The reason I quit Aikido and stuck with Judo.

**diducdat?** · Posted On: 4/12/2011 4:35pm

I started Aikido in the fall of 07. When I started, I had a few years of freestyle wrestling and a few months of Judo under my belt. The reason I quit Judo was due to a work related injury that didnt fully heal for 2 years. And the reason I didnt go back was because my old dojo had shut down. I also had my two young daughters with me.

I wont lie, I did learn "some" useful techniques doing Aikido. Some which I have applied in the real world,(I know,I know,no serious brawls).

After a few months of being taught dead drills on what to do if someone grabs your wrist and hangs on, or charges you across the room and puts their fist straight out towards me and holds it there, I ended up meeting a guy who told me where my old instructor was. He was training people for free att. It was teens and adults only. So I ended up doing Mon/Wed Judo, Tue/Thu Aikido.

I could tell my Aikido instructor hated this. But on the other hand, he noticed how much better it made me at Aikido almost over night. My ukemi,timing,kazushi all improved significantly very fast.

I could tell my Judo instructors thought Aikido was lame, but they were polite about it. They just gave me a chance to try out my techniques against them in a live situation. That flew over like a lead zeppelin.

The contrast in the training methods was immediately apparent. In Aikido,it is "rude" to question technique, or not fall,even if the technique didnt work. It seemed as though the more advance belts in their demonstration would fall for the sensei,when it was obviously something that wouldnt work. Rank seemed to come faster to those who said yes and agreed with sensei all the time.

Judo on the other hand:if I fell intentionally like in Aikido, I'd be reprimanded.I was allowed to try Aikido against them for a while. And being thrown against my will showed me how good my ukemi really was. Class was never boring or redundant like Aikido. It was always a challenge. And it made me realize the value of live training vs. LARPing.

In Aikido,it didnt take long before I could wipe up the mats with anyone there. Guys who were significantly larger than me. And everytime I did excuses were abound.Pretty soon, the sensei would take me to other dojos to use me as his example. Nevermind my skill came from Judo.

I'll post more later.......

**DCS** · Posted On: 4/12/2011 5:51pm

Suscribing.

**judoka_uk** · Posted On: 4/12/2011 7:04pm

Cocktease.

I made a really good joke about Aikido at training the other day, I can't remember it now, but it was good. So you should probably just laugh anyway, you know, just because.

**Colin** · Posted On: 4/12/2011 7:22pm

Judoka: cool story bro.

Diducdat: It looks like I'm reading my own dairy or something. Great post, subbed to thread.

**judoka_uk** · Posted On: 4/12/2011 8:04pm

Originally Posted by Colin

Judoka: cool story bro.

I can always tell the one about where we did an Aikido/Judo seminar and the Aikijoker told me I was 'doin it wrong' and that he could break my arm. I told him to do his best to break it.

Same seminar in the Judo bit, where I was helping show an Okuri eri jime and the aikido uke was doing his best to defend to prove Judo doesn't work and I gave a talk through walk through of how to transition from the choke to a Juji, whilst he was doing his best to resist and then held the Juji, hard, whilst continuing to explain my point.

Or my e-mails that I send out to the other JMA clubs in the 1st and 2nd term of every year inviting them to talks about joint sparring sessions, which continually go either unaswered or get fobbed off with bs about being kicked out of their association for sparring.

Or the faggotry of the non sparring JMA clubs crying about the rooms being too cold and asking for the heating to be turned up. Only for us to CC them in on an e-mail to sports fed head about the room being too hot for people actually doing a physical activity and that if they actually did any exercise during their sessions they wouldn't need the heating turned up.

I have tons of stories of these fags talking big, none of them ever backing it up by turning up to a training session.

**Colin** · Posted On: 4/12/2011 8:13pm

Originally Posted by judoka

Or the faggotry of the non sparring JMA clubs crying about the rooms being too cold and asking for the heating to be turned up. Only for us to CC them in on an e-mail to sports fed head about the room being too hot for people actually doing a physical activity and that if they actually did any exercise during their sessions they wouldn't need the heating turned up.

This really struck a chord.
I can now remember the incessant whining about how cold the studio was, back in my dark Aikido days, but when training with guys at the Judo club who used the exact same dojo, I never heard a complaint once.. not in 2 years. Wonder why that is?

**judoka_uk** · Posted On: 4/12/2011 8:24pm

Originally Posted by Colin

This really struck a chord.
I can now remember the incessant whining about how cold the studio was, back in my dark Aikido days, but when training with guys at the Judo club who used the exact same dojo, I never heard a complaint once.. not in 2 years. Wonder why that is?

