Always very interesting watching this sort of video and going through the comments to hear people's takes. I do think however that there are some profound misunderstandings about aikido that mean in general most of the criticisms I see are misguided at best. (Though obviously well intentioned) A few essential points: 1. ALL martial arts are necessarily 'fake' because that is literally what it means to be a martial art. Learning to fight in full-on realistic combat is insanely dangerous. If you have less than a decades martial arts experience and you try full-on no-limit sparring your injury rate will be 50-100% without exception. Martial arts systematize different martial philosophies so that they can be 'packed up' and transmitted safely but you are only ever as effective as your training so if you train basic techniques in a controlled setting, what on earth would you expect to be able to apply in a real fight...? An aikidoist, like any other martial artist is only as good as their training, and yes aikidoists in general tend to be less driven by 'real-world combat' standards thankfully, but that doesnt mean there arent psycho aikidoists who train that way and are absolute monsters. 2. In this video you mention a couple times the concept of a violence as a 'last resort', but I think this is a profound misunderstanding of Aikido's philosophy. Ueshiba's insight was that to contend or oppose violence was simply unproductive effort and that the vector-space of effective action is centered around the vector of the attack and is limited by the orthogonal vectors, I.e. you optimize effective force application when the force you apply is either in alignment with or at most 90deg out of phase with the attack as the component force applied in opposition to an attack is necessarily 'wasted' in competition with their force rather than in 'co-operation' with it. 3. Many commenters here lament applying basic techniques in realistic sparring situations but I think this belies a profound misunderstanding of what a practically applicable understanding of Aikido looks like. Many very high level teachers have essentially taught the same thing in different ways, you don't get better at aikido by collecting techniques, the techniques themselves are vessels to highlight certain principles that arise naturally but time and time again Shihan have always said just practice one technique, often one of the most basic, 100,000 times until you understand the principle because no amount of techniques will help you if you don't understand it. So what is that principle? In simple terms it is the principle of balance and structural dependency, in order to be a threat and launch an attack you need to have your balance and control of your body and movement. O'sensei realized exactly what most of the commenters are pointing out, that most of the time the techniques were completely ineffective! But his profound insight was in understanding why the same technique which is so powerful during a demo is so useless in application and in understanding this difference he was able to create a martial art which focuses solely on this principle of applicability in a way that is completely technique-agnostic. We should remember that Osensei was an extremely small man standing at just 5ft 1in tall and would have been out-muscled by virtually every single other person he ever trained with except maybe children. What he realized in studying daito ryu aikijujitsu was that in order for a technique to be effectively applied you had to already have control of their balance, without which even the most devastating techniques were trivial to prevent. What O'sensei's epiphany was in regards to creating Aikido was that he had the profound spiritual insight that if techniques only work when you can control the person via their balance that there was then no reason to injure them as the need to injure in self-defense stems from a lack of situational control. That this change in mindset from a 'destructive' art which was trying to incapacitate to a 'creative' art where you are in a dance-like movement where one person is trying to create oppositition and resistance in order to allow for attack and the other is moving in harmony with them in such a ways as to try and prevent any instance of opposition or resistance that the aggressor could convert into an attack vector. So much of people's misunderstanding of Aikido's 'effectiveness' follows from what appears to be a complete lack of acknowledgement of Osensei's fundamental innovation from most aikido curriculum. They see basic techniques being trained in very basic ways and wonder why they don't work when applied when they've completely neglected the foundational principle of kuzushi (balance-capture) upon which the entire system the art was founded on relies. So if real-world applicability is your benchmark, I think understanding the innovative philosophy of Aikido deeply would be well worth the time and effort, but if you go to some random dojo a couple hours a week running through basic techniques for a couple years thinking you're 'doing aikido' I've got some bad news for you. Most aikidoists honestly aren't super interested in the deep philosophical underpinnings, for many people is a safe, physical, social activity and that's fine. Aikido has very big claims in the space of martial arts and they are trivial to attack and dismantle if you never look at the foundational principles and instead look at the methods of training in any old 3rd-rate dojo where often a very small minority of the students are even interested in training adversarially. I feel bad for people who invested their time with an Aikido community that wasn't well equiped to teach them the principles of aikido but thats one of the vestiges of traditional Japanese teaching culture and definitely something Aikido needs to grow out of if it wants to be taken seriously in my opinion.
