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By chris hein

I'm a modern fighter, I study lots of stuff. I'm a black belt in Aikido, I have studied (formally i.e. with a compitant teacher over a fair amount of time.) Xing yi, Bjj, western boxing, Shen Wu. I've done seminars on all kinds of stuff, but I've never studied Judo(other then books, and video's like anyone else). Most of my practical ability comes from Tim. My new Aikido practice reflects alot of this.

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By Qui chu ji

Chris, So what have you put in your Aikido exactly. Also if you need to change what you have learned so much why not just study whatever you are changing it too be like. For instance when I was younger I practiced Karate but now I study wing chun in between these I have studied some bagua, jujitsu, wushu, thai boxing. I will not start to teach karate using my new skills in all of the above. I will just learn and teach what I am practicing now.

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By Richard Shepard

Aikido is good stuff when well taught.

When I was still in college I had the opportunity to study regularly during a summer with a really good Aikikai Godan. He believed in only practicing against realistic attacks. Sloppy punches got you in trouble just as much as sloppy throws. The only adjustment for skill level was speed. His assistant instructor was a black belt in TKD as well as Aikido, so their demonstrations were always good.

The instructor had spent 10yrs in Japan and was pretty traditional about rank. There were several advanced students who had been studying with him for 8 or 9 years and were still white belts (the only belts being white and black).

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By chris hein

Aikido is a good system if you have a weapon in your hand. It was built on a system used by samurai who were always armed. Thats why all the wrist grabbing. If I had a gun in my hand, and you tryed to grab it, Aikido's techniques work great. However Aikido completely sucks as far as empty handed stuff goes. If you doubt this, ask any aiki guy who's wonderd into Tims place. Aikido has no ground syllibus, no strikeing, and very little ability to deal with someone who can really throw. However the training methods I learned in Aikido I belive helped me learn new things very quickly. I learned how to train without makeing it a "death kumite", and how to learn from my mistakes. Aikido is a good foundation system, but needs lots of help when it comes to realistic training. The way I teach now has realistic strikes, and realistic covering or evading. I regulerly teach ground techniques, as well as realistic throwing methods. Sparring is touchy with some of the Aikido folk, but I'm brakeing them in slowly, once I get my own school, my students will spar from day one. Techniques have been add'ed, but the core way I teach is still the basically the way I learned. Aikdo is great with weapons, it just need'ed some work with empty handed stuff.

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By Michael Andre Babin

At the risk of generalizing, I have never seen modern unarmed aikido techniques that were convincing against weapons attacks outside of the "student attacks, teacher defends" scenarios.

Then again, I rarely see unarmed techniques -- no matter what the style --demonstrated that look as if they could work against someone who is actually determined to strike you with a knife, sword or stick.Too many people. of all ages. watch movie fight scenes in which the hero calmly dispatches a dozen armed thugs and think that this is possible with a little training against rubber or wooden weapons.

And, I'm not bashing aikido in particular as it is certainly worth doing on many levels if you have a good teacher.

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By Richard Shepard

I think Aikido and Budo Taijitsu are both in the category of good Japanese Internal arts that could be quite useful if you use them properly. I love watching high level Aikido and Ninjutsu instructors demonstrate unarmed versus weapons. I sure couldn't get any of that stuff to work, but maybe they can. And damn it is cool

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By chris hein

I belive Aikido techniques are actually designed to make you more effective when you have a weapon. If I have a knive, and am about to cut you up with it, and then by some chance you grab my knife hand, Aikido techniques are great at clearing my knife hand and killing you anyways. All the pins are designed so when I have a weapon it's easy to hold you there with that weapon.

I had a fight with the Dog brothers a year or so back, and I learnd that Aikido is truely a weapons system, and works great for fighting with sticks or what have you. I belive the people who designed Aikido techniques (daito Ryu Ju jiutsu mostly) always planed on being armed (like Meynard) and they were only conserned with fighting you weapon to weapon, or the slight possability that you might get ahold on their weapon.

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By Mark Hatfield

I have read that only one of the branchs of Aikido now teaches fighting, that the others are sports and chi huggers.

Recall that the 'founder' of Aikido was recognised by other others in Japan as a bonified master but he did things his own way. Particularly his sword technique which was sort of a self taught free style. For some years he taught swordsmanship as well as empty hand.

