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Old 05-05-2008, 06:57 AM   #1251
rob_liberti
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Well as far as _that_ book, I will decline for the time being on starting a new thread to discuss it because my eventual goal is for that topic to be my first published book. I just want to manifest these principles physically first before I dare do so (and many of you are all going to help me with my goal in seminars!).

As far as the transmission of a certain skill set being broken. It is my current thought that the transmission of that skill set in the most direct way - was most likely forbidden due to rules of giri - and that aikido was dedicated to transmission of that skill set in every other means possible. He used many uchideshi to transmit by means of kinesthetic perception. He used principles expressed in the "language" (for lack of a better term) of kotodama to explain them. I'm blessed with a teacher who is both mental genious enough to actually understand kotodama and physical genious enough to process what he learned by means of kinesthetic perception (for 10 years in a Yamaguchi sensei's private dojo for I believe yondan and above only) and still the best he can do is guide me with what he is doing, disallow me from burning in what I'm doing wrong (by not letting us practice any technique too long, but remaining focused on the principles), and give me as much instruction on the theory as my littler/more feeble brain can handle at a time. Now I have Dan to help me fill in many gaps, and I am very optimistic. So many things Gleason sensei has been telling me and showing me all these years makes more sense and I am starting to approach my own ability to manifest the principles myself (outside of his classes where he controls the environment for learning).

As far as convincing a bunch of people. Consider that if Dan shows up to a judo competition and blows everyone away, thousands will be "believers" but how many will actually show up and train, and continue to train in that new way? Maybe 3 or 4. Well, the thing is, that those 3 or 4 people will just go seek out people like Dan themselves, so why should people like Dan bother with dealing with the millions of questions from the thousands who aren't going to be really serious about changing. Well, that's how I see it...

Rob

Last edited by rob_liberti : 05-05-2008 at 07:00 AM.
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Old 05-05-2008, 08:14 AM   #1252
DonMagee
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Quote:
Rob Liberti wrote: View Post
As far as convincing a bunch of people. Consider that if Dan shows up to a judo competition and blows everyone away, thousands will be "believers" but how many will actually show up and train, and continue to train in that new way? Maybe 3 or 4. Well, the thing is, that those 3 or 4 people will just go seek out people like Dan themselves, so why should people like Dan bother with dealing with the millions of questions from the thousands who aren't going to be really serious about changing. Well, that's how I see it...

Rob
I don't know. I've seen a lot of guys who were 100% sure there was no value in X until they had their asses handed to them by it. For example, my judo coach came to a bjj practice once. One of the more cocky kids was sure his wrestling was far superior to judo and there would be no way that judo guy could ever teach him. He spared with my instructor and was throw very hard. He quicky tapped and no longer wanted to play. He then showed up to judo practice that saturday. Sadly, he left our club for a more MMA focused club, but I think that lesson left an impression on him about the value of judo for gi grappling.

I for one do not believe in ki projection knock outs. I think it is all fake. I personally would not waste my time finding guys like Dillman to test out my belief. However, If I saw him win a match against well respected fighter without touching him, then I would travel down there and have him knock me out. At that point I would devote my life to his art. I've always wanted to be a jedi.

Many martial arts have grown simply by traveling the world kicking peoples rear ends. That is one of the reasons why judo, bjj, and even aikido grew quickly in their early years. Had all those judoka not traveled the world fighting matches, judo would not be as popular as it is today (which is very popular everywhere but america). Had it not been for the UFC and the internet, would bjj even be a martial art in america worth mentioning?

Last edited by DonMagee : 05-05-2008 at 08:19 AM.

- Don
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
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Old 05-05-2008, 11:44 AM   #1253
mathewjgano
 
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Quote:
Giancarlo DiPierro wrote: View Post
Well if you ask me the transmission was broken right at Morihei Ueshiba.
I'm not trying to imply that I know better because chances are pretty good I don't, but I wonder how you could possibly know this.

