BJJ is beginning to make me mad...

James...I believe your experiences parallel mine. reassimilating all the inbetween stuff between the various "rules" and paradigms between BJJ and Aikido is where much of my own growth, understanding, and learning has taken place.

The oldest schools of grappling extant in Japan are Takenouchi-ryu and Araki-ryu. The kata training (grappling, not longer weapons) focused on iidori - fighting on the knees. This was NOT a simulation of court etiquette. It was a simulation of what happened in the muck. You'd usually be deploying your dagger when you lost your weapon or when you were at grips, both of you hit the ground and continued fighting. There were also techniques on how to kill a downed enemy from your feet. Also mutual standing techniques, but these are stuff like grabbing his collar from behind, yanking him down and stomping on his head.

Originally, there were few "unarmed" kata (even the one just cited - the uke has a blade in his belt to deploy if tori makes a mistake). One of the reasons you don't see a lot of typical throwing techniques - empty-handed - in older jujutsu schools is that everyone did that anyway - in sumo - which was the main form of male recreation, and was practiced in dojos all the time.
In the Edo period, the older grappling arts became jujutsu, which was more self-defense oriented, and focused more and more on defenses from an "inferior" position. Bit-by-bit, free-style grappling became part of practice. Starting like sumo (often on a wooden floor), hitting the deck and trying to lock, choke or break one's opponent. There are accounts of these matches from early Meiji, and they were both crude and violent. Throwing an outsider on a nail sticking up from the floor, or thru the doors into the garden, hopefully right on a rock.

Kano Jigoro came along (insert judo history). Most of the classical schools associated with judo first as a kind of umbrella organization. It provided a safe way to compete and to hone skills in fluid situations. Yes, certain techniques in jujutsu are too dangerous, but this is a straw-dog issue. They are not that hard to replace if deleted for competition. But purely kata trained people often cannot deploy the techniques they know (weapons training is rather different - I'm talking body-to-body here).
In the early days of judo, according to an interview with Yamashita - I think - see E.J. Harrison, can't find the book (one of the four gods of judo) - the strongest guy in East was himself and the strongest in the West was in Takenouchi-ryu. Essentially, what happened next was that younger people lost interest in the kata practicing for dead history situations of a period long ago. Why not just do the shiai training - the judo? The older arts faded. (Enter Takenouchi-ryu young folks in judo shiai now - I've seen most of them - and they'd be creamed).

BJJ - one difference between BJJ and judo is this. BJJ has the best, most sensitive and sophisticated transition game on the ground. One doesn't go for pins - a win in judo. Katame waza in judo have their own value, but because they allow you to win, AND because a lot more techniques are legal in BJJ - there is less subtlety in transitions from one move to another. And the transitional game is the heart and soul of good grappling. I've rolled in judo and BJJ and I've never felt more helpless, as if in the coils of a snake as I do with good BJJ folks. (In judo I trained at the Kodokan and at Tokai University's 5th high school - perenial Japan champions).

As for koryu jujutsu - I do it. Araki-ryu. And I require all my students to also train in wrestling, judo or BJJ, or to already be expert at it. I still do my own cross-training now in modern grappling outside my own group. Several of my students are expert in one or another modern grappling systems, and in randori, without weapons, they destroy me. If they attain a teaching level in Araki-ryu, they will be able to teach the randori, empty-handed component in-house. And there will be no need for extra training elsewhere, except for fun and to supplement.
And yes, we do grappling with weapons and that changes everything. There, the old kata have far more relevance - BUT, the gendai grappling is what makes it live for me, as it did for my own teacher.

Most koryu today no longer has a randori component, except for those schools who also train judo (I do know of a few exceptions - like Fusen-ryu, by the way). And even watching embu, one can usually tell which schools still train randori and which one's don't.
What randori training does is prepare one to fluidly respond to a counter when someone doesn't respond according to kata-plan. A koryu jujutsu person today who doesn't have skills at sumo/judo/wrestling on his feet, and something like BJJ or judo-newaza on the ground is incomplete, unless the equivalent exists in their dojo.

Finally, aikido. It's good too. Not for grappling. For aikido

Best

Thanks Ellis! Awesome comments and insight. Couldn't agree more!

I can find no fault in what Ellis just stated, that is exactly the point I was trring to make about classical jujitsu, it has value but often is missing the very important randori element.

Yeah, but somehow when Ellis said it it sounded soooooo different. Why is that?

Best,
Ron

Richard Reavis wrote: Okay, so I've got a friend that knows BJJ, which is sometimes *erm* used *erm* against me and my friends at unexpected moments . I will be starting aikido very soon, but regardless, how does it fair against BJJ (I wouldn't use it against BJJ as described above, but I would like to know none-the-less)? Many thanks, Rick Oh yes, I don't necessarily want to know the stats of when I would encounter a BJJ-ist and have to use aikido against it, but I would like to know the comparison of both, since Aikido was based off of Daito-Ryu Aiki-Jujutsu.

If you've already received a good response, ignore my post. I haven't had time to read the entire thread.

If you just want your friend to stop using you as a training dummy, call his dojo and inform the teacher. Don't use your friend's name or your own.
If it doesn't stop, go to the dojo and ask for help countering the BJJ moves your friend is using on you. Identify him as a last resort.

I pities the fool.

Joshua Paszkiewicz wrote: Hello everyone, thought I might as well add my "two cents" In physical confrontation a truly dedicated Aikidoka would have the "upper hand" in my opinion. My teacher can stun you in your trackes without even touching you, it sounds far fetched but its true, this comes from his aikido training with Hikitsuchi Hanshi to my understanding. He teaches the use of the mind is very important, that when we have the right mind we can overcome any obstical, such things as "I Tai Ka", and "Zan Shin", "Wa Shin", "Fu Do Shin" and many all come together, and allow to two people to connect on a mental and spirtual level, in this way you can anticipate your opponets rash actions, and very quickly overcome him or her, with little effort, but strong mind. THIS IS NOT OFFICIAL TEACHING OF TENSHINICHIRYU(tm), FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT WWW.TENSHINICHIRYU.COM Yours in , --Joshua

Do people that study aikido really believe this? The whole no touch knockout, stun me with your mind thing? I am just curious.

Rick Brown wrote: Do people that study aikido really believe this? The whole no touch knockout, stun me with your mind thing? I am just curious.

This is a five-year-old thread. FYI.

Mary Malmros wrote: This is a five-year-old thread. FYI.

Yes thank you, I just stumbled upon it. I was not aware that discussions had an expiration date, sorry.

Rick Brown wrote: Yes thank you, I just stumbled upon it. I was not aware that discussions had an expiration date, sorry.

They don't officially Rick, they should probably be locked after a certain amount of time, because most of the participants will not be monitoring or responding to your queries. Its probably best to start a new thread based on your questions or comments. Welcome to the martial arts forums...there are all kinds of interesting unspoken social norms and morays for you to learn about.

Wow this thread is old, well anyway I apologize for how I came off with my previous posts. I was suffering from unbridled enthusiasm about Judo and Jiu Jitsu. I still love the arts but now have a healthier attitude.