First: to ask the question, "Is Aikido misunderstood in the Martial Art world?" without giving your definition of Aikido opens up the box - as can be seen by the varying answers within our own community. Maybe that was intentional - I like.
If by misunderstood, you mean others do not consider Aikido to be a relevant Martial Art, then yes and no.
To answer, "No" means Aikido is not misunderstood. But is it seen as relevant or not? Reading Larry's post gives a legit knowledge of many Aikido schools with inbred illusions of grandeur and very little martial application or the ability to use Aikido techniques to protect oneself or others in a real-world street situation. If this is how some "outsiders" see us, they are unfortunately too often correct in their understanding of Aikido.
There are schools that never train against a punch that even a two-month karate yellow-belt dropout can do (even ten years later) - much less training against attacks that may be administered by a street thug - which is more likely to occur than a "trained" attack.
Alex' response (and others) concurs this non-martial training is not new.
To answer, "Yes" means we are understood. But again, how so? The same discussion as above applies.
If Aikido is to be "understood" as a legitimate, relevant Martial Arts Style by non-aikidoka, then, in their minds, one way to prove so would be to compete in their arena. But in so doing, would we then be aikido practioners? For an aikidoka to climb into the octagon would immediately show himself to be one not having the intent to master himself but only to prove himself better than his newfound opponent. ie: it would be going entirely against the spirit of aikido and hence giving a false definition - which indeed would be a misunderstanding of Aikido.
How is that for a non-answer.
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Larry Camejo wrote:
I think that Aikido is misunderstood in the world of Aikido, much less the wider world of martial arts. The word is used to describe training methodologies that differ quite significantly depending on how one traces ones lineage back to Ueshiba M.
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...In a real sense these groups train daily in a shared illusion at their dojo and do not want to endanger that illusion by exposing themselves to others outside their dojo and/or style who might start critiquing what they do. Their idea of sharing is for the outsider to drink the kool aid and share in the illusion.
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In some sense many Aikido practitioners do not understand the jutsu or martial science behind what they do. As a result they misunderstand their own training, spreading that to others who know even less.
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Quote:
Alex Lawrence wrote:
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There's no-one really fired up to do anything; instead there's 40-50 years of entrenchment and a suspicion of anything new and a constant intake of people that aren't all that interested in or even in a position to challenge things. As we say "Do as Sensei says" "Do as your dojo does." Got a question? The answer is, "Shut up and train." Any student who doesn't find their questions answered simply leaves, the only people left are the ones that don't ask questions i.e people that aren't all that interested in doing anything other than Sensei says.
People often ask why we're not in MMA. The reason is simple; we're really good at weeding out anyone that would want to be in MMA. We have them off the mat and bitching online in double quick time. We'd rather show someone the door than show them how Aikido is relevent to them.
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I share your observation; the biggest gobs are on the people that at most have a years worth of training. With the exception of myself of course.  |