Quote:
He learned what he needed to know from his teachers, but he never created a pedagogical method to pass it on. The default pedagogy of mainline aikido was basically adapted from Daito-ryu without much thought about whether and how it should be changed to transmit the essence of this new art.
I'm not sure creating a new pedagogy would have necessarily made much difference. As I understand it, the method is basically that of apprenticeship, which demands one on one interaction to glean mastery. The information then trickles down the hierarchy: the more the senior students develop, the more the newer students develop. Furthermore, in my own experience, with the exception of training directly with sensei, I got to train with everyone at the dojo in the course of the first day or two; I got to take ukemi from sensei within several months. To my mind, this is a pretty good pedagogy for any single dojo. Beyond that level, pedagogy becomes less of an issue I think. That taken with Sensei Ledyards remarks about everyone's aikido being their own seems to make a pretty good fit for why things are done the way they're done. I'm more inclined to think the problem comes when other goals (like political ones, for example) get involved and diffuse the focus of the teachers and students.
The only criticism I can see about pedagogy as being valid has to do with obscure language or a lack of explicit instruction and feedback, particularly the feedback. Uptake on how to move/feel your way through a movement is a pretty non-rational, right-brained type of process though, which makes me think the bulk of the issue lies in intensity and continuity of training. Obviously when we use language to communicate goals like, "relax your shoulders and straighten your posture more," we're including logical processing, but absorbtion itself is still a pretty physical/spacial set of stimuli.
If people want to be better "fighters" or whatever one chooses to call it, they need to train with people who are better than them first and foremost.

Take care,
Matt

Last edited by mathewjgano : 05-05-2008 at 11:47 AM.

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Old 05-05-2008, 12:42 PM   #1254
Roy Dean
 
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Quote:
Rob Liberti wrote: View Post

As far as convincing a bunch of people. Consider that if Dan shows up to a judo competition and blows everyone away, thousands will be "believers" but how many will actually show up and train, and continue to train in that new way? Maybe 3 or 4. Well, the thing is, that those 3 or 4 people will just go seek out people like Dan themselves, so why should people like Dan bother with dealing with the millions of questions from the thousands who aren't going to be really serious about changing. Well, that's how I see it...

Rob
I would beg to differ on this point. How many people trained in Gracie Jiu Jitsu after watching Royce decimate the competition in the first UFC's? Tens of thousands (myself included). Many people also lived/worked/flew to Brazil (from all over the world) to learn this particular form of jiu jitsu. All you have to do is show people repeatable skill and you will attract them. Show...not tell.

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Old 05-05-2008, 01:09 PM   #1255
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Hey Don whats up with the slam??
Ki projection knockouts that "you don't believe in" have not one single thing to do with what I am doing or talking about. But the best place to learn that is on the business end of a pair of 5 oz gloves.
All due respect-and I mean that, get over yourself.
I was advocating MMA and live training looong before most of you guys ever brought it up, and was hammered, slammed, defamed, and doubted for continually doing so.
Now, add to that-that I am the very same person, telling you that internal power was the engine that continually increased my power through the early nineties to today. Currently no one will let me hit them more than once, and the last guy who doubted my short power ability was a BJJ purple belt who got it from me flat on my back with no room to chamber or use my elbows. It was a straight shot from zero to his side. He sat out for three rounds. You can add that to my list of broken bones and knockouts over the years. I'll see If I can get his name. You can ask him him if my "ki projection created rainbows in the air" or if I just knocked the living SH#@ out of him from a no inch punch.
I don't mind the sarcasm and disdain, but its a little late in the game for you to be making these off-hand, dismissive comments with a readership who have all felt it up close.
I've been around a long time. Other than the internet, I've not met anyone in person who has rolled with me, who took me for a lightweight, a fruitcake, or anything other than a very practical hands-on grappler/ headhunter in person.
I'd prefer it if you paid attention or just passed me by.
I give out more respect to you and Kevin than I have ever received in kind. Mostly because I read and pay attention.
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Old 05-05-2008, 01:11 PM   #1256
DonMagee
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Quote:
Roy Dean wrote: View Post
I would beg to differ on this point. How many people trained in Gracie Jiu Jitsu after watching Royce decimate the competition in the first UFC's? Tens of thousands (myself included). Many people also lived/worked/flew to Brazil (from all over the world) to learn this particular form of jiu jitsu. All you have to do is show people repeatable skill and you will attract them. Show...not tell.
Someday, If I ever get a vacation, your school is on the list of places I want to go get beat up at.

- Don
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
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Old 05-05-2008, 01:18 PM   #1257
Ron Tisdale
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

I don't think he meant that as a slam to what you do, Dan. I think he was just gaffing on the whole Dilman, Sakernoski, Japanese Ki Master gets toasted on you tube thingy.

