AiKido Dojo review.

[Chuan]

Ok so I have a lot of free time on my hands and nothing to do I decided to check this place out: http://www.aikidoacademy.com/spartanburg,_sc.htm

First of all the studio is a stand alone building built a few years ago and not located in a strip mall. The inside of the studio is clean and well lit. The floor is covered in Zebra mats I believe and there is a heavy bag suspended in one corner and a couple of BOB dummies standing against the wall.
On the back wall are two racks of bokken and Bo. On the right wall is a wall of little hanging wooden things (didnt ask what they are for).

I met the instructor outside and asked him if I could observe a class. He said the childrens class was about to start and that I could stay as long as I wished and watch the adult classes as well. Mr. Wyndham seemed like a pleasant sort and was willing to answer anything I asked.

Student and instructor relationship seemed quite informal almost more like BJJ then a lot of the traditional schools I have seen.

Instruction:

The childrens class was led by a blue belt with a brown giving individual attention when needed. Mr. Wyndham kept a close eye and stepped in to show new techniques and to correct when needed.

The adult class was more intense then the childrens class as it should have been. Again a higher ranking underbelt led the class in basic warm up and stretches. A BB and the brown were on hand to help instruct. Lots of individual attention was given to the couple of white belts presents.

Material:

I watched in horror as techniques were performed without resistance. However Mr. Wyndham explained these were not the true Self Defense applications but just the building block for later moves.
What did surprise me was the emphasize on striking. Most of this class was devoted to developing power with the round and front kick.
The school actually spars and that was one of the reasons I decided to check it out. It was explained to me that the upper belts met and sparred and once they were comfortable with that aspect were taught to apply the AiKido techniques in a freesparring environment.
There is supposedly groundwork at the higher belt ranks as well.


As for an AiKido dojo it was more than I expected and was pleasantly surprised. THe school seemed much better than much of the AiKido I have seen. I can say that it is no McDojo.

[Numpty]

Great post. You did a great service to everyone on this board. If enough of us bullshido guys did this instead of just talking smack we could make up a list of schools that passed the "test". Break the list into cities and styles and link it back to the original post. I think this would be a great refrence for people looking for good schools in there area and to help show people that not all traditional schools are mcdojo.

[CanucKyokushin]

Colored belts??The more traditional Aikido schools don't have any belts systems besides white and black and there are no visible dan grades on there Black belts.

[Gosai]

Mm, i've attended a few Aikido classes, a freind takes the style there were no belts there either. *shrug* it didnt really go into Bullshido in my opinion and seemed pretty good to me...but i'm gullible even when trying to be skeptical.

[DCS]

It's a Nihon Goshin Aikido dojo.

IIRC, Nihon Goshin Aikido is a Daito Ryu offshot, not related with Ueshiba's Daito Ryu offshot known as Aikido. They're different arts.

Video Clip (http://www.aikidoacademy.com/images/webervarioustechniques.WMV)

[Goldust]

I trained in Nihon Goshin Aikido for about three years back around 1994-96 at:

http://www.aikido-macewen.com/

At that time there weren’t very many NGA schools around, doing a search on the internet I now see that they have begun to spread as black belts have begun to move about and open their own schools. I enjoyed training there and learned some useful things but whether or not I would recommend training at an NGA school really depends on what your goals and interests are.

The Good:

Nihon Goshin Aikido is more of a “harder” style of Aikido. What I mean by that is that it is not typically a soft flowing flowery style of Aikido. NGA schools tend to be a little bit more self defense oriented and less into the hippy like mentality that you sometimes find with Aikido schools. I found some of the footwork and distancing concepts to be helpful when I was fighting. As far as self defense is concerned you could probably do a lot worse. The students and teachers were all really nice people and my wife and I enjoyed our time training there.

The Bad:

Aikido can be a difficult style to learn and to become effective with, Nihon Goshin Aikido is no different. The striking techniques that are taught in NGA are by Muay Thai and Boxing standards quite poor and are not practiced very often. Ground fighting, clinching, takedowns etc. are not part of the official NGA syllabus. Even if they are now currently addressing grappling I doubt that they are above the most rudimentary of skills. A six month BJJ white belt would most likely easily takedown and dominate 95% of the NGA students that I trained with (including the black belts). The physical conditioning as you can tell by looking at the pictures of the students is nothing to write home about. In my opinion many of the Aikido techniques are unlikely to work against a truly resisting or trained opponent. When I was fighting if I had entered the cage armed only with my knowledge of Aikido I seriously doubt that I would have won a single fight. They do not do any real sparring. What they do (or did when I trained there) is what they call “self defense” lines. One person stands in the center as the defender and the other students take turns “attacking” them with the usual Aikido style big windup telegraphed attacks. The defender must then execute whatever technique they so choose while the “attacker” then duly throws themselves through the air in response.

If you are interested in Aikido and are looking for a not to demanding workout that offers a little self defense as well then I would recommend it.

If you are looking for a more demanding workout with a higher percentage of more workable realistic techniques and a shorter learning curve, then I would not.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin

[Stick]

Great post. You did a great service to everyone on this board. If enough of us bullshido guys did this instead of just talking smack we could make up a list of schools that passed the "test". Break the list into cities and styles and link it back to the original post. I think this would be a great refrence for people looking for good schools in there area and to help show people that not all traditional schools are mcdojo.


You have 3 posts.

We've been wanting to do something like that for a while, it just isn't going to likely ever happen.

Welcome aboard.

[Chuan]

technique they so choose while the “attacker” then duly throws themselves through the air in response.




Well at least one positive point was that the instructor told the students not to "throw" themselves to aid the person doing the technique.