I started Aikido to learn how to combat two critical killers of older men. Demetia and falls, so far seems to work and its a lot more fun than I thought it wold be, 3 years in.
Reminds me of an interview I saw with an Olympic champion fencer who started fencing in the US but continued and really popped off in his native France. And when he was asked what the French did differently in their training, he claimed they "played more", whereas Americans were more focused on winning in training. This apparently allowed him to be more ready for the chaotic unexpected situations that arise in high international level tournaments. Seems related 🤔
Apparently I didn’t comment on this? I meant to, sorry. What I was going to say was that I think one of BJJs unsung contributions is the whole idea of an “open mat.” Even when I was doing Aikido at the Japanese university I attended, I found I personally grew much faster when all the teachers left and it was just us students training and playing around. Obviously, there is a role for a teacher to play, but I think people need to be given time to do their own exploration, too. And not just for 30 minutes of sparring time or whatever, but in a setting that deliberately *isn’t* high stakes or fast paced (that can come later). In short, there needs to be more open mat time for people. Despite coming on a bit harsh in this video, I think people have plenty of potential for martial creativity. I just don’t think they are given the tools, space, or guidance to really bring it out.
My boss in 1991 recommended aikido because he said it was good to practice something you will never be really good at. I’ve been training since then, and he was right.
We just have to be very clear that war, conpetition and self defense are very different. I pulled a ligament high kicking during a atreet fight. of course, I hadn't warmed up or stretched. Now, you see even in MMA now, weird techniques often work if the opponent has only been training in high success techniques and are taken aback by something unusual (spinning back fist comes to mind, though now much more popular).
Nariyama Sensei is the finest example of Aikido, Tomiki (Shodokan) that I have been honored to meet and train with. Thank you so much for offering this view of Aikido training.
Thanks for the video. It was nice to see an old footage of Nariyama sensei, which helped me understand better the relation between word practice and the tegatana sōsa we do everyday when the practice starts. It´s interesting that people see MMA as the summit of martial arts when it actually shows that no martial art is complete and needs to be compensated by learning another martial art. Specially I think funny when people say that aikido is USELESS because it can´t be used in MMA.
I used to get chewed out for "suboptimal" choices on the mat somewhat often. Usually I was just trying to have a little fun with my practice and someone just decided that's not okay... I'm assuming the only reason that doesn't continue is because I'm now older than most of my training partners
As long as it was safe and not really disruptive, I feel like that's a little silly. Sometimes martial arts have trouble recognizing that fun and skill growth tend to correlate. There really isn't any reason why some time, at least, is devoted to being a bit experimental.
@@TenguMartialArts I'm sure in my case most of it was because ambitious people wanted to get "good at the good things" as quickly as they can to not be at a disadvantage. To me it's just funny that techniques fall in and out of favor (at least here regarding judo) and become poor training choices until the next time a high level japanese judoka makes it work in competitions. Doesn't help that I often get fascinated by the weirder setups and techniques. I have to admit that I can be a bit unaware of my budo hipster tendencies.
Nice shodokan footage 🙌 I’d also offer that success with a technique always comes from training, not the strength of the technique. Double legs are a meta takedown but, as wrestling BJJ white belts has taught me, they suck if you’re not good at them. A bad double leg exposes you to guillotine chokes and puts your opponent sprawled on top of you. If you can hit double legs consistently then they’re great, but I’ve trained with a lot of people who throw out doubles and singles because they’re the “good takedowns” but don’t actually know how to wrestle and end up eating shit. If you’re hot shit at Judo and you’ve put the time into getting a good tai-otoshi, but you’ve never trained a day of freestyle wrestling, you shouldn’t be trying to blast double people, no matter how “meta” it is.
The big issue is that we live in a "refinement culture" as coined by Paul Skallas. In effectively every aspect of our culture, we focus on over-optimizing everything we do until there is no variation between martial artists, or basketball teams, or website layouts. People have a bizarre fear of doing things wrong, that I don't believe was very common in the 20th century. For better or worse, you had sensei, the guys at the dojo, and your own brain back then. There wasn't so much room for paralysis by analysis
Definitely. As a history guy, it’s something I’ve been aware of for a while, but my channel isn’t really the place to tackle it. At least not directly. But I’d agree for sure. It’s amazing to me that the notion in pre-industrial societies was that you started an apprenticeship when you were in your early teens. The implication, of course, being that it was going to take until young adulthood to be good enough at a given task to be truly professional. So that’s… 8 to 10 years or so of living a craft. At least. Now people want that same thing, except on 3 to 4 hours a week in a year. I’d make no argument that information is now more accessible. That’s very true. But I think people confuse comprehension and accessibility as the same thing. Having access to information isn’t the same as being able to parse and apply it. At any rate, I think the “ever-optimization” model of living isn’t really one that humans were built for. Again, beyond the scope of this channel, but from where I sit, it just breeds misery and unrealistic expectations. Undoubtedly, it’s pushed us towards incredible inventions and feats, but there seems to be an underlying problem with it when it becomes optimization for the sake of optimization. I think, in many ways, it’s sort of the existential question of our time: what does progress even mean if it only serves itself?
You’re a fantastic writer, your phrasing is really enjoyable. By the way I am A Buddhist teacher and a behavioral scientist and what you are speaking about is a universal value of doing what is optimal by finding joy and therefore enthusiasm of practice. I compare homework to video games, you can see a kid go from chronic fatigue to mania in two minutes. Your pointing out how something esoteric is a kind of manifest puzzle a video game of sorts.
10/10 video! Glad you made it because I often talk about these exact points in small bites as I don't want it to sound like self-praise ever lol *very self indulgently* It did feel like having some flowers thrown at me and I'll accept hahaha
I did exactly this with wrist grabs. When people see wrist grabs in Aikido they are clowned upon because people say no one is going to grab your wrist in a fight. But I realized they will if you provoke it by threatening their face/eyes with your hand as they enter your space. Upon reflex, they will grab to stop the hand or try to knock it out the way so they can hit you, which provides the perfect opportunity to neutralize with an Aikido technique. As ex security, this worked wonders as it has enabled me to deal with people without getting in trouble for hurting them unduly. But that wouldn't be possible if I spent all my time learning to box because it's more popular than Aikido.