I'm sure that if Don wanted to slam you, he'd mention you directly

Best,
Ron (at least I think so...)

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Old 05-05-2008, 02:28 PM   #1258
Bill Danosky
 
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Peace, Dan. I thought the same as Ron. Don seemed to be talking about no-touch knockouts, which I don't believe in, either. I have seen a couple of people get X's over their eyes from 3-inchers, though. And Bruce Lee demo'd a lot of 1 inch punches in his day.

On the topic of the thread- I never heard that anyone avoided being thrown by Koichi Tohei and he had plenty of comers. He was definitely of the Ki projection species but his waza was "hands on".
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Old 05-05-2008, 02:34 PM   #1259
DonMagee
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Quote:
Ron Tisdale wrote: View Post
I don't think he meant that as a slam to what you do, Dan. I think he was just gaffing on the whole Dilman, Sakernoski, Japanese Ki Master gets toasted on you tube thingy.

I'm sure that if Don wanted to slam you, he'd mention you directly

Best,
Ron (at least I think so...)
True, I did not mean to slam Dan at all.

Sorry Dan if you felt I was slaming you. The ki projection stuff was just an example in relation to a post that said even if someone like you won the olympics in judo doing something unique that people would not train it. I was showing how something as obtuse as shooting energy into me from 15 feet away with mind bullets if done in a public setting such as that would sway me to train in it.

Truthfully, I have no idea what you can and can't do. People here have met with you and say you can do what you say you can do. I'm fine with that. The fact that you can do something is not the point of my post. My post directly relates to why people don't take things like this seriously.

If I told my judo instructor that I knew a guy who could stand there and be unthrowable to the top judoka around, he would laugh. He would tell me I'm crazy or stupid. In fact he has ever right to do so. He has been around the block so to speak. He's not going to travel even an hour to see something like that. In his mind, the answer already exists. It would be no different then if I told my bjj class that I knew a guy who was immune to chokes. They would laugh at me. Nobody is going to waste their time to go check.

Now, if they were watching the Olympics and saw a guy who obviously was doing something different, be unthrowable and drop every opponent effortlessly, they would take notice. They would start to care and would bother to drive that distance to see it for themselves. The same with the UFC. If a guy showed up who could drop every single opponent he fought with 1 punch, even from the bottom of the mount, well you better believe fighters would be coming from all around to train with that guy (Or the UFC might kill him for killing their ratings).

We live in a information age, where things can spread very fast as long as they are creditable. Our expectations of credibility have grown well beyond word of mouth stories or personal videos. This has no bearing on your skills at all. But the fact still reasons that if you say you have it and even have other people who will back up that you have it, 99% of the world will still think you are full of bull.

I think Kano knew this. He knew if he could win the hearts of the martial artists out there, he could eventually win their minds. As judo spread around the world, it's chief goal of mutual benefit and welfare played second fiddle to the combat application of the art. Then, once it had established itself in mainstream culture it began to work on it's principles. Had kano lived longer, I think we would of seen more of those principles. To me the real goal of judo was to teach the scientific method, preserve a dying culture, and foster peace. It masquerades all that behind a sport and fighting system.

Ueshiba also did this in his own crazy way. He used word of mouth as kano did, abit on a smaller scale. His method however would not work so well today as not many people are up to traveling and challenging. It seems most challengers came to him, unlike kano who sent his students all over the world to make challenges. Aikido did this to some extent, but not nearly on the scale of judo. However, even the limited exposure though public exhibitions and challenges helped aikido grow to where it is today.

So my point is to say you have X skill does nothing to foster the tradition of that skill. To sit back and say "Well I can do it, if you want to find out come see me.", will not foster the growth of the art, only insure that it dwindles along with the risk of becoming lost like so many other things. It also gives an illusion of bullshido even if it is not. I mean seriously, if I started saying I could defeat bjj black belts from inside the side mount with a single strike, but I didn't care to promote it because I didn't want the exposure, people would not believe me. I would have a skill that no one else on the planet has ever demonstrated. At this point logic dictates I am not telling the truth. I could even show it to a handful of people, and they could show it to a few people and we could all talk about how great it is, but until it's shown in a large venue, the majority is still going to say it is a scam of some sort. I understand I am exaggerating, but it is for effect.

