Aikido IS a practical contemporary martial art

Joseph Connolly wrote: The types of fights most people take martial arts for are pretty easy to avoid. In my years of practice the overwhelming majority of people who train for self defense are afraid of random attacks or bar fights, they are not LEOs, bouncers or in any job which would require them to use force to restrain someone (like a psych ward). The average person has no need to fight and can easily de-escalate...if not the world would be in constant conflict and we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

Isn't that what Aikido is about?

Matthew Gano wrote: ... Some of us need to focus more on the list of skills you provided while some of us need to focus on something more like "ground and pound" (a gross simplification of MMA). By two-bits at least.

And here's me thinking aikido WAS ground-and-pound ... just the 'pound' bit being ridiculously under-trained.

George S. Ledyard wrote: .The fact is that most folks cannot actually do their waza within the Aikido context if they get real committed attacks from ukes who aren't colluding. Forget about applying the techniques against other martial artists... they can't do their techniques against a proper katatetori, they can't actually do an irimi with a partner who is REALLY trying to hit them. This applies to many of the folks teaching as well as the average practitioner. This is particularly prevalent on the West Coast where people are trying so hard to do "spiritual Aikido".

That is a pretty damning (but probably true) statement about the state of Aikido and aikidoka in general, George. I for one hope that I am not one of those perpetuating the problem.

This causes Aikido to have a bad reputation. Ikeda Sensei has said many times, "It's not Aikido that doesn't work, it's YOUR Aikido that doesn't work". Aikido people need to let go of the whole moral superiority thing they have about their art. I love this art. It is my Path. But people who don't know what they are talking about get so superior.

My own teacher has never experienced Ikeda Sensei, however he has used the same words. The truth is the truth, eh?
The quote I have 'bolded' - wasn't the internet created just for them/us?

But it simply is a fact that human beings don't do well at not fighting. They fight within themselves, they fight with those around them, they fight with those they love... We are VERY fearful animals and that causes violence against the self and against others, much of which never gets to the physical stage.

Well put, and again very true. Isn't this why so many of us are drawn to aikido in the first place. We on some level recognise our own inate fear and look to a martial art / aikido to help overcome that fear. If we practice the principles of aikido diligently both on the mat and off, we may after many years, learn to be non contentious, to accept and blend with life and act with more confidence and courage to do the right thing at the right time, thereby living life with less fear?

Mankind is always in need of practices that help them transform themselves into what they can be from what they are. Aikido is one of them. It isn't the only one, or the best one, but is the one that many of us have connected with. It is our job to make the art as strong as possible but it definitely is about not fighting, on all sorts of levels.

I agree that Aikido is not the only one, I am curious to know what you consider the 'best' one to be? Personally I am happy to continue on my chosen path of aikido, it is working for me. I am always keen to supplement my practice with study and appreciation of other 'ways'

regards,

Mark

Mark Freeman wrote: Isn't this why so many of us are drawn to aikido in the first place. We on some level recognise our own inate fear and look to a martial art / aikido to help overcome that fear. If we practice the principles of aikido diligently both on the mat and off, we may after many years, learn to be non contentious, to accept and blend with life and act with more confidence and courage to do the right thing at the right time, thereby living life with less fear?

You don't need a martial art to overcome fear -- uninhibited anger works just fine -- ask any belligerent drunk. For most people the balance on the pole from anger to fear tips decidedly one way or the other. For the great majority it is weighted wholly toward fear, and they have difficulty responding to attack, apart from flight. For a select few it is weighted strongly toward anger, and they will attack with little or no obvious provocation. For most people, peace means the peace of the valleys. The peace of the valley of fear is still fear, but near zero. The peace of the valley of anger is still anger, but anger near zero. The peace of the martial Way is a very different affair. For a very, very few there is a precarious ridge lying between the slopes toward the valleys of anger or fear.

There aikido (and any humane martial art) strives to find its balance -- where martial love lives -- fear for another combined with anger toward an unjust danger, creates a very active form of personal peace. It is immensely more powerful in commitment than either self-directed anger or fear alone, and yet it is supported by both. It is very delicately poised on edge and difficult to find a place to stand firmly on without sliding back down, one way or the other.

