Aikido and Judo/jujitsu

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[Xhaar.gr]

Hello everybody , i practice Aikido for a year. i have 2 questions.
Aikido as a martial art has Thousands of techniques and it delivers from jujitsu.i was wondering if contains grappling(newaza) and submission moves , if not why is that so ? if yes why they are rarely showned.
I have seen people using atemi and i know that the art contains all kind of atemi(kick knees punch elbow).i understand that we should not use them all the time but why they dont teach us how to strike rightly.
sorry about my english

[Tekihoukoui]

I've only been practicing for a few months, so senior practitioners feel free to correct me.

There are lots of submission moves and pins. All of the basic immobilizations will end up with uke on the floor. Even as a beginner, these are taught before projections/throws, so I don't think they're rarely shown.

As for the atemi, it's more of a distractor than a strike meant to deliver some sort of injury. The atemi is meant to keep uke's mind off of punching you in the ribs (or elsewhere) if you've left that open in the technique. If you focus too much on the strike you'll become the attacker/uke, lose your center, and open yourself up. Also, if you wanted to strike effectively you would hit a vital area on uke (throat, groin, kidney) rather than use an atemi in the first place. This is more of what a karateka would do. Thus, there's not a great need to learn to strike effectively in aikido.

[Basia Halliop]

I think a lot of the earlier aikido students studied other martial arts first. I wouldn't be surprised if they already knew how to strike well enough that there wasn't a need to spend much time on it in class (since it wasn't really the primary focus).

If you focus too much on the strike you'll become the attacker/uke, lose your center, and open yourself up

I haven't studied striking much but I believe that's the point of learning it properly -- to learn NOT to lose your centre or open yourself up when you strike.

[Ketsan]

Hello everybody , i practice Aikido for a year. i have 2 questions.
Aikido as a martial art has Thousands of techniques and it delivers from jujitsu.i was wondering if contains grappling(newaza) and submission moves , if not why is that so ? if yes why they are rarely showned.
I have seen people using atemi and i know that the art contains all kind of atemi(kick knees punch elbow).i understand that we should not use them all the time but why they dont teach us how to strike rightly.
sorry about my english

There is no newaza in Aikido. You have to think back to what ju-jitsu was originally for which was a way of using minor weapons like the tanto, yoroi doshi, kodatchi close in and on a battlefield.
Put simply there isn't much newaza because newaza with a weapon doesn't tend to go on for very long, someone gets killed pretty quickly.
Why mount someone and go for a submission when you can just stab him? Why get into complex ground work when all you need to do is trap his sword arm long enough to draw your weapon or his and kill him with it?

Plus every second you're on the ground is another second for your opponents friend to kill you.

And the same lessons are true today. Do you want to be rolling around on the floor with a man with a knife? Are his friends going to stand back and see who wins or are they going to be using you as a kick bag?:D

So that's why newaza as we know it today wasn't really a part of ju-jitsu and so it never got passed on to Aikido.

As for atemi it's not often done in my organisation and I think that might be the case generally, so it's seldom treated as an important thing.

I realise I've made a few generalisations about koryu ju-jitsu but hopefully everyone can see what I'm getting at.:D

[ChrisHein]

I'm guessing by grappling you mean ground grappling; and by striking/atemi you mean boxing.

Why, exactly Osensei built the system the way he did is up for discussion. However looking at Japanese culture pre-meiji restoration, you can see Japanese martial culture was based around weapons, in particular the sword.

In weapons fighting it is a bad idea to wrestle on the ground, and a bad idea to try to box with your (armed) attacker. Considering that the majority of techniques that make up Aikido were developed pre-meiji restoration, it's a reasonable conclusion that these techniques are weapon focused.

This would explain why Aikido techniques don't apply to ground grappling, and boxing situations, thus the syllabus doesn't contain those techniques.

[DonMagee]

There is no newaza in Aikido. You have to think back to what ju-jitsu was originally for which was a way of using minor weapons like the tanto, yoroi doshi, kodatchi close in and on a battlefield.
Put simply there isn't much newaza because newaza with a weapon doesn't tend to go on for very long, someone gets killed pretty quickly.
Why mount someone and go for a submission when you can just stab him? Why get into complex ground work when all you need to do is trap his sword arm long enough to draw your weapon or his and kill him with it?

Plus every second you're on the ground is another second for your opponents friend to kill you.

And the same lessons are true today. Do you want to be rolling around on the floor with a man with a knife? Are his friends going to stand back and see who wins or are they going to be using you as a kick bag?:D

So that's why newaza as we know it today wasn't really a part of ju-jitsu and so it never got passed on to Aikido.

As for atemi it's not often done in my organisation and I think that might be the case generally, so it's seldom treated as an important thing.

I realise I've made a few generalisations about koryu ju-jitsu but hopefully everyone can see what I'm getting at.:D

Fusen Ryu jiujitsu is credited (usually) for the development of modern day ground work. If memory serves me, it's from the early 1700's.

My aikido instructor says he simple can not allow a fight to go into that range. I agree with him, a ground fight is a bad place to be for self defense. Where we differ is in our approach to keeping ourselves off the ground. That is another topic entirely. Suffice to say I think the best anti-ground training is training on the ground.

However, there are photos of Ueshiba doing newaza, so it was known to him, and decidedly not focused on in aikido. It is obvious he did not place much importance on it.

Modern day military train newaza tactics for use in police actions. They are useful for when you want to disable, but not kill someone, obviously they find it useful, or they wouldn't bother training their recruits in it.

As for striking, I think it was originally assumed you would be coming to aikido from arts where you had already mastered a system of combat (such as karate or judo). So it was not about teaching these basic requirements, but refining a very complex and advanced skill. Unfortunately, this has degenerated today to some hand waving when it comes to striking. The grappling side sometimes is better represented with hip throws and reaps.

I agree that at least in the clubs I've visited, good striking instruction is very lacking and very important.

[Ron Tisdale]

Some fairly good responses already...each represents some valid points. The only thing I would add is that the yoshinkan forms for the 150 basic waza almost all contain strikes. If you train the form correctly, you can learn a lot about striking from the form, and pushing through your partner's block.

That said, some time on a bag or makiwara couldn't hurt, either. Or exposure to another art.

Best,
Ron

[Ketsan]

Some fairly good responses already...each represents some valid points. The only thing I would add is that the yoshinkan forms for the 150 basic waza almost all contain strikes. If you train the form correctly, you can learn a lot about striking from the form, and pushing through your partner's block.

That said, some time on a bag or makiwara couldn't hurt, either. Or exposure to another art.

Best,
Ron

That reminds me of something I heard that Chiba said "He said there were no strikes in Aikido, so I hit him again" :D

[Aikibu]

That reminds me of something I heard that Chiba said "He said there were no strikes in Aikido, so I hit him again" :D

Ahhh a common lament of the uninformed...Usually spoken after a technique...

"Hey! That's not Aikido!" :)

But I digress...

William Hazen