Aikido help

[karategirl06]

Yes it is but it takes a while to use it effectivly!

[Menjo]

I think after awhile once you become very proficient in technique, like mentioned above

[Enviroman]

My huge problem with Aikido (especially when I did demos for my sensei) is that people tend to not attack like they did in the video. People don't just walk up and hand you their hand. People don't slowly attack you. And much of the video (and our demos) was choreographed...this guy isn't superman and he's not tossing those people around like that all on his own. At least when I studied Aikido, we were told to make arching leaps when thrown to "lessen" the fall. I dunno, I just didn't ifnd it too effective.

[jedimc]

My huge problem with Aikido (especially when I did demos for my sensei) is that people tend to not attack like they did in the video. People don't just walk up and hand you their hand. People don't slowly attack you. And much of the video (and our demos) was choreographed...this guy isn't superman and he's not tossing those people around like that all on his own. At least when I studied Aikido, we were told to make arching leaps when thrown to "lessen" the fall. I dunno, I just didn't ifnd it too effective.

Yes well the leaps and all that are for you safety but if they cant throw them with the without help of the opponent then that is not Aikido because the person throwing uses the power from his whole body to throw(it is very easy then when you master the whole body power).If you did this in the demonstrations then alot of people would get hurt this is why we all co-operate with each, another reason is if you resisted then you wouldnt learn anything, because you must learn first how to use another persons body to your advantage, when you are more advanced then you can learn more about throwing a resisting opponent or something like that.

[JEM618]

Aikido is very effective for self defence and in my opinion one of the best... and the basic techniques on there own are very effective.

Jedmic,

I have to agree with you.

If just for a moment, you forget about 'kokyu', 'ura', and some of the more difficult 'tenkan', and 'irrimi' techniques, and focus on the four most basic techiques; 'ikkyo', 'nikkyo', 'sankyo, and 'kotegaeshi', proficiency can be achieved quite rapidly.

[JEM618]

My huge problem with Aikido (especially when I did demos for my sensei) is that people tend to not attack like they did in the video. People don't just walk up and hand you their hand. People don't slowly attack you. And much of the video (and our demos) was choreographed...this guy isn't superman and he's not tossing those people around like that all on his own. At least when I studied Aikido, we were told to make arching leaps when thrown to "lessen" the fall. I dunno, I just didn't find it too effective.

With that I must agree in part but along with that I'll add the following.

As far as being 'superman', no most people are not able to throw people around like that on their own, but when your stuck in sankyo and you can feel your elbow about to pop, or you've been manipulated into a reversal with your arm in a full extension, to the point of hyperextension, you'd be surprised what your do to avoid a dislocation or tendon tear.

A lot of training we do is to increase awareness or the attack or possibility of attack.

It's believed that you should be fully aware of your surroundings and avoid conflict at all costs.

I.E. If you are walking down a dark street in a bad part of town, you should notice the silhouette of three men standing on the street corner two blocks away. At that point you should take evasive action; cross the street, turn back, go into a shop and wait, etc. You should never needlessly put yourself into a situation where you must use decisive force.

If you should happen to walk head first into that situation, then you must control it from the start. This is done by positioning yourself to bait* the attackers in a way that is conducive to a favorable outcome; diffuse the situation with no harm done, surviving that attack with the least possible harm to both you and the attacker, and finally, if necessary, subduing the attacker to the point they no longer want to continue.

* baiting the attacker is often referred ‘michi-biku’ or leading the attacker, in more colloquial terms we often say ‘esa-o-ageru’. (col. offering food to an animal, a worm on a hook, a dog biscuit, etc)

And finally, I guess aikido is an art that needs adaptation. I will generalize here for the sake of making a quick point, one you may have heard before.

All techniques in aikido are based on disarming an attacker, that is, you have no weapon, and the attacker does. In the old days, there were three; the sword, the knife, staff of course in various sizes, shapes and lengths. And there were three basic angles of attack; over head, from the side, usually to the face or throat, and a thrust, usually to the face, throat, chest, abdomen or groin.

Since the mechanics of the human body haven’t changed much the principals of attach haven’t changed either. And although we don’t carry swords or staffs and for the most part knives, now the techniques are practiced empty handed.

The over head attack, whether it’s with a sword or beer bottle is mechanically the same.

The same holds true for a side attack, with no knife or bottle, the mechanics of a ‘hay-maker’ are practically identical.

And someone trying to punch you in the stomach is really no different mechanically than someone trying to stab you in the stomach.

So, the movements or mechanics of the old techniques should be adapted to their modern day application.

