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Old 09-11-2008, 12:54 PM   #95
Richard Sanchez
Location: SE Asia
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 25
Malaysia
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Re: Aikido and kicks

I've just caught up with this thread. As someone who has had an extensive background in the 'striking' arts before, (and since), taking up Aikido 27-years ago I always taught my students how to deliver effective kicks and punches, elbow strikes etc, from day one. It did not compromise their aikido and as our classes were 3-hour, 5 days a week, we had plenty of time to cover the 'normal' Aikido curriculum. We split classes into three sections, Taijitsu, Bukiwaza and freestyle randori which allowed All contact strikes plus the usual yokomen, shomen and grabs etc.

My personal opinion is that it has much to do with the teacher's experience and competence in teaching their students how to kick and punch. Several of my peers also have teaching backgrounds in other arts such as Shaolin, Karate and TKD and we all agree that integrating attacks not normally found in Aikido is quite natural and to be expected - if you have the background and the level of competency required to teach them safely.

We rarely had injuries as students were very comfortable with both delivering and receiving kicks because it was familiar to them . As to whether people consider kicks to be in the realm of Aikido- I guess that's another thread. But for me - anything goes.
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