Buddha1 said:
Hey there,
I recently started Aikido and train twice a week.
I have also dabbled in Ninjutsu and Karate and in the dojos I have been in, people have had alot of respect for Aikido.
But on the internet people are different - they 'bash' aikido and go on about how other martial arts are so much better.
Could anyone outline for me some reasons why people do this?
Buddha1, you've made some good observations there! Yes if you've encountered that general respect for Aikido I think it arises simply because [most] Aikidoka have a mutual respect for their fellow artists from other disciplines and of course the techniques themselves have a certain
uniqueness or
je ne sais quoi I suppose that's not found in many others.
Generally [though my style is an exception] there is no competition in Aikido which was one of the central tenets put arising fundamentally out of Ueshiba's philosophy which was poured into what became Aikido - and it was this not seeing eye-to-eye between O'Sensei and Kenji Tomiki which gave rise to Shodokan - but I think this non-competitiveness gives Aikido a slightly different perspective on itself and on other arts but certainly not in a snobbish way, rather in a manner that allows Aikidoka to step back a little and get the wider view. Of course some Aikidoka seem to step back so far that all they can see is a comparison of techniques between one art and the other and fall into the endless trap of rebutting every positive argument put forward on their own art. I mean, this happens with all arts [I'm thinking Ninjutsu] but I'd think it happens to a great extent within Aikido. It's a very petty and self-destructive thing and my advice if you hear it is to ignore it. You know what you can do and you know how good your art is so you do what you can to step back from it and worry less about what anyone else might think. Easy in theory. Difficult in practice!! But something to aspire to definitely. And of course without this inherent bickering and argumentativeness many of the forums would be fairly empty places.
Also there are many folk who will argue that Aikido is no good for "the street" or this or that because there are no flamboyant strikes, obvious grappling or "kill" mentalities, well I'd say that if you keep up your training you'll realise soon enough that you can do damage if you need to. But again that's another bone of contention for some folk when it comes to deriding Aikido and it's the central Aiki principle of the generation and utilization of harmonious energy both on and off the mats. There are plenty who either just don't get it, who can't be assed thinking about it or who simply just wanna use their art to kick the cr*p out of random folk they meet, and in this case Aikido certainly isn't the appropriate forum for expression of those mentalities.
Oh and I just noticed your Kyu Shindo question - this was an art designed by Kenshiro Abbe who like most of the greats is no longer with us. He was a student of O'Sensei and brought a lot of the Aikido philosophy and technique with him to Kyu Shindo. If you get a chance to see it or train in it you'll see how similar to Aikido it is - many branches to the same tree I suppose!!
Hope this is of some help to you. I just wanna wish you good luck and continued success with your training. And don't worry if things maybe seem a little slow for you at this stage or techniques don't quite *feel* right or you're not sure which ukemi you're *supposed* to use because all this'll click - and often just when it feels as if you're making no gains something will just instantly "connect" and off you go. Keep it up, you're doing well.
Respects!
Perhaps in the future.
