Aikido.. The reality?

[JowGaWolf]

It is prettying interesting that apparently nobody could make the system work though.

Too many zen based teachers passing on the system. Zen users have no need for function, so they are most likely to not care about function or how to do things correctly.

I mean we can always support explanations with more explanations. There is an infinite amount of bullcrap an only so many facts.

I wouldn't bother with explanations at this point. It's easier to first start by identifying the basics and use your experience to see what's totally incorrect. By understanding what is happening, you can try to understand if it's a Valid technique taught incorrectly or if' it's a valid technique. If you do it this way then you won't need to explain anything.

With all of the research that I don't try to support Aikido or throw it away. It's just me presenting my findings and seeing if other systems have something similar. If there is similarities then I want to know how the other systems use it and if there are any functional relationships

 

[JowGaWolf]

By the way. If the last couple of posts seem strange with really bad grammar and sentence structure. It's because my muscle relaxer. lol

 

[Steve]

A style ultimately is a figment of the imagination. Where it stops and starts is purely a decision by someone.

Stylistic consistency is a theology.

Kind of where I was headed. If you take techniques from aikido but don't train aikido in an aikido manner, is it still aikido? Some would say no.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

A style is just someone creating a list of movements and saying. These, and only these.
It's ultimately a self imposed handicap.

Agree with you 100% there.

When someone says that you should not

- bend your head forward.
- sweat when training.
- move knee pass your toes.
- use strategy/tactics.
- ...

I know that person and I don't live on the same planet.

Confucius said, "If you believe in book, it's better that there is no book at all." It's very bad that the more MA styles that you have trained, the less freedom that you will have left.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

A style is just someone creating a list of movements and saying. These, and only these.
It's ultimately a self imposed handicap.

Some people may believe that the older, the better. This is not true in the real world.

MS Window is better than DOS.

Some MA style founder in the ancient time might never have been taken down by wrestler's single leg. If you train that MA system all your life, you still don't know how to counter a single leg.

 

[Steve]

Some people may believe that the older, the better. This is not true in the real world.

MS Window is better than DOS.

Some MA style founder in the ancient time might never have been taken down by wrestler's single leg. If you train that MA system all your life, you still don't know how to counter a single leg.

which version of windows are we talking about? As good as windows is, I still use a command line to ssh into my raspberry pi.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I'm talking about 100% efficiency, With your back foot pointing in 90 degree angle, you may only get 75% efficiency.

So runners, wrestlers, boxers all have their back foot pointing forward. They must have their reason for it. Their reason is they want to spring forward with maximum speed and maximum power.

Every stance has a compromise in some way. Moving forward from hanmi, I'm probably 10% less effective than moving forward from a straight-on stance. Only 10% because the foot pivots as you move - not before, but during the entire part of the movement where the foot is in contact with the floor. If you look at it from the hips, the pelvis is basically in the same position as if both feet were at 45-degree angles. There are variations of that stance (IMO the exact hanmi - an L hanmi - is a beginning point) that allow for more options. The boxer's stance in that lower picture is nearly a J-hanmi.

 

[Martial D]

Well linux isn't any kinda windows isnt raspberry pie a mobile os?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Do Aikido guys use firemen's carry technique?

I've never seen it at an Aikido dojo, but we have a pair of throws I uinderstand have come from Daito-ryu that approximate this, so I expect they exist somewhere in Aikido, as well.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Exactly that. A style is just someone creating a list of movements and saying. These, and only these.
It's ultimately a self imposed handicap.

I have a different view of what "style" means, but I know a lot of instructors who use pretty much exactly the definition you gave.

 

[Martial D]

Windows is a proprietary os. You use what they give you, and you can't alter anything

Windows is a tma.

Linux is open source, fully customizable and you can alter and recompile any code.

Linux is mma

 

[Martial D]

I have a different view of what "style" means, but I know a lot of instructors who use pretty much exactly the definition you gave.

Well I'd also use it to describe someones individual flavor on doing techniques. But I was using the more generalized definition.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

which version of windows are we talking about? As good as windows is, I still use a command line to ssh into my raspberry pi.

I still use command line such as

dir *WC*.mp4 /s /p

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Every stance has a compromise in some way.

This is why the horse stance has been evolved through all these years.

horse stance (both feet point 90 degree side way) -> 4-6 stance (back foot points 90 degree side way, front foot points forward) -> 3-7 stance (back foot points 45 degree side way, front foot points forward)

The weight distribution also has been changed from

50/50 -> 40/60 -> 30/70

 

[Argus]

I agree. If you set up someone and bait them right into your counter... you are not reacting, you are really initiating the action.

So.... taking that into consideration when we define who is the initiator, the pro-active fighter will be successful even more of the time. Yet so many TMA (especially those that don't have some form of legit pressure testing) espouse a reactive strategy.

Do they, or is that just the way they've been interpreted? What could be understood as a reactive counter could easily become a proactive setup, and it's simply taught in the beginning as a reaction. Any reactive action can become a setup / proactive counter, I would think.

I'm just thinking back to one of my FMA teachers, and what he related to me both of his own experience, and his teachers. He'd sometimes say things like "X person would sometimes do this to get a reaction, and then counter this way."

