Is American MA training too laxed?

[SpamN'Cheese]

Exactly , and the fact of what an individual wears around their waist does not necessarily equate to actually being able to utilise it on the mat or under stress in a street confrontation. I'd hazard a guess that every individual with experience here can tell a tale of a good Dan rank practitioner who got his ass handed to him on the street because he was too busy sorting through which technique to use and he got popped bad before he finally reacted.

In defensive situations one *cannot* subjugate reaction to conscious thought. Folks may think the old Parker maxim ridiculous , but truly there are times that he who hesitates meditates horizontally.

And by the way , since I'm getting myself into hot water here , *screw all the turn the other cheek* crap , if it is *really* serious all that's going to get you is smacked on *both* sides of your head.

And Skin....go buy yourself acopy of Greys Anatomy , study it well , if you know how the human body is put together it's relatively easy to figure out how to dismantle it , the hard part is the application , that said you will find much of value within that particular tome , as long as you don't succumb to the Dillman ( and other) bullshit about nerve points and certain Bunkai.........


Much luck in your journey....

It's ridiculous how awful a lot of black belts can be. We only have a few black belts in the dojo besides the dojo-cho, and I would say the 2 senior students are hard asses; the rest are adequate. As for Dillman, I once picked up his Kyusho-jutsu book and wanted to cry; it was pathetic.

[Cold_Skin]

Once again after time off I see I did make a BS mistake. When I was talking about my rank, it's kinda like finishing what I started. I started, and to most the idea of finishing a martial art is obtaining the black belt or sash or what ever. I have every intention of staying because I still have a lot to learn and I know it. And I am taking your your advise, all of you. I'm actually going to take both Aiki and Judo, but focus more on Judo. Aiki is just going to be my own personal experiment. @Spam, well look at who actually stayed, and look who left. We lost some good competitors for sure, but that's just what they were. They couldn't exactly teach very well and didn't care about being at the school in the first place. They wanted the shiny, then got bored and left.

[Aikironin21]

Some more advice. Just do Judo. If you are just going to "experiment" with Aikido, you are wasting your time and money. Unless you intend your "experiment" to span several decades, you won't get anything out of Aikido. At least anything you won't get from Judo. I have been training in Aikido for seventeen plus years. I have used it in the line of duty, and I am still learning new things every time I train with my Sensei. Just when you think you understand how something works, you realize you only know the base of the basics.

Otherwise, I'll tell you how this will go down. You will half ass attend Aikido classes, and after about a year, you'll think you know how to do irimi nage. You'll go to your Judo class, and try to apply it within your Judo. You will fail, and get tossed like a chili dog on a roller coaster. You will be back on this forum, saying how Aikido is bullshit, and after a year of "training" in it, you are educated and experienced enough to draw this conclusion.

The sad part is, you will only be marginally better at Judo than Aikido, because you have only been training a year. You could have had fifty-two more Judo classes, but you wasted your time playing "experimenting" with Aikido. Aikido is hard enough to learn by itself, much less while trying to learn Judo as well. I have never trained in Judo, so I don't know where the similarities are or end. So do the smart thing, and train in Judo. When you get to the point that you are an instructor in Judo, then experiment with Aikido. It will be easier to learn with your Judo knowledge, or so I've been told by Judoka who have trained in Aikido later.

In life, don't half ass anything.

[It is Fake]

Nevermind

Experimenting is bad because, you aren't focused that is it.

[Vieux Normand]

He may have overheard something about crosstraining and assumed one didn't need to be well-grounded in something before attempting to do that. Live and learn........or not.

[Cold_Skin]

Ok, so Aiki, lemme get this straight. You HAVE used your Aiki on "t3h str33t" before? And that if I continue with my plan I'll just end up like the rest of the butt hurt Ex-Aiki Judoka on here? Doesn't that say a HUGE thing about Aiki? That it's the people who don't bother learning that make it suck and that the art ITSELF doesn't suck like everyone says?

