I ran into a thread on Reddit with Roy Dean (BB in BJJ, Judo, Aikido) answering questions: Hello! My name is Roy Dean. I have black belts in Judo, Aikido and BJJ. Ask Me Anything. : aikido. A fair number of the questions were about Aikido, and his responses mirror some of my own thoughts. A few key points he made:
- He references Tomiki's comment that Aikido is "separated Judo" (essentially, Judo from a distance). I hadn't thought of it that way.
- He emphasizes that learning to strike well really increases the utility of Aikido.
- He has a few Aikido moves he's put into use on the ground in his BJJ (one of them shows up in this video:
- He repeatedly suggests to folks in the thread that learning Judo early will make Aikido more useful. This and the comment about striking seem to reflect my own opinion that Aikido (as it is commonly taught) is best used as a "finishing school" once you have a foundation.