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Old 09-16-2009, 12:20 AM   #13
Michael Varin
Dojo: Aikido of Fresno
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 567
United_States
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Re: Thai Boxing & Aikido: Thoughts & Feedback.

Hello Dalen,

You have started down a potentially interesting path.

I did muay thai for about a year. That was during a period of time when I was frustrated about the applicability of aikido to a "real" fight.

I was constantly trying to make aikido fit.

I loved muay thai training, and bet you will too. I am sure you will learn a lot! But you will end up frustrated if you are doing it with the aim of making aikido techniques work in an mma setting.

It's like trying to put the square peg in the round hole.

You have already, perhaps intuitively, recognized rokkyo as the most likely candidate. I would agree.

You might work some of the other techniques, but even then you will likely find them to be unnecessarily dangerous (to you). The more you learn strikes, clinching, and take downs, the more obvious this will become.

The men who developed (discovered?) the techniques seen in aikido did not contemplate a one-on-one empty-handed fight.

Japanese jujutsu was developed around weapons, particularly edged weapons, and that is the context in which you will see their applicability.

It's the same reason non-choke submissions are disappearing from high-level mma. Strategically they do not make sense.

The reverse is equally true. Those brutal knees from a muay thai clinch would be terribly inefficient techniques against an opponent armed with a knife.

In any case, I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

Good luck!

-Michael
"Through aiki we can feel the mind of the enemy who comes to attack and are thus able to respond immediately." - M. Mochizuki
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