Nice video. I know in Aikido that my reactions slowed down after just one week of missing training. You're absolutely right.. what are we training for. Hardly any of us are training full time to be top combat athletes, and indeed those that do rarely want to continue their whole life because it damages the body. Losing teeth is common in MMA even at low levels, then you have brain and joint injuries. Most of us want a fun (and interesting ie diverse and with history) activity that would at least assist in self defense against untrained thugs on the street, as well as to keep fit. Indeed, I've ended up in Capoeira now (at age of 53 and having trained on various things inc. BJJ and Judo). Why? It's probably the most useless martial art around, and I acceot that. But it's fun and social, and boy does it keep me fit, strong, and flexible.
Great video. Really fascinating idea here, using “sub-optimal” techniques to refine your learning process. I do think it’s important to note here that the real fundamental criticism of traditional martial arts isn’t about specific techniques as much as it’s about overall training methodology. Standing joint locks like those shown in the clips here are so often taught in isolation without the fundamental grappling skills that give practitioners the chance of pulling them off. So the criticism isn’t really that a particular technique can’t work but more so that the way in which it’s trained doesn’t produce functional ability and this simultaneously makes it difficult for practitioners to understand a given technique’s effectiveness. At least that has been my perspective, I definitely agree that the process of try to make them work has forced me to be more creative in my approach. The results for me have been mixed but the process is, of course, ongoing.
Thanks for this video! I’m going to continue to slowly work on reverse seoi nage for bjj :-) it is indeed, very cool. I find myself favoring snapdowns and takedowns in bjj that end with my training partner in turtle, but whenever I try them against other Judoka they have better balance and resistance and it doesnt go as wel. So hopefully the reverse seoi nage can work as a type of knowledge check against players with strong standup, moving counter to how theyll expect when i start to set up my ippon seoi. Im definitely gonna keep messing with it whenever i have a willing training partner to figure out the right angles on it
Yeah the BJJ posture and Judo posture are kind of two different realms. I’m similar to you in so far as I kind of prefer it when people take that hunched over posture. Which, I guess, is weird given my Judo background (but maybe less weird since my home country is like 98% BJJ guys these days). I think you might find some more successes with Reverse Seoi my adjusting the direction of the attack? I’m kind of spitballing here since I don’t have film, but… if your partner is straight up and down more like a Judoka, I’ve tended to find that it works best as an advancing throw. Think you’re throwing them in a similar direction to O Soto. So when you do the “roll” for the Reverse Seoi, you want to put your ear to their back and then drop. Obviously, that won’t put them in the turtle you prefer, but you probably will have a bit more success getting the takedown that way. For the more protracted BJJ posture, I think the attack direction being to either side tends to be better. But that’s just me. Hope it works out for you!
I like teaching a sub optimal BJJ techniques. I categorize them in 2 flavors. The low percentage finish and the low percentage entrance. Low percentage finishes would be a berimbolo back take. Sure you can enter into it pretty reliably but the finishing is difficult. It requires flexibility and mobility. Also there are several easy counters once you figure out how to balance in the technique. The low percentage entrances I think to some Gracie self defense techniques. I look to the rear standing seat belt to hip throw. It is easy to execute but really we are looking at a seoi nage isolated to the throw. Forget the kazushii, footwork or setup. Just get your hips and push back while extending your legs and turn over the shoulder. Bam you got the throw. Now you can adjust this to different methods to entering into the seoi nage or drop variations. There are things I’ve scoffed at in bjj. After some years I looked at them and pulled something from every technique. Really awesome thoughts on the topic!
Okk okk you convinced me to try to make Uki Otoshi from the Nage no Kata. Wish me luck trying to be a Mongolian Throwing Artist 😂😂😂 I will give feedback on if it succeeds!
Interesting video, as usual, made me think about how I practice. I typically pick one basic thing every session, for example, balance, breathing, posture or position. Then, I take the whole session and focus on that one thing in everything we do. From the warm ups to the end of class, I think of that one basic thing. Now notice I say typically … sometimes this old man can’t always remember to do that and just blissfully practices! Congrats on the growing channel too, you deserve it! ✌️❤️🥋
Having been someone that went through all of these variations around MMA through the '90s to the more current, what you're saying is so true. Just needs an arbiter to be able to prove that the suboptimal works and then a training methodology underneath it that is easily accessible to the least skillful of the community. Everyone used to have to use the Gi in Jiu-Jitsu, everyone used to have to be Gracie related... Etc until the end of the universe. All you got to do anymore is hit an open mat 2 or 3 years later at a club and all your techniques will be non-meta. 20 years after originally learning how to pull off a kimura arm lock it weed was weird to hit a hoping Matt where no one knew how to put a good kimura on or be able to deal with one. The two black belts were the only ones that could hang And one of them mentioned that he remembered his first teacher as teacher doing a seminar on it. I know I'm going a little hard on the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu group but they seem to be so obvious of a place where the sub-optimal flares up to being the most mainstream technique and then just a couple years later there is a global amnesia. Over time my bias has moved towards the putting people back together through body work and the physical side of training. Suboptimal understanding of structural things I find takes people in even worse directions than suboptimal training ideas. Like the person that's 50 lb overweight with bad knees. Deciding that jump kicks are the best for their physiology. Sure you can train beyond them and you could lose weight. It's just not the easiest of pads to decide to take. And it really isn't at the top level of the sport at all. It's the cheap seats of people deciding to start doing some martial art but doesn't have enough knowledge or good sense that if there is anything wrong with their ideas.
Excellent video! I feel like most people today fall into the recreational or hobbyist martial artist. Unless you are willing to completely devote your life to martial arts as maybe an uchideshi would, you’re probably a hobbyist. I am a Yoshinkan guy and I KNOW I am a recreational martial artist. I train a couple, few times a week, because it’s what I enjoy, not because everything in the curriculum is super practical. Some techniques are pretty useful. Other things, like suwari waza, not so much. But they serve a different purpose. Anyway, thanks for a great intellectual analysis.
