Why do some people hate Aikido?

Ian Dodkins wrote: Also, compared to other martial arts, Aikidoka are often physically unfit, suggesting that they don't really take the martial aspect seriously. How dare the pathetic weaklings protect themselves? We are not training the Praetorian Guard or the Immortals here.

I've heard this unfit student thing before but I've never really seen it. In my (maybe limited limited) exposure to other schools the students all looked fit. A considerable number of the Aikidoa I've spoke with/met (my sensei and his included) are ex military. At 185lbs-190lbs at the time I tried to resist my sense's sensei during a kenshu (sp?) as hard as I could. I'm sure I was taller and had some weight on him.There was no way I was letting another military guy show me up He (gently) threw me around as if I wasn't resisting in the slightest. All the guys from his class were fit as well. In the pictures I've seen I haven't come across anyone who's been grossly unfit/over weight. Are they just camera shy? Not invited on kenshu's?
I find it a little difficult to believe that with all of Aikidos flipping rolling jumping and other physical activities it would be a beacon for lazy overweight unfit people to flock to.

Grant,

I just saw your name in Bullshido.com (GulitySpark). I can assume you get that "why people hate aikido" feeling from that site. Ha ha ha ha ha.....

That site is a no go if you are not into MMA/Combat sport. There are so many aikido bashing; it is their culture and hive mentality.

Some of their criticisms are true; hence improve ourselves. Some are myths sprouted by MMA fanboys who has never actually tried aikido. Ignore them.

Boon.

The people I know who "hate" aikido usually do so because of so many noobies who swear up and down that they WILL become invincible by training in aikido. The fact that most of these noobs will quit or learn that is not the case has no bearinging on their decision that the opinion of these noobs is the opinion of all aikidoka.

The people that i have met that look down on aikido are usally from MAs that have competition. Ego soothing displays are all well and good. They don't determine the effectivness of a MA.
Those miss-informed noobies are a problem. I know it works, you know it works, if a person doesn't want to believe- they are the poorer.

Alistair Williams wrote: The people that i have met that look down on aikido are usally from MAs that have competition. Ego soothing displays are all well and good. They don't determine the effectivness of a MA.

Here's a good example of that 'holier than thou' sanctimonious attitude I mentioned earlier.

Not 'holier than thou' I don't think. Just my experience. I see the value of competition- i played comp sport for many years. I may be wrong- it may be becasue we wear skirts (",)

Alistair Williams wrote: The people that i have met that look down on aikido are usally from MAs that have competition. Ego soothing displays are all well and good. They don't determine the effectivness of a MA. Those miss-informed noobies are a problem. I know it works, you know it works, if a person doesn't want to believe- they are the poorer.

Until I have a nice line of peasants to kill over and over competition is the best test I have to make sure I can actually do what I train to do. However I do not think that it is the fact that aikido has limited or no competition that causes the majority of people in arts that have competition to talk down on it (although I'm sure it is a factor). I would say the problem stems from people in arts with no competition making statements about competition. I hear "That wouldn't work on the street" from non-competitive martial artists, way way way more then I hear "That wouldn't work on the street" from competitive martial artists. The fact that there is so much bad information being spread has caused many competition oriented martial artists to just blindly distrust any art that does not have full contact MMA type sparing. I personally feel this is a bad thing because it leads to isolation. Isolation is always bad. Isolation is what has caused a lot of the bad things in martial arts. Isolation has created guys who can point a finger at their student from 30 feet away and make him do a backflip, Isolation has caused people to claim pinching a leg can save you from a choke, or that you can eye gouge your way out of the mount. It only works because everyone in their isolated world thinks just like them. Isolation in competition based martial arts will cause them to be less effective as everyone starts to learn exactly the same techniques, concepts, strategys, etc and good ideas get pushed out and new ideas are never tested. This is why I do not discount any martial art. I simply discount techniques that do not work on me in a sparing enviroment.

I simply discount techniques that do not work on me in a sparing enviroment

Don, generally like your posts as they're understandable by even those idiots such as myself, but this small bit left me with a quick question - have you ever been exposed to techniques which didn't work in the sparring environment but which you looked into further because you felt the fault was that of the practitioner rather than the technique?

Back on topic - why hate aikido? Why not, seems a pretty safe thing to do - the guys who are good won't attack you as it's against their ethos and the guys who are crap can't hurt you - win win scenario t'would seem. Anyway, I agree with the "hate the hakama" vibe, but what they're missing is that the non-hakama wearers can only loath and dislike hakama, you have to wear them for a few years to truly build up a good dose of hatred against them...

Enjoyed the feedback so far thank you.

