are training to crush throats. It messes with your flow when you actually have to use it.

Imagine if you were prepping a guy for comp and focus on how he could get his arm broken.

Being able to mentally cope with being bashed in a street fight. Is a trick I had to learn from street fighters.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I'm curious Gpseymour, is the issue that Aikido was originally taught as a capstone for Judo training, but many modern Aikido practitioners don't learn Judo first? Has that caused a degradation of the art?

I'd be very curious to see what the difference would be between an Aikido black belt with a Judo background, and an Aikido black belt without a Judo background.

My view - drawn much from Stan Pranin's work - is that the bigger issue for Aikido is that most of the early students were already seasoned martial artists, including having a strong striking base. Given that, Ueshiba apparently didn't teach a lot of striking, though he emphasized its use. The next generation of instructors often taught as they were taught, but many of their students lacked that existing base. (It would be like me training you in NGA, given your depth of knowledge in MA, then you using precisely the same training system to teach someone with no knowledge. They'd come out lacking things I didn't have to teach you, because you already had them.) That lead to the next generation not having an understanding of how strikes fit into it, which softened the art dramatically over the third and fourth generation of instructors.

If, in fact, many of the original students had Judo (or similar) background, that explains why Ueshiba seems to have taught with such a focus on pure-aiki. Many students may have already understood the side of the technique I call "the Judo approach" (how fitting for our discussion, here!), so he was teaching advanced practitioners how to find the aiki.

If you look at Yoshinkan, you see the same techniques taught with a very different approach (from what I've heard from others, similar to NGA, which looks unlike Ueshiba's Aikido).

 

[drop bear]

I'm not sure what they did to counter the takedowns - as I said, I didn't stop at the time to explore it, but I wish I had. As I recall, a couple of them were counters to variations of an arm drag, and the others were to single-leg takedowns and hip throws. In each of the cases I remember, as soon as they stymied the takedown and I started moving my weight out of it (to close the opening it had presented), I immediately felt that "void" that tells me there's an easy aiki opportunity. I shifted their weight into it and they dropped without effort. I can only remember this occurring a handful of times.

It might have been simply an overcommitment to the counter by shifting their weight against it (which would easily produce the effect), or it might be that whatever counter they used would put their weight in the right spot every time. I wish I knew, both as a possible opening and as something to avoid, myself.

No that is an actual thing. The point of doing a takedown is to force a counter. And the counter sets up the takedown. And why throws are done in combination.

So you will see throw counter repeat a lot.