Do you know what? this is perhaps the most interesting video with an aikidoka in, that I have seen in two years.
Do not dismiss it as mere fun. It is one of the more instructive instances to be found online. I don't mean it's terrific in itself - I mean we nearly never see on video guys who have the guts of showing themselves in a setting that won't make them look good.
Fantastic.
And you're a
Dan!
Well, my personal judgement aside, just in order to contribute to the discussion and keeping in mind with humilty that I am a bad aikidoka, yet perhaps I have a few considerations to make and
maybe not all of them are unconsequential or to be dismissed like stuff.
1] You are facing an opponent who throws punches.
Now, too many aikidokas seem to forget that, in a real situation, this is precisely what you have to face in most cases.
Commendable choice!
Now, it is true that your uke is not really experienced - you would be surprised how a vaguely decent boxer (no Thai: pure boxing) with say 30 fights on his shoulders (with "decent boxer" I mean only this: you won't need Ray Sugar leonard) can hit you and keep you at bay. However, he has the merit of
pursuing you (our ukes throw mild stuff and - doh - wait!)
2] This training, that you rightly dub "fun" (or so: "messing around") ought instead to be exactly a daily part of our training.
See how difficult it was to place one technique - and the simplest of all, Ikkyo: number
one. I mean, you know too the ikkyos we see on videos - everything seems
simple.
It is not.
3] Let's examine briefly the two techniques you manage to land. One is the Ikkyo.
Of course. That's exactly and nearly the only thing we can do to someone throwing punches, and what I normally attempt too - we strive to get lateral, and once lateral you have no time to think of fancy things with a fast paced opponent - you do
what you can, and what you can has a name: Ikkyo.
The "yet" stays in this: yet, facing such attacks, our aikido is reduced to nearly nothing - it necessarily becomes very
poor.
One wonders: why we learn scores of techniques, when even under mild & friendly fire we can't apply more than 3 or 4 at
best?
4] You produce a neck lock - and that's correct, though it's not aikido any longer. But I think that, then and there, you realized what I realized: a real fight
immensely depletes our Aikido.
5] Of course, I think you know (and I hope that you will take no offense if I state the obvious - with the premise that in my case it is even worse!): that aikido is immensely
ugly.
I mean: what is left there of all those super sophisticated videos we see with super sleek techniques all super easily applied and all invariably succeeding and ukes falling on the floor immediately?
We move from immaculate aikido to
plain ugly (I mean to the eye) without any intermediate step!
In an instant, we have jumped beyond the whole gap!
6] Envision a situation where the boxer gets at you: imagine the problems for fun you had there, what they could turn into once actual blows hit you: they do pose a challenge. From ugly to
uglier.
Morale: one cannot "udekimenage" on these guys - one has to go for the jugular