Thank you for the very thoughtful comment. That's a lot of wisdom you bestowed there. Not just Aikido, but I've noticed so many disagreements "in the ranks". Now throw an aikido, kenpo, jiu-jitsu guy in the room together you have a party. They get along fabulously.
I hope this is useful for people consider Aikido. I practiced Aikido in a community college for a couple semesters so my knowledge is basic. But I also have a background in Taekwondo (black belt), military and police training, and a few months of BJJ and Kickboxing/Muay Tai. There are only a few techniques that I’ve used that have work or at least I’ve seen someone using and worked for them. I believe one of this techniques is called ikkio. There is a very similar in police training (DAAT). But as a disclaimer, the techniques worked against untrained attackers. The same technique failed me against people with wrestling or BJJ backgrounds. Aikido also teaches weapons but I didn’t learn enough to be able to say wether those techniques work. I think Aikido techniques would be a lot more effective if trained against resisting opponents. Techniques I’ve learned in wrestling/BJJ which are proven to work (used in MMA for example) like a double leg takedown were very difficult to apply until I practiced them several times against resisting opponents. I think I can make an analog between Aikido and wrestling/BJJ with Taekwondo and Kickboxing. Taekwondo in theory (forms) used knees, elbows, punches to the face and leg kicks. However in practice one is limited to competition rules that forbid all of them. You will not very effective in using them if you never tried them in sparring or competition. Kickboxing/Muai Thai martial artist are effective with them bc they do practice them often.
Well, in a real situation you will be able to do what you practice. If you don't practice sparring where the other guys tries his best to submit you and only do katas, you won't be able to do anything. There's a famous story about soldiers in the US civil war- they only practiced loading their guns (a complicated process back then, no semi-auto loading but manual loading) and they thought "ah- its obvious they'll know theyre supposed to shoot". Well in the battle they lost and on their bodies they found guns that were loaded a few times with several bullets and gunpowder, they didn't fire. You can't perform what you didn't practice under stress. BTW I practiced Aikido and Daito-Ryu (the martial art Ueshiba developed Aikido from) in the past, and some BJJ too. Personally I would take Judo today.
To be frank, there are a few issues. First, there are three predominant styles of aikido: aikikai, ki society, and yoshinkan. The first two are "soft" styles and the third is a "hard/rigid" style. There are deviations ("real" aikido, aikibujutsu, etc.), but the above seem to be considered the main styles. And to be blunt, soft styles are NOT combat effective. There are instances where you can use a technique on someone, such as if you're larger or catch your target by surprise, but for competition, squaring off, or even self defense, you're far better off learning something else. Yoshinkan might be a bit better, but it's not so well formatted for the ring and depending on how limited your dojo is on techniques (e.g., does it practice striking, ground work, pressure testing?), it might not work too well, either. In general, it's a very limited style and many people who practice become delusional to their abilities. I can offer a bit of my experience. I studied for nearly seven years, though our dojo didn't practice any of the three main styles. We more blended aikido and aikibujutsu (which predates ainido and is typically more focused on combat). We didn't delve too much into energy or "ki" and focused more on anatomy. I mentioned three aspects of martial arts that aikido notoriously tends to lack: striking, ground work, and pressure testing. I was fortunate in that our dojo practiced all three, though not nearly enough, in my opinion. In addition to aikido, I also used to box. I could definitely understand a complement of the two and I believe that's where the true strength of aikido lies. At least in our practice, we practiced balance, maai (space between fighters), reading, understanding balance points, etc. Thanks to this, I was a stronger boxer. I haven't been in a real fight since I studied, but I do feel more confident in my ability to defend myself and those around me thanks to my experience. But I wouldn't claim it's superior to other styles. I stopped learning it about ten years ago. I'm looking to jump into some muay thai and jujitsu in the not-too-distant future. 😎
I’m interested in your opinion once you get to train Jiujitsu. From my experience, I believe two months of BJJ were more useful than two semesters of Aikido. But I have to admit that I haven’t been in a real fight since I started training BJJ.
A friend who owned a local bar was a black belt in Aikido. A few occasions I've seen and stories I've heard how we would "guide" some unruly patrons out the door without harm.
@@dojotelevision There is a youtuber called Rokas. Went to pressure test his aikido after many years of practicing and teaching it. As the result, transitioned to MMA. From my experience, it only works on people who don't know what they are doing and their body isn't bigger than yours. Like drunkards in a bar.
