Is Aikido effective againts other styles?

I would like some feed back on the effectiveness of Aikido. What is it's strenghts and weeknesses? How does it fare againts hard and soft styles in sparring or confrontations? If I understand it Aikido rarely participates in open tournamenst.

Yes, I think that Aikido can be very effective. I have limited experience with it, and mostly in dealing with defense against the knife. Its strong point is using the opponents energy against him. Deflection and redirection.

I had good days and bad days with it. It seemed to depend mostly on my frame of mind.

"Box a fighter and fight a boxer". Bruce Lee

The term "aikido" represents a broad netwrok of related martial arts. Depending upon what period in Ueshiba's teachings your sensei's aikido is derived from, the aikido will have a certain flavor.

There are many aikidoka who can make their technique work against people from other styles.

There are many aikidoka who can't make their techniques work against people from other styles.

There are aikidoka that do not even train with such things in concern.

Make sure the aikido school you enter is of the type that you wish to train.

I don't get mad.
I get stabby.

Strengths - as Stranger pointed out, I think it's real strength is in it's abiltily to adapt to the needs of the practitioner. At my dojo, there are people who practice with real marital intent, and people who like to waltz around through the techniques. Aikido allows (and forces) these different kinds of people to work together and learn about one another's methods, without judging which is "better".

Weaknesses - Striking in the sense of actually hitting someone. Placement and timing of strikes is often covered, but actually how to hit and the meathods for tempering the hands is a bit neglected. Most of the more martial practitoners study this on their own.

"How does it fare againts hard and soft styles in sparring or confrontations?"

Styles don't spar. Nor do styles get into confrontations.

Generalizations of this sort only lead nowhere.

However, aikido is a gereral theory of thought, intent, and movement that may be applied in sparring and confrontation. Or anything else.

Thank you guys for posting. I have found an Aikido school near me. Check out their site and let me know what you think. Yamabushi Dojo

Yes, a good aikido stylist can hold his own in a fight. But the problem is he has to put in a LOT of study time because the art has such a shallow learning curve. Still, if he sticks with it, he's on a par with practically any other stylist, but only after many many years of practice.

K. Mark Hoover

If I get my way and I usually do! I would like to have Kenpo/Aikido/shotokan. Yes I am chosing to leave out the pure ground and pound. I think each of these would compliment the other nicely. Now I might change my mind because I am still new to martial arts.
I will stay with Kenpo until after I get my black belt. I need to be competent in Kenpo before I change to another. Thank Budokan and guys for responding. You guys make this board!

It is only effective if you are very experienced with it. Even if you have a black belt, it does not mean you are ready for street defense. Your level of knowledge in aikido must be second nature for it to truly effective, anything less you wil be better off trying something else on the street. I am currently practising aikido, but kungfu and TKD are my main style, however the flow, falls and locks are far superior to any stlyes I have seen, but it does not mean that alone is enough to give you a rounded martial art education.

One of the nice things about aikido is you can usually trace the "lineage" of an instructor, since it is a fairly young art and the Japanese keep records of such things, especially high ranking dans.

The instructor of this school teaches a style that I have never heard of. It is not Koryu (old school Japanese martial arts), it is not exactly aikido....he does not mention the name of his instructor (who probably founded the "Scorpion Style") so it is hard to do a background check.

Also, I could not find any references to a "Takazaki" system, but the "Tachibana System" may be related to this:

http://koryu.com/guide/kage.html

The proof however is in the technique and charater of the instructor.