Thread: This aint UFC!
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Old 02-06-2007, 06:21 AM   #13
DaveS
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 91
United Kingdom
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Re: This aint UFC!

Quote:
Ricky Wood wrote:
My son and I were playing aikido at my dojo the other day. Because he is a big young man I really enjoy practicing technique that he is fully resisting. Well, things got a little rough and he decided to go "UFC" on me. He only forgot one thing; the UFC has rules, aikido doesn't. I felt him going for a choke hold of some type, so I reached out and let him know that his groin was in a very vulnerable position. He quickly released me. I did take a moment after this and explain that aikido is budo. It aint UFC. As I see it, aikido doesn't have rules, it has principles, which may be employed in an infinite variety of ways. Principles are of a higher order than rules are. Rules are put in place and governed by humans whereas the principles of aikido are governed by universal laws. If I can attune myself to those laws, my aikido will be better. Not because I am higher ranked, tougher, or more gifted, but because I have succsesfully aligned myself with universal principles of a higher order. That being said, reading this article also reminded me that aikdio doesn't have the corner on the universal principles market.
There seems to be a bit of a category error here - UFC is (in a broad sense) a training method not a martial art. It has rules rather than principles, but so do all training exercises in aikido - even if in the case of most aikido exercises they're unwritten and self-enforced. But if you want to use MMA competition for testing and developing your understanding and application of universal principles then you can. This is kind of how I understand shiai, although in my case the result of the testing tends to be 'some way to go yet'...

As an aside, the one rule in (most) MMA competition that really seems to lose a lot of reality is the 'no strikes to the back of the head or neck.' Obviously I can see why the rule's there, but to my very limited understanding of groundfighting, it seems to mean that if someone is kneeling over you and hitting you in the face, you can get yourself comparatively safe by rolling over and presenting them with the back of your head. Which seems like a dangerous habit to develop.

edit: that last bit is looking for someone to explain why I'm wrong or why it isn't that important, btw, not just as a criticism.

Last edited by DaveS : 02-06-2007 at 06:28 AM.
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