experiences w/ other arts

I know there's been a lot of arguing over different MA styles versus aikido and I want to state openly that this thread is not intended to be argumentative in any way. Unfortunately I haven't had the oppertunity to test my aikido against other arts in a friendly training session. I was curious; for those of you who have what were the things you found that worked well against this MA practitioner or another? Did you find weaknesses in your aikido that you weren't aware of? We get a lot of success stories here, but when was your aikido not sufficient against another MA? Was speed a factor? I tend to find our training pace slow (for safety of beginners, and everyone else, of course) at least in relation to what a real life situation or perhaps another MA's training might be.

Anyway, that's it. Please, no "My art is better than your art." Just the facts. There's been enough of the former to last this site a while. Thanks!

Chris Pasley

I was curious; for those of you who have what were the things you found that worked well against this MA practitioner or another? Did you find weaknesses in your aikido that you weren't aware of? We get a lot of success stories here, but when was your aikido not sufficient against another MA?

Hi!

I practise sparring with a friend of mine, usually one or two times a week. He's into Karate, and I'm practising Aikido and ITF Taekwon-do. We usually sparr at his Karate dojo, wich means hard floor so I don't throw him as hard as I really want to...

What I've found working well, atleast against him, is Irimi Nage. It works really well when he throws a kick, like Mae Geri or Mawashi Geri. I also had some success with a variation of Ikkyo (I take a step back and force him down infront of me, instead of a tenkan move).

As far as weakness in MY Aikido goes, I've found plenty! But my weakness is found at Aikido practise aswell... I'm getting better, though.

I've got a nice "non success" story for you! It involves your's truly and my Karateka friend. It was one of the first times we sparred at "his" dojo. We decided (as always) to use gloves and footguards, not to mention groin protection (don't know the correct word). The gloves we used were my Taekwon-do gloves. They come of quiet easily, as I found out the humiliating way... We were doing some very light sparring, more like a friendly warm-up in rather slow tempo. My friend threw a punch, I managed to tenkan, grab his wrist (glove) and did a kote gaesh... the only problem was that I was standing there, holding nothing but his glove. A split second after I realized what has just happend, I got a kick right in the butt and almost fell over.

Regards,
Patrik Eng

From chatting to people it seems that the speed of strikes is one of the hardest things to deal with when facing good striking martial artists. Also, if someone sets a firm posture and strikes in front of them (regardless of your movement) it can be difficult to throw/unbalance them. My conclusion is that Aikido is not very good in sparring situations esp. when there is no real danger of serious damage to you or your opponent.

If aikidoka were so good at dealing with people without hurting them we would being attacked all the time as our opponents would be happy that we would not cause them any damage.

However these points miss the dynamics of 'real' fights. i.e.

1. the opponent does not know you do aikido, they expect their strikes to hurt you and coversely your strikes to hurt them. Therefore the dynamic between attacker and defender is very different because not only are they trying to strike you, they are also trying to guard themselves more. i.e. if you move to their side they will try to turn to face you again (e.g. to prevent you striking their neck, ribs or getting a choke).

2. Many attacks begin when you are not in a posture and can be quite suprising. The ability to just move off centre line can be invaluable (and once saved my life).

3. Sometimes people try to either work you or themselves up into a fight (in trying to prove their manliness). Aikido is excellent at dissipating this type of confrontation because you give them very little to react to, whilst still protecting yourself.

Point 1 is very important and often overlooked. I think it is useful to know how to strike well and hard and at certain pressure points. This allows you to see the dynamics of the aikido better because you can see why uke is also moving (because he would be exposing himself otherwise) and why nage moves in certain ways. To me it is always important as uke and nage to make sure these potential openings do not occur and think of the reality behing each attack.

Aikido isn't a series of techniques which do or do not work, it is a set of simple concepts about body mechanics which undoubtedly do work.

Ian

P.S. one of the great strengths for me of aikido above other martial arts is that I feel benevolent even towards people who are aggresive towards me - it allows me to walk around without having a martial arts scowl.

(In some ways I wonder if Ueshiba's real goal was a global peace movement which he encased within a martial art in which you could be forgiving towards your opponent).

Ian

(oops, sorry for my lack of negativity as regards aikido - its always helped me to act appropriately in confrontation situations, but here is an interesting negative event)

http://www.aikidofaq.com/stories/not_working.html

I practice with a local karate school, so I get plenty of opportunity to see how "my aikido" does or does not manage their attacks. I think the greatest weakness I originally had was this silly mindset that I had to stand there and wait for some body part to come flying at me so I could twist it. This became a great strength, in that once I realized it I stopped doing it.

This is especially effective against the ones who know I am an aikidoka. They expect to be able to do a Rocky Balboa dance around me and choose their attack. Taking the initiative as an aikidoka really disrupts their rhythm. Take that last statement to apply to more than physical encounters.