So in conclusion, Dan, I'm sorry if I offended you. I make no claims against your training, skills or abilities. I do not know if you have them or not. I have read what others have said and it is clear you have skills they find very useful. I have not the time nor the money to come find out for myself, so I will not make comment on that. My posts here were not directed at you in any way, My comment were directed to those who can't understand why the world is not coming around. The answer is simply that if you want people to change their minds, you have to give them reason to change their minds. Words, antidotes, and claims will never accomplish this, no matter how much truth is behind them. Gandi didn't talk about how we should all be. He went out there in the public light and made an example of it. On a much lessor scale, the Gracies just didn't say that ground fighting was neglected in modern martial arts and that they had a system that would change the world, they went out and changed it. I'm not saying you need to step up and go out there and fight in the UFC or win a judo competition. I'm saying that if people want this to be taken seriously, if they really want to change people, then at some point somebody is going to have to.

And yes, I try my best to be direct (but sometimes I end up wordy). If I thought you were full of it, I'd say it without pause.

- Don
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
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Old 05-05-2008, 04:44 PM   #1260
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

I tend to agree with Dan's logic.

That said, I have been able to work "a little" of the training that I recieved from Mike Sigman into my practice. It has, I think, made me a little better at what I do.

Could I take what I learned and go to the olympics with it at 43 years old and dominate the competition. No, there is much more involved in martial arts than internal skills lend to I think.

Some may be holding out the internal skills as a "end all, be all" to everything. I think not, and those that I have worked with have not professed that it is, simply that it is additive to what I am doing.

It is hard to apply a constant logic to the equation as so many other factors come into play martially.

I tend to think I would not be as good as I am without the exposure, (which isn't saying much).

Is it special? I don't know, I think many athletes currently do many of the things that I have seen Mike do. That said, Mike is a specialist, and does more of it, better and more concentrated than anyone else I have worked with.

Sort of like Golf I guess. Tiger Woods is good, but he may not be the best person to learn how to putt from. there might be a better coach or someone that simply putts better on average than him.

That doesn't mean that that guy could beat Tiger Woods at Golf!

I think the logic works more this way than trying to empirically show that it is totally superior in competition to all other factors involved.

I do tend to follow your logic though and seems like that you would see someone that stood head and shoulders above the rest.

Maybe they are already there, and they are not letting us in on their secret. Would you tell everyone if you were training, getting an edge and beating everyone?

I wouldn't until the money dried up and then I'd open my own school start training guys AND still keep my methods of training a secret!

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Old 05-05-2008, 08:50 PM   #1261
rob_liberti
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

In terms of this thread, all I can say is that Internal skills seems to be the only reasonable explanation for what Osensei was doing and his skills have been proven in the past well enough for me. That just doesn't seem like some major logical leap where I need further proof. (so to respond to "show .. not tell", I'd have to say: reason and deduce.. then show up and see for yourself)

However, to the above point, I guess a part of me does hope that Dan never proves the power of internal skills as applied to MMA to anyone else and that everyone dismisses the idea entirely so that I can have the skills mostly to myself as Kevin suggests.

That said, no one said it was the be all end all. Just a huge advantage. -Rob

Last edited by rob_liberti : 05-05-2008 at 08:58 PM.
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Old 05-05-2008, 09:12 PM   #1262
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Oops...typo...meant Don...not Dan.

Also, I am not sure it is a huge advantage Rob. When you say Huge, I tend to side with Don and say that it would be more distinctly noticeable in some way as Don argues.

Looking forward to working with Rob John soon!

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Old 05-05-2008, 09:43 PM   #1263
Mike Sigman
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Quote:
Kevin Leavitt wrote: View Post
I tend to think I would not be as good as I am without the exposure, (which isn't saying much).

Is it special? I don't know, I think many athletes currently do many of the things that I have seen Mike do. That said, Mike is a specialist, and does more of it, better and more concentrated than anyone else I have worked with.
Hi Kevin:

But in most ways I'm not so much a specialist, which I've tried to make clear as someone who happened upon some odd movement skills that I followed up on for many years. What I would probably hope is that most of the people who can see the things I've condensed is the "aha... there is something there. The ki/kokyu things weren't just rhetorical comments that we took as ritualistic, quasi-religious comments, after all". Hopefully the logic made sense, but to the point that people think they'll explore it, not to the extent that they'll think that I somehow represent a respectable level of expertise in the skills in general.