[Mr. Fluffers]

@ OP - I think Americans in general are a bit lax in regards to training, but the ones who really do get into it are just as hardcore as anybody you'd find anywhere else.

Different strokes for different folks, I reckon - some people want to learn to actually be able to fight, some want pretty trophies and patches and **** like that, some want a hobby... And what you want out of it is going to dictate how hard and with whom you train.

A lot of people in the US just want instant gratification, and it shows in the way a lot of people train... Same reason people get suckered into buying miracle pills and exercise gimmicks from infomercials. They don't want to work for it.

[Aikironin21]

Ok, so Aiki, lemme get this straight. You HAVE used your Aiki on "t3h str33t" before? And that if I continue with my plan I'll just end up like the rest of the butt hurt Ex-Aiki Judoka on here? Doesn't that say a HUGE thing about Aiki? That it's the people who don't bother learning that make it suck and that the art ITSELF doesn't suck like everyone says?

What I have witnessed in my experience in training in Aikido.

I am going to make some generalizations so please understand I know and accept there are exceptions to every thing I say here. There are no absolutes in this world.

I have noticed, people who have taken up Aikido, as a first martial art seem to have a harder time with it. They appear to have no concept of protecting themselves, and fail to position themselves appropriately, or recognize where they are vulnerable to further attack, if they even managed to avoid being hit by the initial attack. They have a tendency to try to use a tremendous amount of power, within techniques, which results in a change of attitude or intent in uke. Over powering Aikido to "make it effective" in a beginners eyes, is the very thing that makes their technique weak. This is not unique to first time martial artists either. I would think just about everyone, at some point in their Aikido study have done this.

People who have trained in striking arts like TKD, Kenpo, or such, tend to try to straighten out the circular movements of Aikido, and replace any advantage gained by them with muscular strength. I know this advantage is a matter of contention. However, if you try to muscle Aikido techniques and try to make linear movements that are crisp, sharp and strong, you end up with a wrestling match, in which if you are not bigger or stronger, you will most likely lose, unless you have some other type of training to revert to, to make up for the strength difference. So even people who have trained in a previous style may have hurdles to learning and applying Aikido techniques. At least, hopefully, they have an understanding and underlying commitment to protecting themselves at all times. Without this understanding, it is easy to walk into an ugly situation within your technique.

Every Aikido school I have been to, has held that you will need to train a minimum of ten years to be able to use Aikido techniques for self defense. This is why I don't usually suggest Aikido as a first martial art. Blending with an attack takes timing and patience, and applying an Aikido technique means maintaining a close proximity to the attacker, to affect his center. When first learning, we tend to over exaggerate our move off the line of attack and move to far away. It would be better for someone to block and counter as they would in their previous style after or simultaneously with their move off the line of attack. If they have sold themselves on applying a technique they can barely pull off in class, they will most likely fail, and resort to their previous training or instinct. Your first priority is always protect yourself.

Compliant partner practice.....
You can't really train against resistance in Aikido and learn the proper technique at the same time. If someone is trying to learn through doing, and feeling the difference between proper position and improper position, and the effect their movements have on uke, and at the same time, uke is continually stifling the technique, nothing is accomplished. Nothing is learned, and nothing is gained by either. A good Uke relays to Nage where mistakes are made, but still allows Nage to move through the technique to completion. If Uke continually stifles Nage at the first mistake, and does not allow Nage to adjust to a proper or more proper position, how is Nage to know how to get to the proper position. Why should they stop at that point every time till Nage finally gets it? This is why, with beginners, more experienced aikidoka sometimes even steer nage into the proper movements so they can get a feel of how the technique flows.