I heard Saito Sensei quoted (this is hearsay, I know) that you should be able to do your aikido static so that if your dynamic (ki no nagare) technique is trumped you will know what to do. I don't think everyone does that, and I have found that to be a serious weakness. Just my opinion.

Rob

Originally posted by REK I heard Saito Sensei quoted (this is hearsay, I know) that you should be able to do your aikido static so that if your dynamic (ki no nagare) technique is trumped you will know what to do. I don't think everyone does that, and I have found that to be a serious weakness. Just my opinion.

I read something simular from a different source. Or at any rate I've experienced it in training. If you can't do it static you're doing something wrong, as I've had demonstrated to me. I believe training for this is called Hikitate-geiko. Actually, I'm pretty sure because I read that at www.aikidoonline.com in an extract from a book by Tamura sensei.

andrew

Cris,

Aikido work's fine against other MA, but (there is always a "but") sparring and tranining are lot different from the real thing.

When I was training with judo or tae kow do guys, Aikido pratice enable me to saw windows in the attacks of them.

Basics work's fine (irimi and kokyu), but when I tried something more advanced like kote gaeshi or shiro nage, well, or they throw or kick me sometimes both..:-)

There are some points that I learn from that experience:

ma-ai and center control
timming and how much effort I can put in every technique.

Must of all, Aikido really work's but it more complex and difficult than other MA (no offense, my opinion only)



Carlos

http://aikido.paginainicial.com.br

(In some ways I wonder if Ueshiba's real goal was a global peace movement which he encased within a martial art in which you could be forgiving towards your opponent).

Er, is this ironic?

If not, I suggest you read "The Art of Peace" by O'Sensei, where this notion is made quite explicit.

A paraphrase:

"The art of peace (aikido) is medicine for a sick world, and a way to end all conflict through the realization that all things emanate from one source."

m.

Originally posted by ian From chatting to people it seems that the speed of strikes is one of the hardest things to deal with when facing good striking martial artists. Also, if someone sets a firm posture and strikes in front of them (regardless of your movement) it can be difficult to throw/unbalance them. My conclusion is that Aikido is not very good in sparring situations esp. when there is no real danger of serious damage to you or your opponent. < a little snippage > However these points miss the dynamics of 'real' fights. i.e. 1. the opponent does not know you do aikido, they expect their strikes to hurt you and coversely your strikes to hurt them. Therefore the dynamic between attacker and defender is very different because not only are they trying to strike you, they are also trying to guard themselves more. i.e. if you move to their side they will try to turn to face you again (e.g. to prevent you striking their neck, ribs or getting a choke). 2. Many attacks begin when you are not in a posture and can be quite suprising. The ability to just move off centre line can be invaluable (and once saved my life). 3. Sometimes people try to either work you or themselves up into a fight (in trying to prove their manliness). Aikido is excellent at dissipating this type of confrontation because you give them very little to react to, whilst still protecting yourself. Point 1 is very important and often overlooked. I think it is useful to know how to strike well and hard and at certain pressure points. This allows you to see the dynamics of the aikido better because you can see why uke is also moving (because he would be exposing himself otherwise) and why nage moves in certain ways. To me it is always important as uke and nage to make sure these potential openings do not occur and think of the reality behing each attack. Aikido isn't a series of techniques which do or do not work, it is a set of simple concepts about body mechanics which undoubtedly do work. Ian

Hi Ian and all,

Firstly, if someone sets a firm posture and keeps striking in front of himself regardless of what you do, why not just step to one side and watch while he tires himself out!

Point 1:
About dealing with fast attacks, if someone is very much faster than you, obviously its going to be difficult avoiding the strikes. I guess the answer is practice, practice, practice. (Or maybe its randori, randori, randori?)

I think you answered your own point about dealing with someone who's trying hard to protect themselves very well though, in that a good uke will also do that. As uke you need to strike a balance between allowing tori to practice the technique, and helping tori to identify the weaknesses in their technique by not just falling over regardless of whether it works or not.

Point 2:
In shodokan aikido, techniques tend to be practiced from shizentai rather than kamae, and I guess that could be why.
I gather one of Tomiki sensei's favourite mottos was "mushin mugamae" (no mind, no posture)

Point 3:
I think its more a question of personality and attitude than aikido that diffuses such a situation. (Although, you could call that an 'aiki-spirit', I suppose.)

Colleens responses to Stuarts trolling are a fine example of that spirit. She maintains her point of view in a calm, friendly and wittily good humoured way, never rising to the bait. If you dont have the knack (sadly I dont), thats probably as hard to master as the perfect ikkyo.

Aikido isn't a series of techniques which do or do not work, it is a set of simple concepts about body mechanics which undoubtedly do work.