But there's also the "skill of recognizing and taking openings as they occur". Again, that same teacher made me hugely aware of this. His ability to find even the slightest opening and be there before I could react was uncanny, and made a huge impression on me. You often see people failing to take openings that are offered to them, simply because they don't recognize them, and choosing to fight instead a much more difficult battle.

Basically, I am saying that the error is mostly in our understanding and practice of arts. Most material is valid given the right circumstance. But when all you have is a hammer and everything looks like a nail, you're going to come across a screw one day and complain how hammers suck. And you likely even had a screwdriver in your pocket that someone convinced you was only for prying open paint cans, because the original handy-man kata took for granted that you knew to use one to unscrew screws, and so opted instead to show you the more novel paint can application. My examples are getting ridiculous, but hopefully the point is conveyed!

The best martial artists don't just try to apply techniques. The ability to flow and immediately find openings, to always be offensive in defense, and to be proactive are, across the board, what make any martial art work. Being proactive need not necessarily mean setting up and baiting -- that's one way, but not the only way. It can also simply be being offensive and giving the opponent something to deal with/react to, such that you are controlling the fight.

Aikido, for being such a soft art and focusing on borrowing/blending with the opponent, lacks sensitivity training that teaches you how to actually do that against an opponent who is active and resisting. From my point of view, the art itself is valid and valuable, it just doesn't teach one how to adapt when things don't go according to plan, and/or the opponent resists in a way that training partners don't normally do. There are many kind of energies that one has to learn to blend with: committed, uncommitted, soft, tense, etc., and Aikido as typically practice only deals with "soft and committed" energy.

Granted, I do not think Aikido is meant in any way to deal with uncommitted attacks, as these are more of a sportive environment thing. But tense or resisting force is something very important to work into training, especially for any art which intends to blend with the opponent's energy: you must have sensitivity training and the ability to adapt on the fly to do that.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Every stance has a compromise in some way. Moving forward from hanmi, I'm probably 10% less effective than moving forward from a straight-on stance. Only 10% because the foot pivots as you move - not before, but during the entire part of the movement where the foot is in contact with the floor. If you look at it from the hips, the pelvis is basically in the same position as if both feet were at 45-degree angles. There are variations of that stance (IMO the exact hanmi - an L hanmi - is a beginning point) that allow for more options. The boxer's stance in that lower picture is nearly a J-hanmi.

There is always variety in stances. In training the stance tend to be the "Perfect Stance" in application the stance resembles the perfect structure. When then identify variations of the "Perfect Stance" The "Perfect Stance" will rarely be used in application due to the other forces found in fighting. The "Perfect Stance" can only exist outside of application..

If we were asked to find evidence of a horse stance used in fighting, we would never find this. Instead we would all post variation of the "Perfect Horse Stance"

I think of stance like this as a "Parent Stance" The stance that we do in fighting are "Children Stances." When fighting, we will see things that look like the "Parent Stance" but we will never see the Parent. We will only see the Children.

The perfect hanmi stance will never be seen in fighting or application training through sparring.

 

[JowGaWolf]

You often see people failing to take openings that are offered to them, simply because they don't recognize them, and choosing to fight instead a much more difficult battle.

One of the instructors I trained with was like this. He's fighting goal was to always make me react in a way that creates an open. Because he was so focused on that he would often miss the opening that were given freely.

I always teach students to take the openings that your opponent gives you, because he gives it freely. Then use baits and other stuff as secondary options. When your opponent has a strong defense then make him abandon it. For example, if I can counter and take advantage of openings in the attack. If I do that long enough he will abandon the other defense.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Aikido, for being such a soft art and focusing on borrowing/blending with the opponent,

You will always see an instructor who tries to borrow/blend force with his student. You will never see a student who tries to borrow/blend force with his teacher. You will assume that after these many years, the students should have learned it from their teacher.

The same issue also happen in the Taiji community. A teacher can make his students to bounce up and down. A student will never make his Taiji teacher to bounce up and down. Why?

 

[Argus]

You will always see an instructor who tries to borrow/blend force with his student. You will never see a student who tries to borrow/blend force with his teacher. You will assume that after these many years, the students should have learned it from their teacher.

The same issue also happen in the Taiji community. A teacher can make his students to bounce up and down. A student will never make his Taiji teacher to bounce up and down. Why?

I think it is the teachers fault, because teachers intentionally don't give their students energy to use. This is a great disservice to the student.

I believe that especially at first, teachers should intentionally give students a variety of committed, uncommitted, resisting, and unresisting force so that the student can learn to adapt to each of them.

Of course, like in Taichi, there are some frauds. But the concept of borrowing and blending with an opponent's energy is not so foreign or novel a concept: it exists in all martial arts and undeniably has practical application. You just need to know: 1) the energy of a real, resisting opponent. And, 2) What to do when the opponent doesn't give you energy to play with.

 

[BrendanF]

Do Aikido guys use firemen's carry technique?

I don't think most Aikido lines do, but the parent art, Daito ryu certainly does. This is a picture of Morihei Ueshiba's teacher, Takeda Sokaku: