Is there anybody incorporating Aikido in ...

[YOGAMAN]

Is there anybody incorporating Aikido in MMA ? and has it showed up in one way or form in the UFC ?

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

As far as I know, no ones used aikido-specific moves or training in the UFC, although cant speak for other MMA at all-not familiar with non-UFC MMA enough.

 

[K-man]

One of my mates who trains aikido with me and also trains MMA fighters has incorporated his aikido into his grappling with great success but it would be difficult for him to teach it to his fighters because of the time required to develop the aikido skills. We often discuss the possibility of using it in competition. :asian:

 

[Cyriacus]

Though they arent exactly trying to bash each others heads in*****, this is the only video i know of in which you can watch an Aikido person defend against striking from another system with no presetting***. Even though he gets smacked in the head quite a few times, when he can/eventually offbalance/s the other guy he does pretty well****. Ive critiqued this before, but the things worthy of praise make it worth digging up from time to time in threads like this. I dont see why it couldnt be useful for a competitive fighter - Itd just need to be tweaked a bit to deal with people being used to some form of rough fighting*, where they can subvert even the most basic of takedowns**.

*Rough, as in, if he gets hit full pelt in the head, hes more likely to react than someone whos been hit enough to move through it. You can even see him freeze a few times when hes hit in the head, if you watch for it. He recovers pretty quickly, albeit the need for recovery isnt exactly a good thing.
**Take a dedicated grappler and a dedicated striker. The grappler is not helpless against the striking, and the striker is not helpless against the grappling. They may not be as used to it as each other, but any idiot can screw up an otherwise fine takedown just be trying to. The hard part is, if the striker stops the takedown he has to circumvent a successive takedown. If the grappler stops the striking he has to prevent more striking. In this video, he spends more effort preventing himself from being hit than he does actually doing something himself. But if he were getting hit, he wouldnt be able to do the things he wound up doing.
***There are a few videos out there, but theyre mostly from people mixing Aikido with other stuff. To clarify, im referring to someone limiting themself to straight up Aikido.
****See 1:30-1:35 - Gets off the line (of rather weirdly thrown body punches), jams his arms up, takes him back the other way and levers him down. See the next point for why while that is good, the good qualities come with caveats.
*****They really werent very skilled attackers. Thats not necessarily a bad thing, but they werent really getting in there with enough aggression to actually get a good start off their attacks. Given that their followups were fine, im guessing theyve either learnt to use initial strikes as setups rather than actual attacks, or theyve been drilling some strange and wonderful combinations

 

[chinto]

as far as at least the UFC is concerned, my understanding is that small joint manipulation is outlawed. that said that would remove most if not all the Aikido techniques.

As far as in Karate, believe it or not the locks and throws used in akido are in there already, though with a footwork that looks more like Aiki jujitsu.. I have had a man who is a 3rd dan Aikidoka say after watching our kata and working with us .. " we do NOT do any thing you do not do, or is not in the katas I just watched."

All martial arts are good, and many contain more then people think. Just as Aikido has strikes, and Karate has locks and throws and brakes...
Some have doctrine that works more one way then say the art over here. This is for a number of reasons, and does not Negate or render better any particular style or art. Some are optimized for some things more then others. Let each practitioner decide what fits him or her best.

 

[punisher73]

I believe that Jason Delucia has tried to incorporate Aikido principles into an MMA type format. He even produced a video series on it. For the record, I have NOT seen any of the material to know whether it is good or bad, just remember coming across the video series.

http://www.budovideos.com/shop/customer/product.php?productid=17578

As an aside, there could be a strong argument that Aikido is not meant for a venue like MMA since it goes against it's philosophy. You would be more likely to find Tomiki Aikido type applications in a sporting event since they train for a competition type application.

 

[SuperFLY]

Is there anybody incorporating Aikido in MMA ? and has it showed up in one way or form in the UFC ?

Search for Rik Ellis current uk1 mma light heavweight champ.

he's the son of the chief instructor of my aikido school and encorporates a lot of aikido techniques into his fights.

not always easy to see as its very rare to see someone walk up and grab your wrist in an mma fight but the techniques are there