Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Michael Neal wrote: Now that Neil Mick is posting here I am sure it will last forever.

It's nice to be immortalized.

I'm sure that alien archeologists will be puzzling over my posts, 1000 years from now....

Neil Mick wrote: It's nice to be immortalized. I'm sure that alien archeologists will be puzzling over my posts, 1000 years from now....

indeed

I tend to agree with Jorgen's comments concerning knife attacks. If it is your time, well it is your time. People watch too much TV and base their ideas of what will happen on romantic ideas of battle and scenarios set up to entertain us.


I think Ron Tisdale also brings up some very good perspectives.

Study aikido for what it is. If you are really concerned with Scenarios based or reality based training, then you should work on those scenarios and develop strategies that work best for them. Don't waste your time studying aikido cause you will learn alot of principles that, while applicable won't necessarily develop your ability to be good at that "crap shoot" scenario.

Aikido to me is sort of like MBA school. You learn alot of practical theory, but understanding/demonstrating theory...and being able to employ it in the "real world" is a totally different ball game...one that requires experience in the real world...not necessarily the "school house" or dojo.

i have used ny aikido very well in fights both street and hard rolling with jujitsu player i find it somewhat more difficult against grapplers as they are usually well trained, but they are usally surprised when i crack a good nikkyo on them from the guard, or reverse them with a sankyo or ikkyo from the guard. The aikido i studied does have ground work and good strikes and kicks. I started in Yoshinkan while in Japan and i still like the backfist to the eyes or nose that Shioda demonstrates in his book, easy to use standing or on the ground. As for ground work chokes and arm bars and entanglements were covered by most of my teachers as they all had backgrounds in judo. Indeed most of my teachers had backgrounds in karate as well...

just had to keep this going we should try to get a challenge fight from this joey... whatsup wanna roll dude???

Kevin Leavitt wrote: I. Study aikido for what it is. If you are really concerned with Scenarios based or reality based training, then you should work on those scenarios and develop strategies that work best for them. Don't waste your time studying aikido cause you will learn alot of principles that, while applicable won't necessarily develop your ability to be good at that "crap shoot" scenario. Aikido to me is sort of like MBA school. You learn alot of practical theory, but understanding/demonstrating theory...and being able to employ it in the "real world" is a totally different ball game...one that requires experience in the real world...not necessarily the "school house" or dojo.

I think this is true for all martial arts. I speak from a past prospective of training in escrima, Tae Kwon Do and Shaolin Kung Fu. You learn a lot of techniques as well as theories but for specific scenarios you have to develope your own strategies that you will feel comfortable doing in those scenarios...if they ever occur.
Plus I sometimes have to remember why chose Aikido to be the only martial art I will study and then teach to my son.

In using [Aikido] to defend one's self, one is not to do to the attacker whatever one pleases. The presumption is that the attacker is not a bad person to whom anything can be done, but, rather, is a soul who has wandered from The Way. It is the duty of the Aikido practitioner to subdue the attacker without harming him, and to help the attacker back along the True Path.

This is the idea I try to strive for even as a shodokan practitioner. You do not have to win but immobilize with out pain or even neutralize.

Quote:
In using [Aikido] to defend one's self, one is not to do to the attacker whatever one pleases. The presumption is that the attacker is not a bad person to whom anything can be done, but, rather, is a soul who has wandered from The Way. It is the duty of the Aikido practitioner to subdue the attacker without harming him, and to help the attacker back along the True Path.

This is great in theory but not in the "real world" To learn to put down the sword, one must first learn to use the sword. What will you do if the methods used (non-painful or damagin) as described above don't work. If you don't train realistically you have nothing to fall back on.

sometimes to get them back on the true path means you have to kill them... better luck in their next life...

It seems harsh but true. Edwin--ikkyo, nikkyo and sankyo are not eclusive aikido techniques. They are in all martial arts, especially jujitsu. Yoshinkan is one of the more "hard-style" pre WWII aikido's that was more like Daito-ryu. Doesn't suprise me it worked in a fight. You probably trained realistically unlike 90% of all other aikido styles.

i personally was always fascinated by the spiritual aspects of Aikido, and O Sensei's teachings struck a chord with me. regardless of how effective it is in the real world, l love the overall message of Aikido and cannot imagine myself studying any other MA.

but you'll never see me go to a BJJ forum and post: "<thumbs down> BJJ is a bunch of gorillas wrestling on the floor..where's the universal harmony, fellas?"

does Aikido work in fight? baaah. i'll worry about that later. i have more important things to worry about, like my Ukemi.

