In the recent thread - "Aiki described through taiji " - there was some talking about Aikido and its problem - and as Iīve been doing aikido for 1 1/2 year now Iīve seen some of the "problems" but Iīm not sure you can blame it on Aikido it self

The place where I train Aikido is quite big īcouse there is a bunch of other MAīs - boxing, muay thai, karate, judo etc and when I look in to the other rooms I see a total different kind of people who train thaiboxing or boxing, even karate compared to the people, most of them anyway, who do aikido. The Aikidopeople are - as I said - most of them - not used to fight or to be strucked, kicked, thrown and so on and people has stopped going there once they have been thrown for real once or twice, they just cant take it. Now of course there are people there as well that are very good at what they are doing - but most of them have some background in other MAīs or in their profession - bouncers etc. Besides that there is not that much cardio - work , sometimes there is but that depends on what teacher there is - there are two guys who crosstrain in MT and the evenings they teach itīs really hard work or when the headteacher gets us to do randori but thats not every time and I think that if you gonna be good at anything you has to work hard on it - there was a guy from germany who visited the school and he told me - in english with a schwarzenegger accent - "You has to do it a thousend times to make it work" when Iīve tried to throw him and failed. I guess I wish there was more "reality" in aikido schools, that you dont fall if you dont get thrown - there are so much of that what Iīve seen. Other "difficulties" was when youīre gonna attack - In the beginning I went all-in doing the grabs or strikes but what wasnīt too popular and you couldnīt go all-in īcouse there is no mouthgards, gloves, helmets people donīt have susps so you has to pull the strikes,actually you donīt land any strikes at all, and as I said most of the people are not used to that. I understand that people are not the same - they have different reasons for training - some may find the ukemi fun and some may find somehting else in it. I wish there was more people who train for the selfdefence - part of it.

after only 1 and 1/2 years of training you have developed Aikidoscope. Impressive.

What's aikidoscope?

the ability to see things with aikido eyes.
(the ancients called it Aikidovision, but after TV was invented that sounded silly)

Bob#2

I am totally positive that I still donīt get it - I liked the joke about television though - but if I would ask the teachers Iīm also totally positive that they would disagree - What they would agree about is that Iīm more on bulldozervision

Rondori, solo practice, and close study of techniques is the key to learning how to use your techniques in real time, IMO.

Being totally awesome also helps.

lol

If you want more "realistic" Aikido practice, then practice that way. Train on your own, and work in the area's you think are more "realistic".

You'll quickly find with Aikido that you don't know what "realistic" is for the system. Because the modern martial artist is really not interested in looking at the kinds of situations where Aikido technique and training have application.

My advice, find the guys in the school that are like minded, and practice what you think is interesting. You'll come up with all kinds of questions that your sensei will hate trying to answer.

Thanks for the advice - Iīve kind of noticed that -with several teachers I`ve had - that some questions are not that welcomed

I'd agree with Chris, but with a caveat: its because a lot of "modern-traditional" martial artists have removed the opposing will in their training. In the aiki-world, Takeda and Ueshiba were sumotori, Takeda fought challenge matches, sounds like Ueshiba did too. In the early days of the Hell Dojo they met challengers routinely - but you can already sense a change. The folks that met challengers had extensive Judo and Kendo experience...

Fast forward to today, and very few modern traditional artists (because I would say it ISN'T how they trained traditionally) don't randori versus an opposing will at all. Aikido randori is simply un-choreographed cooperation as opposed to real randori.At least aikido does that, most of the classical jujutsu these arts derive from don't even go that far(though there is a long tradition of them having had challenge fights, mixed-matches with sumo, etc.)

That being said, there are situations where such techniques can and are useful. I have seen people who have dismissed aikido after achieving black belts suddenly find usefulness in some of its tactics in weapon retention training and law enforcement: but notably part of that usefulness was derived from gaining a basis in work against an opposing will.

"Why does my Gi smell like cheese and onions?" Is one that they dont like to answer.. From my experience.

"That being said, there are situations where such techniques can and are useful. I have seen people who have dismissed aikido after achieving black belts suddenly find usefulness in some of its tactics in weapon retention training and law enforcement: but notably part of that usefulness was derived from gaining a basis in work against an opposing will."
I resemble that remark.

I really needed brazilian jiu jitsu in order to understand my Aikido. Looking at a system the unapologetically tests everything it teaches over and over. Uses lot's of noncooperative drills and sparring. Yet still has basically a traditional martial arts feel about it, really helped clear my eyes.

Also finding a teacher like Tim, who has been through the same thing with his traditional Chinese training helped a lot.

Keep at it. I'm sure you'll figure it out if you keep looking.