aikido is fake?

[Samurai Jack]

Oh, and I'm ranked at San Kyu. I'll be testing for Ni Kyu in May. I've been training for over four years.

I've been told we'll do more randori after Shodan.

[SevenStar]

All of that said, I am curious about BJJ's training methods, as there are no legitimate schools (recognized by any BJJ organizing body) in my city.

Do you typically get instruction in technique before you start rolling? The way it is discussed around here, it often seems that you learn the techniques by trail and error while being pummeled by senior students. LOL

you learn as you go. Yeah, you will roll before you have a handle on any techniques, but IMO, there's reason for it. Matter of factly, there was an article written about it by roy harris some years back -I'll see if I can find it. In a nutshell though, when you first start rolling, you have zero hope or chance of beating someone who has been rolling longer than you. The purpose is to teach you to use your attributes and to stay alive. you develp fighting spirit. You learn to use your strength when you need it. you learn to deal with constantly getting beaten. you are drilling techniques in class but are not yet in a position to be able to apply them. As time goes on, you learn techniques and you temper yourself to learn how to relax, use your strength when necessary, etc. I guess in a sense, you could liken it to boot camp. you are pushed to your limit and your fighting instinct is brought out and developed. Your continued training teaches you how to use it.

[SevenStar]

http://www.onthemat.com/articles/Pro...0_13_2005.html

"White belts are expected to rely on speed, power, strength and explosiveness. For that is all they know. However, once a person dons the "blue belt", the world of Jiu Jitsu suddenly changes."

[phoenixrising]

Merry,

The original question was 'have you ever taken a belt test this difficult.' While the attacks may or may not be realistic, do you think you could remain on your feet in that situation? Do you think it would be easy? Do you think this kind of test is without value and has no relationship to combative efficiency? Are there no parralels?

[Knifefighter]

The problem with aikido is that the theory is completely different from the reality.
As you can see from that video, the theory of being able to stay on your feet and fight off three attackers is completely disproven as soon as the three attackers fight with full intent.

[Knifefighter]

Merry,

The original question was 'have you ever taken a belt test this difficult.' While the attacks may or may not be realistic, do you think you could remain on your feet in that situation? Do you think it would be easy? Do you think this kind of test is without value and has no relationship to combative efficiency? Are there no parralels?

Training in being attacked by three attackers absolultely has benefit, as long as they are not complying and are attacking with intent. Training the way aikido does with less that full speed and intent for most of the time, has much less benefit.

You can see by that video how different "alive" vs. compliant attacks by multiple opponents change what happens... unless one can avoid and escape very quickly, the fight will usually end up in a clinch and then on the ground.

[Knifefighter]

Do you typically get instruction in technique before you start rolling? The way it is discussed around here, it often seems that you learn the techniques by trail and error while being pummeled by senior students. LOL

Depending on the school, beginners generally get somewhere between a week and a month of pure technique, principle and strategy work before they begin rolling. After that first introductory period, rolling live and learning technique go hand in hand. It’s pretty much the same in any competitive combat grapping system- BJJ, Sambo, Judo and wrestling all start live sparring relatively soon.

[Merryprankster]

The original question was 'have you ever taken a belt test this difficult.' While the attacks may or may not be realistic, do you think you could remain on your feet in that situation? Do you think it would be easy? Do you think this kind of test is without value and has no relationship to combative efficiency? Are there no parralels?

Many things to answer. I will start with the above. I already said my belt tests were not of a multiple opponent nature, but that I had done "multiple opponent" training. The attacks at the END of the video, as I stated, are a pretty accurate representation of what 3 on 1 looks like - big mess.

Could I remain on my feet? Unlikely for the whole time. Thanks to my BJJ training though, unless I were in a situation where I were with people with a significant amount of ground experience, I could regain my feet. I also have significant wrestling and Judo experience, so while I don't think I could remain on my feet, I think I would definitely make a pretty good accounting...now ask me how I'd do against 3 people trying to hit me .

