Agent Mulder's ikkyo

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[shihonage]

There were just airing a re-run of an X-Files episode about a man who could control the weather. Somewhere closer to the end of the episode, a drunk unwittingly charges Agent Mulder and starts swinging wildly at him,
to which Mulder replies with _picture perfect_ Aikido evasion footwork and an ikkyo (slamming him into a wall).

It doesn't look like a short rehearsing would've been sufficient to make it appear this... smooth. It seems David Duchovny is student of Aikido or a similar art ... ?

[andrew]

You can teach Ikkyo very quickly if you want. It'd be easy to teach it quickly to an actor so it looked smooth if he had a cooperative uke.
A friend of mine worked in a mental hospital for a summer once, and numerous times employed Ikkyo when attacked by violent patients. (I know because he showed me..) Learning to do this certainly didn't entail any lengthy study.
Maybe he does do aikido, but you'd want a bit more than what you've got to go on..
andrew

[wdjunai]

Another thing to consider also ikkyo is basic technique. Aikido techniques use our body mechanic, and so does other martial arts. From experience and looking into other martial arts like Tai Chi, Chinese Qin Na, old traditional Karate(which still has Chinese influence combining grabbing with punching and kicking) ... I can see many similar technique with Aikido. I had seen ikkyo, nikkyo, kokyunage and kotegaeshi which are common to most of them. They might do it a little differently then what we do in Aikido, but the similarity is definitely there.

[Sid]

Very nicely said - what we do in aikido is not exclusive to it!!! I think the philosophy of aikido is more highly specialised than other arts - for example, in aikido we almost exclusively pay attention to a particular way of doing throws/locks, with generally(and note, generally) little attention paid to strikes. Basically, aikido takes this particular "Chin Na"-ish concept further than any other martial art.

In the book "Tai Chi Chin Na", Dr Yang, Jwing-Ming describes aikido in the glossary as(and I paraphrase), 'A system with the same principles as Tai Chi'). So, it can be said that aikidoka sepcialise in performing defense-orientated throws and locks, while remaining true to Tohei's principals - or something along those lines.

A direct example from my experience - my Tai Chi teacher, while showing me the applications for a routine, demonstrated a sokumen-iriminage on me.

Er, don't flame me too badly,
Sid