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By Tim

One more point, Morihei Ueshiba first practiced Judo and Sumo (arts that are based on non-cooperative sparring practices) before he practiced the sword, spear or Aiki Jujutsu.

This fact is often overlooked, I hypothesize his early training/sparring practice was one of the most important reasons Ueshiba could actually use his Aikido the way he did, and why most of his students could not.

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By Kenneth Sohl

Thanks everyone, Tim, it's interesting to hear things that are never put into print by the "orthodoxy".

Chris, your experience bears out what I read about the samurai training with their sword "first, last and always". The inference was that if they lost their sword in battle and had to use empty hands, their opponent (another samurai) would almost certainly be armed. Also, when I trained taijutsu, I was never able to make wrist twists work. At the time, I just thought it was me, now I'm thinking otherwise.

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By chris hein

Wrist twisting can work fine, if the guy who's wrist you are twisting dosen't really want to fight. If pain dosen't bother the guy it's not all that effective. Although I've seen Tim take more then a few people down with kotegaishi. Most of the "wrist twists", seem to me, to be just anouther way to clear your weapon hand though.

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That first post is the condensed discussion of Aikido from another thread. I thought it was very interesting and wanted to see if we could continue it in a more focused way.

All the Aikido I have been exposed to (Aikikai instructors) included the study of tanto, jo, and bokken. These weapons were introduced after the student had a good grounding in Aikido as they were taught using the same body use as the unarmed stuff.

I think Chris made some very good points, and perhaps Aikido would be better taught like Kali with the weapons introduced first and then the empty-hand stuff coming after.

Hi Chris,

I have a few comments/questions about some of your early comments (paraphrased below).

What do you mean Aikido has no striking. I admit it is pretty limited and not trained as much as the other aspects. The Aikido I have been exposed to included these basic strikes: vertical punch, palm heel, knifehand, and front kick.

I do agree that Aikido does not have any real ground fighting. There are a number of control techniques that end up with your opponent "pinned" on the ground with a shoulder lock but there is no follow-up.

I don't really understand what you mean by Aikido has very little ability to deal with someone who can really throw?


Chris Hein wrote
"Aikido is a good system if you have a weapon in your hand.... However Aikido completely sucks as far as empty handed stuff goes.... Aikido has no ground syllibus, no strikeing, and very little ability to deal with someone who can really throw... Aikido is a good foundation system, but needs lots of help when it comes to realistic training."

Aikido is highly effective when atemi is made part of training. Since atemi is not part of much of modern day training, aikido has lost its edge.
Cardiovascular conditioning is sorely lacking in present 'IMA' so 'IMA' for the most part (again there are exceptions) has been defanged, as it were.

It always comes back to the training of the practitioner!

I think aikido has some good stuff actually and dont agree with the other mma ppl that it cant be applied to mma (heck jason delucia trains in aikido now) but it would take alot of training and various drills that aikido doesnt seem to have like standup randori or mt style neck clinching but instead of going for the neck trying the grab the other guys wrist or wrists as soon as possible while they are moving their arms around. Also some ppl dont break fall or lose balance easily like ppl in your classes so it would be hard for you to grab their wrist and make them flip over.

Richard,
Well Aikido's striking syllabus is designed around holding a weapon, so they are not like strikes you would see in a boxing or Karate, but actually cuts and stabs. Tsuki is the common strike that most people confuse with an actual punch. Tsuki is a thrust, it designed to stab, and push in. This is not a reasonable way to punch someone. Yokomenuchi (diagonal strike to the head) is done open handed, probably the closest thing Aikido has to a common empty handed strike (when sloppy punchs are thrown late at night after some drinking.). Yokomen and his brother strike shomenuchi (strike to the frount of the head) are clearly designed to represent slashs that would be made when one has a weapon. The palm heal strik I belive you are refuring to is likely a bastardization of Shomenuchi. Aikido syllabus's very from style to style, but these are the only official strikes of the system I'm ranked in.

When I said Aikidoka have little ability to deal with real throwing, I meant that they never train in real free Randori like Judoka. Aikido is generally confined to the roles of Uke Nage, and has little actual practice in counter techniques. Because of this Aikido's throwing syllabus is also very limited, and has little real application in struggle.

I don't know how familliar you are with Aikido, but if you will also notice Aikido pinning techniques are designed so you always have a weapon on your attacker, with out the weapon these pins are not very effective.

