Sport is the new Budo
Hello all, Id like to open a perhaps controversial topic if I may which hopefully will provoke some thoughtful conversation.
Ive practiced Shodokan Aikido for 15 years and for the last 6 Ive also been boxing. In this time Ive got up to a pretty good level and am now a sparring partner for a number of low level professionals. When people ask me questions about the effectiveness of Aikido I always respond that its pretty much like boxing -- my exact words are "Its essentially a sport, but it will give you an edge in a fight". Now, following some of the threads on here, I notice many people getting very upset when Aikido is referred to as a sport, and a number of people saying "MMA and Boxing are sports, not Budo" as if somehow Budo is a level above these sports, but to my way of thinking, is it not better to be a sport than Budo these days? People talk of sport "diluting" martial arts but I believe that these changes are a natural evolution and should be embraced rather than abhorred. Let me explain, another question Im frequently asked and a thread Ive seen frequently on here is "Whod win in a fight, a boxer or an aikidoka?". Whilst the answer, of course, depends on a billion variables I always favour the boxer and the reason is simply because of the way they approach their training and their attitude. A boxer, when not training in boxing (shadow work, bag work, sparring etc) will be training in other ways. Building up his strength, going on exacting runs to build up his fitness etc How many aikidoka do that? We shouldnt have to I hear you say because Aikido should not rely on these variables but is this not a dishonest answer? Surely of two equally skillful opponents the fitter, stronger one will triumph. If I am unable to grip an opponents wrist with sufficient strength to turn it or am too unfit to fight a man for more than 30 seconds then my technique is worthless. If we do not have the honesty to admit this then we do not train efficiently and we lose the edge of having a slightly more dangerous art. Sparring is another essential. Believe me when I tell you that to climb through the ropes of a boxing ring at any level takes a tremendous amount of courage and a boxer will quickly learn to control his own fear to some extent. In a street fight a boxer is a tremendously dangerous opponent due to this because you cannot intimidate them. Most boxers will have been in the ring with guys who can punch harder, faster and more accurately than the majority of street fighters and so there fear is controllable to a great extent. How many aikidoka can claim this? Shodokan Aikidoka are virtually the only Aikido faction to practice against resistance and, to be brutally honest, I think it is the most essential part of what we do. In 15 years ive learned that many aikido techniques would be virtually impossible against someone with even a reasonable appreciation of how to keep his balance. But with the right training in a sporting environment (tanto randori) against a competitive opponent, one can quickly streamline their repertoire to the most effective techniques. What Traditional Aikidoka may also be missing out on is renzoku or combinations. Boxers know that to throw one punch is only good to search for an opening, what works best is using combinations so your opponent finds it difficult to know where the next punch is coming from and therefore how to defend it. Aikido is no different, when one technique fails, for effective Aikido you must be able to flow effortlessly from one technique to the next using your opponents resistance in your favour -- this is not something you can just assume you can do, it must be practised hundreds upon hundreds of times until it becomes smooth and fluid with a genuine resisting uke. Attitude. I read a posting on here the other day that turning Aikido into a sport would bring in an influx of competitive, egotistical types who would have the wrong attitude for the art. I cant honestly say that ego does not exist in boxing gyms, but many of you may be surprised to hear that the arrogance in an Aikido dojo is far worse. In Aikido, stay at any dojo long enough and manage to show a set number of techniques and youre given a belt. The colour of that belt shows how highly you "rank" above other students. Ive seen many, many instances of people of a certain "rank" who have never had a fight in their lives, order around "lower grades", threaten to "put them in their place", refuse to train with people below a certain standard and be generally patronising and rude to people who dont wear a certain coloured belt. In boxing there is none of this. If you want to talk to people like that, youd best be ready to prove yourself in the ring. There are no gradings and no one assumes your skill based on anything other than watching you. A man with 3 months boxing experience can beat a man whos boxed for 3 years and no one thinks anything of it. World Champions such as Clinton Woods, and formerly Naseem Hamed, regularly spar with kids from his gym -- going at their pace and helping those youngsters improve and I would never have reached the level I reached was it not for an extremely patient and giving heavyweight who brought me along gently working me at just above my level even thought he could have easily beaten me with one punch. Compare this attitude to a post I read on here the other day that stated "Why on earth would a sandan train with an orange belt?". In a competitive, sporting environment such horrific ego is not allowed. You are judged on your skills alone and nothing else. So what are the arguments to still classifying ourselves as a budo rather than reevaluating ourself as a sport? Some may be tempted to say that a sport is for fun whereas a budo should be about life and death. Anytime a boxer goes into a ring he is aware of the fact that he could die. One of my gym mates was left severely handicapped after a fight. Surely then a boxer has more of a "budo" attitude in facing down these fears than an aikidoka who never trains against a "live" opponent? Budo has no rules? This is no longer true. I read posts on here that MMA does not represent a real fight because it has rules but this is ludicrous -- the street also has rules, called laws. No one wants to train at a dojo where there are literally no rules but no one can seriously argue that a MMA practitioner would be less well prepared for a fight than a "budo" practitioner from a traditional dojo?? Budo is more traditional? Many sports, particularly boxing, have been around for longer than Budo. The only difference is that theyve changed and redefined themselves. Where would football, cricket or boxing be now if there