The secret is not to try to find any place to stand but to keep moving. The ridge between them, though exceedingly narrow, is very, very long. The ridge can also climb or drop -- so some aspects of fear and anger are not lost, but they are quite differently oriented. The shape of those emotions on the ridge is more varied and not dictated by the inexorable downward pull of the fear or anger to either side. From either perspective, of fear or of anger, its shape can barely be seen. It is hard to see until you reach the point that you see it along the length, when its shape becomes much clearer. And there lies the narrow way. It is lonely and misunderstood for few will make the climb into the higher reaches of fear -- or anger.

Hi Erick,
I agree that you don't need a martial art to overcome fear, there are plenty of fearless people who have never set foot in a dojo.

I like your ridge of fear and anger metaphor, it makes a great deal of sense to me. I have through practice glimpsed at the sharpness and length of this ridge, my own has the added danger of being manned(?) along it's stretch by sword weilding pixies (my own mental gremlins - full of mischief and dodgy humour).
On a good day when balance is with me I can stand and admire the veiw. On a bad day I find myself clutching at tufts trying not to slip too far down one side.

regards

Mark

Mark Freeman wrote: ... my own has the added danger of being manned(?) along it's stretch by sword weilding pixies (my own mental gremlins - full of mischief and dodgy humour).

Damnable pixies! You see them, too?? {not "manned" -- "pixelated" )

Mark Freeman wrote: I for one hope that I am not one of those perpetuating the problem.

Amen to that! That is to say, "me too"...particularly since I've described my preference for an ethical componant to martial training. I hope folks didn't take that as an implied superior state of being.

Michael Douglas wrote: And here's me thinking aikido WAS ground-and-pound ... just the 'pound' bit being ridiculously under-trained.

I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying Aikido as a comprehensive system should include the ability to be brutal (to train to be as technically or physicaly powerful as possible)? I would completely agree. My point was simply that some folks already have a pronounced amount of training in some things while not in others. I know plenty of people who frankly need more "not-fight" training than fight training.
And since I'm laid up from my wisdom teeth extraction...
I think I understand why folks get uncomfortable when ethics comes up. It's a "little" subjective, and often the topic of religion starts to weave its way into the discussion...'nuff said there. I also think I understand why a lot of folks don't want to include these things in their training. They want to isolate and focus on the specific things they're developing. If they're already getting the intangibles from home or church, it's redundant to talk about them when you could be learning stuff that pertains more to the mat itself...I mean, stepping on the mat to talk is kind of like getting into a car for a nap, isn't it? You might have good reasons to do it, but the mat is mostly there to land on and throw people on. That said, I still think it's important to have the difficult discussions...ethical discussions about what people maybe should or shouldn't do in certain circumstances. In all things balance, but it seems to me that O Sensei hoped people would consider the ethical questions surrounding conflict. This necessitates some inclusion of morals and ethics doesn't it? Obviously the degree with which different individuals "need" to apply themselves in this regard would vary...just as a person with gymnastics training will probably do basic rolls a little quicker than someone with no previous training of any kind.

I think Aikido isn't a contemporary martial art, and MMA has nothing to do with that.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/184156/page/2

This is worth a read. I understand that most of us are not Special Forces or have a need for this type of training....

but I think what this shows us, IMO, that it is the process of inducing physical and mental stress in various scenarios and situations that conditions us to be able to better deal with it in everyday life.

Is not the process of budo or aikido the same?

Through the training that we do, which is progressive and methodical a way of working us through this process?

If so, is the process really designed to teach folks morals or ethics....

or, is a big part of the process simply designed to condition us in this manner, so when we are "engaged" in situations that we have the ability to "deal" with the situation?

If so, this would infer that the harder and more stressful we practice the better we would be able to deal with "stress" in our day to day lives or when we get involved in a "situation" that is stressful.

Interesting topic.

Kevin Leavitt wrote: If so, is the process really designed to teach folks morals or ethics....

I don't see the process of Aikido study as a delivery vehicle for any moral or ethical lessons. Rather the physical practice of Aikido provides me with a way of looking inward to discover who I am and how I interact with the world around me. This process of discovery has enabled me to witness the emergence and maturation of a moral and ethical base of personal behavior that is substantially different from when I started my study.

My study of Aikido has been decidely inwardly directed, resulting in outward behavior that has been moving toward a more ethical and moral form than would othwerwise have been had I never taken up Aikido.

Ron

yes, I agree Ron. Aikido provides the conditions and environment or experiences that allow us to mature and emerge! Agreed.

I don't think it explicitly teaches us anything or should enforce a particular set of ethics, values, or morales.

I think we have the endstate, or common goal of Peace and Harmony.

