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Old 10-04-2009, 05:22 PM   #24
Ketsan
Dojo: Zanshin Kai
Location: Birmingham
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 865
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Re: How does Aikido work?

Quote:
Maciej Jesmanowicz wrote: View Post
Regardless what you have read above let me give you my own point of view in this matter. Aikido is a Martial Art, meaning, it is an art of killing people. Most of aikidokas do not realize it, or they do not want to admit it.

Aikido we indebted to two great men. The first one was Jigoro Kano, a father of judo, and the second one - Morihei Ueshiba, a creator of aikido.

Jigoro Kano proved that it is possible to practice very dangerous techniques in a safe way. You can see what I mean by "dangerous" just by looking at judo techniques such as: seoi-nage, o-soto-gari, kata-guruma etc. All of them are throws directly onto the head. Young Jigoro Kano (22 years old) realized that it is possible to practice these deadly techniques without hurting a partner. By grabbing his arm (to the end) during throwing, his head is always protected and his body lands safely on the back.

Morihei Ueshiba, an already experienced Martial Artist (40 years old) has got an idea based on judo development. He created a new weapon - an empty handed warrior. Like a gun, able to kill in a blink of an eye. He selected from antique fighting arts (like ju-jitsu, daito-ryu, etc.) only deadly techniques, in a sense above - throws directly on the head. He never considered his art as a fighting or self-defense art. For example, some of aikido techniques are finished by sliding the partner on his belly. The reason is obvious - the goal is to kill, but the practice must be safe.

As we know, a perfect throw in a judo match is very rear. It is caused by sport's rules. Both competitors are forced to grab each other. It creates an opportunity to resist and mostly strength decides about the result. In aikido there are no rules, and to avoid the same problem, aikido is based on dodging. There is no difference how many aggressors faces an aikidoka if he is able to dodge every attack. All the techniques let him kill an opponent in a blink of an eye.
I don't know that we owe much to Kano and I don't think Ueshiba created an empty hand system, far from it in fact.

Aikido is based on dodging. I've come to see Aikido as, loosely speaking, two groups of teachings (I'm not going to use the word "technique" if I can avoid it). The first group such as shiho nage and kote gaeshi and ikkyo are defences against weapon attacks and grabs, they are defensive in nature. The second group includes irimi nage, tenchi nage, things which can be done by entering in and seizing an opponent.
The second group relies on evasive movement to get into a clinch despite an attack and so yes there is dodging but the point of dodging in Aikido is never a complete response it is always a set up to something else.

As for deadliness; in my experience if you do Aikido full power and full speed on someone that isn't familiar with Aikido you're going to injure them quite badly. Bare miniumum you're going to break or dislocate something, with throws the back of the head is usually the first part of your opponents body to touch the ground.
Since it's reasonably common for people to die after being knocked down simply because they bashed their head off the pavement I can imagine that slamming their head into the pavement will also probably kill them.

And the thing about Judo artifically creating resistance and then patting itself on the back for over coming it I've been saying for maybe a year now. Randori is as much about teaching a student how to resist as it is about teaching how to deal with resistance, so it ends up cancelling itself out and in my experience it only really teaches something of value if your opponent resists in the "correct" fashion. I remember seeing Judo instructor warning an Aikidoka about standing in kamae because his lead leg would get swept "like this" and attempted to demonstrate and the Aikidoka didn't budge one bit. I've also seen Judoka yanking and pulling and getting really quite frustrated as their drag some poor Aikidoka all over the mat, without breaking the Aikidoka's posture.
The best one I've seen is when they do a dropping ippon seoi nage and they expect resistance, but the Aikidoka just goes with it. So the pair end up in this odd situation where the Judoka is kneeling on the floor infront of this very slightly bent over but still standing Aikidoka. Or they go for a normal ippon seoi nage and just before the moment of kuzushi the Aikidoka steps around in front of the Judoka.
I had one judoka literally say to me mid-randori, "Why can't I throw you" and the only answer I had was "Because I'm not resisting you." If you don't give them a stiff, straining, rigid body they really can't do much, Aikidoka are unique in that we can be off posture and on balance. The best form of resistance is to keep your backside underneath you, if the judoka pulls the top bit down, you push the bottom bit under it and if they push the top of your body back then you move the bottom half back with it, so that you're constantly undoing their kuzushi. Judoka are always too busy straining and fighting and struggling to just relax and go with things.

The beauty of Aikido is that by the time you actually physically come into contact with your opponent you've got so much momentum that unless the opponent makes a blending movement of some kind the sheer force of impact is going to take their balance. They have no chance to recover, no chance to resist and by the time they've realised they're off balance they're on the ground. If they're lucky the Aikidoka decides not to put the boot in, if not they end up in the fetal position in a puddle of blood with half their teeth missing.

In my experience.
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