I will say that is something we don't enough of in bjj--the spiritual aspect of training. Although I listening to Carlos Gracie jr talk reminded me of many aikido speeches from Saotome Sensei.

thanks mike... i encountered many "aikido" techniques in other arts, but generally aikido schools (not all) do them better more focused more control. Had a shotokan guy showing me how to do nikkyo... i let him twist and do his thing then reversed and gave him the electric nikkyo from hell... he wanted me to teach him wrist locks then... Arnis esp as done by the late Remy Presas had really good wrist locks very aikidoish... and Bjj guys love them once theyve felt them ( please put your forearm across my throat hehe)... lucky me most all of my senseis fight hard and philosophize hard too... i aint afraid of ki balls but i know what strong ki feels like... Remy Presas and his senior instructors have it as does Royce gracie and some of his people... ki is not unique to aikido its in most MA... Tell me more about Tampa and your dojo i like to travel esp if the weathers nice and the dojos good...

Is that aikido people do them better because there are more of them practicing the wrist techniques? I have encounted one traditional Japanese jujitsu practicioner in my years of training who knew the move. I use it all the time in bjj. It's great fun. My buddies call it a weak technique, but I just smile and say yeah, but you tapped! : ) My dojo in Tampa is here: www.tampabjj.com Come visit us anytime. Everyone is very cool.

We have a great school, with a lot of good guys. One thing about training bjj that I did encounter is aikido is much more ego--in aikido believe it or not. I think the main reason is the imposed hierarchy in aikido and in bjj it's determined by skill. Don't get me wrong, there is respect for senior students even if they aren't tapping people often, but you know who knows what they're doing based on how they perform on the mat.

Aikido to me seems to ambigous regarding this. Example--4th dans who totally suck, but walk around like they own the world just because they are a yondan.

see my post under seagals thread .... my senseis dont do that we're so much better than the students... ask any of them they'll say they are just students too...
rank is overated its what you do not what belt you wear...

Aikido doesn't work in a fight????? Well, don't tel that to a guy who got his wrist snapped by me in a bar fight (he was attacking me on the job-PD). Nikkyo is a good technique!!!!!

Mike Geery wrote: Is that aikido people do them better because there are more of them practicing the wrist techniques? I have encounted one traditional Japanese jujitsu practicioner in my years of training who knew the move. I use it all the time in bjj. It's great fun. My buddies call it a weak technique, but I just smile and say yeah, but you tapped! : ) My dojo in Tampa is here: www.tampabjj.com Come visit us anytime. Everyone is very cool. We have a great school, with a lot of good guys. One thing about training bjj that I did encounter is aikido is much more ego--in aikido believe it or not. I think the main reason is the imposed hierarchy in aikido and in bjj it's determined by skill. Don't get me wrong, there is respect for senior students even if they aren't tapping people often, but you know who knows what they're doing based on how they perform on the mat. Aikido to me seems to ambigous regarding this. Example--4th dans who totally suck, but walk around like they own the world just because they are a yondan.

meh, the ego thing is in all martial arts. it was a BJJ practitioner that posts "Aikido doesn't work in a fight" on an Aikido forum, and doesn't even give his real name. also, calling a foreign technique "weak" is not exactly selfless. let's just give everyone the benefit of the doubt. let's also remember that this is the internet, where everyone's a Shaolin master

Michael Neal wrote: I love this thread, please let it never die

NO, KILL IT, KILL IT, KILL IT, PLLLLEEEAAAASSSEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

No Shaolin master here, just my opinions--and you know what they say about those.

Hi Everyone,

I hope this is relevant to the topic:

I had an interesting encounter recently, which has changed my Aikido practice forever. I have, for years now, been looking for insights and differing points of view on various aspects of Aikido. I have, as is the case here, often looked outside the Aikido community for answers.

For a long while now the "Is my Aikido effective?" question has been raging in my mind. I was throwing back and forth the value of atemi in Aikido and, after reading a quote from osensei (which I remember reading in ‘Budo' by Stevens):

"The purpose of Aikido is to kill your opponent with a single Blow."

