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Ron Marshall (ronmar) wrote:
As a relative newcomer to aikido I have found it very different to other martial arts I have done, and, to be honest, am finding it hard to adapt to aikido training.
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Ever considered the idea that that might be your problem and your fault! Maybe you started with some expectations both towards your own skill as towards aikido that were not completely in sync with reality.
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It is not that I think aikido is a fundamentally bad martial art. In fact I think a lot of the ideas are good. It is the training method that I have problems with.
For example there is no attack in aikido. I feel this is the biggest flaw. Often the best way to resolve a conflict is by attacking first. Aikido does not allow for this.
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Is that true?? As far as I understand it there is absolutly no reason one cannot take initiative in aikido.
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Another problem is the sort of idealised attacks and cooperation from partners that you find in aikido. People say this helps them to react in the right way when under stress, but how do they know this if they never train with realism or aliveness.
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Here there are two basic problems. First of all they are normal attacks. Just because they dont agree with your idea about violance and "normal" (TM) attacks does not make them weird either. I have, for instance, seen that grabbing the upper sleeve and striking is in violant situation indeed very very common.
Second is that all techniques and speeds have to be adjusted to the level of both partners, especialy the level of ukemi. I know not all Judoka are the same, but I have seen already a few judo shodan that were very proud on there ability to do breakfalls, but who when doing aikido realy had problems with ukemi, both from a technical points as from a perspective point of view. If falling on the ground becomes losing than the mind may think it to be legitimate to avoid this at all cost. One should realize that judo competition is in that respect an even more stylized and unrealistic enviroment were things that might occure are limited by a set of rules. No rules in Aikido (and therefor the concept of cheating does not exist in Aikido). Even biting and spitting are ok (although I must say that I havenot been to a dojo were they also practised these things). Thus ukemi is transformed from not losing in a contest to surviving in a no rules situation. I normaly train very slowly with judoka, as nage to keep them safe, as uke because they are even with there judotraining quite often clueless. If you can only do ukemi at 7 mph you should not attack at 70 mph.
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The third problem I have is the lack of sparring or randori in aikido. There is randori of a sort but it never involves the sort of attacks a regular person might make and isn't exactly athletic, i.e. it doesn‘t involve a struggle like you might get in a fight with a resisting opponent.
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Well, if you want contest, go look in a Shodokan dojo. If it is judocontests you want then go do judo and dont complain that aikido is different from judo!!
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How can aikido training be complete when there is no stress in the training. People say that you fight how you train, and there is plenty of stress and tiring activity in a fight. Aikido people never test themselves in competition or otherwise so how can they be sure that what they are doing is worthwhile? Aikido training is quite relaxing even. How is this good preparation for fighting?
What are peoples opinions on this, especially people who have done a competitive full contact martial art prior to aikido.
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Aikido has its own training manners and own context. Of course there are plenty of schools were they train in a "weird" way from my perspective. Still I detect some I am right, I studied Judo and respect my (shodan) authority. It does not work that way.
If you only flew in airoplanes before and take a look at the bus you might definitly see it has no wings, it cannot fly and it does not travel as fast. That is the way it should be. No sense complaining about it. It is different.
You dont have to like aikido. If judo makes you happy and then go and do that. No sense in sticking in Aikido and claiming it is incomplete and misses a lot of things you think judo can offer you, because that simply means you are in the wrong place.