Martial Attitude

Originally posted by Jim23 No problem you old fart (you're younger than I am, by the way) mj, Take a look at what George Ledyard has to say about this guy (hope you don't mind George). By the way, I like how you say crrrrrraaaapppp!!!! If you want a real humbling but educational experience take a look at Mr. Vasiliev up in Toronto, Canada ( http://www.russianmartialart.com ) . I would dearly love to get to train with this man, he is clearly a master of unique skill. He is a former instructor of what the Russians refer to as the "Systema". It was only taught to the Russian Special Ops folks like Stalin's body guards and the Spetsnaz commandos. Before you prejudge this stuff you should take a look. It was totally different from what I had expected when I ordered some of his tapes (every one is worth twice what they ask). The Systema is aikido without any of the form. Every thing is done with no set postures, even designed to be done from positions of great disadvantage. Their training has no set form either. It is basically a form of jyu waza and randori which gets faster as you progress. I have been working off some of Mr. Vasiliev's tapes and they can help you immensely with your Aikido I believe. The level of his relaxation is an inspiration yet he is quite effective. This stuff is very compatible with Aikido. And Mr. Vasiliev is a real gentleman. I had occasion to correspond with him and he was extremely gracious. The only problem here is that there are virtually no qualified instructors around who teach this. There is an American teacher on the East coast who teaches some of the same stuff but is with a different organization (ROSS Russian Martial Arts) but I have only seen his website ( http://www.amerross.com/main.html ) __________________ George S. Ledyard Aikido Eastside Bellevue, WA I recently came across a very interesting style referred to as the "Systema" which is a Russian martial art. Mr. Vasiliyev is located in Canada and is a master of this art which I would describe as Aikido but with no set form at all. One of the films that he offers for sale on his website (all are worth having) is on multiple attackers. If you want to open up your concept of randori, get that film! He at one point does an entire randori from his back on the ground against three attackers! Anyway, their method is to be completely freestyle, the attacks can be anything. But they run the randori slower for the purpose of saftey. As there is nothing formailzed about the techniques the falls can be quite dangerous, escpecially for the knees. Also, the strikes are done in a way that everybody knwos there was a hit but they are pulled to prevent abuse of the partner. So we (as Aikidoka) can do full speed, full power randori. They are completely formless but need to tone down the application a bit for safety. (With his most advanced students the amount of toning down Mr. Vasiliyev does seems to be fairly slight) Check out http://www.russianmartialart.com for this wonderful teacher. __________________ George S. Ledyard Aikido Eastside Bellevue, WA Jim23

Talk about ones words coming back to haunt one. It's weird to think that not only are there folks out there who read this stuff we write but that somebody may actually be saving it! Finding yourself quoted is a very odd feeling. At least it's stuff that I'm not embarrssed about.

Originally posted by Jim23 I have a question for you. You've done judo for a very long time; which do you feel is more practical, aikido or judo (I don't want to start an aikido vs. judo war here, just an opinion)?

If you go to http://www.aikido-jaffraji.com/ and then learn to speak french (or tranlate crudely with the babel fish on altavista) you'll find a brief explanation of some of the technical differences.
I believe it says something like " In Judo, when you're pulled you push and when you're pushed you pull. In aikido when you're pulled you enter and when you're pushed you tenkan." And there's more....


andrew

I think this is one of the more subtle differences between aikido and 'sports'. Yes, in judo you can tell if it is good because they can resist, but if I punched somebody hard in a vital point during judo I think they would be very shocked, but in aikido we have to assume this may happen.

For this reason we cannot 'hang-around' in aikido, struggling etc; it defeats the object of the defence. We have to assume that every potential strike can kill/debilitate us and so we do techniques where people do not get that oportunity to strike. This necessarily takes away from realism in the dojo, but if we are aware (both as uke and nage) of what they could have done, and the potential weaknesses we can change this next time. If we are just struggling and trying to throw each other we don't have time to re-run this problem with our technique, and we don't learn how to improve (in the same way).

from my experience, in real life people who attack you do not assume you have a good knowledge of martial arts and tend to be quite suprised when you do an aikido technique - even poor ones (which they tend to be!). I have never had a situation where someone has tried to do a counter technique or even given a reasonable level of resistence - mostly they haven't a clue what is going on.

Therefore practising counter techniques and being 'awkward' is mostly unrealistic (though possible useful at a higher level). Most people who have taken a swing at me hoped to knock me across the room (possibly because I'm quite small!).

Ian

P.S. this is not a cricisim of martial arts as sports - I think it is easier to develop effectiveness early on in martial arts sports whereas it takes constant awareness (and minfulness) as uke and nage to get effectiveness in non-sport martial arts.

Ian

Ian, I know no criticism was intended...

Originally posted by andrew I believe it says something like " In Judo, when you're pulled you push and when you're pushed you pull. andrew

This is an interesting one... I've read it many times,
It would be truer to say...when pushed you give way (Ju) by exactly the amount you were pushed, when pulled you enter the same way.
Pushing, pulling, grappling etc in judo is done (strongly) but without committing the bodies balance. Sometimes we call it 'physical chess'. (We call Aikido physical Zen.)

And yes there are opportunities for opponents (we call them players) to strike you, and more often than not, they do.
But it is highly enjoyable, as is aikido.
Believe it or not, my own personal view of the differences between aikido and judo are mainly concerned with ukemi....

Originally posted by George S. Ledyard Talk about ones words coming back to haunt one. It's weird to think that not only are there folks out there who read this stuff we write but that somebody may actually be saving it! Finding yourself quoted is a very odd feeling. At least it's stuff that I'm not embarrssed about.

Ha Ha Ha!

The pen is indeed mightier than the _*cough*_sword!

I remembered reading about it (Russian martial arts) here on Aikiweb and did a search to find it.

Anyway ... George, your posts are always appreciated.

Jim23

Originally posted by mj This is an interesting one... I've read it many times, It would be truer to say...when pushed you give way (Ju) by exactly the amount you were pushed, when pulled you enter the same way. Pushing, pulling, grappling etc in judo is done (strongly) but without committing the bodies balance. Sometimes we call it 'physical chess'. (We call Aikido physical Zen.) ]

Oh. Ok. Still, it's easy to remember. Ahem.

Believe it or not, my own personal view of the differences between aikido and judo are mainly concerned with ukemi....

Believe it or not, that sounds quite simular to something I read from Kissomharu. Or at least, I recall him saying something about the differences in Ukemi.