I think people often also confuse meta with trends. To me at least there has always been a difference between techniques and tactics that just end up often playing out at higher levels of play as opposed to tactics and techniques that are advantageous or even supreme due to rulesets and/or logistics of a competition. They aren't always mutually exclusive of course.
This is a solid point, too. Trends definitely aren't all that martial some of the time. BJJ's buggy choke sort of comes to my mind here. It's "legit" insofar as you can tap someone out with it, but I think its widely seen as kind of a joke technique at this point. A few years back, though, it seemed like everyone was trying to do it. I think that was more about being a part of the "conversation" as opposed to being on top of meta development. Having said that, some people definitely seemed to believe it was super innovative and earth-shattering at the time--although I generally think that kind of noise was mostly coming out of newer BJJ people.
@@TenguMartialArts a student at the gym I go to broke his arm doing a buggy choke in a tournament. This was after I had warned multiple times in training groups of beginners about the danger associated with that choke.
Yeah, I have a pretty clear memory of MMA bros claiming that muay thai leg kicks were the only valid kicks at all in the 2000s. I kind of wonder whether they actually memory holed that, or the people online today are just a bunch of zoomies that weren't even there for that. Wing-chun is the weirdest one though, because wing-chun trapping has been incorporated into MMA for awhile now, and it's still hated on to a level that rivals aikido. I guess some things have just solidified in the MMA fan community. Also, listened to your episode of the aikidoist podcast. Good stuff.
I think a lot of MMA stuff has fallen into a memory hole. Or maybe it really is just a revolving door of fans, I don’t know. All I can say is that, yeah, a lot of the stuff people are either sour on or completely ignorant of has this tendency to be seamlessly absorbed into the mythology despite being completely derided at an early time or just ignored. It’s a brilliant stroke of marketing, I guess, but weird how the culture works. And thanks for listening! It was a good time. Hope I get to do it again at some point.
There is a huge difference between sub optimal techniques, underutilized techniques and fake techniques. You can see all of them in the background video.
Unpredictability and chaos are the inescapable constants of violence (which is ultimately what martial arts are at heart). It only makes sense to embrace this fact with "sub optimal" techniques to always have your opponent on the back foot with you being the only one who knows what's going on. Who cares if pulling off certain uncommon techniques is difficult and takes time to get right, that's the whole point of training, it's a journey, this is why they call it kung fu in Chinese martial arts, a great skill we develop with effort over great stretches of time. Excellent video as always, oss!
Thanks for the video! I really enjoyed your point about white whale techniques and the analytical part of making a technique work consistently. I've done similar with techniques that are universally seen as unreal or ineffective and got practical use out of them. That and your point about not worrying about the highest level until you start approaching it. the reason why is because as a fan of martial arts, I wouldn't call myself hobbyist anymore, I noticed how many people are honestly not enjoyers of the craft and the skillset it provides, but how it makes them feel. There's nothing wrong with that, but it shows how even though they are mired in martial arts media, hobbies, and culture. they don't digest or comprehend a lot of it. Especially when they bring up high-levels most high-level fighters break a lot of rules or use "sub optimal" techniques to great effect. not because they don't understand what they're doing or don't know "better" techniques. They do it because they understand what they're trying to achieve.
They are snot suboptimal, but the secondary or even opposite option of self defence. Hits can be handled with griops more easer and more safely, and vice versa. Paul,69 retried istructor of martial arts.
03:22 There are also even more people who have an opinion on martial arts than there are people who have experience in martial arts. I'm reminded of a guy who falsely claimed he was very interested in kenjutsu. My friend told him I teach TSKSR. He was interested and said he wanted to learn the real stuff, not the fake stuff. The problem being: what is he basing his judgement on? Unfortunately, the answer is that he was basing it on nothing. In regards to "sub-optimal techniques", I see them more as context-heavy techniques. A great example is to run up a wall, kick away from the wall and use the momentum to kick your opponent in the face an KO him. Sounds ridiculous. Very classic movie action segment. I've seen a professional MMA fight be decided by this move. Can we expect this to work in all cases? No. In most cases? No. Sometimes? Maybe. It really comes down to reading your opponent and making the correct judgement. I experience that many critique a technique on whether they work in the ring, or just in any scenario. The truth is, the shit that works IRL often wouldn't work in the ring for many reasons. And many things that do work in the ring, won't necessarily be heavily represented in the ring. IRL example: guy is high as balls and has a knife. Already, the ring is out of the question because both those things are not allowed. He's doing fencing motions at imaginary opponents. Some woman walks past him, completely oblivious to what is happening around her (seriously, this bothers me a lot). The lunatic does a cartoonish fencing lunge and stabs her. This video clip is available online. There are many techniques that are meant to handle situations like these. Many police techniques, throughout the centuries, have been focused on training cops to handle bizarre as fuck cases like this. The many of the Jujutsu techniques of Aikido are based on this sort of training. Everyone had knives and swords, so the majority of the training pertained to this. The vast majority weren't greaser knife-fighters who'd stab you 500 times per second. In most cases it was like today, some crazy person flailing. The overhand stab is probably the best represented knife attack there is, yet people criticize it as unrealistic because some professional knife fighter will Benihana your ass in a second. The absolutely vast majority of people aren't handling weapons in anywhere near an optimized manner. Koryu kihon reflects this. It's what works in most IRL cases. That doesn't mean it will work 100% against a professional, it means it works against most people's natural instincts (as long as you manage to suppress your own instincts). It's complex. There are no one-size-fits-all. What works in one situation may not work in another. Very special techniques often only work in a very specific scenario. If you make a wrong judgement on what time to employ it, you're toast.
As some guy said, " before I practiced the art a punch is a punch, when I started the art, a punch is not a punch and after I practiced the art a punch is a punch"🤔
Not sure if you mentionned it, and its probly a weaker argument, but by practicing suboptimal technique that no one uses, I'd imagine you might be able to develop a tool noone has a specific answer to which you can use to surprise opponents every now and then. Sounds like another good reason to me!