Xu (Boon?) Bullshido is one of the places I was speaking about with a large hate on for Aikido though I've posted at a few other sites with people sharing the same opinion. (Just not a fan of giving a site negative publicity).

Bullshido is probably the leader though There are some kids on there who jump on the hate aikido band wagon just because they want to fit in with everyone else however there are some posters there who have taken a few years of Aikido and quit. Many of which suggest it's a waste of time. I admit I'm interested in hearing why these "ex-Aikidoa" quit and what their feelings are towards it. Maybe theirs something to learn from it, maybe not.

Don I pretty much agree with you that competition or 'aliveness/resistance training' (whatever the word is) is a good way to validate whether or not what you're learning will work on the street. I still think competition falls short in some ways as such there are still rules to abide by where 'on the street' anything goes. Still, it's a good start. Between you and Kevin I've a big interest in exposing myself to BJJ. Kevin brought up a lot of good points on it a while back.

Still, I think a shortcoming with many martial arts is that people just can't accept that their different approaches towards some of the same goals.

Too many people get hung up on aikido NOT competing. Martial arts HAVE to work in the street or in a ring etc..
I figure it's just like art, say painting. Some people paint to sell their pictures or be known as a painter, some paint because they simply love to and might never let on that they paint. Hope that makes sense?

Grant Wagar wrote: Too many people get hung up on aikido NOT competing. Martial arts HAVE to work in the street or in a ring etc.. I figure it's just like art, say painting. Some people paint to sell their pictures or be known as a painter, some paint because they simply love to and might never let on that they paint. Hope that makes sense?

Then call it dancing not a 'martial' art.

At any rate, over at that other forum, people bash aikido not because of the art, but because of the people and the lack of real resistance training. Having been a member there for quite a few years now, the overwhelming critiques are of the people who feel they are too deadly to train with full resistance. They make outrageous claims but never want to back it up. You do not see many people criticizing on the mechanics of aikido, just the antics

Clark Bateman wrote: I think that "hate" may be too strong a word. I know that most of the people I've talked to who "dislike" Aikido simply don't take it seriously, or feel that it lacks the instant gratification or empowerment that a "harder" art can offer. Certainly, if one can practice Aikido diligently for a lifetime, and still feel he has much to learn, it's not an avocation that is going to appeal to the impatient.

i dont believe there is a harder art or softer art, i think what people fail to understand is aikido is niether hard nor soft, aikido is aikido, its how the individual trains that makes it hard or soft, and you must train full on sometimes and sometimes soft, you need both the powers of fire and water, in aikido you can still attack full on, but without aggression or the intent to defeat. i think what sets aikido up for ridicule most is some aikidokas translation on harmony, they missunderstand harmony and try to be all love and joy with the attacker, instead of harmonising with the energy of the attack, wich unfortunatly turns aikido into ballet school and makes it look fake and soft, wich at that point it has become, limitation human understanding, there again im probably wrong im still trying to understand to.

Yeh, pretty much agree with you Erik. My point about physical fitness is, that this is one of the easiest ways to improve your chances in fight situations (helps to cope with adrenalin dump, blood loss, as well as enabling you to prolong your own physical aggression) - yet so many aikidoka don't keep fit? You can spend 3 years, 3 nights a week doing aikido yet it only takes about 6 weeks to get to a reasonable level of fitness. I understand that not everyone is doing it for self-defence, but for me the martial aspect is the focus of aikido and without it, we may as well be doing dancing techniques. I don't think anyone would deny that Ueshiba was physically powerful and would train intensively (to the point of collapse according to Stevens biography of him)

P.S. Don - really liked your post. We all (as martial artists) full of s**t. We need to constantly question ourselves and reassess our goals to get closer to real martial ability. We also have to face the sad truth that ANYONE can be taken out by anyone else given the right opportunity - we just want to improve our chances a little.

In fact, I've wondered if MMA competitions will end up with a type of 'red queen' scenario where someone does well with certain techniques, so everyone copies, but then someone develops another technique, then everyone copies, only to realise this was a technique which was rejected several years before as ineffective. Sometimes you just have to have the balls to kick-arse and the techniques become secondary.

Basically I welcome (but not promote!) real fight situations as a way to assess the training I've been doing (luckily I've not been seriously injured yet)

P.S. I think sometimes we are too hard on ourselves. There are many people learning kata in which they feel they have learnt to destroy someone by tearing their rib-cage off. To a large extent we do actually do what we intend to do in the street, and if the ukes are good, the attacks are also pretty sincere. I bash aikido a fair bit myself (because I think striking arts have more immediate effectiveness, and I feel the ability to strike (esp. vital points) is intrinsic to aikido but usually overlooked) . However the training method has some really excellent advantages. I'm happy to say that I've used aikido many times succesfully in reality, and where I feel something has not quite gone well, I've learnt from it and altered the way I think about my training, rather than what I actually do). So much of real combat is psychological anyway.

