View Single Post
Old 08-27-2009, 05:45 PM   #55
eyrie
 
eyrie's Avatar
Location: Summerholm, Queensland
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 1,126
Australia
Offline
Re: My Experiences in Cross Training MMA with Aikido

Hi Kevin,

Quote:
Kevin Leavitt wrote: View Post
Well the difference is as you state Ignatius, how it is pracitced [sic] and what emphasis is put on what aspects of the "fight"....... it is how it is practiced that makes the difference on how well you can do it given a certain set of parameters or conditions.
Absolutely. By the very nature and diversity of Aikido practice itself, and I cæveat this by saying - the way it is practiced in various places, and the way it was intended to be practiced, as Ueshiba (may or may not have) intended for it, may be 2 entirely different things.

IMO, the focus on what is Aikido waza or "not" Aikido waza is missing the whole point of Aikido - which by its very nature being a "formless" art - as is the case with ALL martial arts performed at higher and higher levels of sophistication - has NO waza. The whole point of any MA training is to change (read retrain/untrain) the way you move, respond, react - or in this case NOT move, respond, react - if you catch my drift.

Quote:
Aliveness matters, and Aliveness is enough of a factor to make a distinction between two "styles" doing the exact same thing.
When I first came across that word, I felt many people were largey using it as some MMA buzzword, and in many cases, no one I spoke to could really elaborate what that meant. To them it was mostly about being in the "fight" mindset and kicking someone else's a$$. It wasn't until I read what Matt Thornton had to say about it, that I found myself entirely in agreement with him. I don't see how one could possibly train in a MA, traditional or otherwise, and not train "alive". Perhaps, it is less overt in some places than others? Hidden in plain sight as it were...?

Which brings me back to the point about Aikido waza... it's not much different to your basic garden variety jujitsu - kotegaeshi, shihonage, iriminage, tenchinage, kaitennage etc... they are all found in various forms of "jujitsu" - whether they be of Japanese, Chinese or other derived origins. It matters not that such-and-such-a style does it slightly differently - the basic premise and principle of the technique is exactly the same. The human body can only be made to move and respond in fairly predictable ways, when appendages are bent, twisted and folded in ways they were not meant to be, or when poked, punched and kicked in various places.

But the whole point about learning Aikido waza isn't just so you can do something to someone, in which case, you might as well be doing your garden variety jujitsu, but so that you also learn and condition yourself not to move, respond and react in predictable fashion to such techniques being applied on you - whatever that means.

Quote:
...two ways to solve the problem. 1. Come to the conclusion that you are not going to be a fighter in the ring and dissassociate. 2. Admit that you need the skills and abandon your current processes and adopt ones that will lead you to where you want to go.
Hmmm.... is THAT why the views here are so polarized?

Quote:
....to say "Hey look at this guy using Aikido in a real fight...." does no good at all since the correalation simply is illogical and does not apply to you personally.
Precisely. Hence, my admonition to get outside the safe box one calls the "dojo" and train with other MA stylists - on their turf, with their rules. Or take option #1.

Ignatius
  Reply With Quote