I assume that someone really good in the skills and who trains in pure martial arts with them (instead of the hobby/exploratory level that is probably as high as I can ever reach) would use the advantages to excel in their chosen martial art. As you could see, there were some distinct advantages. Think what would happen to someone who truly capitalized on the advantages. But also, I'd suggest that there were more advantages than I could show in one weekend.

Best.

Mike Sigman
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Old 05-05-2008, 09:47 PM   #1264
G DiPierro
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Quote:
Matthew Gano wrote: View Post
As I understand it, the method is basically that of apprenticeship, which demands one on one interaction to glean mastery.
That's exactly my point. How well does this method work? Of the people who studied the closest with the founder -- living in the dojo, training several hours a day, getting more hands-on time with him than anyone else -- how many of them could do what he did? The general consensus is that some of them picked up some ability to do some of what he could do. If so many of them couldn't get it with that kind of access (and we are talking about people who were in many cases already highly accomplished budoka in other arts), then what chance does the guy training 3 days a week with a student of a student of a student of the founder have? Virtually none. Sure, he is doing the movements that look somewhat like the outer form of what Morihei Ueshiba was doing, but there is no substance there. It is almost as if they are doing two different arts.

Contrast that with an art like BJJ, just to take an easy example. The guy training a few times a week with a typical black-belt will, in a few years, have some usable skills. He will be doing in essence the same art that Royce Gracie is doing; he just won't be doing it quite as well. But he will know that there is an end goal and it will be clear that he is making progress towards it, despite the fact that he might never have trained with someone even close to Royce's level. He doesn't need to, because the pedagogy of the art is good enough that it can be passed on without direct one-on-one training with a master-level practitioner. Of course, to get to the highest level you need to train with the right people, but I'm talking about the average guy training in the average dojo for just a few years.

What can a guy training three years in the average aikido dojo do? He can perform a number of choreographed techniques on command with a cooperative partner, and can probably take the falls for those techniques as well. That's about it. Unless he already knew how to fight coming in, odds are that he still can't fight very well, and more importantly, he has no understanding of how to apply aiki in any kind of spontaneous situation. He is just doing empty forms, but he thinks he is "making progress" because the only way progress is defined in his art is through ranking, and the only requirement for ranking (other than loyalty to the group, which is actually the primary requirement anyway) is to look good performing forms on command with a cooperative partner. Not only is he not making much, if any, real progress in the direction of what the founder of his art was doing, but he probably doesn't even have any idea of what that is.

If you look around for the people in aikido who are the exceptions to this, how many of them do you see getting other training to fill in the very large gaps in aikido's pedagogy? And who are they going to? People outside of aikido who have developed a pedagogy for teaching the things that aikido should have taught them but didn't. Even Koichi Tohei, by all accounts one of Ueshiba's most talented students (and by some accounts the most talented one) had to go elsewhere to learn what Ueshiba didn't teach him. After doing so, he started teaching what he learned there as part of aikido, much to the chagrin of some. What does that tell you about his opinion of aikido's default pedagogy?

If you keep training in a system that has been proven mainly to create people who look really good performing complex techniques on a cooperative partner, that is the result you should expect from your training. If you want a different result, you need to train differently. It's that simple.

Last edited by G DiPierro : 05-05-2008 at 09:51 PM.
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Old 05-06-2008, 03:14 AM   #1265
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Agreed Mike, specialist was probably the wrong choice of word. I like "condensed".

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Old 05-06-2008, 03:19 AM   #1266
Robert Cowham
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Some comments from one of Peter Ralston's newsletters:

Quote:
If will and determination were all it took to beat someone skillful, then what we should study is anger or some such. It is not the same as skill, which generally involves mental clarity, calm mind, responsive performance, sensitivity to the moment to moment interaction, a well-honed feeling-sense of what's appropriate in ever-changing circumstance, and the like. These things need to be understood and trained.
Quote:
Fighting skills cannot be trained without fighting or playing games that lead to skill, just like you can't learn to ride a bicycle without riding a bicycle. Not everyone should fight, and it isn't necessary in order to get a lot out of an art like Aikido, but you won't get fighting skills, or true interactive skills, [if] you never freely interact and always practice uke-nage.
and

Quote:
When competing the opponent or partner is purposefully trying to accomplish the same objectives you're trying to accomplish – and they are trying to keep you from being successful. This takes place in many more ways than merely resisting what you are doing [...] The many changes in strategy and tactics, mind and body, timing and maneuvering that a fighter must make commonplace [...] need to occur as a steady stream, making changes in terms of milliseconds, and responding to every single thing the other does, while he attempts to respond to what you are doing.
I am in George's camp - Aikido has a deep appeal to me and has kept me going and interested for 20 years (with hopefully plenty more to come). My training and interests are reasonably eclectic, but certainly not governed by fighting. I have had one session with Dan (so far - more hopefully in future) which gave me a lot to take away and digest. I find Peter Ralston's ideas compelling, and I don't see them as antithetical to aikido. I have had huge amounts from Kashima Shinryu (via Inaba sensei).