At some point, more resistance or alive type training must be moved on to. Many Aikidoka never really get to this point. They start focusing on building speed and how the technique looks compared to what the higher ranks are doing. Since they don't yet have the skills to perform at that level, a kind of unspoken agreement gets made where students say I won't make you look stupid if you don't make me look stupid. They fall into a lull of being able to move more and more fluid and increasing speed as the Uke are willing to fall or be thrown at any cost. Soon they aren't even moving off the line of attack or actively protecting themselves, but have very beautiful soulful technique that is only really good for the dojo or demos. They lose the ability to affect uke in even basic exercises like tai no henko ki no nagre. I believe, this is where the concept of no competition is important.

Competition among classmates fosters ego. Ego can mean the difference between admitting your technique is weak or you are doing something incorrect, and foolishly proceeding on a course that doesn't work. The focus is no longer on whether the technique is done properly and working, but rather whether or not you are winning the confrontation in which you are training. One of the problems is, there is already an agreement, that nage will "win". In this method, nothing is really learned as far as a useful means of self defense.

If you are going to "experiment" with Aikido rather than make a life long commitment to learning the techniques and concepts that make them work, you are never going to make it to the point where you will be proficient enough to "pressure test" the techniques the way I am assuming you are intending. I am sorry for making an assumption here. It seems perfectly logical to me, this is your intent, and it would be a good one if it is. The learning curve in Aikido is very long and slow. You will be adding to that, the way strength is used in Judo to drive people into the ground. If by experiment you intend to spend fifteen or twenty years at it, train Aikido as self defense with no ego, and stay committed to learning how to make the techniques work without excessive physical strength, I think it would be a noble venture. If you just intend to back burner it, and really not put too much into it, then I think your experiment would have a predetermined conclusion, and to spend your time on something as silly as that would prove foolish. That is why I say Just train Judo. Leave your Aikido experiment till after you have become an instructor in and understand Judo, then see what you find in Aikido after that.

As far as me using Aikido in the street, no, I have not. Odds are I would need to use ukemi before an actual technique. I mean really, I'm more likely to trip over something than be randomly attacked where I live. As an Officer, I can legally carry a concealed firearm wherever I go. Unless I'm on a road trip though, I hardly ever do. I'm not a big enough a-hole to attract that kind if attention. I have used Aikido techniques in the line of duty. I spent my first four years working as a Correctional Officer in State Prison, Psych intake and outpatient psych program units. These were some of the most unpredictable inmates our penal system had to offer, and oddly enough, when you talk about self defense on the streets, these are the guys you are training to fight off. Under Color of Authority, I can't just bash an inmate in to within an inch of his life. I have a standard to adhere to which is minimal amount of force necessary. I only had three years of Aikido training when I started working as an Officer. I spent those three years focusing on one technique, sankyo. I was terrible at everything else, but I could pull off sankyo every time. I used it over and over, and then went on to focus on nikyo, in the same manner. Next was kote gaeshi, then irimi nage. I just started to focus on shio nage. I can perform other techniques well enough for class, but the first four I mentioned I know what it takes to actually apply them against someone who is resistant. This is my experiment and it is just starting at seventeen years of training and fourteen years of service behind bars.

Now, someone made a good point, about my success with Aikido possibly being my prior martial arts experience, or other factors, but isn't that why we train in more than one discipline? Aikido doesn't suck. The misconception people have about what and how they train can bring down any system. I don't know any other Aikidokas who run three miles a day, take MMA conditioning and Muay Thai classes, and walk around with close to thirty pounds of riot gear on all day. Many of them are the hippie type, who think they if they train with love in their heart they will be left alone. Those people don't seek me out to train with if someone else is there. I don't need to change my technique to train with them. I don't throw people around, but when I get a lock in they don't like the discomfort, because i'm training training for a purpose. I make sure I actually have affected their balance and have control of them. Some don't like that. That's why I like when Judoka come to train. It's not a fight, but you can expect a judoka is not going to just lay down cause the script says so.

[Permalost]

Doesn't that say a HUGE thing about Aiki? That it's the people who don't bother learning that make it suck and that the art ITSELF doesn't suck like everyone says?

How does a martial art exist outside of its practitioners?

[Aikironin21]

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