ok someone fill me in on aiki jiu jitsu

[Gezere]

Too deadly? Are there varying levels of death? I am not using the "too deadly" argument, this is the kind of crap Aikidoka use to explain their lack of involvement in MMA tournaments. I am just trying to figure out what you guys are describing when you say "fight", weapons? multiple attackers? What is it that you are all preparing for? Highly trained BJJ fighters prowling the streets?


A FIGHT (in the martial sense) is a physical, violent conflict between individuals. This can be done in sporting enviorment or in da sTr33t, or anywhere else pple get together. It can be consenual or it can be forced upon you.

A FIGHTING ART is generally judged under that POV. The average practioner of said fighting system should be able to handle a conflict against another person. We do tend to raise the bar a little and like to see said art work against an average practioner of another fighting art. Many arts have fallen to shit when faced with that situation.


I am not trolling here I just have never understood what qualifies a "fight" appropriate martial art. Is the MMA venue really the best judge as Mark Tennenhouse thought, or some kind of fictitous street fight or a modern military combat zone? Does MMA prepare you for someone swinging at your head with a Louisville Slugger, or a golf club? Does anything or should we just hope to avoid these kind of things and fight like a mad man when it comes?

An MMA style format has proven more benefitical in preparing pple for unarmed than methods held by so called fighting arts. Yes is a realitively safe enviorment but, like I always say, the military doesn't train for war by shooting live rounds at each other, we actually play a game of tag with lazers in a terrain as close as we can get to ones we might face in combat.

[Yrkoon9]

I could only add to Asias statement that the military also tries to use the most up to date technology as a means of fighting. The guns, lazers, tanks and what have you are tools for a purpose. It could be said that MMA styles of fighting are the most up to date tools we currently have. And through MMA, we are testing and developing the best tools in a format that provides the most amount of stress tests on them while ensuring some standard of safety.

[Maestro Nobones]

I love the "MMA doesn't train for weapons!" argument.

[lawdog]

I guess my question is one of what is "fighting". Sports are not fighting, they are violent, I'll give you that, someone could get killed. But when people die this is seen as an accident wheras in fighting, death is the whole purpose of the encounter. This totally changes the reality of the encounter. Few of us in modern society deal with these kind of encounters so a real martial art in a modern context trains us for fighting to the death with the full expectation that this will never happen. This is a shitty paradox that is hard to deal with, at least for me. Also, if you ever use your training you'll be alive, but you'll get thrown in jail (depending on which state you are in).

So the whole idea of fighting in martial arts is kind of a false reality, so back to the question of aikijujutsu and its effectivness, it is definitly a fighting art, most of the techniques I am taught end up with me slicing opponents throat with a knife (well a pretend knife/tanto) Great for the battle field, not so good for staying out of jail, good for fighting to death, not so good for MMA ring. That is my thought.

While I find your opinion interesting, it's amazing that you wrote 2 paragraphs in which almost every sentence was inaccurate. Your analysyis of sports, fighting, modern society, fighting arts, and legal ramifications of self defense are all wrong.

Might I suggest that somebody is brain washing you.

[Fantasy Warrior]

I love the "MMA doesn't train for weapons!" argument.
I've yet to see an MMA club that DOES train to defend against weapons. Sorry.


EDIT: Not that I think that Aikijitsu is a particularly good way to go about blade defence BTW.

[Sophist]

I've yet to see an MMA club that DOES train to defend against weapons. Sorry.

Straight Blast Gym, Survival Tactics Against Blade program.

But yeah, the majority of places probably don't train weapon defence.

[Gezere]

I could only add to Asias statement that the military also tries to use the most up to date technology as a means of fighting. The guns, lazers, tanks and what have you are tools for a purpose. It could be said that MMA styles of fighting are the most up to date tools we currently have. And through MMA, we are testing and developing the best tools in a format that provides the most amount of stress tests on them while ensuring some standard of safety.


Absolutely correct. I think pple have the idea that MMA is totally against "TMA" but I am seeing more and more gyms go back and look at TMA and see if they can be updated to fit modern combat. There is still some research and development going on as far as techniques are concerned.