[Enviroman]

My huge problem with Aikido (especially when I did demos for my sensei) is that people tend to not attack like they did in the video. People don't just walk up and hand you their hand. People don't slowly attack you. And much of the video (and our demos) was choreographed...this guy isn't superman and he's not tossing those people around like that all on his own. At least when I studied Aikido, we were told to make arching leaps when thrown to "lessen" the fall. I dunno, I just didn't find it too effective.

With that I must agree in part but along with that I'll add the following.

As far as being 'superman', no most people are not able to throw people around like that on their own, but when your stuck in sankyo and you can feel your elbow about to pop, or you've been manipulated into a reversal with your arm in a full extension, to the point of hyperextension, you'd be surprised what your do to avoid a dislocation or tendon tear.

A lot of training we do is to increase awareness or the attack or possibility of attack.

It's believed that you should be fully aware of your surroundings and avoid conflict at all costs.

I.E. If you are walking down a dark street in a bad part of town, you should notice the silhouette of three men standing on the street corner two blocks away. At that point you should take evasive action; cross the street, turn back, go into a shop and wait, etc. You should never needlessly put yourself into a situation where you must use decisive force.

If you should happen to walk head first into that situation, then you must control it from the start. This is done by positioning yourself to bait* the attackers in a way that is conducive to a favorable outcome; diffuse the situation with no harm done, surviving that attack with the least possible harm to both you and the attacker, and finally, if necessary, subduing the attacker to the point they no longer want to continue.

* baiting the attacker is often referred ‘michi-biku’ or leading the attacker, in more colloquial terms we often say ‘esa-o-ageru’. (col. offering food to an animal, a worm on a hook, a dog biscuit, etc)

And finally, I guess aikido is an art that needs adaptation. I will generalize here for the sake of making a quick point, one you may have heard before.

All techniques in aikido are based on disarming an attacker, that is, you have no weapon, and the attacker does. In the old days, there were three; the sword, the knife, staff of course in various sizes, shapes and lengths. And there were three basic angles of attack; over head, from the side, usually to the face or throat, and a thrust, usually to the face, throat, chest, abdomen or groin.

Since the mechanics of the human body haven’t changed much the principals of attach haven’t changed either. And although we don’t carry swords or staffs and for the most part knives, now the techniques are practiced empty handed.

The over head attack, whether it’s with a sword or beer bottle is mechanically the same.

The same holds true for a side attack, with no knife or bottle, the mechanics of a ‘hay-maker’ are practically identical.

And someone trying to punch you in the stomach is really no different mechanically than someone trying to stab you in the stomach.

So, the movements or mechanics of the old techniques should be adapted to their modern day application.

I didn't mean any disrespect to Aikido. I feel that it has some positive applications but that those demonstrations tend to be more flashy than anything.

Does your teacher do full speed defense against well-placed punches/kicks? In my demos and the demos in this forum, the "attacker" is throwing noddle-armed punches about 3 feet ahead of the defender.

[JEM618]

No sweat Enviroman,

I live, work, and practice in Japan. I teach English at a private K-12 school, and I have my own aikido club.

The following is the English translation of an article that appeared (in Japanese) in the school's quarterly magazine:

You might find this of interest....

When I tell people I practice aikido I’m asked many questions about it. So, before I talk about our club, I’d like to answer the most common questions. Is aikido Japanese? Aikido is most certainly Japanese; the techniques of aikido are derived mainly from the diato-ryu aikijujutsu of Sokaku Takeda. And the roots of daito-ryu can be traced back over 1000 years to its founder Minamoto Yoshimitsu when it was first know as diato-ryu bujutsu or diato-ryu jujutsu.

Is aikido a sport? No, aikido is not a sport. There are no tournaments, contests or ‘sparring’. There are a few reasons for this. First, in aikido, there is no attack, so it would be impossible to have a match. [Although there are some strikes (atemi) they are used defensively.] Second, in aikido, many techniques would have to be excluded from competition because of their potential to cause serious injury. And third, and most importantly, according to the founder, the essence of aikido is not the defeat of others, but primarily a way to achieve self-mastery.

Is aikido a martial art? This is difficult to answer; I’d have to say, ‘Yes and no’. Over the course of its development, to match his philosophical beliefs, the founder changed the name a few times, from aikibujutsu to aikinomichi, and finally settled on aikido. Since aikido’s roots lie in martial arts and all the techniques derived from fighting, we’d have to consider it a martial art. However, the philosophy of aikido, being ‘do’ not ‘jutsu’ tells us that it is much more than just a martial art.

