Aikido yardstick (not expecting it to be used gently)

[realjanuary]

You REALLY need to let this go. You went to a poor gym and now you've apparently over-corrected to the other extreme. I'm not belittling your experince , but to think gyms are all spar spar spar spar is naive.

A good gym uses both "alive" and "dead" training effectively.

just some clarification:
Those two stories were in seperate gyms. They were meant to illustrate some potential pitfalls we can fall into, that the OP could be warned against in a role of coach.

I think all I wrote here could be summed up as:
Aliveness and quality control are essential but not trivial.

*edit: read over what I wrote in this thread, it gives a different impression than I intended*

[Permalost]

Even worse the knife defences are so bad that any individual would in all likelihood have died about 35 times before eve landing a "successful" defence

There's actually a huge list of rules on what counts as a valid stab. From tomiki.org:

Tanto Techniques A. Criteria for tsuki-ari (effective tanto techniques) The pre-condition for tsuki-ari (effective tanto stabbing) is that Tanto’s arm must be stretched when the rubber knife lands in Toshu’s body. If one stabs with his elbow hooked at a right angle, it will never be accepted as an effective one. 1 Specific conditions: a. The rubber knife must land in the part of the opponent’s body between armpit and belt levels. This includes the front, back, and both sides of the body, as well as the upper arms. However, the belt itself is not included in the target area. b. Tanto must step in and stab with his back straight and his balance stable. c. The rubber knife must touch the opponent’s body at an approximately 90-degree angle. But this particular condition does not have to be satisfied when Toshu is either off balance, has assumed an undesirable posture, or has already fallen on the mat. d. Rubber-knife stabbing should never endanger the safety of the opponent. Particularly, the type of stabbing with the fist landing directly on the opponent’s body is subject to penalization. However, if Toshu comes in without proper taisabaki, it is considered to be his fault. 2 Tanto is allowed to stab the opponent’s flank by swinging his tanto from the outside (“Mawashi-tsuki”) as long as all the conditions in #1 are satisfied. 3 Tanto is allowed to stab the fallen opponent once right after the latter has fallen as long as all the conditions in #1 are satisfied. 4 When Tanto scores a tsukiari point at the same time that Toshu scores a yuko or greater point in techniques, then the tsukiari point will take precedence over the toshu technique.

The part that's bolded is my biggest problem with this ruleset. A knife's not effective unless the attack uses a straight arm? That's bullshit. They should just say that the arm has to be straight so that way the other guy has a chance to Aikido it.

[Mister]

You are not alone in thinking that. A lot of the Aikido I see at the Tomiki tournaments does indeed look like poor Judo. Even worse the knife defences are so bad that any individual would in all likelihood have died about 35 times before eve landing a "successful" defence



Props for testing their art in a non-compliant manner, but the lesson I would have taken away is "holy **** this stuff doesn't actually work so good"

It's not always Tanto randori in Shodokan and Tomiki schools, there's empty handed randori Toshu randori, but even that looks like piss poor Judo.

Anyone that tells you the style is good but its only problem is that it doesn't train with aliveness is lying to you. It just doesn't teach you to do anything properly, neither use weapons properly nor strike properly nor clinch nor grapple.

I think the style itself is not made to be trained alive, so it comes off as poor Judo when it is alive.



The ruleset was made to stop the Toshu match from being a Judo match.

Rules for both Tanto and Toshu matches can be found here: http://www.tomiki.org/files/Intl_Randori_Rules.pdf, basically, you can't do anything to your opponent...

Before someone tells me I have to try something before I judge, I've trained in Aikido for a bit. The only thing I got out of it was break falling well.

[Permalost]

I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's the impression I get from some of my peers where ever the subject of other training methods comes up.

You need not feel obligated to parrot or defend the views of extremists you know.

[Goju - Joe]

I dig what you're saying, especially the last bit.

Never using an uke/tori model has it's own problems. There has to be a balance. Aikido generally uses uke/tori too much*, and even then we often us it ineffectively (e.g. uke "attacking" but never experiencing what it's like for their attack to be successful). It's too easy to lose the feedback in normal aikido training.
That doesn't mean that asymmetric drills (e.g. A tries to maintain mount, B tries to sweep or recover guard) are all useless. We just need to work them better to keep the feedback and balance them with symmetric drills (e.g. judo randori).
I've another rant I'll post later about this.

From the aikido camp, the aliveness docterine often sounds like "all sparring, all the time." Which sounds odd, how will you ever learn a new skills if you're always in the trenches?

*read: all the time, unless you're the instructor. It's ok for the instructor to counter a technique when they're uke, but if you do it as a junior you're in for a beating. I have a problem with this.

It's not that I feel Uke Torri is a uselss training methodology, I believe there are techniques that can have value that can only be trainied safely in a coppoerative manner, however from a self defense POV (assuming that's important to a person) the Uke Torri relationship is a dangerous and false mindset.

For example, in a fight a boxer will slip, bob and weave and throw a jab, cross hook combo, the slip, bob and weave move is defensive but is also simultaneously setting up the footwork and position for the strike.

The boxer doesn't view the situation as attacker and defender but sees the whole thing in it's entirity and trains that way.

Uke Torri removes a lot of the unknown and the adrenaline dump and fight or flight reflexes.

Aikido can become this dance like, trance like state. Which can be amazing to do and be in, but has no baring on a real self defense situation.

And that's where I feel the Uke Torri dichotemty leads.

That is why I feel it's better to leave Aikido as it is and add cross training in a good striking and wrestling/grappling style. I would say boxing and Judo would work best. As ideas of foot work and movement are simillar.

[Ignorami]

I've nothing new to add to the conversation at this point, but wanted to chip in to say this is the most grown-up aikido thread I've seen on here since joining. I'm very much enjoying reading it.

[It is Fake]

That is why I feel it's better to leave Aikido as it is and add cross training in a good striking and wrestling/grappling style. I would say boxing and Judo would work best. As ideas of foot work and movement are simillar.

I agree with most of what he said, but I hope OP is seeing the trend.