@aikidoisshinitalia Aikido is the art of harmonising with the people around you, so I’d say it has many practical uses. Many martial arts teach you skills which you’ll literally never use unless something goes horribly wrong. Aikido teaches you skills that you can use every day.
As someone who's first martial art was Aikido and then progressed to BJJ, Sambo, Thai boxing & MMA I can attest that it doesn't work. Aikido joint locks DO work mechanically speaking, but there is no realistic way of getting from the attack to the lock. The problem lies in the lack of reality sparring against resisting opponents to establish non-choreographed ways of getting that submission. Most attack movements will have the element of surprise, fast, violent, uncoordinated and repeated. I guarantee that most defenders of Aikido have never experienced even a mild level of violence. All that nonsense about harmony, balance etc. goes out the window as soon as the bad guy(s) come swinging. Train for the real world otherwise you're not a martial artist, you're a cosplayer.
You make a lot of good points. Absolutely certain aspects of Aikido work and are useful. A situation where you're not able to defend a punch or grab with a punch, only control. Otherwise, a muay thai fighter coming at me, I'm out of here. I don't like to be punched in the face if I can help it. I've noticed it's not the trained fighters picking fights in the street, just the opposite. So self-defense, no matter the style, has benefits. And if you can be so fortunate to cross train, even better.
@apolitis1 I’ve observed that when most people say “Aikido doesn’t work” They really mean, “I couldn’t make aikido techniques work the way I wanted.” The issue isn't with the martial art and it’s probably not with your skill level either. In aikido you don’t force the technique that you want to happen. You listen to what people give you, you observe what techniques exist, and then you can let them happen. It’s difficult, which is why a lot of people don’t do it.
I'm attracted to Aikido for its use of counter-energy. Taking the aggressors actions and energy and turning it to one's advantage seems quite useful.
Always very interesting watching this sort of video and going through the comments to hear people's takes. I do think however that there are some profound misunderstandings about aikido that mean in general most of the criticisms I see are misguided at best. (Though obviously well intentioned)
A few essential points:
1. ALL martial arts are necessarily 'fake' because that is literally what it means to be a martial art. Learning to fight in full-on realistic combat is insanely dangerous. If you have less than a decades martial arts experience and you try full-on no-limit sparring your injury rate will be 50-100% without exception. Martial arts systematize different martial philosophies so that they can be 'packed up' and transmitted safely but you are only ever as effective as your training so if you train basic techniques in a controlled setting, what on earth would you expect to be able to apply in a real fight...? An aikidoist, like any other martial artist is only as good as their training, and yes aikidoists in general tend to be less driven by 'real-world combat' standards thankfully, but that doesnt mean there arent psycho aikidoists who train that way and are absolute monsters.
2. In this video you mention a couple times the concept of a violence as a 'last resort', but I think this is a profound misunderstanding of Aikido's philosophy. Ueshiba's insight was that to contend or oppose violence was simply unproductive effort and that the vector-space of effective action is centered around the vector of the attack and is limited by the orthogonal vectors, I.e. you optimize effective force application when the force you apply is either in alignment with or at most 90deg out of phase with the attack as the component force applied in opposition to an attack is necessarily 'wasted' in competition with their force rather than in 'co-operation' with it.