[Dochter]

I've yet to see an MMA club that DOES train to defend against weapons. Sorry.
I've yet to see a Math Department at a university teach a proper course in comparative literature.

[chrismoses]

Too deadly? Are there varying levels of death? I am not using the "too deadly" argument, this is the kind of crap Aikidoka use to explain their lack of involvement in MMA tournaments. I am just trying to figure out what you guys are describing when you say "fight", weapons? multiple attackers? What is it that you are all preparing for? Highly trained BJJ fighters prowling the streets?

I am not trolling here I just have never understood what qualifies a "fight" appropriate martial art. Is the MMA venue really the best judge as Mark Tennenhouse thought, or some kind of fictitous street fight or a modern military combat zone? Does MMA prepare you for someone swinging at your head with a Louisville Slugger, or a golf club? Does anything or should we just hope to avoid these kind of things and fight like a mad man when it comes?

Hello all, first post here. Wanted to make a couple points.

1) Matt, you indeed sound like you are making the 'too deadly' argument. Just because an art was designed with lethal force in mind does not limit it from applying less than lethal force. This is true in all arts, and is the only way we are able to study some techniques/concepts safely in a training environment.

2) I think the point Matt was trying to make is that ALL martial arts and competitive fighting styles have rules and assumptions. Many artists (particularly the very new and the very experienced) tend to forget these assumptions and believe they are studying some kind of art that is based solely in 'reality'. I doubt many people on this board would have a problem with this assertion. Aikido assumes a fully committed attack (and a determined and simplistic follow-up to that attack). Boxing assumes all strikes will be from the hands and will be delivered above the belt. BJJ assumes I'm not carrying a spyderco (or 2) in a convenient location. Arnis assumes that they will be able to deliver enough lethal blows to their opponent that the opponent will not be able to get them on the ground. Obviously this is not remotely a complete list, but rather my attempt to demonstrate that all of us have paradigms that we study within. I believe this was the point Matt was making. Many Aiki arts are misunderstood (even by their practitioners). The lethal weapon based aspect of *legitimate* Aiki arts may not be legal or practical for modern scenarios but it helps explain some seeming gaps and oversights in the training. Aikido's aversion to even acknowledge these historical facts has contributed to it's, um, lacking these days... (and I say that as a practitioner)

3) Matt's a fairly new student at what we lovingly call the Tuesday Night Bad Budo Club. At the TNBBC we study what would best be described as AikiBudo, Aikido that has been heavily influenced by Bernie Lau and his Icho Ryu Aikijutsu (a term he pulled out to distinguish what he was doing from mainline Aikido as he struggled to make what he had been taught work in more realistic settings, basically using Drager's do/jutsu naming distinction) and then influenced by Don Angier of Yanagi Ryu Aiki Bugei. In short we basically study Neil Yamamoto's take on budo. We're the ugly mutt of the Seattle Budo scene, but I always liked mutts or mixes over pure-breds. Since we're much more of a club than a public dojo, we're not too worried about what exactly to put on the sign out front (Aikido/Aikijutsu/Aikijujutsu/Aikibudo/Jujutsu/gonnaeffyouuppdoe...) While I understand where Matt's coming from, I think in this thread he's oversimplified things a bit too much. Bad newbie, no cookie. PBR's are on you next week. ;)

