Aikido vs Your Striking Art

[Shorinryu Sensei]

I think scraping to the sensei and so on, including how traditional things are, would depend largely on the dojo. I'm sure there'd be a few dojos around where everything is reasonably informal.

 

I'm sure you're correct that not all aikidoists are that formal, but the one here locally sure is. To the point that if the sensei wants a student to come out on the floor to demo a technique, they bow low from a kneeling posture, then walk out while on their knees, bow again to the sensei (basically almost kissing his feet literally), then stand and begin.

 

Sorry, that's not me.

 

On two seperate occasions I had the opportunity to work with the head Okinawan sensei of my system, and I was rather surprised on how laid back he was. Sure, we did a certain amout of bowing at the beginning/end of class, and a few times in between, but it was really quite relaxed and rather informal, which for me, is the way that I prefer it.

 

I know others that like the strict "YES SIR/NO SIR" bit where the sensei is the God at the head of the class..."ALL HAIL SENSEI IN HIS INFINITE POWER AND WISDOM!!! sort of power trip. But again, that's not me.

[1ONEfighting]

Basically don't overcommit and keep your weight distributed correctly and you will eat their lunch.

 

Same can be said for any art, tho.

[hajime]

Come on Steven Segal kicks *.

 

I know they are films but I wouldn't have liked to fight him when he was leaner and meaner than he is now

 

I thought he was an Akido person?

[Guy_Who_Fights]

I trained for some time in Aikido myself, and am very pleased to see the true weaknesses kindly brought up here (fast boxing-type punches, low kicks). These are weaknesses in Aikido because Aikido is geared at stopping a conflict before it gets to the point where those types of techniques are thrown. All styles that utilize standing joint locks like those of Aikido are at their absolute best just before a fight breaks out, when the other person is trying to provoke you. Personally, I love boxing and high contact striking, and practice it every chance I get, but I train just as much in joint locks because I know that the joint locks will be useful in my life ten times as much the striking. When someone is looking to fight, they almost always make some kind of physical contact before strikingm such as pushing, grabbing, walking stiffly into a person to push them with their bodies, or even pointing and constantly getting in a person's face. This is when the person is onthe edge and looking for a reason to justify hitting you. This is the stage where Aikido and similar styles are great - they can stop the fight at this point. However, once this stage has passed and a full-fledged fight has begun, Aikido becomes much less effective, unless the person gets carried away / over anxious and chrges in a little with their strike (the other situation Aikido is geared toward).

 

It is much more "police friendly" for your sake to end the conflict before striking ensues. Also, styles like Aikido can be utilized against people who will never actually strike you (making it justifiable to defend yourself with striking), but rather constantly push and shove and otherwise provoke and annoy you - cocky family members often do this, but we all know the consequences of jabbing a family member in the nose - interfamily chaos. The above two reasons are why I say that the standing joint locks will be used ten times more than my striking skills in my life - it is more often justified to use the joint locks than the strikes to end an annoyingly aggressive or potentially dangerous situation.

 

Aikido is very weak against striking in a fight, but it is not designed to allow a fight to ensue.

[Thuggish]

aikido has its benifits, but in a fight with a trained striker, the striker is quite likely to win. aikido is mostly a style for fighting off untrained fighters. think john wayne and how he punched.. not unlike many street punks. they throw an ugly hook, you break their wrist and move on. a boxer though would probably pound you into the ground. (disclaimer- it depends on the fighter, blah blah blah....)

[Kensai]

Ok.

 

An Aikido beatdown hurray!

 

Ok, firstly if the Aikidoka doesnt do a lot of Randori and Jiyu Waza (free fighting) then he's a dead man.

 

Second, the deadly boxers jab. It is indeed nasty, but that same jab is just as difficult for a BJJ, Judo, Krav Maga, TaiChi, MT and EVEN a boxer to deal with.

 

Thirdly, taisabaki is the answer to alot of the low cut kicks and jabs. Again lots of full contact training required.

 

Ki, well thats for another thread. But I personally believe its a word used to discribe balance, power, relaxation and a state of mind and not about floating in mid air!

 

Oh and Segal has great Aikido, shame he's such a *.

[kotegashiNeo]

Kensai I believe Ki to be an extension of focus. Try it if you do any weapons forms. Strike with the tip of the weapon on a very small area very quickly see how accurate you are. Then mentally project your focus beyond the tip of said weapon and this should help both speed and accuracy. As for fighting anyone here ever fought a yudansha ranked akidoist in a street fight ?

[humblecanadiangojuguy]

I love Aikido, but I have seen and watched many classes of different styles of Aikido and different dojo's and they all came across to me as alittle unrealistic. They would hold out there arms for their other students to grab and then throw them or take them down. Now when is an attacker going to run up and grab my arms by the wrists??? Not going to happen. Now they do practice alot for an attacker throwing big wild looping blows, that can happen with an unskilled attacker and most fights that an MA will ever get into is against an unskilled attacker. A skilled attacker like from a striking art with about the same time training in their style will do very well against someone with equal amount of training time in a Aikido. Aikido is a great art and it is effective against unskilled attacker but against an equally trained striker it is so so at best. No dissrespect towards Aikido users, I myself take Goju-ryu karate and I have looked into taking Aikido myself, but I would be taking it for the enjoyment of the very smooth and beautiful style that it is, not for selfdefence.

[crash]

it seems that most ppl who have responded are under the assumption that all aikidoka will just stand still and wait for the first punch to be thrown. that s not at all true, the founder himself was fond of saying "that if you stand still youre going to get killed" now it is true that aikido focuses on what leads up to a fight, shoving, grabbing, etc... but there are also ways to lead your opponent into making the move you would like.

[yoriki816]

I will redily admit that most Aikido styles are weak against a boxer's quickly recoiling strikes. But there are ways that Aikido throws and by extension some judo and jujitsu technniques can be easily applied using Aiki principles. The key to neutralizing trained fighters is to quickly access the fact that they have skill and then adjust your game plan to accomodate that fact.

 

Unfortunnately most 'pure aikido" styles don't have these tricks in their bag. I would suggest an aikijujitsu style before a more traditional aikido style based on that fact alone.

 

But that's just my two yen.