had been no changes to the rules in the last 80 years? Of course each generation thinks that their way is the "right" way but change is the nature of things. My Dad still asserts that the old 40`s boxers wouldve beaten their modern day counterparts but with new training methods, dietary supplements and so on its simply unthinkable -- despite the fact that those guys were all tough as hell and still deserve tremendous respect. Ill leave you with one final analagy to think about. Swordfighting -- back in the day a fairly regular occurrence but now pretty highly illegal. Take two groups of people who loved swordfighting, one -- realising that they can no longer practice with live blades -- decide to use Bokken so they can keep their speed, still feel that fear and perform all the techniques exactly as they were back when it was legal, just without one man dying. The other group are traditionalists, they wont use anything but the original swords, however as they can no longer cut each other they have to stop each cut 2 inches from their opponent and slow their techniques down so they can be sure they wont cut each other. Who is practising the real art and who is practising a diluted version? Your thoughts on the differences between sport and budo and why its better to be one than the other please. |
Re: Sport is the new Budo
Sport is already budo. Just ask any judo instructor. I agree that sport can be budo, but not all sport is budo. Budo is the mindset you take while practicing. I do not feel I train in budo, even while training aikido.
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You seem very convinced that what you are doing is the new budo, and that it is a better way to train.. congratulations! Best of luck! The fact that you know what you are doing and what you like about your training is great. Others are still trying to figure out what they want, as well as how martial arts fit in to the rest of their lives. Personally, I'm not sure that there is a "better" or "worse" between sports and budo in general - there is most likely even a lot of overlap in terms of skills and mentality for most participants. I'd even bet that most of the sportsmen probably have better skills in the areas they train due to the competitive process. You can probably practice "sporting arts" as budo, and I know that you can practice Aikido as a sport - although I don't. There were lots of loaded words in your post. What are you trying to figure out? Are you afraid that you are missing something, or just trying to convince people to view Aikido in a more sporting way? Are you curious, or proselytizing? As for me, I have issues that I want to deal with and things that I want to learn that Aikido happens to address. Maybe I'd be ignorant that many of these existed if I didn't start Aikido... maybe not. Training is a personal decision, and its not at all clear that I wouldn't be learning a different, also valuable set of skills from a different martial art or activity. That said, as can be observed from the level of discussion on Aikiweb, its practitioners, and its section in the bookstore - Aikido attracts some heavy hitters in terms of talented people to learn from about all manner of things. Do other arts have such an array of thoughtful (and thoughtless) discussions? I don't know.. maybe someone else does and can comment. One thing that is nice about Aikido and traditional martial arts: I see older people practicing it effectively. How many 80 year old boxers do you know? Rob |
Re: Sport is the new Budo
Not sure if it counts, but I know a few judo guys and know of a few bjj guys that are well over 60, some going on 70.
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Re: Sport is the new Budo
Interesting points guys.
Rob, Im not trying to convince people sport is the "better" way necessarily, as you say people need to train in their own way. However I am slightly concerned that some people seem to see sport as "less" than Budo and dont seem to see the benefits of training in a martial art in a sporting fashion. I guess Im just trying to challenge a few misconceptions. As for the 80 year old boxers you make a very interesting point which Id like to address. When I see 80 year old Aikidoka flipping young guys around Im impressed at their athleticism and technical skill at such an old age BUT I feel its not all that honest to train in such a way as, in reality, I just dont think an 80 year old man can realistically throw some young men. To answer your question directly my boxing coach IS in his 80s. I have massive repect for him cos hes been everywhere and fought everyone and believe me he can still move around. But that said, he is honest enough to know not to get in the ring with a 20 year old guy cos hes just too old to keep up - despite his skill level. Id like to see more elderly aikidoka take on a more "coaching" style role for the younger practitioners without feeling the need to pretend to flip them around. Im not trying to be disrespectful here but lets be honest, the old guys are bursting with knowledge but their body just cant do the things it did. I for one would love to have an aiki coach who had competed at top level whether hes 30, 40 or 90. |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUne9Xg55og |
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One more old guy:
Mochida Moriji I love the katate-zuki-otoshi-katate-zuki. But then is kendo traditional budo or sport? |
Re: Sport is the new Budo
Hey guys,
Kevin - thanks very much for the post. Very honest! Do you think that more budo should implement some more sporting practices to improve? Cady very impressive! There are certainly a fair few exceptions to what I wrote earlier. I should probably clarify what I meant by my earlier post about elder folk training. I have absolutely no problem with older people doing kata training and even participating in randori etc (as long as its safe). What I was referring to was a couple of demonstrations Ive seen where a 80 year old is throwing around multiple attackers. I dont think this gives a very good impression of aikido whichever way you take it. To someone who doesnt understand about cooperation between tori and uke then you either believe the old guy can actually do that (misleading) or you think "what a load of rubbish". Neither of which are a good advert for aikido. |
Re: Sport is the new Budo
Another Old Guy
Why are those uke doing flippy stuff. It must be fake... meh! Aiki Liu... as for your argument in post #1, there are already answered a million times: Cross-training. Boon. |
Re: Sport is the new Budo
Im talking about improvements we could make in aikido and the attitudes of those training in it...