I think also something that people often forget (especially beginners and intermediates) is that often suboptimal techniques are only suboptimal in so far as they are simply not very good in isolation. In combination with other techniques, however some of these moves become optimal. The smother choke from the back is debatably the one of the least optimal chokes in grappling and is one of the most trivially defended choke. You see, however, the best people in the world use it all the time. Why? Because though it's trivial to defend; the way of defending it sets up the best choke I'm grappling, the rear naked choke. The same is debatably true for the ankle lock. The ankle lock might be one of the weakest leg locks (though technical development in the technique over the past 2 or 3 years has changed people's thoughts on this and you see it used as a main attack more often now) there is and is trivially defended by booting your foot deeper into the opponent's over wrap of your ankle. This defensive reaction however sets up two of the most optimal leg locks there are in the Aoki lock and the heel hook. It's a beginners curse to evaluate a technique in isolation. No skilled practitioner does techniques in isolation and expects them to work against any sort of serious resistance. Also, and there's many podcasts of high level grapplers taking about this, but sometimes doing suboptimal techniques is just fun! It's fun to go for a twister on your friend even though it's way more work for probably less pay off than just taking the back and attacking an RNC. It's fun to try and wrist lock someone in side control. It's fun and funny to buggy choke someone. Doing the most optimal technique every time is boring even for the best people in the world!
For sure, this is true. A lot of people don’t really think in regard to the larger system at play. In that sense, we could debate the usefulness of me dropping almost an hour into a technique in the way I have in the Sumi Otoshi video. I mean… I’m going to because it’s an easier format, lol, but you’re right in the sense that it all has to fit together with a larger strategic aim. Things just launched in isolation typically don’t work-even “proven” stuff. It’s sort of like not seasoning your meal. Someone will complain about the blandness without, say, salt, but the salt wont get any glory even though it’s a major part of bringing out flavor.
Thanks for inspiring me to resume working out tenkan versions of my koshi nage! 😊 Super curious who we're watching in your B reel, also. Can we get a citation in the corner where appropriate/respectful/etcetera so I know whose branch of practice I'm watching while you talk?
This is an old Shodokan Nariyama Tetsuro instructional. I usually don’t cite the footage that is older and posted elsewhere mainly as archival footage. If it’s another creator’s video, you’ll find I usually try to cite it. The major issue is that a lot of my film pre-dates my UA-cam channel. So I have a massive collection that was never catalogued with citation in mind, which can cause some issues. In this case though, yeah, Nariyama of Shodokan Aikido. Don’t quote me on it, but I think this one is best located if you do the search in Japanese.
Do you think more non combat sports martial artist should know about this??I think the problem is most ppl don’t know about this and when the teacher is teaching these types of techniques they fully convince there students that they work.they don’t say u need to problem solve this.but I never thought about it this way.what are your thoughts???this is very interesting.also another question is what if someone says”well if any of this worked we would have seen it in ufc 1 or even now”?
Personally I've always found things that "work at the highest level" just kinda boring. Yes, it's amazing and interesting on a purely technical level, but it's also just everyone doing the same thing with the exact same level of precision. I much prefer watching people problem solve their way out of situation they didn't realize they'd end up in than people who have an immediate "correct" answer to everything. One of my favorite things to do at open mats is find a technique in my collection of old manuals that make me go "that doesn't work" then try to figure out how to make it work or at least how to get into the position in the first place. There's a choke from bottom north-south that I can set up, but simply can not figure out how to finish during live rolls.
I’m much the same way. Yes, I have my “A-game” that I can switch on, but I don’t really identify with the folks that trying to get 0.02% more out of the top 3 techniques in the art. Like you, I can appreciate the details, but it strikes me as a little weird. Especially when it’s folks who are very much in the average range of the bell curve doing it. But yeah, same, I like working with my white whales a lot more than my standard stuff these days. Although, then again, I’ve got the luxury of doing that since I’ve been doing a lot of this stuff since I was like 5
Wisdom! Also, I noticed that the way you were using the term 'Art' would have been called 'Way' or "Do' in the orient, and this made me realize that 'Art' is effectively the English translation of the Way.
Some people will definitely dispute it, but Paul Bowman has a book out--The Invention of Martial Arts, I believe--that pretty accurately demonstrates that "martial arts" only came into the English lexicon as a result of East Asian influence. So in that sense, yes, its absolutely a translation. I've never taken a huge issue with it being translated that way, either. "Way" is ultimately in reference to a direction, a vector. To me, that does reflect individuality and room for personalized expression. A common telling over here is that there are "many Ways to the Summit," which again emphasizes an artistic quality to "Do." The Japanese language isn't so inflexible that it couldn't have deemed it "Martial Laws" or "Martial Rules," if it were genuinely meant to be so strict. I do think the "Art" translation fails a bit in terms of the Moral/Spiritual dimension of the term, though. The Dao, for example, is the same character as "Do" in China and we don't really call those who follow the Dao (Daoists), "Artists." So, there are limitations to the translation, but that is just the nature of the beast. We can all sit around trying to pin down a perfect translation, the reality is that perfect ones are rare and popular culture probably won't pick it up anyway if it doesn't roll off the tongue. So, I try not to get too caught up in the nomenclature. But I don't think fuzzy translations really detract from the point in the video one way or the other; there is indisputably an artistic character to martial practice.
I started Aikido to learn how to combat two critical killers of older men. Demetia and falls, so far seems to work and its a lot more fun than I thought it wold be, 3 years in.
Reminds me of an interview I saw with an Olympic champion fencer who started fencing in the US but continued and really popped off in his native France. And when he was asked what the French did differently in their training, he claimed they "played more", whereas Americans were more focused on winning in training. This apparently allowed him to be more ready for the chaotic unexpected situations that arise in high international level tournaments. Seems related 🤔
Apparently I didn’t comment on this? I meant to, sorry.
What I was going to say was that I think one of BJJs unsung contributions is the whole idea of an “open mat.” Even when I was doing Aikido at the Japanese university I attended, I found I personally grew much faster when all the teachers left and it was just us students training and playing around.
Obviously, there is a role for a teacher to play, but I think people need to be given time to do their own exploration, too. And not just for 30 minutes of sparring time or whatever, but in a setting that deliberately *isn’t* high stakes or fast paced (that can come later).