Couldn't agree more.

Sean
x

Originally posted by Irony I was curious; for those of you who have what were the things you found that worked well against this MA practitioner or another? Did you find weaknesses in your aikido that you weren't aware of? We get a lot of success stories here, but when was your aikido not sufficient against another MA? Was speed a factor? I tend to find our training pace slow (for safety of beginners, and everyone else, of course) at least in relation to what a real life situation or perhaps another MA's training might be. Chris Pasley

Hi All,

Just one example of an encounter with other MA.

I was hanging out with 2 friends of mine. One strarted Shodokan Aikido with me while studying WTF Tae Kwon Do, but dropped out of Aikido after a couple months, the other had a few years training in Karate and Jiu Jitsu.

We were having a discussion about MA in general and got to talking about Kotegaeshi and its commonality to many other styles. In talking, my TKD friend, to see if he still had his aikido training, attempted a kotegaeshi on me that was totally wrong, so I started explaining why.

Seeing this, the JJ guy, being brainwashed into believing that JJ was the "mother art" and that nothing could defeat it, excitedly wanted to show me how much better and more powerful his JJ version of kotegaeshi was.

I GAVE him my hand, he held onto it and he came with an unexpected low roundhouse kick to the side of my knee, it buckled a bit, interrupting my balance slightly. This was followed with the beginnings of a kotegaeshi type wrist twist.

Sad to say, I felt his technique and waited for his point of minimum balance, just before he began twisting my wrist and merely waved my arm upwards while standing up, to begin Gyaku gamae ate (or side approach irimi nage, depending on style) I did not even have to finish the throw, he went flying some distance away and almost fell over.

The story here is that I believe Aikido, through the study of balance breaking and energy manipulation can blend with most techniques that occur in other MA and use this force to the disadvantage of the aggressor. A prerequisite of this would be some degree of study into the dynamics of attack and defence, both physical and psycho-spiritual. Mushin mugamae is also very important (Be water my friend - Bruce Leee).

The only reason I think my technique didn't flop like his, had to do with this knowledge of conflict dynamics, of which Ki sensitivity is a major part. I think Aikido is a great element through which this can be learned.

Of course I can also be sadly mistaken, so please feel free to critique.

L.C.

I think we need some SCIENCE yeah. Sorry I am physics major.
Anyway everyone is worried about not having enough time, well what we then need is a greater distance
We have v (speed (well velocity))=s (distance (well displacement)) / t (time) that's v = s / t
Now v is constant and represents the speed of a punch. Now we need more time therefore we have to increase the distance, simple.
So if fighting a faster opponent increase the distance. Theoretically he should have to take a nice step and then extend his arm to hit you (if you have a good distance) so, can you tenkan in the time it takes for him to hit you?
Also if the guy 'ATTACKING' you is being defensive then he is not really attacking you so how on earth did you get into this situation?
If you get guys how like to dance around say boxers or kick boxers then you need your distance don't ever let them have there distance because they will f**k you up.
But if your not attacking them and their not attacking you then fights over its a draw.
I have to say every martial art works as self-defense, it's usually the attacking departments that are lacking.

I think we need some SCIENCE yeah. Sorry I am physics major.
Anyway everyone is worried about not having enough time, well what we then need is a greater distance
We have v (speed (well velocity))=s (distance (well displacement)) / t (time) that's v = s / t
Now v is constant and represents the speed of a punch.

Since we are trying to be precise and technical here, let's acknowledge that the speed of a punch is not a constant.

Now we need more time therefore we have to increase the distance, simple.
So if fighting a faster opponent increase the distance. Theoretically he should have to take a nice step and then extend his arm to hit you (if you have a good distance) so, can you tenkan in the time it takes for him to hit you?

I agree. The problem IME is, how do you provoke them to extend their arm, BEFORE they reach their desired distance via footwork? 'Cause turning too early is even worse then turning too late.

I have to say every martial art works as self-defense, it's usually the attacking departments that are lacking.

As you noted earlier, fighting must follow scientific principles. Any dim-witted teenager can put together a set of flowery movements and call it a martial art of self-defense. (See Budo Quackwatch). Will that work as well as anything else? I wouldn't bet my life on it.

Hi Chris,
Just one point - if you're using Aikido and only Aikido for self defence, provocation would be very un-Aiki.

I tend to look at it this way, if you want to effectively defend yourself and you do mainly Aikido there are 2 options - Train VERY hard and get your Aikido to the point where it is a formidable form of self defence AS IS; or combine it with some form of striking and other grappling style (kung fu or Judo maybe) to make yourself a good fighter, though not necessarily a good Aikidoka.

We sometimes forget - Aikidokas do not "fight" in the traditional sense, or provoke conflict. We redirect the misdirected energy of aggression into circuits or projections that bring harmony (at least in theory) . Control without injury is the key, right??