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Re: Sport is the new Budo
Personally i think your opinion is biased.
Because you practice Shodokan Aikido which involves competition. Most people commenting who have also compared budo and sport with martial arts are using martial arts that now involve competition. In my mind it is not budo if you involve competition. |
Re: Sport is the new Budo
The only real martial art out there today is what the military practice. Some of them do boxing, but not all - kind of free choice. Some of them do wrestling, but not all - kind of free choice. But all of them have to do compulsory military drills that have techniques that resemble Jujutsu - takedowns, locks, kills etc. What they do is based on the gun, the unloaded gun (out of ammo), the knife, and empty hand. The techniques are pretty simple and rely more on a lot more grunt than technical perfection - perhaps that is what we need too, a bit more grunt!
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I agree with much of what you said in your first post. I think the major differences between Sport and Budo have more to do with popular opinion of what defines "Sport" and what defines "Budo" than anything else. In Scott Allbright's book - Aikido and Randori there is a section where he analyzes the definition of sport (especailly in an Olympic context) and compares it to Budo and like Tomiki did back in the day, he shows where the 2 are quite congruent in their ultimate goals. This however has nothing to do with how many people perceive sport (I'd even place Ueshiba M. in this category when Tomiki first approached him with the concept). The perception of the large egos of sport heroes which are fed by doting fans, the fixation on winning even if it means exploiting holes in the rules and cheating, focus on winning instead of honestly trying ones best, unsportsmanlike behaviour, although not intended or encouraged in the core definition of Sport are popular effects that most people identify with. I think this is part of why some make the distinction between Sport and Budo. When people hear the word "Sport" they automatically create mental associations with the word. The same goes for "Budo", but in this case many people in the west don't have an image to associate this with so it is up to the Budoka to clarify things and create a proper image. On the other hand one can aim to "redefine" sport to the layperson, focusing on its intent (and how that relates to Budo) instead of what is often seen as its most popular expression. Partly due to the reason above, as a Shodokan instructor I am quite clear to indicate that there are competitive (directly sport/competition-oriented) aspects of what we do and traditional Budo (traditional Japanese martial way) aspects of what we do. This is my choice since in my environment, training for competition is at the very best a secondary desire of students (if at all) when viewed against the primary need for a strong core of self defence skills and building a warrior mindset. For me the Shodokan instruction method meets both goals quite well, the only difference being that those who do not want to train for sport are not allowed to be hampered by the shiai ruleset in randori. This allows for quite interesting and taxing resistance randori training which is tailored more towards the building of a warrior spirit. The only area athat I have issue with in your post is this: Quote:
I am not sure how things are practiced outside and I know in the book Aikido: Tradition and the Competitive Edge there are exercises that allow for practicing against 3 basic knife angles, which I think is important if one is attempting to be have effective waza outside the shiai-type tanto randori format. The same applies to Toshu randori imho. Just my 5 cents. LC:ai::ki: |
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In terms of broader problems in Aikido, for me its a question of what would I take out of Aikido to put these new things in.. and if they exist elsewhere, and are only latent in Aikido, can't you bring them into Aikido yourself? In addition, talking about a problem doesn't typically fix it. For a given problem at a given dojo, you pretty much have only these options: --- Leave (either completely or partially) --- Get the sensei (or seniors) to try and fix the problem through the bully pulpit, targeted instruction, or testing restrictions - can be dangerous if sensei doesn't approve --- Exert peer pressure verbally or physically (with or without those of a like mind) - can be dangerous if sensei doesn't approve --- Start training more exclusively with people who are going in what you think is the right direction - can be dangerous if sensei doesn't approve (which is really passive aggressive peer pressure) --- Supplement your training elsewhere (within the art or without, with or without the other Aikidoka) --- Open your own dojo to present yourself with the 2nd option, and further enable the 3rd and 4th (but also limit the 5th) You've got 15 years of Aikido.. have you considered opening your own dojo (even at a local gym)? I'm sure that the new direction you want to take things would be very popular. In addition, the people who didn't like it could stay where they were. It would most likely be a net gain in practitioners, which is a win for all concerned. Regarding the elderly in those other martial arts: its a nice surprise to see that that is still possible. I see stories of these older practitioners (such as Mifune, and the respective modern "founders" of the systems such as Kano, Funakoshi, etc.), but I wasn't sure how widespread and common that is in modern times because I don't train in those circles.. it is nice to know that it is more common than I thought. Rob |