3. Many commenters here lament applying basic techniques in realistic sparring situations but I think this belies a profound misunderstanding of what a practically applicable understanding of Aikido looks like. Many very high level teachers have essentially taught the same thing in different ways, you don't get better at aikido by collecting techniques, the techniques themselves are vessels to highlight certain principles that arise naturally but time and time again Shihan have always said just practice one technique, often one of the most basic, 100,000 times until you understand the principle because no amount of techniques will help you if you don't understand it. So what is that principle? In simple terms it is the principle of balance and structural dependency, in order to be a threat and launch an attack you need to have your balance and control of your body and movement. O'sensei realized exactly what most of the commenters are pointing out, that most of the time the techniques were completely ineffective! But his profound insight was in understanding why the same technique which is so powerful during a demo is so useless in application and in understanding this difference he was able to create a martial art which focuses solely on this principle of applicability in a way that is completely technique-agnostic. We should remember that Osensei was an extremely small man standing at just 5ft 1in tall and would have been out-muscled by virtually every single other person he ever trained with except maybe children. What he realized in studying daito ryu aikijujitsu was that in order for a technique to be effectively applied you had to already have control of their balance, without which even the most devastating techniques were trivial to prevent. What O'sensei's epiphany was in regards to creating Aikido was that he had the profound spiritual insight that if techniques only work when you can control the person via their balance that there was then no reason to injure them as the need to injure in self-defense stems from a lack of situational control. That this change in mindset from a 'destructive' art which was trying to incapacitate to a 'creative' art where you are in a dance-like movement where one person is trying to create oppositition and resistance in order to allow for attack and the other is moving in harmony with them in such a ways as to try and prevent any instance of opposition or resistance that the aggressor could convert into an attack vector. So much of people's misunderstanding of Aikido's 'effectiveness' follows from what appears to be a complete lack of acknowledgement of Osensei's fundamental innovation from most aikido curriculum. They see basic techniques being trained in very basic ways and wonder why they don't work when applied when they've completely neglected the foundational principle of kuzushi (balance-capture) upon which the entire system the art was founded on relies.
So if real-world applicability is your benchmark, I think understanding the innovative philosophy of Aikido deeply would be well worth the time and effort, but if you go to some random dojo a couple hours a week running through basic techniques for a couple years thinking you're 'doing aikido' I've got some bad news for you. Most aikidoists honestly aren't super interested in the deep philosophical underpinnings, for many people is a safe, physical, social activity and that's fine.
Aikido has very big claims in the space of martial arts and they are trivial to attack and dismantle if you never look at the foundational principles and instead look at the methods of training in any old 3rd-rate dojo where often a very small minority of the students are even interested in training adversarially. I feel bad for people who invested their time with an Aikido community that wasn't well equiped to teach them the principles of aikido but thats one of the vestiges of traditional Japanese teaching culture and definitely something Aikido needs to grow out of if it wants to be taken seriously in my opinion.
Thank you for the very thoughtful comment. That's a lot of wisdom you bestowed there. Not just Aikido, but I've noticed so many disagreements "in the ranks". Now throw an aikido, kenpo, jiu-jitsu guy in the room together you have a party. They get along fabulously.
bullshido @ :40 .. Aikido wasn't founded until the 1960s .. not the "1920s and 1930s" .. 😕
I hope this is useful for people consider Aikido. I practiced Aikido in a community college for a couple semesters so my knowledge is basic. But I also have a background in Taekwondo (black belt), military and police training, and a few months of BJJ and Kickboxing/Muay Tai.
There are only a few techniques that I’ve used that have work or at least I’ve seen someone using and worked for them. I believe one of this techniques is called ikkio. There is a very similar in police training (DAAT). But as a disclaimer, the techniques worked against untrained attackers. The same technique failed me against people with wrestling or BJJ backgrounds.
Aikido also teaches weapons but I didn’t learn enough to be able to say wether those techniques work.
I think Aikido techniques would be a lot more effective if trained against resisting opponents. Techniques I’ve learned in wrestling/BJJ which are proven to work (used in MMA for example) like a double leg takedown were very difficult to apply until I practiced them several times against resisting opponents.
I think I can make an analog between Aikido and wrestling/BJJ with Taekwondo and Kickboxing. Taekwondo in theory (forms) used knees, elbows, punches to the face and leg kicks. However in practice one is limited to competition rules that forbid all of them. You will not very effective in using them if you never tried them in sparring or competition. Kickboxing/Muai Thai martial artist are effective with them bc they do practice them often.
Well, in a real situation you will be able to do what you practice. If you don't practice sparring where the other guys tries his best to submit you and only do katas, you won't be able to do anything.
There's a famous story about soldiers in the US civil war- they only practiced loading their guns (a complicated process back then, no semi-auto loading but manual loading) and they thought "ah- its obvious they'll know theyre supposed to shoot". Well in the battle they lost and on their bodies they found guns that were loaded a few times with several bullets and gunpowder, they didn't fire. You can't perform what you didn't practice under stress.
BTW I practiced Aikido and Daito-Ryu (the martial art Ueshiba developed Aikido from) in the past, and some BJJ too. Personally I would take Judo today.
Isn’t this true of all martial arts as much as aikido.
Yes
To be frank, there are a few issues. First, there are three predominant styles of aikido: aikikai, ki society, and yoshinkan. The first two are "soft" styles and the third is a "hard/rigid" style.