In short, there needs to be more open mat time for people. Despite coming on a bit harsh in this video, I think people have plenty of potential for martial creativity. I just don’t think they are given the tools, space, or guidance to really bring it out.
My boss in 1991 recommended aikido because he said it was good to practice something you will never be really good at. I’ve been training since then, and he was right.
Yup… still awesome !!
Please continue !
I remember a time in the very early days of MMA when the idea of hogh kicks to the head was considered suboptimal.
Same lol. It’s honestly a little crazy what people believed then and, to some degree, continue to believe
Front kicks never work brah! Just stand and bang
We just have to be very clear that war, conpetition and self defense are very different. I pulled a ligament high kicking during a atreet fight. of course, I hadn't warmed up or stretched. Now, you see even in MMA now, weird techniques often work if the opponent has only been training in high success techniques and are taken aback by something unusual (spinning back fist comes to mind, though now much more popular).
They said the same thing about karate.. while Chuck Lidell was smoking people.
Nariyama Sensei is the finest example of Aikido, Tomiki (Shodokan) that I have been honored to meet and train with. Thank you so much for offering this view of Aikido training.
Thanks for the video. It was nice to see an old footage of Nariyama sensei, which helped me understand better the relation between word practice and the tegatana sōsa we do everyday when the practice starts. It´s interesting that people see MMA as the summit of martial arts when it actually shows that no martial art is complete and needs to be compensated by learning another martial art. Specially I think funny when people say that aikido is USELESS because it can´t be used in MMA.
I used to get chewed out for "suboptimal" choices on the mat somewhat often. Usually I was just trying to have a little fun with my practice and someone just decided that's not okay...
I'm assuming the only reason that doesn't continue is because I'm now older than most of my training partners
As long as it was safe and not really disruptive, I feel like that's a little silly. Sometimes martial arts have trouble recognizing that fun and skill growth tend to correlate. There really isn't any reason why some time, at least, is devoted to being a bit experimental.
@@TenguMartialArts I'm sure in my case most of it was because ambitious people wanted to get "good at the good things" as quickly as they can to not be at a disadvantage. To me it's just funny that techniques fall in and out of favor (at least here regarding judo) and become poor training choices until the next time a high level japanese judoka makes it work in competitions. Doesn't help that I often get fascinated by the weirder setups and techniques. I have to admit that I can be a bit unaware of my budo hipster tendencies.
Nice shodokan footage 🙌 I’d also offer that success with a technique always comes from training, not the strength of the technique. Double legs are a meta takedown but, as wrestling BJJ white belts has taught me, they suck if you’re not good at them. A bad double leg exposes you to guillotine chokes and puts your opponent sprawled on top of you. If you can hit double legs consistently then they’re great, but I’ve trained with a lot of people who throw out doubles and singles because they’re the “good takedowns” but don’t actually know how to wrestle and end up eating shit.
If you’re hot shit at Judo and you’ve put the time into getting a good tai-otoshi, but you’ve never trained a day of freestyle wrestling, you shouldn’t be trying to blast double people, no matter how “meta” it is.
The big issue is that we live in a "refinement culture" as coined by Paul Skallas. In effectively every aspect of our culture, we focus on over-optimizing everything we do until there is no variation between martial artists, or basketball teams, or website layouts.
People have a bizarre fear of doing things wrong, that I don't believe was very common in the 20th century. For better or worse, you had sensei, the guys at the dojo, and your own brain back then. There wasn't so much room for paralysis by analysis
Definitely. As a history guy, it’s something I’ve been aware of for a while, but my channel isn’t really the place to tackle it. At least not directly.
But I’d agree for sure. It’s amazing to me that the notion in pre-industrial societies was that you started an apprenticeship when you were in your early teens. The implication, of course, being that it was going to take until young adulthood to be good enough at a given task to be truly professional. So that’s… 8 to 10 years or so of living a craft. At least.
Now people want that same thing, except on 3 to 4 hours a week in a year.
I’d make no argument that information is now more accessible. That’s very true. But I think people confuse comprehension and accessibility as the same thing. Having access to information isn’t the same as being able to parse and apply it.
At any rate, I think the “ever-optimization” model of living isn’t really one that humans were built for. Again, beyond the scope of this channel, but from where I sit, it just breeds misery and unrealistic expectations. Undoubtedly, it’s pushed us towards incredible inventions and feats, but there seems to be an underlying problem with it when it becomes optimization for the sake of optimization.
I think, in many ways, it’s sort of the existential question of our time: what does progress even mean if it only serves itself?
You’re a fantastic writer, your phrasing is really enjoyable.
By the way
I am A Buddhist teacher and a behavioral scientist and what you are speaking about is a universal value of doing what is optimal by finding joy and therefore enthusiasm of practice.
I compare homework to video games, you can see a kid go from chronic fatigue to mania in two minutes. Your pointing out how something esoteric is a kind of manifest puzzle a video game of sorts.
That’s definitely an interesting take on it. I can’t really disagree, though.
10/10 video! Glad you made it because I often talk about these exact points in small bites as I don't want it to sound like self-praise ever lol
*very self indulgently*
It did feel like having some flowers thrown at me and I'll accept hahaha
Amen! You are a great lecturer. Thank you for inspiring Martial Arts to continue to be true Warrior Art!
It's been a little while since I heard something intelligent and coherent. I really enjoyed this video. Food for thought. Thank you.
This was EXCELLENT.
I did exactly this with wrist grabs. When people see wrist grabs in Aikido they are clowned upon because people say no one is going to grab your wrist in a fight. But I realized they will if you provoke it by threatening their face/eyes with your hand as they enter your space. Upon reflex, they will grab to stop the hand or try to knock it out the way so they can hit you, which provides the perfect opportunity to neutralize with an Aikido technique. As ex security, this worked wonders as it has enabled me to deal with people without getting in trouble for hurting them unduly. But that wouldn't be possible if I spent all my time learning to box because it's more popular than Aikido.