I view my current practice/teaching as a research project and consider myself lucky to have such a vehicle.
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Old 05-06-2008, 03:23 AM   #1267
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Interesting points on pedagogy GDP...

i kinda like your analogy on BJJ and Aikido.

Reminds me of painting.

AIkido would maybe be the equivilant of learning all the technical aspects of painting. Selecting the right paint brush, practicing your strokes, practicing blending colors....over and over again, but you are never allowed to actuallly paint a picture until you've mastered the "basics".

So you practice this stuff over and over again.

BJJ would maybe be the equivilant of "finger painting". You give the kids the paint, you spread paper out around and you tell them to paint whatever they want.

I see this same thing repeated constantly in our school systems from art, to learning how to write.

It is more important to teachers and education that our kids make perfect block letters than they learn how to write stories or novels first.

Many would argue that it is important to have a foundation first, before diving in the water.

Others take the opposite approach.

Who is right? I tend to like the sink or swim philosophy of diving in. I think you learn quicker.

But, others have done very well with the other method too, maybe not as well enmass...but it works.

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Old 05-06-2008, 11:59 AM   #1268
Conrad Gus
 
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

I haven't even read this thread. I just wanted to contribute to keep the ridiculously high number of posts going up.
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Old 05-06-2008, 01:36 PM   #1269
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Quote:
Kevin Leavitt wrote: View Post
Interesting points on pedagogy GDP...

i kinda like your analogy on BJJ and Aikido.

Reminds me of painting.

AIkido would maybe be the equivilant of learning all the technical aspects of painting. Selecting the right paint brush, practicing your strokes, practicing blending colors....over and over again, but you are never allowed to actuallly paint a picture until you've mastered the "basics".

So you practice this stuff over and over again.

BJJ would maybe be the equivilant of "finger painting". You give the kids the paint, you spread paper out around and you tell them to paint whatever they want.

I see this same thing repeated constantly in our school systems from art, to learning how to write.

It is more important to teachers and education that our kids make perfect block letters than they learn how to write stories or novels first.

Many would argue that it is important to have a foundation first, before diving in the water.

Others take the opposite approach.

Who is right? I tend to like the sink or swim philosophy of diving in. I think you learn quicker.

But, others have done very well with the other method too, maybe not as well enmass...but it works.
I'm with you on the sink or swim. I actually learned to swim that way. In fact, everything I've learned has been that way. I get an interest, I'm thrown into the deep end, I develop some skill, then I either get bored and move on, or secure formal lessons.

My dad took me out to the pool one day and said "No water wings, get in there and learn to swim". I was scared, but after about an hour I was having fun in the deep end under his watchful eye. Fast forward that summer and I was out in lake michigan swimming with no problems (I wouldn't want to touch that water now...ewww).

I learned to play guitar that way. I bought a guitar went online, got guitar tab, started 'playing', started a band, ran into a guy who liked my guitar and came over. He would play I would watch, then he would leave, I would try to replicate what I saw him do. Eventually I learned the names of the chords I had been playing and I would play chords and he would solo. He showed me a few more chords and eventually I learned some scales. Finally, I took formal classical lessons.

It's the most backwards way possible, but it works really well for me. Everything I've ever started with formal lessons first has lead to failure. I even learned the skills for my job this way. When I need something done, i just grab what I think i need and dive in. Linux, programing, networking, whatever. Sure, I look back at the code I wrote 10 years ago and laugh at it for being stupid, insecure, poor, and silly. But it got the job done at the time.

This does not need to be this extreme, but putting people in a place where they are forced to sink or swim, forced to be creative and faced with the adversity of failure (personal or competitive) usually does wonders for most people. I have new judo students sparing by their 2nd or 3rd class. They in know way have any idea what to do out there, but that is not the purpose. It's purpose is to get them to think, push on, be creative, and learn to deal with failure.