I think it should stop and end there. It should not define "how" we get there or limit us in our methodology or experiences by excluding things based on our judgement of what is or is not appropriate to teach.

If we do that, then we are screwing with the process of learning to affect the outcome.

Philip Burgess wrote: I think Aikido isn't a contemporary martial art...

Does it exist in the present?

Kevin Leavitt wrote: I don't think it explicitly teaches us anything or should enforce a particular set of ethics, values, or morales. I think we have the endstate, or common goal of Peace and Harmony. I think it should stop and end there. It should not define "how" we get there or limit us in our methodology or experiences by excluding things based on our judgement of what is or is not appropriate to teach. If we do that, then we are screwing with the process of learning to affect the outcome.

It's the same as your idea of allowing space for learning when i describe the need for ethics in Aikido. In Shinto, messing with another person's destiny is seriously bad juju...I think this might mean O Sensei felt it's up to people to lead by example; not to coerce the change itself. I just think it's important to promote the growth of peace through occasional discourse, when the situation naturally brings it up. When we make ethics a mantra instead of a practice, it's not ethics...if I'm making any sense. My eyes are fried.
Take care folks,
Matt

You can learn morality and ethics doing anything you want if that is what you get out of it.

Matthew Gano wrote: It's the same as your idea of allowing space for learning when i describe the need for ethics in Aikido. In Shinto, messing with another person's destiny is seriously bad juju...I think this might mean O Sensei felt it's up to people to lead by example; not to coerce the change itself. I just think it's important to promote the growth of peace through occasional discourse, when the situation naturally brings it up. When we make ethics a mantra instead of a practice, it's not ethics...if I'm making any sense. My eyes are fried. Take care folks, Matt

No it makes sense.

I think it can be summed up in one sentence by Ghandi

"Be the change you want to see in the world".

Joseph Connolly wrote: You can learn morality and ethics doing anything you want if that is what you get out of it.

I was talking to some guys who train in jiujitsu with me today about this. They don't feel they have learned ethics in any martial art training. What they did learn was humility and confidence (in that order).

I agree. When I first started I had false confidence from my previous martial art training. I was humbled and force to deal with my delusions. Later, and I got better I gained real confidence. I know where I stand in terms I can quantify. This has lead to a reduction in aggression, a desire to help others succeed, and inward and outward happiness. I'm less introverted and able to assert myself more directly in public. It has helped my job, my teaching, and my personal life. The best part, my teacher just taught me how to choke, pin, and armbar people. The rest just came from that.

Now as a part time teacher I also do not try to push my values on my students or even mention them. Instead I focus on building their abilities, confident that they non-physical things they gain will be their own.

Learning humility is learning ethics. Humility is an ethical virtue found in many, but not all, ethical belief systems. Confidence is somewhat ethically neutral as it has no real impact on what kind of behavior it will allow you to do that you would otherwise have coward away from. But it is usefull to ethical behavior, irrespective of the specific ethic followed.

Personnally I think you jiujitsu friends may be developing more ethics in their training than they think.

Don Magee wrote: I was talking to some guys who train in jiujitsu with me today about this. They don't feel they have learned ethics in any martial art training. What they did learn was humility and confidence (in that order). I agree. When I first started I had false confidence from my previous martial art training. I was humbled and force to deal with my delusions. Later, and I got better I gained real confidence. I know where I stand in terms I can quantify. This has lead to a reduction in aggression, a desire to help others succeed, and inward and outward happiness. I'm less introverted and able to assert myself more directly in public. It has helped my job, my teaching, and my personal life. The best part, my teacher just taught me how to choke, pin, and armbar people. The rest just came from that. Now as a part time teacher I also do not try to push my values on my students or even mention them. Instead I focus on building their abilities, confident that they non-physical things they gain will be their own.

Yes...this is what I have been trying to convey! Thanks Don.

Don Magee wrote: It has helped my job, my teaching, and my personal life. The best part, my teacher just taught me how to choke, pin, and armbar people. The rest just came from that. Now as a part time teacher I also do not try to push my values on my students or even mention them. Instead I focus on building their abilities, confident that they non-physical things they gain will be their own.

I would argue against the idea that your teacher "only" taught chokes, pins, etc. But I completely agree with your point that these kinds of things you describe are usually learned best in an indirect way.
Below is a good description of this issue in terms of public education, where we simply must teach ethics (directly or indirectly) as a part of classroom management. I think it provides a good basic framework for how to approach this idea.