Re: Sport is the new Budo
Sparring is impossible in Aikido. It is even more impossible between 2 Aikidoists. I have watched and even trained a few times in Shodokan Aikido, and it was pathetic. Aikido is supposed to be between an attacker who is aggressing someone with full intent and not expecting any defense or retaliation, and a defender who is supposed to execute a technique to defend himself from the attack based on surprise. It is not designed for combat or sparring environments. Shodokan puts 2 people against eachother, one attacking but not very skilled in his attack, and who is expecting to be countered by some kind of hand grab, arm lock or throw, and another one who is expecting to be attacked, and expecting the attacker to know that he will defend and in which manner. The result is not very beautiful to see and obviously Aikido techniques have not been designed for such scenario. If you like that, you better do MMA.
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Re: Sport is the new Budo
Budo is a state of mind more so than a particular practice.
In the Army it is entirely possible to have warriors and those that live every minute of everyday trying to be a warrior and live within the ethos of a warrior. There are others that are there simply to collect a paycheck. and others that fall in between those extremes. They do the same things, wear the same uniform, and collect the same paycheck. Budo ain't about aikido, judo, tae kwon do, competition, no competion, sport or no sport....but how you personally approach your training and life in general. |
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I imagine they could defend themselves because the deeply understood the full spectrum of martial conflict. Both studied many things prior to the adoption of their ultimate art, and they drew from those skills and experience to define themselves and the perspective they had on training.
what they did ultimately probably had little to do with sparring because they had grown or evolved past that. Many study what they designed for us, and it might convey the lessons that they wanted us to learn. The logic does not necessarily follow that becaus O'sensei was proficient at defending himself that you will too studying the aikido he taught. He was proficient because he was O'sensei, not because he taught aikido. I believe all of the higher ranking aikidoka I respect and value technique of...actually are proficient in other arts as well....many of them so-called competitive arts. I think many that come to aikido in the west, that have never studied anything else of substancial value, many times have a very narrow perspective on martial arts and what it can and cannot do...and the strengths and weaknesses of aikido..what it is, and what it isn't. |
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From my point of view, what I learn from shiai tanto randori is a kind of intuitive understanding of how and when certain principles can be applied, if that makes any sense. To me, trying to learn this without full resistance of some sort would be like trying to do physics research by running simulations of experiments rather than by actually doing the experiments. And Edward - yeah, it's not pretty most of the time. I spend FAR too much time sweating and grunting and wrestling. But identifying that and trying to improve my timing and my technique so that eventually I can pull off a beautiful relaxed effortless technique on a resisting opponent is sort of what it's about. |
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O'Sensei forbid sparing, but he seemed to have mo problem picking fights.
"So your a sumo champion eh? Well, break my little finger...." |
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There are some really good dojo out there. Don't give up on aikidoka just yet. I study at an independent dojo. My rank doesn't mean anything to anyone, except for me and my sensei. I'm in it for the skill, the fun, and the friendship too. Take care in that ring! :) |
Re: Sport is the new Budo
I agree with you, but I don't see why would someone spend years in Aikido just for the purpose of learning how to fight. Aikido is not a fighting art, if it was, most people in UFC would be learning it. If anyone feels his life is in danger, or if he/she lives in a dangerous neighbourhood, he/she would better buy a gun and learn how to use it. Aikido is effective against attackers for whom you are considered as a victim, such as a robber who is after your wallet or someone who is angry and tries to punch you with full intent. I don't believe Aikido works in sparring, or in face to face combat when both opponents are prepared.
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Re: Sport is the new Budo
Kevin, You're right that I wouldn't go out looking for fights, and I would even avoid them as much as possible. I have actually managed never to be involved in a fight in 38 years of existence, and I'm pretty confident chances are even lower now that I've reached a more mature age. I believe that if someone has the intentions that you mentioned in your post, there are many arts out there much more effective and lethal than Aikido.
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