Aikido for bodyguards

Does anyone have any experience using Aikido in a body guarding capacity? If so, can you elaborate here?

Thanks.

Our Paris friend could help you out there. - Yann

Yann Golanski wrote: Does anyone have any experience using Aikido in a body guarding capacity? If so, can you elaborate here? Thanks.

No. I'm still waiting for someone to hire me as a bodyguard.

Systema, the Russian art, has a DVD: "Personal Protection" that is a useful tool for training bodyguards.

In gassho,

Mark

Yann Golanski wrote: Does anyone have any experience using Aikido in a body guarding capacity? If so, can you elaborate here?

What do you want to know Yann?

One of my students works in security and has operated as an Executive Bodyguard up to very recently. He found that the Aikido training fit perfectly with the situations he encountered as a body guard in a variety of ways. He found a new love for Aikido and training as a result. He now saw it as a critical part of his livelihood.

So I'm wondering if there is any particular area of Executive Protection that you are interested in hearing about vis a vis Aikido.

LC

A question of my own:
I think the techniques practiced in Aikido (locks and such) are great for body guarding (particularly given the legal problems striking arts often get).

But I am not so sure about the blending and moving, which is intended to move one self out of the line of attack. How would you deal with attacks that are aimed at another from the start?

Amir

Amir Krause wrote: A question of my own: I think the techniques practiced in Aikido (locks and such) are great for body guarding (particularly given the legal problems striking arts often get). But I am not so sure about the blending and moving, which is intended to move one self out of the line of attack. How would you deal with attacks that are aimed at another from the start? Amir

Would that not make irimi much easier?

Amir Krause wrote: A question of my own: I think the techniques practiced in Aikido (locks and such) are great for body guarding (particularly given the legal problems striking arts often get). But I am not so sure about the blending and moving, which is intended to move one self out of the line of attack. How would you deal with attacks that are aimed at another from the start? Amir

Actually, most of the techniques you use in basic Aikido are not very useful for protection work (especially the locks). In protection work your job is to protect the principle. That means keeping him moving out of harms way. You cannot get involved with an assailant and leave the principle unprotected.

What Aikido does have is an understanding of how to drop someone while moving right through him, to effect someone's center without being obviously aggressive, etc Also, randori training is great for the mental side of keeping ones attention on multiple areas at once.

If you want to do protection work, I'd recommend going to a training program. It's a far more involved area than most folks realize. You normally will also need to become proficient with firearms and to integrate those skills with your low level force skills.

I can see three situation where locks may be useful.

1. A situation where the client is not cooperating or panicking.

2. If working in a team you may have to confront, arrest and escort someone, possibly in a crowd, who you suspect is acting suspicious.

3. Disarm and subdue an attacker (assuming that other guards are shielding the client).

Being a bodyguard requires an alert mind, being aware of your surroundings and a lot of patience. Aikido or Budo training in general could help with this and also be a good form of stress relief from long hours on the job...

Darin has some good points. George makes great sense also.

The thing with "Bodyguard" work is that the "work" part can take many forms from total awareness of surroundings and ensuring that the principal avoids areas of potential danger, ambush or attack, to using oneself as a human shield in the event of certain attacks, to operating more as a "personal bouncer" where ones job is to proactively deal with potential threats who may not be trying to kill the principal but cause some other sort of trouble (like bodyguards for celebrities as against Secret Service types).

How Aikido training works in this sort of job depends a lot on the type of Aikido training one is exposed to, ones training objectives and ones mindset while training. Of course no MA class will teach one how to be a bodyguard, though one can exercise skillsets that will come in handy if doing that sort of job.

Being a bodyguard requires an alert mind, being aware of your surroundings and a lot of patience. Aikido or Budo training in general could help with this and also be a good form of stress relief from long hours on the job...

I think this is one of the best direct benefits. In the case of my student, he found that the Aikido worked perfectly to control people who were trying to engage his principal without needing to use a higher level of force except when necessary. I guess it allowed him a measured response for certain situations.

Of course the bodyguard concept as "protection" is quite an interesting one since if one really wants to take out a principal one should simply find a quick and simple way of eliminating all the bodyguards in short time. They are only human beings and not "bomb proof" imho.

LC.

I am not thinking of ever becoming a body guard, but I can think of situations in which I wish to protect another - family \ friend...

And body guards are the professionals of doing such a thing ...

Amir

As Larry says: "Darin has some good points. George makes great sense also."

My interest was in the point George was making. Aikido is great at avoiding personal attacks but how to do you adapt that to defend somebody else?

Just curious really.

Peter, I utterly forgot that Tsuchiya-sensei was a body guard. Next time I see him, I'll ask him about it. Thanks.

I think all martial arts require avoiding personal attacks, even if you strike first your still trying to avoid an attack. You could use that policy when being a bodyguard by ensuring the person your protecting is out of harms way either by quick thinking or careful planning.

I guess you could say, how can you protect others if you can't protect yourself...

Yann Golanski wrote: Does anyone have any experience using Aikido in a body guarding capacity? If so, can you elaborate here?

Not personally, but I once trained with one of the members of the Secret Service detail responsible for guarding Chelsea Clinton when she was attending Stanford. I would think the strategy would vary depending on wheher it was one agent or a group. I'm speculating, but the abiltiy to subdue an assailant in a crowded situation might have been beneficial to him in that there would be other agents and police officers who would continue to stay with the client.