Great thread Grant, I think you nailed it on the head straight away!

People spend far too much time worrying about others perceptions. Let them spend their time hating/cussing out, and just enjoy what you do. You'll never convince an idiot he's wrong, he'll just bring you down to his level

Ian Hurst wrote: Have you ever been exposed to techniques which didn't work in the sparring environment but which you looked into further because you felt the fault was that of the practitioner rather than the technique?

I think my idea of good technique has changed as I train. When I first started bjj I would try all sorts of movements I had been told were very effective. They didn't work. I discounted them. However as I gain skill I have found a lot of these movements are working for me now. So I have learned not to discount a technique based on skill, but on the merits of the technique and how it performs in sparing. This means I will try it out, if it doesn't work, I will put it on the back burner. Later I will come across a movement that is similar and bring out that old technique again and give it a good try. However, if a guy has man years in his art, and he can't get his techniques to work on me, I'm going to probably discount them as too complicated and focus on my basics.

I spend a good deal of time on bullshido and I do not think there is aikido hatred there. I think there is aikido dismissal. Most aikido posts tend to be of the "My sensei can shoot fire out of his fingers with his ki", or "This is the real aikido", or "I could kill you if we fought without any rules" variety. So the moment I see an aikido thread on bullshido I just assume the poster has no idea what he is talking about, and that the topic will yield no interesting conversation at all. This is also true with wing chun. I think the problem stems from a huge mystical background around the art. A lot of young noobies get very excited and develop hero worship and sometimes an almost cult like following of their teacher, founder, own perceived ablities, or art. So they go on the internet and want to validate their feelings and share their perceived wisdom. I know cause I was one of them :-). The best part about sport training was that I quickly learned how little I knew the moment I got into a sparing situation. Now of course I preach on about 'aliveness', honesty to yourself and others, and the need to test yourself physically and mentally every chance you get. This is also not to say that there are not bjj guys who have a cult like worshiping of the gracies. I have met guys who really think that with bjj they are invincible. Fortuantly you can usually talk those guys into a MMA event and show them the error of their way.

Of course a 3rd aspect of this perceived hatred is just plain old childish rivalry. The gracies said that bjj was the greatest art in the world. This of course got everyone upset and they made their claims that they could defeat a gracie on the street and bjj wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Rivialry has existed from the first moment there were 2 people alive competing for attention. You love your art, you are not going to let anyone tell you it sucks. The moment you defend your art you are telling the ego infested people that their art sucks and yours is best (even if you never say it like that). This of course turns into a verbal chess match that can never be resolved. The sad fact is very few of these idiots who engage in such pointless conversation ever realize that it is the person, not the art that makes a great fighter. The art just helps that person become an even better fighter. Even more so, it is not so much what you train, it is how you train. What you train is secondary to the training method. Of course that is an entirely different topic that should not be covered here. But I think if more people realized this, there would be less people out there claiming their art is greater then any other art.

Joseph,

Then call it dancing not a 'martial' art.

Why? Because you can't "enjoy" a martial art for the simple sake of learning something? It needs to be validated?
What about "martial arts" where you learn horsebackriding/horsemanship? Throwing shuriken daggers or darts. Spear fighting, sword fighting. Archery. Iaido. I think even swimming was considered a martial art or martial training wasn't it?
I think you'll find the mentioned examples a little hard to 'use on the street'. Are they not martial arts? If not what are they exactly?

Most aikido posts tend to be of the "My sensei can shoot fire out of his fingers with his ki", or "This is the real aikido", or "I could kill you if we fought without any rules"

Haven't been there as long as you my friend but I've never really seen these comments. Might have seen a few posts regarding "real" aikido this and that but the first? Never seen it. The third maybe by someone BRAND new to aikido who has bought into what they've picked up from others. With few exceptions I'd say Aikidoa there, despite the enviroment, are quite mature posters.

I think even swimming was considered a martial art or martial training wasn't it?

Yep, though the name escapes me at the moment.

Erick Mead wrote:

By doing so we experience full range of motion and dynamics of body motion in places and trajectories that done competitively would inevitably injure or wound one or the other. We gain sensitivity to our partner's movements that might be blinded by our own blaze of fearful anticipation.

I am tracking on your post and understand your intent. You must be careful though not to assume by adopting the methodology of aikido that it means that arts that practice full speed and fairly balistic cannot accomplish these things in there methodology...because you can train full speed and in a "live" fully resistive manner and do these things as well.