I knew I had to get an answer. I began to feel that I had to know how to seriously injure/kill someone so as to know how not to, so that I would have a choice in a life and death situation. I could not find a sensei anywhere with the ability to adequately explain this quote from osensei to me, or show that he/she even knew how. I believe that it is better to know how to kill someone and never have to do so than to need to be able to and not know how. Aikido in this day and age, in my humble opinion, does not seem to address this quote from osensei.

The answer I found to my question came in the form of a seminar, which an old training friend from my Aikido dojo encouraged me to take part in. It was a seminar on TFT or ‘Target Focus Training'. I'm not trying to promote this training, or sell it to anyone here. I just found it very interesting. I say so because it seemed to answer many of my queries.

Let me try and explain TFT. Put simply it is a method of selecting specific targets on the human body, and by striking them in specific ways, elicit a specific trauma/ spinal reflex in response. Essentially this means that you can hit a target and get a base minimum response/spinal reflex from the person you hit 100% of the time. This is trained in a similar way to which we train Aikido (uke-nage relationship) with each person practicing hitting the other at very slow speeds (so as not to hurt their training partner) while the person being hit practices giving the correct spinal reflex.

I found that this notion of striking/ getting a response fits with Aikido because, once you have struck your attacker and created a spinal reflex, you have then created a window through which you can apply any number of Aikido techniques. This to me is the meaning of atemi.

Has anyone else out there in the Aikido community attended a TFT seminar or something similar?

I hope this post/question makes sense. I humbly look forward to any and all responses from you, my peers.

Regards

Kristian

I truly believe this question is valid, but it is valid in all arts. It truly depends on the level of training that a student is receiving. I was a student of Kanai sensei. This was his biggest fear. It drove him nuts. Compromised attacks, too much cooperation between nage and uke. He always taught Aikido as a budo first. It was a serious self defense art to him. His techniques were based on serious confrontation. When he saw other Aikido with various sensei's just touching people and they would go flying it would really upset him. So the only thing I can tell you is our Aikido is very realistic and completely able to defend oneself in a real situation of defense. Remember Aikido is not about fighting, but it is reality that people do get attacked. If any of you know Kanai sensei's Aikido or his senior students you can see the combat aspect. So whoever doubts it is affective, I wish you had seen Kanai sensei. The power and the timing and the technique, and balance was just amazing.

Dear Kristian.
Is it too HARD to understand that this kind of thing IS a scam as fighting ALWAYS has variables you CAN NOT control that well to get the results they promise?

I cand deal with Aikido people talking about principles and how learning principles converts to different kinds of situations but every time I see someone taking seriously dead RBSD; pressure points or this TFT you speak about it totally flips me off...

I'm not real sure that this hasn't already been posted in here but this is for Joey

http://www.youtube.com/w/Brazilian-j...page=1&t=t&f=b

G'day Everyone,

Michael, thanks for the response. Much appreciated.

Jorgen, I replied to your post on the 'Aikido and TFT' thread. I'm sorry if you have been 'flipped off' by my question. Actually Jorgen, are you taking the piss? Or what? Ahhh! Now I get it. You are joking around with me. That's cool.

Robert, That was the funniest clip I have seen for ages. Everyone at work thinks it is too. Thanks.

No offense to anyone here but is there anyone else out there with a serious response to my honest question?

Regards

Kristian.

That's a great clip

Robert Sugden wrote: I'm not real sure that this hasn't already been posted in here but this is for Joey http://www.youtube.com/w/Brazilian-j...page=1&t=t&f=b

Step aside AIKIDO.... there is a new kid in town. BJJ is the hippiest, trendiest, metro-sexual sport in town.

I can imagine in the near future, Jean Paul Gaultier willl have a line of parfume entitled "Jiujitsu for Homme".

Tommy Hilfieger will create its Tommy Gi and Tommy JJ belts for the man of new millenium.

Calvin Klein briefs and suspender for the discerning Jiujitsu athelete.

Vidal Sassoon haircare product that will hold your lock even in the most engaging postion.

Body Shop body lotion to keep your body smelling floral scent on and off the mat.

Boon.

Robert Sugden wrote: I'm not real sure that this hasn't already been posted in here but this is for Joey http://www.youtube.com/w/Brazilian-j...page=1&t=t&f=b

OMG! Talk about misinterpretation! What's that from? There's gotta be a scene where the BJJ guy finds out what they were thinking. Has to be priceless! That was funny. Thanks.