Aikido and Self-defense

[Aikidoka]

by Eric Sotnak <sotnak@bigfoot.com>

 

from http://www.aikiweb.com

 

"Many practitioners of aikido (from beginners to advanced students) have concerns about the practical self-defense value of aikido as a martial art. The attacks as practiced in the dojo are frequently unrealistic and may delivered without much speed or power. The concerns here are legitimate, but may, perhaps, be redressed.

 

In the first place, it is important to realize that aikido techniques are usually practiced against stylized and idealized attacks. This makes it easier for students to learn the general patterns of aikido movement. As students become more advanced, the speed and power of attacks should be increased, and students should learn to adapt the basic strategies of aikido movement to a broader variety of attacks.

 

Many aikido techniques cannot be performed effectively without the concomitant application of atemi (a strike delivered to the attacker for the purpose of facilitating the subsequent application of the technique). For safety's sake, atemi is often omitted during practice. It is important, however, to study atemi carefully and perhaps to devote some time to practicing application of atemi so that one will be able to apply it effectively when necessary.

 

Aikido is sometimes held up for comparison to other martial arts, and aikido students are frequently curious about how well a person trained in aikido would stand up against someone of comparable size and strength who has trained in another martial art such as karate, judo, ju jutsu, or boxing. It is natural to hope that the martial art one has chosen to train in has effective combat applications. However, it is also important to realize that the founder of aikido deliberately chose to develop his martial art into something other than the most deadly fighting art on the planet, and it may very well be true that other martial arts are more combat effective than aikido. This is not to say that aikido techniques cannot be combat effective - there are numerous practitioners of aikido who have applied aikido techniques successfully to defend themselves in a variety of life-threatening situations. No martial art can guarantee victory in every possible circumstance. All martial arts, including aikido, consist in sets of strategies for managing conflict. The best anyone can hope for from their martial arts training is that the odds of managing the conflict successfully are improved. There are many different types of conflict, and many different parameters that may define a conflict. Some martial arts may be better suited to some types of conflict than others. Aikido may be ill-suited to conflicts involving deliberate provocation of an adversary to fight. While there are some who view this as a shortcoming or a liability, there are others who see this as demonstrating the foolhardiness of provoking fights.

 

Since conflicts are not restricted to situations that result in physical combat, it may be that a martial art which encodes strategies for managing other types of conflict will serve its practitioners better in their daily lives than a more combat-oriented art. Many teachers of aikido treat it as just such a martial art. One is more commonly confronted with conflicts involving coworkers, significant others, or family members than with assailants bent on all-out physical violence. Also, even where physical violence is a genuine danger, many people seek strategies for dealing with such situations which do not require doing injury. For example, someone working with mentally disturbed individuals may find it less than ideal to respond to aggression by knocking the individual to the ground and pummeling him or her into submission. Many people find that aikido is an effective martial art for dealing with situations similar to this.

 

In the final analysis, each person must decide individually whether or not aikido is suited to his or her needs, interests, and goals."

 

 

 

[ This Message was edited by: Aikidoka on 2002-01-11 11:39 ]

[Joecooke007]

Interesting. Somebody did his homework.

 

 

[SaiFightsMS]

Interesting. I don't know enough about akido to say much else. Makes me curios though.

 

 

[Jiggy9]

Thanks Aiki

[Kempo_Dude]

Interesting!

 

 

[Sinbad]

Aikidoka

 

nice post and I agree with most of the things you stated. However, just to provoke discussion, one of the main criticisms of aikido that also applies to lots of other budo arts is that it isn't practised against a fully resisting opponent. So when you do come across one outside the dojo, you are in a situation that you have never been in before.

 

I gather that at least one style of aikido does practice free sparring or randori - Tomiki aikido I think. Are you familiar with this style and if so, what are the 'rules of engagement' for this type of randori practice? I am interested since we incorporate some aiki-jutsu into our karate syllabus. However, the moves are pretty viscious and would probably injure a fully resisting partner if I tried it during sparring. Any thoughts on how to incorporate wrist grabs and arm locks into free sparring would be welcome.

[Kensai]

As a practicing Aikidoka I realise that some of the moves to begin with look as though they could not be practiced in real life situations. However unlike Karate, TWD etc that give you a good martial ability after say 6 or 7 weeks Aikido takes time to grow. Like a fine wine it gets better with age. Some of the basic techniques look alittle drawn out. But once you get past the micky mouse grades and into Dan level it is all done very starply with no strength and always building on the basic principles learnt in the Kyu grades. Also alot of the techniques are done "on the move". After studying shotokan for a year, i found that none of it is done when someone is running at you. Which is also one of the uniques aspects of aikido. Aikido is not about taking life, its about living it.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

 

 

[yoriki816]

I must say that Aikidoka's intitial post was very impressive in both it's treatment of what to some may be a touchy subject and the obvious research and possible personal experience that obviously went in to it. With that said, here's my two cents.

 

While it is true that in most Aikido dojo's techniques are practiced with very little resistance, this is done to avoid injury to one's partner, since most basic techniques in aikido rely on pressure applied to the joints. but it is important to realize that resisting such techniques just a fraction of a second to late or in the wrong direction can effectively aid the aikidoka in breaking a wrist, wlbow, or shoulder. I personally have found that when properly applied aikido techniques are more effective againt people who are muscular.

 

Aikidoka did make an excellent point that the use of strikes, or atemi is vital to the effective execution of aikido techniques in a real world environment. Atemi made up a large part of Daito-Ryu which is the basis for Aikido and the pre-war teachings of Ueshiba are full of strikes used both to injure, distract, and off balance an attacker. Simply put it is hard to concentrate on twisting your wrist away from a joint lock while you cannot see from a palm strike to the bridge of the nose or a reverse puch to the solar plexus.

 

Another important thing to remember when considering a resisting partner is that there is nothing written in stone that says you must finish the technique you started with. Aikido is all about going along with your opponents movement so if you are trying to apply kote gaeshi and the thug pulls away there is nothing wrong with using a well timed irimi nage to end all discussion of whether or not he really want the fifteen dollars in your wallet. If one technique looks like its going to fail, just move on to something else.

 

Aikido is a hard art to master, but with a good instructor and a willingness to train hard and truly think on the principles of the art, you do not have to wear a black belt in order to avoid bodily harm.

 

And that's all I have to say about that.