If aikido gets a bad rap, it is because many in the art are deluded in thinking that they are accomplishing something that others cannot and that aikidoka cannot demonstrate adequately when facing a fully resistive opponent.

Not implying that you are necessarily saying this Erick...but to others that may be less indoctrinated in martial arts, be careful about the assumptions you make concerning aikido and other martial arts.

Aikido is very good at communicating and conveying the stated goals of aikido by the founder and his successors, the whole "dissing" aikido thing comes into play when we have those that try to project their personal desires, goals, and fantasies onto the art.

Grant Wagar wrote: Haven't been there as long as you my friend but I've never really seen these comments. Might have seen a few posts regarding "real" aikido this and that but the first? Never seen it. The third maybe by someone BRAND new to aikido who has bought into what they've picked up from others. With few exceptions I'd say Aikidoa there, despite the enviroment, are quite mature posters.

That's what I'm saying. Mature posters and mature martial artists do not talk crap about other arts, do not boast about their abilities, and they generally have good stuff to say. The problem is all the noobs. If you want some fun do some searches on bullshido for no touch knock outs, ki energy, causing cancer with chi, chi/ki throws, ki/chi energy shields, too deadly for the ring, why do you hate aikido, Aikido sucks, real aikido, etc. You will see a lot of people claiming to be aikidoka making crazy statements. It is these people that have caused bullshido to basically discount any post that contains the word aikido or wing chun. Basically if you make a post about either of those two arts chances are it will just become a troll post. It is not that they hate aikido. They just hate talking to people who claim to have the real aikido.

There are some good guys on Bullshido. Also a bunch of young, stupid, ignorant, overly enthusiastic wannabees, and some guys with very limited perspective on Martial arts as well. Personally I have never had a problem with Bullshido and have gone on there and defended aikido successfully as well. No different than Aikiweb...we are just a little more polite.

What I like about Bullshido is that you get an honest answer or an honest opinion about where you stand in the food chain. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen!

Bullshido followers have a different view on things than the average aikidoka. Unfortunately many aikidoka, usually the noobs play right into there hands and serve to fuel the fire that makes the young bullshidoka feel special.

Again, goes back to the whole projecting on to aikido what someone would like aikido to be, not what it is.

Getting my ass kicked pretty good by some young, unskilled infantry soldiers a few years ago with my "solid" TMA background proved to be the turning point to me that there was more to martial arts than TMA, internal arts or feeling good about myself, blending, and all that stuff.

Conversely, I have also learned that TMA has much to offer in ways that the "so-called" live, fully resistive training does not. The best sensei I have seen can equally walk both sides of the fence without turning their tails and whining about how some young kid on bullshido made them cry in a post.

If you care about your training, or you really value being a well rounded martial artist, I would emplore you to seek out the guys on bullshido and gain there respect as an aikidoka by taking the time to engage them on there terms, be successful, and then demonstrate to them why it is important to train in aikido.....

That is what I am trying to do, and so far, even with my lowly abilities in the art of aikido, I feel I have made some ground....at least I don't feel that I have to whine about this very topic any more as I understand both sides of the fence a little better than I did a couple of years ago and can hold my own in respectfully in a fully resistive environment and an aikido dojo.

It has also served to be humbling as it shows me just how expansive the road to knowledge is, how little I actually know, and how much I may never really learn!

Kevin Leavitt wrote: You must be careful though not to assume by adopting the methodology of aikido that it means that arts that practice full speed and fairly balistic cannot accomplish these things in there methodology...because you can train full speed and in a "live" fully resistive manner and do these things as well.

All training compromises something. For that matter, so do different tactical requirements of ground in actual combat. It is the flexibility and sensitivity of that adaptation that drew me to aikido, and which keeps me in it, since nimbleness matters more in actual confrontation than actual force or speed... This is true physically, it is true intellectually, and that aspect of aiki I get to practice very single day.

Kevin Leavitt wrote: If aikido gets a bad rap, it is because many in the art are deluded in thinking that they are accomplishing something that others cannot ...

I imagine myself as not being willfully deluded -- and yet -- accidental delusion does happen with alarming frequency ...

Kevin Leavitt wrote: ... and that aikidoka cannot demonstrate adequately when facing a fully resistive opponent.

Which presumes there is something to resist. I will not belabor my peculiar view on why there is not necessarily anything to resist in the classical sense, and whay aikido may actually be unique in that regard, not in its use of such principles, which can be found in spots of other arts, but in the depth of its commitment to them.

Kevin Leavitt wrote: ... be careful about the assumptions you make concerning aikido and other martial arts.