"Instructors are competent in their subject area. One question being discussed in the media, at teaching conferences, and by society in general centers around teaching values in the classroom. Should we teach values? How should we teach them? Are we being judgmental if we teach our values? How do we assure that we present material in such a way as to remain open to new ideas? According to John Dewey in Experience and Education, "Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies is the notion that a person learns only the particular things he is studying at the time. Collateral learning in the way of formation of enduring attitudes, of likes and dislikes, may be and often is much more important than the spelling lesson or lesson in geography, or history that is learned. For these attitudes are fundamentally what count in the future." Collateral learning is the invisible curriculum."(http://college.hmco.com/instructors/...urriculum.html)

We should be teaching things that are value based most definitely. There are societal values that we all adhere to if we want to get along with others and not end up in prison or something.

Just about every institution has a set of values. Most of them are common. Respect Others, Loyalty, Honesty, Courage..those type of things.

I think were we go wrong (or can go wrong) is when we start defining for others "how" you live these values. Puritans had there own ideas, Al Qaeda have some ideas as well.

How this translate to Aikido to me is when we adopt certain martial affects or practices, techniques and begin to believe that these things are somehow more ethical or morally superior in application than other practices.

That mindset is dogmatic, limiting, and narrow...hence ignorant.

I think the same applies to our schools. We can say it is okay to support and encourage prayer, meditation, or reflect, to think about others or things that are "bigger than us", god or (insert here). To me, it is value based to encourage compassion and contemplation in some way.

Where we go wrong is when we define for others HOW that practice is done, WHEN it is done, and WHAT that practice should encompass.

As a Unitarian and Practicing buddhist in the Military, I can't tell you the number of group things I go to in the military that a prayer is offered, which in and of itself is okay...and then the Chaplain will end it with "In Jesus' Name" or something of that nature.

I personally don't find it offensive. One Jesus was certainly a righteous dude! Two, I don't feel it hurts me personally in any way.

I do though find it interesting that people make assumptions about what the collective of a group represents and seem to gloss over the fact that they may not care so much about the sensitivity to others. To me, it points out that we have along way to go if we expect to ultimately resolve conflict in the world.

To me, my time spent in Budo is meant to fix myself and to be a reflection of what I think we need to become as a society (transcendental) in nature. It is meant to increase our awareness of both things internal and external to us and help us respond and react to them in a more honest way stripped of emotion, paradigms and ego. It is an ideal for sure.

So, I think it is okay to be value based in our approach to training, infact, I don't see how you train without values.

I think it is not okay to define what or how or what that practice should include or not include outside of the basic structure of the methodology.

Kevin,

Very nice response.

The "what" of ethics is frequently not the problem, its the "how" that gets us in trouble.

The frequency with which otherwise good people lose sight of their good intentions by becoming dogmatic in their approach of promoting ethics, marginalizes their motivations. When one source of the same ethical principle is promoted as superior to another its fair to ask if its underlying intent is the benevolent promotion of ethics.

Proper ethical behavior is not a mystery. That's why the golden rule is a very old concept.

Toby Threadgill

Warning!!! Warning!!! Warning!!!

Posting Alert!!!

The following post contains thoughts and ideas of a fellow human being which may be perceived as...thoughts and ideas of a fellow human being.

Proceed at your own risk!

Aikido? I think it's a very contemporary art. It was developed only what...70 years ago? That's about as contemporary as you can get in comparison to the many other martial arts of which a fair number have been around for millenia.

What's up with the MMA and UFP or UPF or whatever it is?

If those guys are for real why don't they ever tear each others' shoulders loose with a shihonage or a sankyu hold or their equivalent in jui jitsu? How come they don't do slamming kokyu throws which can kill people by breaking their necks?

Seriously...What is the point of any discussion concerning aikido in which it is compared to competitve sports/endeavors?

I mean, what is up with that?

What is up with me writing on this forum?

What is up with anything?

Aikido. Train to better oneself and to develop an ego as a "martial artist" that can be fed by other people with "martial artist" egos who are all part of the "martial artist ego club" and who absoultely know everything there is to know about aikido which explains why they keep telling each other what it is...?

Uh...does that make sense?

Fight. Real aikido. MMA. Phony aikido. Only established sensei knows anything about anything, ugh, ugh, reminds me of McClure poem, ugh, ugh and Ginsberg poem all wrapped up in one, Aikido I've given you everything, March 7, 2009 five dollars and forty three cents. Why can't I go into the store and buy my groceries with my ranking? Ugh, ugh.