Some points about aikido: Instead of relying solely on strikes, practitioners of aikido train extensively in evasive movements, joint locks to the wrist, elbow, and shoulder as well as various throws and pinning techniques. Because of this strategy, those who practice aikido are able to exercise greater control in response to aggression by choosing a level of force appropriate for the situation. Do to the particular method of body movement used, aikido enables practitioners to control others much larger than themselves and does not require great size of physical strength. In addition the practice of aikido helps students develop strategies to deal with conflict and aggression in their daily lives not just in self defense situations.

Our club:

We practice three days a week. In each class we start with by reading from Tohei’s ki sayings, and then do basic warm up exercises. These exercises are a combination of stretching exercises and movements taken from different techniques to help us develop our ki. After that, we practice ukemi which is essential, because in class uke may be thrown 100 times or more. Once the warm up and ukemi practice is finished, we start practicing waza. For any given attack, [shomen yokomen, tsuki] there are several possible defenses. First we learn the basic body movements or mechanics of these techniques. Then we try to apply the principals of ki to improve the technique to make it more effective.

A note about ki. Our particular style of aikido is called shishin toitsu aikido and was developed by one of ueshiba’s students, tohei koichi. Tohei believes that ki development is a vital aspect of good technique as well as developing one’s self. But to explain ki and shishin toitsu is very difficult, and cannot be done within this article. I believe ueshiba put it best.

aikido – (its mysteries)can never be encompassed by the brush or mouth

attain enlightenment through practice．

So, if you want to learn more about aikido, please join us!

[jedimc]

My huge problem with Aikido (especially when I did demos for my sensei) is that people tend to not attack like they did in the video. People don't just walk up and hand you their hand. People don't slowly attack you. And much of the video (and our demos) was choreographed...this guy isn't superman and he's not tossing those people around like that all on his own. At least when I studied Aikido, we were told to make arching leaps when thrown to "lessen" the fall. I dunno, I just didn't find it too effective.

With that I must agree in part but along with that I'll add the following.

As far as being 'superman', no most people are not able to throw people around like that on their own, but when your stuck in sankyo and you can feel your elbow about to pop, or you've been manipulated into a reversal with your arm in a full extension, to the point of hyperextension, you'd be surprised what your do to avoid a dislocation or tendon tear.

A lot of training we do is to increase awareness or the attack or possibility of attack.

It's believed that you should be fully aware of your surroundings and avoid conflict at all costs.

I.E. If you are walking down a dark street in a bad part of town, you should notice the silhouette of three men standing on the street corner two blocks away. At that point you should take evasive action; cross the street, turn back, go into a shop and wait, etc. You should never needlessly put yourself into a situation where you must use decisive force.

If you should happen to walk head first into that situation, then you must control it from the start. This is done by positioning yourself to bait* the attackers in a way that is conducive to a favorable outcome; diffuse the situation with no harm done, surviving that attack with the least possible harm to both you and the attacker, and finally, if necessary, subduing the attacker to the point they no longer want to continue.

* baiting the attacker is often referred ‘michi-biku’ or leading the attacker, in more colloquial terms we often say ‘esa-o-ageru’. (col. offering food to an animal, a worm on a hook, a dog biscuit, etc)

And finally, I guess aikido is an art that needs adaptation. I will generalize here for the sake of making a quick point, one you may have heard before.

All techniques in aikido are based on disarming an attacker, that is, you have no weapon, and the attacker does. In the old days, there were three; the sword, the knife, staff of course in various sizes, shapes and lengths. And there were three basic angles of attack; over head, from the side, usually to the face or throat, and a thrust, usually to the face, throat, chest, abdomen or groin.

Since the mechanics of the human body haven’t changed much the principals of attach haven’t changed either. And although we don’t carry swords or staffs and for the most part knives, now the techniques are practiced empty handed.

The over head attack, whether it’s with a sword or beer bottle is mechanically the same.

The same holds true for a side attack, with no knife or bottle, the mechanics of a ‘hay-maker’ are practically identical.

And someone trying to punch you in the stomach is really no different mechanically than someone trying to stab you in the stomach.

So, the movements or mechanics of the old techniques should be adapted to their modern day application.

Good article JEM618, Aikido is based around the sword, so if the techniques didnt work we would be mince meat.

[Enviroman]

I may actually take up aikido again a few times a week here at school (it's free, so why not?). I figure I have a lot of the nikyo, ikkyo, sankyo, and kotegaeshi basics down, so it won't hurt to take it up.

Maybe you guys (aikido practicioners) can help me out. One of the things I struggled with a lot in aikido were the backward and forward rolls. I'm a big guy (probbaly need to lose 50 -60 lbs) and I find that I sort of chicken out when I go to do the roll and I end up on my side or back. Any tips?