- Don
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
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Old 05-06-2008, 03:26 PM   #1270
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

No it doesn't need to be that extreme. I agree. I don't want to give the impression that this methodology/pedagogy throws people to the wolves in a free for all (sink or swim).

It simply increases the amount of pressure and non-compliance in a controlled environment. You spend time on learning gross motor movements first, not worrying about the finer aspects of tuning, once you have mastered the basics, then you start tuning your game.

In this method you would learn to clinch, for example, before moving on to iriminage, which I think is much more difficult than clinching!

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Old 05-06-2008, 03:51 PM   #1271
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Hi Don
Rereading the initial post and the subsequent ones left me with the same impression. Mentioning me in the same post with Ki projections and Dillman made my radar go up.
In the later posts you and Kevin both go on to discuss the "possibility" or the idea that maayybe... internal power can used in MMA, BJJ etc. Understandable you can only speak from your limited experiences in that regard.
I repeat, that there were men who were combining wrestling, Judo, MT. FMA with sticks and knives when I was growing up. The "new" idea of MMA is a very old one to me. I'm glad you guys are finally convinced.
Welcome to the club.

FWIW I had to learn and build internal skills and use them in a Judo dojo and have played with many 2nd, 3rd and one fifth dan. And have been playing with BJJers since there were no BJJ schools. I went to an award winning BBJ school recently and went through 4 blue belts and two purple belts while only stopping once. No one got a single technique off. It was no gi, Most of them were actually from Brazil-there is a big immigrant pool here I know quite a few from the construction sub trades. It was fun seeing the look on their face with a 50 yr old rolling with them. While it is fun I find it highly limited, and more of a sport-to-sport and VERY open to strikes. I was bored in that I couldn't use any strikes, elbows etc. MMA training is better in my view.
I'm not out to convince you or Kevin about internal power. If you don't mind I will offer you an observation. While many times yaking about what others don't get and you do, be mindful of that fact that your new realizations may just be making you another of the last kids on the bus, not the first. Its great but thousands were doing these things for years.
As for the internals and the significants of what it can being to H2H combatives? As Kevins signature line from Patton states "Watching what others are sceptical about frequently reveals what they lack."
Some day you two may be just two more kids on -that- bus as well. I'd strongly suggest going down that road. But...well, you know. You've heard all that before from me for about fourteen years now.
It's a big world, and life can deliver surprises.
Good luck in your training

Last edited by DH : 05-06-2008 at 03:53 PM.
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Old 05-06-2008, 07:50 PM   #1272
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Dan, I don't believe that I have ever yaked about "what others don't get and I do". If so, I'd like to have it pointed out to me as I find that highly presumptuous, patronizing, and something that I don't aspire to.

I have enough keeping up with myself, to spend my time judging others.

I look forward to maybe one day working with you as I don't tend to "roll" through Blue and Purple belts and grow bored, so apparently you have much more skill than I, so sounds like I could probably learn a great deal from you.

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Old 05-06-2008, 10:57 PM   #1273
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Quote:
Giancarlo DiPierro wrote: View Post
That's exactly my point. How well does this method work?
Well, if I'm correct that my dojo serves as an accurate example, I'd say it works pretty well...passing grade at least, in my assemessment.
Quote:
Of the people who studied the closest with the founder -- living in the dojo, training several hours a day, getting more hands-on time with him than anyone else -- how many of them could do what he did?
I don't know, my key point was simply that it seemed transmission occured (as opposed to being broken at the founder like you said). I can't make any claims about which art produces better fighters and I'm inclined to say Aikido's goals are differently aimed for the most part, so it would make sense that other practices might be better for that.

Quote:
The general consensus is that some of them picked up some ability to do some of what he could do.
I'm not sure any student can pick up all of what their teachers can do...assuming their teachers are always honing their own skills. My thinking is that as students we pick up whatever our teachers can teach us in any given moment and then it's up to us to make it our own and to creatively apply our own sense of things. I look at Aikido like Chiba Sensei, for example, and my lay-perspective sees something pretty effective. Is that all Osensei could do? I don't know, but it seems like it's a close enough of an approximation to begin with.

Quote:
What can a guy training three years in the average aikido dojo do? He can perform a number of choreographed techniques on command with a cooperative partner, and can probably take the falls for those techniques as well. That's about it.
I can't speak for the average dojo. I have experience in only two dojos. However, in both I got the sense that a guy training for three years with dan grade instructor would come away with some very usefull skills.