-Chris Hein

"Daito-ryu"....I assume the weapon is a sword. There are also staff forms in Aikido. Any particular group of techniques primarily for that? How difficult would it be to practice randori with aikido techniques?

Hi Chris,

I see what you are saying and the throw training.

I am sure the instructors I have worked with in the past stiffened up the atemi a little with their own training experience. The palm strike I listed is probably less of a strike and more of an unbalancing technique. I think it is real common in Yoshinkan Aikido.

My first hand Aikido experience is less than some of my other arts. I do understand what you mean about the pins.


Hi Kenneth,

Standard Aikido has sword, staff and knife. I think a lot of the weapons ideas Chris is talking about would work well with a knife.

Tomiki style does Aikido Randori. The standard complaint against Tomiki practitioners from other Aikido schools is that they use too much force and are too judo-ish.

I must say that my Aikikai experience included watching advanced students do some fairly intense free-style unarmed attack defense and knife attack defense stuff.

It really dosen't matter what the weapon is. Most of the "taijutsu" techniques of Aikido are designed to deal with someone holding your wrist, the only reason somone would do this is because you have a weapon in that hand. The weapon could be a stick, a knife, a sword, or a gun. Aikido has a large syllabus of jo and bokken strikes though. Also differnt styles very in their weapoins practice. I studyed predominantly Iwama (my rank is Aikikai though) Iwama is one of the few Aikido systems that actually have a complete weapons system that came from the founder.

-Chris Hein

Hi Chris,

What about the whole idea that a lot of common street attacks begin with a wrist grab (especially men assaulting women)?

Ah, Iwama is Saito's school right? Well, that is basically old-school Aikikai from the 50s. My direct Aikido experience is all ASU Aikikai. I don't really do any Aikido now, but I would love to try a Yoshinkan Aikido school if I ever move somewhere that has one.

Hi Enforcer

"Also some ppl dont break fall or lose balance easily like ppl in your classes so it would be hard for you to grab their wrist and make them flip over."

A couple of interesting points here. Theoretically the fact that the average street attacker has not trained in ukemi should make the aikido techniques more effective as they won't land well. The problem of students going for their breakfall before the technique really makes them is a pretty significant weakness in most Aikido training. There has to be a reasonable amount of resistance from attacker or the defender has no idea how effective his technique execution is.

Richard

Right,
The problem with Aikido throws is that Aikidoka don't know what it's like to really throw someone! Few of them have ever tryed to throw a resisting person for real.

A wrist grab is not a real attack, You are not in much danger if someone grabs your wrist. It's your body that makes and issues the power, this is why unarmed systemes teach to hold the body, and not the apendages. Somone might grab your wrist to pull you into a better hold, but it's not a real way to control a person. The only time someone would actually hold your wrist would be if you had something in it that they wanted, or better yet didn't want you to use. I'm trying to make a video to illistrate these points. I'll inform you when it's done.

Very True, Chris!

Yet, there are several projections in Aikido that work well to defend tackles and "wild" roundhouse strikes. These projections are in Aikido...but they are also in many other arts...including wrestling. The way it is normally trained will get you KOed or taken to the ground.
But if you already have a good solid wrestling or Judo base they can work well.

I remember when one of my instructors said it worked(their way) against wrestlers, I had to "respectfully" disagree...and then show them how wrestlers "change levels" and then shoot in for the takedown. They don't hunch forward and blindly run in.

The "concept" of Aikido is what should be embraced. As Tim has stated, Ueshiba was one of the original "crosstrainers" and MMA fighters before his development of Aikido. To think you can get his skills without following a similar path is like thinking you can just follow the lifting routine of a pro Mr. Olympia bodybuilder and get their physiques without a crazy diet and steriods!

The "Theory" of Aikido is what every grappler should strive for. If you could study Aikido and not become attached to the "technique" and focus of the "concepts" it could help you, no matter what style you use.

A wrist grab can be a good attack if it lets you get control of the person's wrist for an immediate follow-up control of that arm; or distracts him, even momentarily, for an immediated follow-up strike.

Of course, you have to safely get into close-range to do this and it's easiest to do any of this in a class-room setting ...

On the street, shoving or grabbing is often used to test the target or intimidate him.

MAB,
A wrist grab is never a good attack because with wude, if we claim to represent that spirit we never initiate 'violence' or assault. We respond to an attack but we never grab anyone.