4) Coming full circle to the original poster's question about terminology: Aikijujutsu is generally accepted as referring to either Daito-Ryu (Aikido's predecessor) or Yanagi Ryu Aiki Bugei. Other arts have techniques nearly identical to what is considered 'aiki', Takamura ha Shindo Yoshin Ryu (jujutsu) for example has a series of techniques/principles called myojutsu that look and feel very similar to what is generally accepted as aiki. Similarly, Daito Ryu sometimes breaks their techniques into three different spheres: Jujutsu, Aikijujutsu, Aikijutsu. Generally the techniques in Aikijutsu are more subtle than those in their jujutsu, aikijujutsu is somewhere in-between, perhaps looking like jujutsu, but using some more subtle principles found in the aikijutsu sections of the curriculum. Our stuff was influenced by Daito Ryu (through Aikido, which I consider to be a direct child art of Daito Ryu) and Yanagi Ryu, so while we aren't either, we feel pretty comfortable using the term aikibudo legitimately. Schools with no real connection to Daito Ryu or Yanagi Ryu are generally suspect if they use the term aikijujutsu in their name. It isn't to say what they're doing isn't legitimate from a tactical standpoint, but that the word aikijujutsu itself implies a link to one of these two schools. Kind of like Kleenex and 'facial tissue' the two terms are so tightly integrated in people's minds that all brands of 'facial tissue' are referred to as Kleenex. Also the timeline that was presented by the original poster is WAY too short for any of the legitimate lines of aikijujutsu that I'm aware of. Don just doesn't give out rank, and DR tends to drag things out quite a bit. Long story short, yeah, sounds phishy to me...

Thanks for your time.

[Xango]

All I know about Aiki-jujutsu is that:

It's taught once a week at Tohkon

At least there, you have to have a couple belts in Judo before you can join the class

The man who teaches it, Sensei Moreau, is scary as hell and I would never ever mess with him.

One time, he stuck a live blade completely through his thigh doing aiki-jujutsu.

One of these days I'll go watch...

[Yrkoon9]

I almost hate to ask...

But did he do that on purpose?

[Xango]

Hah, no. It was at the end of kata, as I understand it.

Sensei Moreau competed in the Olympics for France, who is a serious competitor for medals. So, like, if someone from Belarus who competed in Greco-Roman told me they did taiji, I'd assume that their taiji was mighty...similarly I'm fairly certain Jean-Luc Moreau could break my wrist in addition to dropping me directly on my head in a number of decisive ways.

[elipson]

Against an amped and wildly swinging attacker bent on fucking you up - good luck. You are going to need something else.

This is interesting. I work in security with a guy who's been in aki jujitsu for many ears, hes one of the instructors. Suffice to say, he's crazy. Not very big but tough as nails! He entered a tough man boxing competition last year. His only training was in Aki-jujitsu (however you spell it, its trivial). He Ko'ed the first two guys. In his third fight, he had his nose broken by an accidental head butt, he won that fight, and fought in the finals WITH A BROKEN NOSE!! He lost by the judges call, even though most ppl thought he took the last fight. His only training was with his Aki-jitsu club.

My point, and its been said a million times, is that its more determined by the instructor and the club than it is on the actual style. There are BJJ clubs that can't fight for shit either.

[Yrkoon9]

You proved my point. He had something else besides Aikijutsu. He was crazy and tough goes a long way.

And...aikijutsu applicability in a toughman contest is about 0%.

[Freddy]

Aiki-jutsu has three main elements joint locks, throws and strikes (with either hands or feet). There are certain principles with the art (as already mentioned by others) that differs slightly from other jujitsu related arts.

[Lane]

From http://www.koryu.com, a good resource for checking up on any koryu Japanese arts

http://www.aikidojo.info/html/classical_japanese_schools.html

This was one of the links under Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu.

Aikijujutsu is, as someone correctly pointed out, a koryu Japanese art similar to jujutsu. According to this page: http://www.daitoryu-roppokai.org/training.htm there are no dan grades for official Daito Ryu aikijujutsu. Dan/belt grades are modern invention for Japanese arts, and so most koryu do not use them. Someone saying they are a black belt or x-dan in a koryu is either lying to you or their specific dojo is making up a new system to make it more marketable to Westerners. Anyone who is a licensed teacher of a koryu should be able to provide you a menkyo kaiden (teaching license) issued from the hombu dojo in Japan. Koryu without hombu in Japan are a little suspect.

That being said, aikijujutsu itself isn't a bad art. It is the basis for aikido, but aikido is a much watered-down version of aikijujutsu. It is the historical basis for many modern arts, like judo and Brazilian jiu jitsu. If someone has found a legit teacher, more power to them. However, as I looked over the branch listings from koryu.com, there aren't that many in the US, which is par for the course for koryu outside of Japan.