Is there enough practice for 'real life' in Aikido?

Katherine Derbyshire wrote: Actual experience beats speculation every time. Katherine

i thought straight flush beats speculation every time.

Marc Abrams wrote: Hey Phi Do you know how to defend against these kicks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gzfj...E8A9B98B8E71BA Marc Abrams

i said kicks, Marc! those aren't kicks! those are freak of nature! damn birds!

of course i do know how to defend against those. first you get some oil in a squirt bottle. squirt the oil at various places on the floor. stand back and enjoy the show. don't forget to setup a camera for hours of entertainment later.

Phi Truong wrote: i said kicks, Marc! those aren't kicks! those are freak of nature! damn birds! of course i do know how to defend against those. first you get some oil in a squirt bottle. squirt the oil at various places on the floor. stand back and enjoy the show. don't forget to setup a camera for hours of entertainment later.

Funny but true story! Had a student who had done Take My Dough for quite some time. Wanted to see if Aikido would work against any attack. I told him to attack me any way he chose without telling me what he was going to do. He launched into one of those silly, flying side kicks. Waited until the last second and shifted to the side. Tapped him with an atemi on his side as he flew by me into a heap on the ground. Myself and the entire class (including the student) were doubled over on the floor laughing at what happened. Funny what you can learn if you pay enough money to those guys....

Marc Abrams

Marc Abrams wrote: Do you know how to defend against these kicks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gzfj...E8A9B98B8E71BA

Irimi straight up the centerline. LOL

Well thanks for all the replies, all sound advice.

Katherine Derbyshire wrote: More generally, practice with people who are competent in the attack that you want to defend against. Actual experience beats speculation every time.

Yes, and the bland assertion made by many aikidoka that kicks are easy to defend against needs to be qualified. IMO, the kicks that you're likely to actually encounter in a self-defense situation are easy to defend against, simply because not many people are competent kickers. To generalize that to saying, "Oh, it's easy to defend against a kick," and then go to someone who is actually proficient in one of the kicking styles and invite him/her to try and kick you, is a short trip to being sorry and sore.

Mary Malmros wrote: Yes, and the bland assertion made by many aikidoka that kicks are easy to defend against needs to be qualified. IMO, the kicks that you're likely to actually encounter in a self-defense situation are easy to defend against, simply because not many people are competent kickers. To generalize that to saying, "Oh, it's easy to defend against a kick," and then go to someone who is actually proficient in one of the kicking styles and invite him/her to try and kick you, is a short trip to being sorry and sore.

Mary:

I re-read all of the responses on this thread and I cannot find one single "bland assertion" regarding kicks. I would generalize your position and say the same regarding many attacks. How many video clips in Aikido do we see in which the attacker looks like a stiff from a cheap zombie movie? How many shomenuchis do we see with the free hand limp and dangling? How many yokomenuchis do we see where the arm is drawn away from center, off to one side before the strike is initiated? I doubt that you and I were ever taught to strike and kick like we commonly see done in many Aikido video clips.

I spend a lot of time teaching students how to attack properly (from a martial arts perspective). I also teach them how to attack like a good street fighter, or boxer, wrestler. If we are not able to practice safely with some degree of realism to the attacks, I fail to see how any of us can expect our practice to translate into the types of attacks that commonly occur outside of the dojo.

Marc Abrams

Marc Abrams wrote: Mary: I re-read all of the responses on this thread and I cannot find one single "bland assertion" regarding kicks.

I don't recall saying that I was referring exclusively to this thread.

Marc Abrams wrote: I would generalize your position and say the same regarding many attacks.

Sure. That being the case, I wonder why it's so common that aikidoka (or martial artists in other styles, for that matter) come up with glib responses to "how to handle a kick" like "Oh, just grab the leg." I don't see quite that degree of airy dismissal with other techniques -- but then, it may just be that it's more common that someone would have actually seen a competent punch than that they would have seen a competent kick.

Marc Abrams wrote: I spend a lot of time teaching students how to attack properly (from a martial arts perspective). I also teach them how to attack like a good street fighter, or boxer, wrestler. If we are not able to practice safely with some degree of realism to the attacks, I fail to see how any of us can expect our practice to translate into the types of attacks that commonly occur outside of the dojo.

Right, but going back to the thread, I'm personally not worried about running into a competent kicker outside the dojo, so if the goal is self-defense, I'd put it as a low priority to train against.

Mary Malmros wrote: I don't recall saying that I was referring exclusively to this thread. Sure. That being the case, I wonder why it's so common that aikidoka (or martial artists in other styles, for that matter) come up with glib responses to "how to handle a kick" like "Oh, just grab the leg." I don't see quite that degree of airy dismissal with other techniques -- but then, it may just be that it's more common that someone would have actually seen a competent punch than that they would have seen a competent kick. Right, but going back to the thread, I'm personally not worried about running into a competent kicker outside the dojo, so if the goal is self-defense, I'd put it as a low priority to train against.