That is why atemi or similar response is necessary. The attacker need to be stopped in his tracks so he need to feel power as he didn't understand it in the first place, and he is using it irresponsibly.

Hi Chris,

I was looking through "Dynamic Aikido" by Gozo Shioda last night and something caught my attention. In over half of the presentations of throws he includes a atemi strike toward the beginning of the action which looks like a back knuckle to the bridge of the nose. I wonder if this particular closed fist atemi is unique to Yoshinkan Aikido?

Richard

Sorry for this long post, but it is part of an article I found on Aikiweb.com written by George Ledyard. It pertains to attacks used in Aikido training, and I thought it was interesting.

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I was at a seminar in which visiting Ikeda Sensei called up a shodan to take ukemi. This young man was directed to do munetsuki but Ikeda Sensei didn't move when the attack was made. Six inches from his chest the young man's tsuki suddenly deflected off into space. Ikeda Sensei directed him to really hit but after five attempts, the young man was still unable to get himself to make contact.

This is a massive failure of training. This man has gotten up to Yudansha Rank and can't do a tsuki. Having this person for a partner is not just useless but actually counter productive for one's training. Repetitive practice of technique from attacks which are energetically false imprints a whole range of associations which are wrong and will prove disastrous when a real committed attack is made.

One doesn't need to get into non-traditional attacks to find out where the problem in Aikido attacks lies. Stick with Shomenuchi, Yokomenuchi, and Munetsuki. I consistently visit dojos in which mid-level yudansha routinely deliver strikes to each other in training which one would find vaguely annoying at worst if one were struck. I have watched Randoris on Yudansha tests in which several ukes did their level best not to strike the nage but rather held their arms out for the necessary time to allow the nage to do the technique of his choice. There was no need for nage to develop proper timing and spacing as the ukes fascilitated everything for him.

If Aikido is to have any real value other than as a dance form then things need to be seen and practiced for what they are. A shomenuchi is a knife edge strike to the front of the head. Whether you do it off the front foot, off the back foot, as an extension outwards (like the Shingu folks) or as a powerful vertical downwards strike (like the ASU folks) doesn't matter. What matters is that it is a strike and that the uke is attempting to strike the nage. If nage is too junior to handle a full out attack then the attck is adjusted to make it safe. But if he makes a mistake it should still hit him; it just doesn't hit hard enough to injure. When you get to yudansha level you should be seeing committed and powerful attacks. If nage makes mistake he should get hit.

Attacks in many dojos are completely lacking in intention. You can casually move off the line of attack and the uke will dutifully strike the spot where used to be standing. No matter how slowly you make your entry somehow the uke never hits you. You attain O-sensei level of ability to move around without anyone ever hitting you (as long as the attackers are from your own dojo where this type of detrimental practice is condoned). I consistentlly encounter people at seminars who are shocked to find that they can't actually do the irimi movement they thought they could. Repeatedly my hand stops touching their heads no matter how they try to escape. Their problem isn't that I am somehow so much faster than anyone else they train with... it's that I have a clear intention to strike when I strike. They'd been cruising along in their dojos thinking that they could actually do that irimi nage and then they find out it was all a dream.
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Richard, when many of us found that problem in our taijutsu group, we started practicing with our eyes closed so we couldn't compensate unrealistically for our partner's movements.

I have "Dynamic Aikido" by Shioda, and I noticed the same thing as you. Also, notice his footwork in the pics, more like CMA. Is Shioda still living? A new book by him is out in which he is quoted as saying that aikido is "70% striking". What do you suppose he meant by that?

Hi Kenneth,

Gozo Shioda died in 1994. He was full time student of Ueshiba for eight years before WWII. After the war he started his own school and taught "authentic" Aikido, it is just that the Aikikai developed away from that more with Ueshiba's son as the head. One article I read said that when Shioda was studying in the thirties there was a lot more obvious Aikijutsu in the dojo with more strikes and more complicated pinning and joint-locks.
Shioda's Yoshinkan organization is still going strong. A great book about training in Yoshinkan Hombu is "Angy White Pajamas".

I have heard a lot of top Aikido instructors quoted as saying that "Aikido is 70% atemi", including O'Sensei. First, I don't think this is the same thing as 70% striking, as atemi means more than just striking. Second, I think this kind of quote is about the application of Aikido to real fighting.