Why is aikido not in mma

For years, Aikido has claimed to be geared towards self defense and untrained fighters. Supposedly, it will teach how to dodge knife attacks, bottles from a lunging drunk and street aggressors. Supposedly, Aikido benefits from its users having superior balance to your average civilian. In modern times, many Aikido students will happily concede this argument. To conclude, Aikido is not banned from MMA, nor are wristlocks.

In fact, the main three reasons for Aikido being banned from MMA have been outlined. In brief, these are that Aikido is against fighting for the sake of it and discourages violence. The second reason is that Aikido lacks its practical elements inside a cage. For example, training against weapons becomes redundant in MMA, as does using clothing to fight. It would be unfair to judge Aikido by these standards. Whatever the reasons, the outcome is the same. Because of this, the reality is that you will probably never see an MMA champion who trains Aikido.

However, it should also be known that Aikido is not banned from MMA and never has been. I like the traditional concept of Aikido. Surely it would be more skilful to not wear them.

Not only would bare knuckle do more damage to fighters faces and stop fights with cuts. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. We often set up our opponents using deceptive attacks which provides us the opportunity to apply a technique.

Miyamoto Musashi the author of the book of 5 Rings spoke about the importance of offense and said by initiating the attack you can forestall your opponent. He refers to this strategy as Ken no Sen. Modern Aikido today in the dojo does not train with strategy because we only train by receiving or reacting to attacks. Stanley Prainn from Aikido Journal before his passing away spoke often about how the founder of Aikido would initiate the attack in Shomenuchi techniques.

Kondo Katsuyuki a student and now teacher of Daito Ryu said in a old documentary video that Sokaku and his son both concealed and hid their true martial technique from the public. They would only show the effective techniques to their closest and most trusted students. Since Morihei Ueshiba was one of the longest students of Sokaku Takeda I would think he would have hid his true technique from public view.

Perhaps the correct way is for Nage to initiate Shomenuchi ikkyo omote and not uke. Bruce Lee wrote about the 5 ways of attack, or strategies of engagement to your opponent. The 1st method is called The Single Direct Attack, 2nd.

The attack by drawing in means to expose yourself by which you bait your opponent to attack. Since you know what attack is coming because you have baiting or invited him to do so, you can move after he has attacked. Miyamoto Musashi called this strategy Tai no Sen to wait for your opponent to strike before moving.

I believe most Aikidoka are unaware and have a misunderstanding concerning this strategy. Most Aikido students think that by waiting for the attack they are practicing their intuition and ability to predict a particular attack from uke.

There is value in the intuition of predicting things, but if that only becomes our default action then we will have difficulty resolving a violent attack peacefully in the real world.

The founder of Aikido spoke negatively about introducing competition into Aikido and I believe that many do not understand the huge difference between sparring and competition. The difference is weighted by our intention of outcome. Sparring is a training tool designed to refine our technique under stress and the relationship between both people is supportive.

Competition however is about wining and defeating another human being for the purpose of glory and pride. Both can be merged together and looked at as if they were the same thing but, competition and sparring can be separated by our intention. What good is our defense when we have no offense? In the real world we might have a friend or love one be attacked. What good would Traditional Aikido be at that moment? Miyamoto Musashi said you can only fight the way you train.

In my opinion I think any person can make Aikido a Martial Art however, the way it is commonly taught today clearly shows it is absolutely not. Assuming your query was not rhetorical, I would say it depends on which Dojo, and what my role is. When I am teaching, my first responsibility is a safe dojo, then the needs of the students — to help them reach their potential and goals, while being grounded in a serious and fun martial mindset.

Hi , I would like to say , when I practice a variant of battlefield technics, in this case aikido, I learn and become aware of its potensials, witch is and has deadly strikes, dangerous spirals and twists, even with no wapons.

I have been attacked by knife and cut in trought while defending a girl friend. I want tosay the nature and nature of human, the world is not a safe place and not kind , often no mercy. Are we battlefield excersizer or what? I just like to avoid fight and hurting self an others,.

I have no grades, yet i am more capable in defending agaist a or multiple knife attack , more effective then my most instruktors ,some have 3 dans. I care a lot about each of them and would risk my life if they found high danger. I read much history 2.