Quote:
because the only way progress is defined in his art is through ranking, and the only requirement for ranking (other than loyalty to the group, which is actually the primary requirement anyway) is to look good performing forms on command with a cooperative partner.
I think what you're describing here is problematic, but not definitive of Aikido. Progress has always been described to me as being able to perform more and more successfully "against" inceasing degrees of sincere attacks. Grading should reflect this.

Quote:
Even Koichi Tohei...had to go elsewhere to learn what Ueshiba didn't teach him...What does that tell you about his opinion of aikido's default pedagogy?
I'm not saying pedagogy in Aikido should look exactly like that of Osensei. I'm just trying to say I think it can be sufficient in the right setting. I'm a big fan of pedagogy being a highly flexible thing, one which should ideally reflect the particular needs and goals of the particular teacher/student situation. That taken with the idea that teachers of Aikido should make it their own implies to me that variety of approaches, to some degree at least, is embraced.

Quote:
If you want a different result, you need to train differently. It's that simple.
I couldn't agree more. In cases where something proves to be lacking, people should clearly make adjustments. For teaching how he moved, I think Osensei made sucessfull transmission. No teacher ever teaches everything they know. The issue revolves around how adept our training partners/teachers are, and how much we can glean from them in the time we have with them.
There might be a big problem in Aikido with regard to authentic understanding of "aiki" I don't know, but I do think it exists and I think there are a variety of ways it's been propagated, including the apprentice-like models of teaching/learning.

Gambarimashyo!
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Old 05-07-2008, 05:32 AM   #1274
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

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Giancarlo DiPierro wrote: View Post
If you want a different result, you need to train differently. It's that simple.
Okay, but altering the learning method also carries the risk of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

If one is too goal orientated (the so-called efficiency), one might lose sight of what makes aikido what it is, and just end up with an undifferentiated fighting method.

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Old 05-07-2008, 11:36 AM   #1275
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Quote:
Matthew Gano wrote: View Post
I'm not sure any student can pick up all of what their teachers can do...assuming their teachers are always honing their own skills. My thinking is that as students we pick up whatever our teachers can teach us in any given moment and then it's up to us to make it our own and to creatively apply our own sense of things. I look at Aikido like Chiba Sensei, for example, and my lay-perspective sees something pretty effective. Is that all Osensei could do? I don't know, but it seems like it's a close enough of an approximation to begin with.
The problem with saying that all of Ueshiba's students got a full enough transmission is that they all look very different. In fact, I think that none of them would agree with you that they all got a full transmission. Most of them say that they couldn't even understand what he was talking about most of the time themselves, yet they all seem to think whatever they did manage to learn from him is correct and that the conflicting ideas held by their peers are incorrect. They all now teach according to a somewhat more rigid pedagogical model than he did, and try to get their students to look more like them and follow their ideas of what is most important in training more closely than he apparantly did.

It's not enough to say that they are all good martial artists, especially since many of them were already experienced in other arts and they were training intensively in a an environment with other serious martial artists. The question is what they did learn from Ueshiba that uniquely defines his art as aikido rather than just generic jujutsu? Or, if you prefer to think of aikido as merely jujutsu, then why are there so many variations and so little focus on effectiveness? If you want to claim that this transmission of aikido they received is something outside of the physical differences between them, then what is it specifically and how is it transmitted apart from the physical practice? And why do they now focus so much on the physical elements in their teaching?

Quote:
Ludwig Neveu wrote: View Post
Okay, but altering the learning method also carries the risk of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

If one is too goal orientated (the so-called efficiency), one might lose sight of what makes aikido what it is, and just end up with an undifferentiated fighting method.
Actually, aikido at this point already looks to me like an undifferentiated fighting method. It's not real clear what aikido is if you assume that everybody who claims to be doing aikido is doing it the way it should be done and that all of Ueshiba's students got a full transmission of what he was doing. The only way I see aikido as being unique as a martial art is if you assume that what most people in aikido are doing isn't what Ueshiba was doing and therefore was not transmitted properly. It looks to me like there is no baby left in the bath to throw out anymore, and if you blindly cling to the dingy bathwater that is left of aikido hoping that there might just a baby in there somewhere you are probably just going to end up with a tub full of scummy water. I think you are better off looking for the baby elsewhere.
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