Would this be easy? I don't think so. But much of this depends on the length of the test. Easy in the sense that it would be easy for me to execute skill/technique? Of course not - I'd have three people hanging on me!!! But a five minute test is different from, say, a 60 minute test, which I have gone through (purple belt test at Lloyd's is 3 minutes with everybody who is there. 20 people showed up. You do the math.) I've also had the joy (sarcasm) and privelege (no sarcasm) of being on the mat with Lloyd Irvin and Rhadi Ferguson setting the ground rules as constant movement for 50 minutes straight. And I do mean constant. As in, they kicked you off and sent you home if you didn't. No pauses, no stalling....moving from one position into another. I was exhausted, my partner was exhausted, and at the end, we were simply trading ankle locks and tapping....

Does this type of test have value? If and only if the people being tested are training hard in an environment that includes frequent, regular, full speed sparring. Otherwise, it's just fluff.

Does this bear any relationship to real life? As much as any training can.

The other questions/comments: Samurai Jack - no harm, no foul. I get you. And yes, we do get instruction, but it's more akin to the way boxers and wrestlers might approach things. In boxing, I learned the four basic punches and I was in good enough shape that after a couple of weeks, my coach felt comfortable with me sparring full speed (after a couple of times of jab sparring etc). In wrestling, similar occurs.

Basically, you just get your butt stomped and if your ego can't handle it, you're toast. There's one thing about every high-ranking guy in BJJ or every wrestler on a team....regardless of their personal flaws, every single one of them stayed. I've seen guys who simply couldn't take having their asses handed to them day in and day out, and just disappeared.

And the aikido guy - I don't know what wristlock throw he used. I got this second hand from the guy who got beat. How do I feel about it...well, I feel the same about it as I do about stalling in BJJ in general. I take full advantage of the rules, but avoiding engagement should be a passivity penalty. Refs are very slow to call passivity type stuff in BJJ. I think the tolerance should be a little bit less. Actively avoiding engagement (ie, defending only, without mounting a counterattack, over and over and over) should be penalized for the sake of sport. It would be equivalent to a team scoring one basket in basketball, recovering possesion, then doing absolutely nothing to try and score, while keeping the ball from the opponent. We have rules in place to keep that from happening on purpose.

While I certainly agree that this sort of passivity can be effective, that's not really the point of a competition, IMO. But this is a fault of the rules, vice a fault of the aikidoka.

[Shaolinlueb]

i never ever want to have to go through my black belt test again. but i look back on it and it was hard. full contact, blood, sweat, some tears. was it as tough as seagels? i looked at the first minute or so and yes it was as hard or harder.

[phoenixrising]

Here is 4 pages of clips (there are some short ones of competition) of tomiki/shodokan aikido, which uses randori and competition as part of the training (the founder of this style was a judoka). They incorporate resistance training- do the anti-aikidoists out there like this better? http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_category=0

NOTE: I am not an aikidoka at the moment so I am not trying to convince anyone of its effectiveness- I'm trying to figure that out too. I practiced it briefly (a month or two) eight years ago and thought it was really cool- the way it teaches you to use your body as one thing, the flow of it, the way I was able to make my partner go completely horizontal (like superman flying) in a circle around me using no force/effort. I am researching it now and considering getting back into it (I live in LA now and there are tons of great teachers of it, all styles here) but am interested in self defense so trying to figure out if its good for that or not (many of its practitioners strongly say it is), might even do it even if it isn't cos its so cool and supplement with something else (judo?)

[Knifefighter]

Here is 4 pages of clips (there are some short ones of competition) of tomiki/shodokan aikido, which uses randori and competition as part of the training (the founder of this style was a judoka). They incorporate resistance training- do the anti-aikidoists out there like this better? http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_category=0

Notice how the competition clips look very little like the demo clips, but much more like judo or Sambo, which is what happens when both people are going live.

On a side note, what is up with the almost total disregard for what I am guessing is supposed to be a blade by both participants in most of the competition clips?