Mary:

I think that glib responses are compensatory acts to cover up for some level of awareness of inadequacies.

Looking at some good research into the nature of attacks, you are absolutely right regarding kicks. More so for women than men. Kicks tend to happen in open spaces, as opposed to the tight confines of a bar. Than being said, I think that it is important to incorporate some nature of kicks into any good self-defense training paradigms. It helps people to maintain a larger body awareness of an attacker. Tunnel vision is a typical process that occurs during an attack. Good training paradigms for the defender force the defender to not get caught up in that process.

This whole discussion goes back to an earlier post (I don't remember if it was this thread) in which I said that if you utilize your traditional martial arts training primarily for self-defense purposes, you are in for a surprise....

Marc Abrams

Mary Malmros wrote: Sure. That being the case, I wonder why it's so common that aikidoka (or martial artists in other styles, for that matter) come up with glib responses to "how to handle a kick" like "Oh, just grab the leg." I don't see quite that degree of airy dismissal with other techniques -- but then, it may just be that it's more common that someone would have actually seen a competent punch than that they would have seen a competent kick.

I think there's a difference between theoretical discussions online and actual training in the dojo. The theory of techniques against kicks is pretty much the same as the theory of techniques against strikes, except that the kick makes the attacker's balance more suspect. So, when someone asks about kicks in a forum like this, the response is to shrug and not be terribly concerned. Kicks are different, but they're not *hard*.

But yes, like anything else, of course one would want to test that theoretical analysis in actual training against competent kickers.

I've trained kicks with Saotome Sensei, and at both my current and previous dojos. There was even a hamni handachi front kick on my nidan test. (Which resulted in uke going down so hard that he still remembers it a few years later.) In my experience, the theoretical analysis holds up pretty well in practice.

Katherine

You know in reality, I have dealt with very few kicks in the situations I have been in and the ones my comrades have been in. There is so much going on that feet are usually trying to keep balance and stand on. It is a fact of physics that when you are kicking you can't move. Not saying that you won't see kicks in a street situation, of course you might, but they really don't concern me too much. The only time I really see kicks is when too dudes square off in a "bar fight" and they are going through the exchange. In most fights it is a fight to control distance and mass, you really need your feet under you in order to do this.

Oh yeah, on the whole concept of "becoming one with the universe"...well we are already "one with the universe". the problem is many of us simply aren't aware that we are, or forget it.

For me it is not about becoming "one with the universe" but simply forming a better awareness of it. Not sure how martial arts really does that. It has made me aware of many of the issues surrounding why we lose sight of this, but I think there are better practices in eastern processes, methodologies for achieving this than most instructors, sensei, and shihans have the training, patiences and experience in guiding students in this area.

Edward Sudall wrote: Thanks it is good to be here, very interesting especially the linguistic aspect: so much vocab! Yes, that summises it really well for me. I think Aikido would be effective in such a scenario but only after much more practise and mastery than another martial art; the impression I have anyway. That is the beauty of it, I would like to train for such an instance, rarther than just in the dojo or dimensions of 'average' Aikido training. The merger of martial arts that went into its creation is the appeal and it is in the nature of the art to be pacifistic. The defence techniques apply to the person not the art, I would like to train for as many of the techniques as possible not just ones I would normally use in the dojo. As cliche as it can sound I would like as close to the O'sensei training which was less defined than a set syllabus of training.

Edward, unfortunately you express a point of view that, although represented by a minority, is one of the most common raised in Aikido.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in Aikido that would prevent you from applying Aikido techniques in any setting of choice: the only thing that works against this, are Aikido dojos - not Aikido in itself.

Most dojos are not even prepared to admit that your type of request is less unfrequent than one may think, and certainly they are not ready to admit that they are not equipped to meet your necessity.

It is not clear, or however it is open to speculation, why most dojos are not inclined to let you practice in the way you outline here - arguably, since Aikido dojos want to maximize participation, this mere option already works against martiality.
It is true that any martial arts dojo wants to maximize participation - however the fact that aikido is not competitive (or at least that the vast majority of dojos do not practice a competitive aikido and hold no competitions) is what is responsible for its by now generalized trend of counter-martiality. And this is where one of the major differences with other martial arts comes squarely to the foreground: if you don't hold competitions, you have no incentive to produce martial victory (the highly speculative tendency to say that Aikido should not bear in mind concepts like "victory", or that "victory" may be interpreted in a whole array of speculative fashions, is just a coverup to conceal the nature of the true answer: Aikidokas are scared of aggressive ukes because normally dojos do not train you to face them), and if you don't have a victory in a martial contest as your goal, you will never see attacks determined to gain the upper hand. Seeing never such attacks, you will never be prepared to cope with them.

That's a long answer for a shorter one: find like minded folks, and train with them.