I would like and ask the Sensei Guy to enlighten me if he wants to. I know I am wrong in many cases, but hey, by going the wrong way I become aware of the right one.!!

Outstanding points within this article. Very informative and refreshing! Thank you for sharing your perspective and knowledge. My apologies for joining this conversation so late, I realize this thread is over 2 years old.

I started training in karate and Okazaki Jujutsu in the early 80s. Instead, I happened upon an aikido dojo that looked nothing like the wispy, flimsy, passive aikido I had seen in the states.

This aikido was simple, harsh and painful, much like the dojo it was practiced in. For me, this was the turning point from competition-based fighting, which in the end has to do with building the ego, to budo. Budo is all about destroying ego; once you do that, you have no desire to fight. I trained in several aikido dojos after I returned to the states, but I never found one that suited me after my experience. For the past 12 years, I have had a dojo in my garage where I teach principles in karate, aikido and jujutsu.

Competing with other people is not sustainable; challenging yourself is something you can do for the rest of your life. Thanks for the article. In my Aikido classes I used to get fed up because I had a boxing background, and I would be constantly told not to make the moves quickly. Awareness of, and access to, dangerous and lethal points should be present, but perspective should be maintained mental and physical perspective for the bigger picture of threats and non-violent resolutions.

Georges St. He has background in karate but he has also been very keen on training with the Canadian olympic wrestling team and he also has black belt in brazilian jiu jitsu a belt twice or three times harder to get than black belts in budo or traditional martial arts. He does the kind of things today that Jigoro Kano and the likes did years ago whereas those who blindly follow o-sensei, Kano or someone else are just copying a dated form of thought and a dead form of fighting.

Philosophy and wisdom are not japanese furniture, kalligrapy or dojo-design. It is a process of thouhgt. Seeking growth in martial arts is a path of evolution and search for a better way. Not in tradition that is merely an external form.

I much rather listen to St. Pierre or wrestler Alexander Karelin btw to learn something real about martial arts than worship some old budo-cult governed by people afraid of change. That hit me hard! Really cool to see the different thought processes when it comes to martial arts.

Ex -Aikidoka, stopped 20 years ago because of knee injury. Simple point I cannot get myself to go to the formal schools of the west as they:- 1 Do all the errors mentioned in this article 2 Are full of pacifists.

Too het up on the soft philosophy of an old man and not the fighting art of the young one. This does mean violence has to be a part of it. Otherwise it will die as the new generation laugh at the hippies who want to wear eastern warrior clothes but are too weak willed to fight and carry on making excuses for it.

Against an untrained attacker, there probably are a handful of Aikido moves that can be effective. For example, moves such as the Koshi Nage hip throw are legitimate and the Sankyo wristlock is also a nasty submission hold to be caught in.

This was covered here in an article we did on the best Aikido moves for self defense. Nonetheless, the point still remains, if your martial art is useless against other trained fighters then why bother learning it at all? As mentioned earlier, a large part of the decline of Aikido is down to MMA. Since Aikido has waned in popularity massively which correlates directly with the rise of the UFC. It turns out that was also a significant year with the growth of social media and sites like Youtube started to grow significantly.

As a result, there are many, many videos showing the advantages of most martial arts in street fights and similar confrontations.

Perhaps the biggest hub for these videos is Liveleak which has less viewer restrictions when compared to Youtube. As a result, Liveleak is full of videos showing the effectiveness of karate, judo, BJJ, muay thai and other arts.

Because of this, these arts are all considered legitimate even outside the universe of professional fighting. But what about Aikido? If you look deep enough, there is the odd video where a throw or submission hold works. Surely with the many practitioners around the globe, Aikido would have much more in terms of effective content? This ties into the earlier example of Seagal.

Now with video technology and social media, these stories have been dismissed. Again, returning to Seagal — his image is actually quite typically of a modern day Aikido practitioner. Often if you go into an Aikido dojo, it will mostly comprise of older men who are out of shape.

This says two things. Away from the physical benefits of martial arts, one positive is also improving your lifestyle and mental strength. For instance, if you look at a typical karateka who trains regularly, they will be in good shape.