[SevenStar]

Here is 4 pages of clips (there are some short ones of competition) of tomiki/shodokan aikido, which uses randori and competition as part of the training (the founder of this style was a judoka). They incorporate resistance training- do the anti-aikidoists out there like this better? http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_category=0

NOTE: I am not an aikidoka at the moment so I am not trying to convince anyone of its effectiveness- I'm trying to figure that out too. I practiced it briefly (a month or two) eight years ago and thought it was really cool- the way it teaches you to use your body as one thing, the flow of it, the way I was able to make my partner go completely horizontal (like superman flying) in a circle around me using no force/effort. I am researching it now and considering getting back into it (I live in LA now and there are tons of great teachers of it, all styles here) but am interested in self defense so trying to figure out if its good for that or not (many of its practitioners strongly say it is), might even do it even if it isn't cos its so cool and supplement with something else (judo?)

isn't it odd how this looks like judo shiai? nobody is just effortlessly flying all over the place. THAT is how things look when done with resistance, unlike the demos where guys just go flying.

I'm going to look at the ruleset for these though - it looks like it's supposed to be self defense scenarios - like one is arracking with a blade and the other is defending. If that is the case though, why do they not respect the blade, and why don't the attackers use it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUp5u...elated&search=

He's CHASING the guy with the blade...

EDIT: looks like KF beat me to it. Ah well, great minds think alike.

[PangQuan]

ya, looks like its simulating a knife there. and if thats the case the knife wielder fell ya, but he got at least 3 inches of steel in his enemy.

who really won?

[Mr Punch]

We do very little live testing anymore. I miss it. I've been told to stop. I don't know if it's because he didn't want people to get hurt or not, but Sensei has made it clear that he dosen't feel we're ready.

I feel my seniors were nervous, and that they didn't know how to do thier thing in a live, full speed setting. Not a big surprise as we don't do it anymore.

You see, that's a d@mn shame. In my school (this refers to the dojo I went to in the UK, last time regularly over 7 years ago) you do randori from the start pretty much, like I said, plus jiyu-geiko most classes. But, the HQ of our org pretty much banned it, in favour of ki exercises (read 'group wank') and minimal touch (read 'flying monkey') crap.

My shodan grade was the last straw before my sensei capitulated to the HQ's grading syllabus. And in that grading I actually stopped my uke in randori several times and asked for attacks instead of overbalanced scooby-doo rushes. I even dismissed a couple of them for crap attacks and for throwing themselves! This was how my sensei taught me and what used to be common in aiki schools in the fifties and sixties if you read around (before Ueshiba's son changed the meanign of 'aiki' into it's more harmonious claptrap). The boss agreed and chewed out the uke for being useless, but after my grading they got wetter and wetter.

In the grading there were three types of randori: with proscribed attacks, ordered attacks and random attacks. The nage would know what the proscribed attacks were: the shihan shouted 'Tsuki' or something and everyone would run in and punch, and keep punching. But that's when it becaome like keystone cops and I'd have to berate people for lining up, or waiting their turn or whatever. The ordered attacks were when the shihan got high grades in other arts to go and do something more 'specialized', eg, the shotokan karate geezer would come and do roundhouse kicks or whatever.

Those first two formats were supposed to be for the nage to show a different tech each time. Basic positional awareness was supposed to be shown (so if I let someone get behind me it was supposed to be bad) but it was an unrealistic scenario designed for pressure testing, speed and crispness of delivery and variation of techs under pressure.

The variation was not so important: the crispness and speed of you extrication from the situation was more important. One time for example, the uke were coming in with straight punches mostly (though there were a few haymakers) and I just did straight-through iriminage (looks like a boxing parry, slip and palm to the face, following through for head control and a throw, sometimes you turn around the back of uke, take his angle and cut in under his shoulder-blade with your free hand while the palm-strike hand cuts down through his posture - you don't see this move in MMA, I've narrowly missed pulling it off a few times in full-contact sparring when it just confuses people and gives you good positioning behind them, but you do see it a lot in WW2 and modern army combatative manuals and some JJJ schools) and that was OK, because it was fast and finished quickly and more importantly, gave me plenty of initiative against reluctant 'attackers', and got me out of the centre quickly so I was in a position to run away! The last guy I took more control, slowed down the tech halfway (a couple of the other guys had pretty much thrown themselves) so he couldn't breakfall when he wanted to, got rear head control and sank down with close control to a kneel with his arm barred across my knee when he finally went to the ground (BTW, I've pulled that off in full contact before).