Nice video. I know in Aikido that my reactions slowed down after just one week of missing training. You're absolutely right.. what are we training for. Hardly any of us are training full time to be top combat athletes, and indeed those that do rarely want to continue their whole life because it damages the body. Losing teeth is common in MMA even at low levels, then you have brain and joint injuries. Most of us want a fun (and interesting ie diverse and with history) activity that would at least assist in self defense against untrained thugs on the street, as well as to keep fit. Indeed, I've ended up in Capoeira now (at age of 53 and having trained on various things inc. BJJ and Judo). Why? It's probably the most useless martial art around, and I acceot that. But it's fun and social, and boy does it keep me fit, strong, and flexible.
Great video. Really fascinating idea here, using “sub-optimal” techniques to refine your learning process. I do think it’s important to note here that the real fundamental criticism of traditional martial arts isn’t about specific techniques as much as it’s about overall training methodology. Standing joint locks like those shown in the clips here are so often taught in isolation without the fundamental grappling skills that give practitioners the chance of pulling them off. So the criticism isn’t really that a particular technique can’t work but more so that the way in which it’s trained doesn’t produce functional ability and this simultaneously makes it difficult for practitioners to understand a given technique’s effectiveness. At least that has been my perspective, I definitely agree that the process of try to make them work has forced me to be more creative in my approach. The results for me have been mixed but the process is, of course, ongoing.
Thanks for this video! I’m going to continue to slowly work on reverse seoi nage for bjj :-) it is indeed, very cool. I find myself favoring snapdowns and takedowns in bjj that end with my training partner in turtle, but whenever I try them against other Judoka they have better balance and resistance and it doesnt go as wel. So hopefully the reverse seoi nage can work as a type of knowledge check against players with strong standup, moving counter to how theyll expect when i start to set up my ippon seoi. Im definitely gonna keep messing with it whenever i have a willing training partner to figure out the right angles on it
Yeah the BJJ posture and Judo posture are kind of two different realms. I’m similar to you in so far as I kind of prefer it when people take that hunched over posture. Which, I guess, is weird given my Judo background (but maybe less weird since my home country is like 98% BJJ guys these days).
I think you might find some more successes with Reverse Seoi my adjusting the direction of the attack? I’m kind of spitballing here since I don’t have film, but… if your partner is straight up and down more like a Judoka, I’ve tended to find that it works best as an advancing throw. Think you’re throwing them in a similar direction to O Soto. So when you do the “roll” for the Reverse Seoi, you want to put your ear to their back and then drop. Obviously, that won’t put them in the turtle you prefer, but you probably will have a bit more success getting the takedown that way.
For the more protracted BJJ posture, I think the attack direction being to either side tends to be better. But that’s just me.
Hope it works out for you!
I like teaching a sub optimal BJJ techniques. I categorize them in 2 flavors. The low percentage finish and the low percentage entrance. Low percentage finishes would be a berimbolo back take. Sure you can enter into it pretty reliably but the finishing is difficult. It requires flexibility and mobility. Also there are several easy counters once you figure out how to balance in the technique. The low percentage entrances I think to some Gracie self defense techniques. I look to the rear standing seat belt to hip throw. It is easy to execute but really we are looking at a seoi nage isolated to the throw. Forget the kazushii, footwork or setup. Just get your hips and push back while extending your legs and turn over the shoulder. Bam you got the throw. Now you can adjust this to different methods to entering into the seoi nage or drop variations. There are things I’ve scoffed at in bjj. After some years I looked at them and pulled something from every technique. Really awesome thoughts on the topic!
Okk okk you convinced me to try to make Uki Otoshi from the Nage no Kata. Wish me luck trying to be a Mongolian Throwing Artist 😂😂😂 I will give feedback on if it succeeds!
Funny you bring that up... just let loose a Sumi Otoshi video lol Different tech, ofc, but kind of same family
Good luck!!
@@TenguMartialArts thx lets see if nationals or sth is a proper stage to f@ck around lol if it works I’ll credit you 😂🤝
Interesting video, as usual, made me think about how I practice. I typically pick one basic thing every session, for example, balance, breathing, posture or position. Then, I take the whole session and focus on that one thing in everything we do. From the warm ups to the end of class, I think of that one basic thing. Now notice I say typically … sometimes this old man can’t always remember to do that and just blissfully practices!
Congrats on the growing channel too, you deserve it! ✌️❤️🥋
Having been someone that went through all of these variations around MMA through the '90s to the more current, what you're saying is so true. Just needs an arbiter to be able to prove that the suboptimal works and then a training methodology underneath it that is easily accessible to the least skillful of the community.
Everyone used to have to use the Gi in Jiu-Jitsu, everyone used to have to be Gracie related... Etc until the end of the universe. All you got to do anymore is hit an open mat 2 or 3 years later at a club and all your techniques will be non-meta. 20 years after originally learning how to pull off a kimura arm lock it weed was weird to hit a hoping Matt where no one knew how to put a good kimura on or be able to deal with one. The two black belts were the only ones that could hang And one of them mentioned that he remembered his first teacher as teacher doing a seminar on it. I know I'm going a little hard on the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu group but they seem to be so obvious of a place where the sub-optimal flares up to being the most mainstream technique and then just a couple years later there is a global amnesia.
Over time my bias has moved towards the putting people back together through body work and the physical side of training. Suboptimal understanding of structural things I find takes people in even worse directions than suboptimal training ideas. Like the person that's 50 lb overweight with bad knees. Deciding that jump kicks are the best for their physiology. Sure you can train beyond them and you could lose weight. It's just not the easiest of pads to decide to take. And it really isn't at the top level of the sport at all. It's the cheap seats of people deciding to start doing some martial art but doesn't have enough knowledge or good sense that if there is anything wrong with their ideas.
Good lecture I've been in the same camp for years.
Excellent video! I feel like most people today fall into the recreational or hobbyist martial artist. Unless you are willing to completely devote your life to martial arts as maybe an uchideshi would, you’re probably a hobbyist. I am a Yoshinkan guy and I KNOW I am a recreational martial artist. I train a couple, few times a week, because it’s what I enjoy, not because everything in the curriculum is super practical. Some techniques are pretty useful. Other things, like suwari waza, not so much. But they serve a different purpose. Anyway, thanks for a great intellectual analysis.