Using Aikido alone for self defence is very risky if you are not sure of yourself and your opponent, but it can be done.

When one gets to the level where Aikido alone can be used for effective self defence, speed becomes irrelevant. Ask any deshi of Ueshiba, Shirata, Shioda, Tomiki, Kobayashi or Chiba (there may be others, these are the ones I know)

Just a point I thought I should mention regarding the above.

Masakatsu Agatsu
L.C.

Just one point - if you're using Aikido and only Aikido for self defence, provocation would be very un-Aiki.

I am not suggesting that one provoke a fight. I am suggesting that, once a fight has started, one should choose (provoke) their opponents' specific attack, and preferably choose a clumsy and over-extended one. If YOU aren't pulling THEIR strings, how can you ever hope to control them safely?

What are the alternatives?

- Attack first. Is that Aikido?
- Wait and see what happens. Use soothing words. Keep backing up until you hit a wall, then bleed all over their nice clothes. Is that Aikido?

And since we all have experience in martial arts here, let's not pretend that speed is ever irrelevant. Even O-Sensei could not stop an expert marksman.

We may have gotten a bit off what I was trying to talk about. I'm not talking about the nature of aikido itself, but in your (and my) abilities to use it. I would love to train with someone from a striking art (in a controlled environment), just to get some idea of how effective my aikido is. Not aikido itself, but MY aikido. I haven't had that opportunity, but I know many of you have. I was curious- did you find aikido worked more easily on kickboxing practitioners? TKD? Kung Fu? What were specifically the things that you found lacking in either their art or your own?

I'm not talking about provoking fights. That's the last thing I want, but I would like to know if one should occur that my skills would be sufficient to redirect it. While I know that dojo martial arts are not "real life" I'm sure that other arts would deliver a more committed attack than I'm used to recieving (which is a dissapointing trend in my dojo at times) and I was, like I said, just curious.

Chris the v I was talking about does stay constant between the two imaginary punches, the first one that hits you because he is to quick and the second that you move out of the of because you increased the distance.
This provoking as you call it was described as 'invite you opponent to strike' by the founder. If you assume a stance that covers all tsuki (openings) then obviously no one can hit you effectively. But if you deliberately leave a opening then you have invited him to strike there. Remember this only works agains 'smart' fighters a 'punk' or drunk is just going to swing (in my experience). But we are discussing fighting people who know how to fight I assume.
YES WE CAN ATTACK FIRST EVERY ONE YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL SOMEONE HITS YOU. To learn this read Osensei's Budo.
It all comes down to Heiho (strategy) when fighting someone who knows. This is some thing that is lacking in some (I think most but then again I live in the most isolated city on earth) Aikido schools. If you school is one of them I am not suggesting you run and fine a new school. I suggest some old fashioned research. Read books on the strategy of boxers and read Bruce Lee. Read any thing that sounds good (as in read the intro and if it sounds good you might learn something), maybe the SAS self defense books would be useful (just thought of that) it might be the Navy Seals in the US. The best thing to do is find a Kenjutsu school and train there as well (no not Iaido) Most of my tactical information has come from my kenjutsu. Some has come from my Aikido but I think that is mostly because the Shihan is a ninth dan jujutsuka, and I have found the jujutsu to be a little more tactical. Another reason is all the sensei's have multiple martial arts experience, so then know what other arts can and can not do.
Last thing. My self defense comment was in the context of a boxer who is defensive will over come an attacker just as good as an Aikidoka.

Chris the v I was talking about does stay constant between the two imaginary punches, the first one that hits you because he is to quick and the second that you move out of the of because you increased the distance.

As constant as your speed and the speed of the attacker, which is not at all constant.

This provoking as you call it was described as 'invite you opponent to strike' by the founder. If you assume a stance that covers all tsuki (openings) then obviously no one can hit you effectively. But if you deliberately leave a opening then you have invited him to strike there. Remember this only works agains 'smart' fighters a 'punk' or drunk is just going to swing (in my experience). But we are discussing fighting people who know how to fight I assume.

Yes, we are talking about attackers with fighting experience. Punks and drunks are too easy.

YES WE CAN ATTACK FIRST EVERY ONE YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL SOMEONE HITS YOU. To learn this read Osensei's Budo.
It all comes down to Heiho (strategy) when fighting someone who knows. This is some thing that is lacking in some (I think most but then again I live in the most isolated city on earth) Aikido schools.

Yes! Too many people misunderstand this! In the manual, the attacker graciously accepts the invitation. The greater your skill in relation to the opponent, the more invitations you can send, the more doors you can open.

What happens when your guest can't find the door, and tries to go through the wall instead? Someone gets trapped. It is very dangerous.

What does this mean when facing a fighter? Shove a door in their face immediately.