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Old 10-31-2009, 11:08 AM   #78
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Dojo: Team Combat USA
Location: Olympia, Washington
Join Date: Jul 2002
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Re: Why do people think Aikido does not work?

Jason, no problem, sounds like I may have misunderstood a little. Sorry. It can be hard to communicate this way.

It is not so much the styles themselves that are anymore valid, but what they do within the context of their practice that is.

There is a reason that MT, BJJ, and Wrestling are held in high regard by those that fight for a living both in the ring and out of the ring and there is a reason why arts like Aikido are not.

The challenge is to look at WHY this is the case, and then evaluate what you are doing against those reasons.

I guess my real point is that your argument/logic does nothing really to constructively look at those reasons.

A big reason that MMA guys do so well is that for the most part, they think differently than most guys in martial arts. They are innovators and thinkers, they fully understand how to evaluate their training and adapt it.

I guarantee you that if someone that studied aikido demonstrated that the training methods worked for them, then they would adopt them. The problem is, you'd probably never know about it as they would keep it a secret as long as possible to give them a competitive advantage!

Okay, but even this discussion derails the argument/logic because, I agree the MMA model is not the end all be all of evaluating the legitimacy of training.

The only point is that MMA guys have a system of evaluation and measure and are willing to adapt training to meet their goals.

It is not always so clear in Aikido for some reason. If it was, we would not even be having this discussion!

I train in Aikido for some very specific reasons. I also train in BJJ, MT, Judo and a few other things as well for the things those systems offer. I have my own set of criteria and evaluation for determining what I need to do, so when I look at MT, for example, I look at how training like this can help me.

I don't look at it in the way you presented your case above as it does not help get me anywhere.

Hope that makes sense?

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