The freestyle randori in my grading was just striking and kicking format, nobody was trying to tackle or take me down. Back then I couldn't have dealt with it anyway if anyone was half competant, but I did ask why people couldn't do that. Of cousre the answer is that nobody uses attacking grappling in aikido anymore.

I also did weapons randori, which was even less realistic. The first would be everyone coming in with one attack only. Then with repeating identical attacks (completely meaningless!), and then finally with random attacks, but again nobody wanted to hurt you so they were mostly wet. OTOH, I hit people full-on (body shots, and pretty sharp raps on the head) with my jo when it was their turn, and the top-brass thanked me for it! That's what I was expecting, and especially for the big guy going for godan, I didn't want to sell him short (he was from a more hardcore satellite school too).

Anyway, I always tested my aiki against people from other disciplines right from the start which is how I shored up my training. In the dojo as I said, we had many LEOs, doormen and trainers of both and my sensei often let them take over the classes to let more realism come in. So although we did our share of straight stab knife attacks, we also did a lot of someone coming in with a flailing decoy arm/punch and various knife holds cutting from all angles (we often didn't know which hand the knife was in, and often did practice when the sensei wouldn't tell us it was knife day and the high grades would hide the knives in their gi). We would often be black and blue from the wooden knife. And the fancy takedowns went out the window to be replaced with lots of simple arm wraps and things that looked like those Tomiki (Shodokan) clips but with more respect for the 'knife'.

When they got too fairylike, I left. That's why I didn't ever grade over shodan. The weapons grading was separate in our org, and they invented another (IMO pointless, extraneous and not even aikido conceptually) jo kata and tried to make us all learn it, and I refused, and never went to the HQ classes. I still trained with the satellite school and my sensei until I came here...

Then here it's the same: it's getting wetter and wetter. I went to a direct student of Ueshiba's dojo for six months at first, and while he was still solid (for 70-odd!) his rokudan dojocho had watered everything down. So now I sometimes teach basics to my fu-bro and sometimes put the odd things into my MMA and fu training but I don't regularly go to a dojo anymore. If anyone knows of an old-skool hardcore dojo in Tokyo/South Saitama (pref non-Yoshinkan - they have their own problems!) please let me know!

Training in being attacked by three attackers absolultely has benefit, as long as they are not complying and are attacking with intent. Training the way aikido does with less that full speed and intent for most of the time, has much less benefit.

You can see by that video how different "alive" vs. compliant attacks by multiple opponents change what happens... unless one can avoid and escape very quickly, the fight will usually end up in a clinch and then on the ground.

Yep, the randori I was taught was mostly about getting out of the way. Not so much throws, locks or striking combos, though we did those too, but escaping strategies. If you 'deal with' the first 'attacker' you are supposed to be in a position where you can run away without getting surrounded or stopped. The exercise then continues, because you go until the sensei wants you to ( ) or until your inextricably buried, but if you are in that position hopefully you have narrowed their effective angle of approach. The 'dealing with' usually involves pulling off half a throw or a body check and getting away.

isn't it odd how this looks like judo shiai? nobody is just effortlessly flying all over the place. THAT is how things look when done with resistance, unlike the demos where guys just go flying.

Well, it's aiki! Aiki used for real doesn't look pretty. Same as any art I reckon. But don't forget, people train flying all over the place for reasons of safety and learning the dynamics of the throw, just like in judo. If I'm stuck on something, a throw or a takedown, I will still ask my MMA teacher or my aiki teacher or my kungfu teacher to demonstrate it on me, then I feel it, receive it and understand how to do it better. That's what uke means right?

I'm going to look at the ruleset for these though - it looks like it's supposed to be self defense scenarios - like one is arracking with a blade and the other is defending. If that is the case though, why do they not respect the blade, and why don't the attackers use it?

Well, I can't speak for shodokan as I've never done it other than a couple pof seminars but all I can say is that it must have been hippified along with the rest of aiki. I saw a Tomiki grading and comp a few years back where they would automatically lose for half of those positions, and the attacker would automatically lose for not coming in properly (and multi-angle attacks were allowed in the high grades, not just the staright stab).

[Stranger]

(pref non-Yoshinkan - they have their own problems

Is this a topic that can be discussed? I was just wondering if you meant technical problems with their aikido, politcal problems with the organization, or something else?