A due caution, but I have not strayed. Optimality is the training goal in all circumstances, the question is what is one optimizing. All dimensions of action cannot be optimized, and some dimensions can never maximized simultaneously.

Kevin Leavitt wrote: Aikido is very good at communicating and conveying the stated goals of aikido by the founder and his successors, the whole "dissing" aikido thing comes into play when we have those that try to project their personal desires, goals, and fantasies onto the art.

What I do believe, from my own experience and arc of training, and the authoritative support of O-Sensei's views on this same contention, is that Aikido is actually superior in training for "protective aggression" -- as distinguished from "competitive" "acquisitive" or "territorial" aggression. O-Sensie stated this as a "spirit of loving protection."

To me all three of these other differing tendencies in aggressive modes shed some light on why aikido is misunderstood in both its goal and method of training. Some people try to make aikido out as "non-aggressive," but I do not think that this is so. Too many senior instructors have routinely disabused me of any lingering delusion on this point.

Competitive aggression just about speaks for itself. You engage to one-up the other guy, whether in friendly or unfriendly contest. It is personal in nature, even when the only person you are competing against is your former self.

Competitive aggression is not bad, but it is comparative, and thus it divides our mind into two parts, one concerned with our own performance and the other concerned with the performance of the competitor. This is one problem -- but there is also the trap in wait for the unwary ego -- not all succumb to it, but it is an inviting path.

Acquisitive aggression is not personal but object-oriented and possessive. It may be for tangibles -- money, beer, women; or intangibles -- fame, glory, braggadocio, or honor (narrowly concieved).

It also is not bad, but necessary to get the things that make life possible. But it also divides the mind, by maintaining a distinction between the process of acquisition and and the objective of possession. It has a tendency to negate the personal, and in this sense is, in humane terms, perhaps, more problematic than competition in its typical pitfalls.

Territorial aggression is defensive aggression (else it would be acquisitive), and typically reactive. Like the other two, it has a salutary function, but it also divides the mind in concern over what is possessed now and what may be lost later. It tends to be the most easily brutalizing form of aggression as the prospect of loss is an invitation to fear, and fear is the least humane of all human motivations.

All three of these forms of aggression lack a certain quality of mind that I would describe as serene. It is the attitude of suigetsu (moon-in-water) and the naturalness and seeming inevitability of aiki movement when done properly. That frame of mind does not develop optimally in a competitive, acquisitive or territorial environment.

Protective aggression is different from these other three (and there may be more forms, I have not attempted to be exhaustive of the point.)

Protective aggression is the motivational basis for bushido's principle of disregard of one's own life in battle, and the most universally accessible form of aggression that can support that potentially totalizing degree of single-minded commitment in an engagement.
The other three forms all hold something back, by their nature, even at high levels of performance. The film "Gattaca" bears watching for a potentially different form of totalizing motivation, but it also exhibits a surreptitiously aggressive spirit of "loving protection" -- if you view the issue in that film as competition, or acquisition in any sense, you will have missed the point quite widely.

Training for that type of protective commitment reaches toward that serenity of mind that seems integral to budo at the highest levels, and which I feel that aikido optimizes in its mode of training. This is not to say that other forms of training and motivation cannot end up in the same place, nor that they they may not be aimed at the same ultimate goal, but in doing so they are, in some sense, transcending the elements of aggression inherent in these other modes of training, whereas aikido's mode of training is progressively perfected toward that end.

Them's my thoughts.

Cordially,
Erick Mead

Grant Wagar wrote: Why do people hate Aikido?

I think a small pocket of people, mostly anonymous in internet troll pits, dislike aikido (or claim to for trolling) because they are highly intimidated by a doctrine of peace in the martial arts, and suffer cognitive dissonance from the fact that people don't have to be into shiny belts and trophies to be able to use their martial arts effectively in real life situations.

Alistair Williams wrote: Not 'holier than thou' I don't think. Just my experience. I see the value of competition- i played comp sport for many years. I may be wrong- it may be becasue we wear skirts (",)

In my experience comptettion based arts give the ego more of a battering than the converse.

Justin Smith wrote: I think a small pocket of people, mostly anonymous in internet troll pits, dislike aikido (or claim to for trolling) because they are highly intimidated by a doctrine of peace in the martial arts, and suffer cognitive dissonance from the fact that people don't have to be into shiny belts and trophies to be able to use their martial arts effectively in real life situations.

why would that intimidate them?

Michael Fooks wrote: In my experience comptettion based arts give the ego more of a battering than the converse.

I wouldn't describe it as an "ego battering" exactly, but a reality check certainly, I agree.