5:54 Tell 'em, Tengu!
I think people often also confuse meta with trends. To me at least there has always been a difference between techniques and tactics that just end up often playing out at higher levels of play as opposed to tactics and techniques that are advantageous or even supreme due to rulesets and/or logistics of a competition.
They aren't always mutually exclusive of course.
This is a solid point, too. Trends definitely aren't all that martial some of the time. BJJ's buggy choke sort of comes to my mind here. It's "legit" insofar as you can tap someone out with it, but I think its widely seen as kind of a joke technique at this point. A few years back, though, it seemed like everyone was trying to do it. I think that was more about being a part of the "conversation" as opposed to being on top of meta development. Having said that, some people definitely seemed to believe it was super innovative and earth-shattering at the time--although I generally think that kind of noise was mostly coming out of newer BJJ people.
@@TenguMartialArts a student at the gym I go to broke his arm doing a buggy choke in a tournament. This was after I had warned multiple times in training groups of beginners about the danger associated with that choke.
@@randybowman Ooooof. I'm hope he learned his lesson. Sometimes wisdom isn't cheap.
@@TenguMartialArts I think he did, but he has rods in his arm now. Super kind and genuine guy. He got married and moved away.
Yeah, I have a pretty clear memory of MMA bros claiming that muay thai leg kicks were the only valid kicks at all in the 2000s. I kind of wonder whether they actually memory holed that, or the people online today are just a bunch of zoomies that weren't even there for that.
Wing-chun is the weirdest one though, because wing-chun trapping has been incorporated into MMA for awhile now, and it's still hated on to a level that rivals aikido. I guess some things have just solidified in the MMA fan community.
Also, listened to your episode of the aikidoist podcast. Good stuff.
I think a lot of MMA stuff has fallen into a memory hole. Or maybe it really is just a revolving door of fans, I don’t know. All I can say is that, yeah, a lot of the stuff people are either sour on or completely ignorant of has this tendency to be seamlessly absorbed into the mythology despite being completely derided at an early time or just ignored.
It’s a brilliant stroke of marketing, I guess, but weird how the culture works.
And thanks for listening! It was a good time. Hope I get to do it again at some point.
Smart man.
There is a huge difference between sub optimal techniques, underutilized techniques and fake techniques. You can see all of them in the background video.
Unpredictability and chaos are the inescapable constants of violence (which is ultimately what martial arts are at heart). It only makes sense to embrace this fact with "sub optimal" techniques to always have your opponent on the back foot with you being the only one who knows what's going on. Who cares if pulling off certain uncommon techniques is difficult and takes time to get right, that's the whole point of training, it's a journey, this is why they call it kung fu in Chinese martial arts, a great skill we develop with effort over great stretches of time. Excellent video as always, oss!
Thanks for the video! I really enjoyed your point about white whale techniques and the analytical part of making a technique work consistently. I've done similar with techniques that are universally seen as unreal or ineffective and got practical use out of them. That and your point about not worrying about the highest level until you start approaching it. the reason why is because as a fan of martial arts, I wouldn't call myself hobbyist anymore, I noticed how many people are honestly not enjoyers of the craft and the skillset it provides, but how it makes them feel. There's nothing wrong with that, but it shows how even though they are mired in martial arts media, hobbies, and culture. they don't digest or comprehend a lot of it. Especially when they bring up high-levels most high-level fighters break a lot of rules or use "sub optimal" techniques to great effect. not because they don't understand what they're doing or don't know "better" techniques. They do it because they understand what they're trying to achieve.
They are snot suboptimal, but the secondary or even opposite option of self defence. Hits can be handled with griops more easer and more safely, and vice versa. Paul,69 retried istructor of martial arts.
I just got a light bulb moment around the 10 minute mark. Thanks for this.
Utilizing side kicks and hook kicks was my “off meta” in Muay Thai.
03:22 There are also even more people who have an opinion on martial arts than there are people who have experience in martial arts. I'm reminded of a guy who falsely claimed he was very interested in kenjutsu. My friend told him I teach TSKSR. He was interested and said he wanted to learn the real stuff, not the fake stuff. The problem being: what is he basing his judgement on? Unfortunately, the answer is that he was basing it on nothing.
In regards to "sub-optimal techniques", I see them more as context-heavy techniques. A great example is to run up a wall, kick away from the wall and use the momentum to kick your opponent in the face an KO him. Sounds ridiculous. Very classic movie action segment. I've seen a professional MMA fight be decided by this move. Can we expect this to work in all cases? No. In most cases? No. Sometimes? Maybe. It really comes down to reading your opponent and making the correct judgement. I experience that many critique a technique on whether they work in the ring, or just in any scenario. The truth is, the shit that works IRL often wouldn't work in the ring for many reasons. And many things that do work in the ring, won't necessarily be heavily represented in the ring.
IRL example: guy is high as balls and has a knife. Already, the ring is out of the question because both those things are not allowed. He's doing fencing motions at imaginary opponents. Some woman walks past him, completely oblivious to what is happening around her (seriously, this bothers me a lot). The lunatic does a cartoonish fencing lunge and stabs her. This video clip is available online.
There are many techniques that are meant to handle situations like these. Many police techniques, throughout the centuries, have been focused on training cops to handle bizarre as fuck cases like this. The many of the Jujutsu techniques of Aikido are based on this sort of training. Everyone had knives and swords, so the majority of the training pertained to this. The vast majority weren't greaser knife-fighters who'd stab you 500 times per second. In most cases it was like today, some crazy person flailing. The overhand stab is probably the best represented knife attack there is, yet people criticize it as unrealistic because some professional knife fighter will Benihana your ass in a second. The absolutely vast majority of people aren't handling weapons in anywhere near an optimized manner. Koryu kihon reflects this. It's what works in most IRL cases. That doesn't mean it will work 100% against a professional, it means it works against most people's natural instincts (as long as you manage to suppress your own instincts).
It's complex. There are no one-size-fits-all. What works in one situation may not work in another. Very special techniques often only work in a very specific scenario. If you make a wrong judgement on what time to employ it, you're toast.