There are deviations ("real" aikido, aikibujutsu, etc.), but the above seem to be considered the main styles. And to be blunt, soft styles are NOT combat effective. There are instances where you can use a technique on someone, such as if you're larger or catch your target by surprise, but for competition, squaring off, or even self defense, you're far better off learning something else. Yoshinkan might be a bit better, but it's not so well formatted for the ring and depending on how limited your dojo is on techniques (e.g., does it practice striking, ground work, pressure testing?), it might not work too well, either.
In general, it's a very limited style and many people who practice become delusional to their abilities.
I can offer a bit of my experience. I studied for nearly seven years, though our dojo didn't practice any of the three main styles. We more blended aikido and aikibujutsu (which predates ainido and is typically more focused on combat). We didn't delve too much into energy or "ki" and focused more on anatomy.
I mentioned three aspects of martial arts that aikido notoriously tends to lack: striking, ground work, and pressure testing. I was fortunate in that our dojo practiced all three, though not nearly enough, in my opinion.
In addition to aikido, I also used to box. I could definitely understand a complement of the two and I believe that's where the true strength of aikido lies. At least in our practice, we practiced balance, maai (space between fighters), reading, understanding balance points, etc. Thanks to this, I was a stronger boxer.
I haven't been in a real fight since I studied, but I do feel more confident in my ability to defend myself and those around me thanks to my experience. But I wouldn't claim it's superior to other styles.
I stopped learning it about ten years ago. I'm looking to jump into some muay thai and jujitsu in the not-too-distant future. 😎
I’m interested in your opinion once you get to train Jiujitsu. From my experience, I believe two months of BJJ were more useful than two semesters of Aikido. But I have to admit that I haven’t been in a real fight since I started training BJJ.
@MatadorM9 I'm curious, too. I may end up doing BJJ, too (instead of jujitsu). Depends on what's more available. :)
@ awesome, have fun and stay safe!
@@MatadorM9 thanks! You, too. 😎👍🏻
Aikido has no pracal use (perhaps...🙄) but it sure makes u feel good
A friend who owned a local bar was a black belt in Aikido. A few occasions I've seen and stories I've heard how we would "guide" some unruly patrons out the door without harm.
Strange isn't it, because my friend is a custody
Sergent and uses it daily. As do many Leo folk around the world.
I heard Batman was real. . .@@dojotelevision
@@dojotelevision
There is a youtuber called Rokas. Went to pressure test his aikido after many years of practicing and teaching it. As the result, transitioned to MMA.
From my experience, it only works on people who don't know what they are doing and their body isn't bigger than yours. Like drunkards in a bar.
@aikidoisshinitalia
Aikido is the art of harmonising with the people around you, so I’d say it has many practical uses.
Many martial arts teach you skills which you’ll literally never use unless something goes horribly wrong.
Aikido teaches you skills that you can use every day.
As someone who's first martial art was Aikido and then progressed to BJJ, Sambo, Thai boxing & MMA I can attest that it doesn't work.
Aikido joint locks DO work mechanically speaking, but there is no realistic way of getting from the attack to the lock.
The problem lies in the lack of reality sparring against resisting opponents to establish non-choreographed ways of getting that submission. Most attack movements will have the element of surprise, fast, violent, uncoordinated and repeated. I guarantee that most defenders of Aikido have never experienced even a mild level of violence. All that nonsense about harmony, balance etc. goes out the window as soon as the bad guy(s) come swinging. Train for the real world otherwise you're not a martial artist, you're a cosplayer.
You make a lot of good points. Absolutely certain aspects of Aikido work and are useful. A situation where you're not able to defend a punch or grab with a punch, only control. Otherwise, a muay thai fighter coming at me, I'm out of here. I don't like to be punched in the face if I can help it. I've noticed it's not the trained fighters picking fights in the street, just the opposite. So self-defense, no matter the style, has benefits. And if you can be so fortunate to cross train, even better.
@apolitis1
I’ve observed that when most people say “Aikido doesn’t work”
They really mean, “I couldn’t make aikido techniques work the way I wanted.”
The issue isn't with the martial art and it’s probably not with your skill level either.
In aikido you don’t force the technique that you want to happen.
You listen to what people give you, you observe what techniques exist, and then you can let them happen.
It’s difficult, which is why a lot of people don’t do it.