To be fair to Aikido the main complaints were the from the JJJ club and I don't think Aikido actualy complained. Although I never worked up a sweat in the Aikido classes I tried at Uni.

We were pretty fucked off though, because it meant they actually chilled our shared room and we pointed out that this was dangerous. Artifically chilling the room and meaning increase injury potential for people actually doing exercise.

Luckily all the other clubs like athletics and cheerleading teamed up with us on the 'WTF' front and we got them to cave in. As athletics agreed with us in saying, 'this is gay for people doing an actual sport an artificially chilled room is a health and safety hazard'.

Colossal faggotry, I have still yet to tell the stories of being challenged to a fight by a Jap Jujitsu green belt, as a Judo 1st dan, and by a Tae kwon do dan grade who's dad was a 7th dan. Both fights failed to materialise despite an exchange of mobile numbers, facebook adreses and provisional fight dates and locations.

**Tom .C** · Posted On: 4/12/2011 8:29pm

once I was hungry in an Aikido class but I've never been hungry after lunch

**BKR** · Posted On: 4/12/2011 8:49pm

Originally Posted by judoka_uk

To be fair to Aikido the main complaints were the from the JJJ club and I don't think Aikido actualy complained. Although I never worked up a sweat in the Aikido classes I tried at Uni.

We were pretty fucked off though, because it meant they actually chilled our shared room and we pointed out that this was dangerous. Artifically chilling the room and meaning increase injury potential for people actually doing exercise.

Luckily all the other clubs like athletics and cheerleading teamed up with us on the 'WTF' front and we got them to cave in. As athletics agreed with us in saying, 'this is gay for people doing an actual sport an artificially chilled room is a health and safety hazard'.

Colossal faggotry, I have still yet to tell the stories of being challenged to a fight by a Jap Jujitsu green belt, as a Judo 1st dan, and by a Tae kwon do dan grade who's dad was a 7th dan. Both fights failed to materialise despite an exchange of mobile numbers, facebook adreses and provisional fight dates and locations.

Jeez, all that hostility! I never had any problems between Judo and the other martial arts clubs at Tulane U. The karate/tkd/FMA club (known as the Tulane Martial Arts Club) always asked me to come and teach a couple of ukemi classes for them. They actually did spar, and I did some sparring with them for a while, before I pulled the **** out of my hamstring doing kicks. The head TKD guy was an incredible athlete and very good, the FMA/Karate guy was good too.

They used to watch me spar with their kyu grades and would always yell, "Don't throw him, Ben, don't throw him", because I was always positioning myself to do so but not actually doing it (hardwood floor). One TKD guy, blue belt or something, got pissed at me because the instructors kept laughing while we sparred, and telling him I'd killed him several times in 2 minutes already. He kicked me under my chest pad on purpose, and the TKD sensei told me to "go ahead, have some fun", at which point I not only punched him in the head but tossed him into the wall.

Good times, those guys were cool and fun to hang with.

The aikido club was a fucking cult. I took a couple of classes and was pretty bored. Everything was so indirect and soft it didn't make much sense to me (this was in the 1988-'90s time frame). The head sensei was dorking as many aiki babes as he could, and he was in his 50s (yes, I was jealous!). The condescension was pretty thick at times towards the martial arts club and the Judo club, but WTF.

Oh and we had a Dillman disciple come for a couple of "clinics" to the MA club. I was skeptical to say the least. The guys name was Ed Lake. He was newly divorced and on the make for any hot college chicks he could shag, and was not ashamed to talk about "sexual" pressure points and offer to demo them. He even tried to put the moves on my girlfriend when we all went out to have a drink after dinner.

Wow, that brought back memories.

Ben

**judoka_uk** · Posted On: 4/12/2011 9:16pm

Originally Posted by BKR

The aikido club was a fucking cult. I took a couple of classes and was pretty bored. Everything was so indirect and soft it didn't make much sense to me (this was in the 1988-'90s time frame). The head sensei was dorking as many aiki babes as he could, and he was in his 50s (yes, I was jealous!). The condescension was pretty thick at times towards the martial arts club and the Judo club, but WTF.

Wow, that brought back memories.

Ben

Aikido is still a personality cult built around their coach. I don't mind a bit of a coach idolisation, because I and the club idolise our coach a fair bit. The key difference being our coach has verfiable international Judo record whereas the Aikijoker has chero and acts as if he's the second coming of jesus christ.

I'll carry on inviting them to sparring sessions and making jokes about them until them man up and take us on.