Almost all of my favorite techniques are "suboptimal" lol😂
As some guy said, " before I practiced the art a punch is a punch, when I started the art, a punch is not a punch and after I practiced the art a punch is a punch"🤔
Not sure if you mentionned it, and its probly a weaker argument, but by practicing suboptimal technique that no one uses, I'd imagine you might be able to develop a tool noone has a specific answer to which you can use to surprise opponents every now and then. Sounds like another good reason to me!
I think also something that people often forget (especially beginners and intermediates) is that often suboptimal techniques are only suboptimal in so far as they are simply not very good in isolation. In combination with other techniques, however some of these moves become optimal. The smother choke from the back is debatably the one of the least optimal chokes in grappling and is one of the most trivially defended choke. You see, however, the best people in the world use it all the time. Why? Because though it's trivial to defend; the way of defending it sets up the best choke I'm grappling, the rear naked choke. The same is debatably true for the ankle lock. The ankle lock might be one of the weakest leg locks (though technical development in the technique over the past 2 or 3 years has changed people's thoughts on this and you see it used as a main attack more often now) there is and is trivially defended by booting your foot deeper into the opponent's over wrap of your ankle. This defensive reaction however sets up two of the most optimal leg locks there are in the Aoki lock and the heel hook. It's a beginners curse to evaluate a technique in isolation. No skilled practitioner does techniques in isolation and expects them to work against any sort of serious resistance.
Also, and there's many podcasts of high level grapplers taking about this, but sometimes doing suboptimal techniques is just fun! It's fun to go for a twister on your friend even though it's way more work for probably less pay off than just taking the back and attacking an RNC. It's fun to try and wrist lock someone in side control. It's fun and funny to buggy choke someone. Doing the most optimal technique every time is boring even for the best people in the world!
For sure, this is true. A lot of people don’t really think in regard to the larger system at play. In that sense, we could debate the usefulness of me dropping almost an hour into a technique in the way I have in the Sumi Otoshi video. I mean… I’m going to because it’s an easier format, lol, but you’re right in the sense that it all has to fit together with a larger strategic aim. Things just launched in isolation typically don’t work-even “proven” stuff.
It’s sort of like not seasoning your meal. Someone will complain about the blandness without, say, salt, but the salt wont get any glory even though it’s a major part of bringing out flavor.
Thanks for inspiring me to resume working out tenkan versions of my koshi nage! 😊
Super curious who we're watching in your B reel, also. Can we get a citation in the corner where appropriate/respectful/etcetera so I know whose branch of practice I'm watching while you talk?
This is an old Shodokan Nariyama Tetsuro instructional.
I usually don’t cite the footage that is older and posted elsewhere mainly as archival footage. If it’s another creator’s video, you’ll find I usually try to cite it.
The major issue is that a lot of my film pre-dates my UA-cam channel. So I have a massive collection that was never catalogued with citation in mind, which can cause some issues.
In this case though, yeah, Nariyama of Shodokan Aikido. Don’t quote me on it, but I think this one is best located if you do the search in Japanese.
Sub optimal or unpopular techniques can turn into a style or art.....kosen judo?
Do you think more non combat sports martial artist should know about this??I think the problem is most ppl don’t know about this and when the teacher is teaching these types of techniques they fully convince there students that they work.they don’t say u need to problem solve this.but I never thought about it this way.what are your thoughts???this is very interesting.also another question is what if someone says”well if any of this worked we would have seen it in ufc 1 or even now”?
This is an interesting video, and the outlooks inside are nifty.
Take a sub as i binge more videos!
Personally I've always found things that "work at the highest level" just kinda boring. Yes, it's amazing and interesting on a purely technical level, but it's also just everyone doing the same thing with the exact same level of precision. I much prefer watching people problem solve their way out of situation they didn't realize they'd end up in than people who have an immediate "correct" answer to everything. One of my favorite things to do at open mats is find a technique in my collection of old manuals that make me go "that doesn't work" then try to figure out how to make it work or at least how to get into the position in the first place. There's a choke from bottom north-south that I can set up, but simply can not figure out how to finish during live rolls.
I’m much the same way. Yes, I have my “A-game” that I can switch on, but I don’t really identify with the folks that trying to get 0.02% more out of the top 3 techniques in the art. Like you, I can appreciate the details, but it strikes me as a little weird. Especially when it’s folks who are very much in the average range of the bell curve doing it.
But yeah, same, I like working with my white whales a lot more than my standard stuff these days. Although, then again, I’ve got the luxury of doing that since I’ve been doing a lot of this stuff since I was like 5
UFC fanboys with no training, and BJJ-MT gymbruhs: *The NPCs of the martial arts community* posting the SAME 3 comments on ANY and ALL non-bjj vids.
Wisdom!
Also, I noticed that the way you were using the term 'Art' would have been called 'Way' or "Do' in the orient, and this made me realize that 'Art' is effectively the English translation of the Way.
Some people will definitely dispute it, but Paul Bowman has a book out--The Invention of Martial Arts, I believe--that pretty accurately demonstrates that "martial arts" only came into the English lexicon as a result of East Asian influence. So in that sense, yes, its absolutely a translation.
I've never taken a huge issue with it being translated that way, either. "Way" is ultimately in reference to a direction, a vector. To me, that does reflect individuality and room for personalized expression. A common telling over here is that there are "many Ways to the Summit," which again emphasizes an artistic quality to "Do." The Japanese language isn't so inflexible that it couldn't have deemed it "Martial Laws" or "Martial Rules," if it were genuinely meant to be so strict.
I do think the "Art" translation fails a bit in terms of the Moral/Spiritual dimension of the term, though. The Dao, for example, is the same character as "Do" in China and we don't really call those who follow the Dao (Daoists), "Artists." So, there are limitations to the translation, but that is just the nature of the beast.
We can all sit around trying to pin down a perfect translation, the reality is that perfect ones are rare and popular culture probably won't pick it up anyway if it doesn't roll off the tongue. So, I try not to get too caught up in the nomenclature. But I don't think fuzzy translations really detract from the point in the video one way or the other; there is indisputably an artistic character to martial practice.