And other Ginsberg poem, aikido I see the best minds of my generation starving naked hysterical craving spiritual delight atop the ki-filled dynamo of tatami and then losing all in talkfest forum. And O'Day poem, aikido you are real you are nothing you are terrifically tattooed traveling troops traipsing towards tinsletown under virgin wrappings extrapolating yonder zues.

You are not trees. Trees are constant. And they get cut down. No, you are like elegant water fed cut stone on the shore of a high mountain river bank. Getting polished by wind and rain, stream and sun.

There you go. All wrapped up into a big ball of love and wonder.

Until...

UFC, MMA, Aikido not real, Aikido real, no one knows anything except me, me, me, me and the other people in the meme club.

What's it all about?

Competition. It is absolutely rampant on these threads. It's a cryin' shame, if you ask me.

And frankly...it's boring as hell.

Dan O'Day wrote:

If those guys are for real why don't they ever tear each others' shoulders loose with a shihonage or a sankyu hold or their equivalent in jui jitsu?

Cause they can't, cause it don't work that way in those situations. In fact, I have never actually been able to even get myself in a situation when shihonage would actually work. Sankyu on the other hand, well...it don't work so well either as a technique, although I have used it before in some instances in competition. ( I posted video of it on my blog.)

How come they don't do slamming kokyu throws which can kill people by breaking their necks?

cause in reality it don't work either. Why, cause the other guy stops you from doing this in most cases. Noble ideal, but rarely does it work the way we want it to.

Love to see someone like yourself go to the UFC and show them. Funny how we have had no aikido guys actually demonstrate their superior skills.

Aikido. Train to better oneself and to develop an ego as a "martial artist" that can be fed by other people with "martial artist" egos who are all part of the "martial artist ego club" and who absoultely know everything there is to know about aikido which explains why they keep telling each other what it is...? Uh...does that make sense?

Maybe in some dojos, but not in the ones I have chosen to study in. I have never met anyone that says they know it all, or I tend to avoid those guys I guess.

I have seen alot of folks though in aikido that don't want to take responsibility for their own training, or they want to, and don't really know how to go about doing it. I see alot of martial artist that want to take short cuts, or don't but simply don't want to admit they need to get in shape, eat right, lose weight...(insert whatever you want to here).

I also see alot of foks in aikido that are perfectly happy with what they are doing and don't need me to tell them what to do, or how to improve. They just simply want to come train.

Life is like that, however, different folks with different goals and stuff.

I like Erick Mead's statement "I do hear hospitals have sick people in them!" That is the single best thing I have heard in a while!

You are not trees. Trees are constant. And they get cut down. No, you are like elegant water fed cut stone on the shore of a high mountain river bank. Getting polished by wind and rain, stream and sun.

I could argue that trees are not constant, only our preception of them is constant since they appear to be standing still and not moving and changing. I'd also argue that getting cut down equates to the water changing and moving, it is evolution. Humans make up these nice little analogies to make sense of a big world we cannot fully understand, and it sounds so good to say things that sound so wise and profound!

UFC, MMA, Aikido not real, Aikido real, no one knows anything except me, me, me, me and the other people in the meme club. What's it all about?

Who here sounds like that? Most of these guys only last here a few weeks before they get bored, stop posting and go elsewhere for there entertainment.

Competition. It is absolutely rampant on these threads. It's a cryin' shame, if you ask me.

Maybe we should develop a point system and charge money and give out awards to the winners?

And frankly...it's boring as hell.

...and therefore?????

Philip Burgess wrote: I mean, do you do Aikido in a living room, or a bar setting, or something like that. Do you practice in a parking lot after it rains or during the rain, etc. Do you practice in your street clothes. When you do perform a technique your not surprised, you know what to expect.

Actually, we just trained in someone's living room today. He had to watch his baby, so rather than cancel practice, I just said let's have training at his house. As I was coming from church, I just kept my dress clothes on.

Although we are a traditional aikido club, we do regularly train in other settings besides the dojo and a traditional class setting. We also often train "scenarios" such as in cars, office settings, bathrooms, etc. Full-on randori is a part of nearly every class. Advanced students train rolling and breakfalls out on the concrete sidewalk.

We also strike and cut with full force and full speed - with full intention as uke on taking nage out. If someone doesn't move, they get hit. : )