I have little knowledge of this styles rules . I believe it is divided into 3 or 4 categories.. Story is that Kano went to see Ueshiba and was totally taken by Aikido proclaiming this is the ju I'm searching for. He asked Ueshiba to accept some of his top students. Tomiki was one of these student . He and Kano was an educator and trying to create a sport . Tomiki then went on his on . The history isn't hard to find. Ueshiba didn't want his system of training to water down to degrade into sport. It was the pressure test when practiced with uke that could protect themselves. The problem is now you have ranking people still training at beginners level. In lower levels resistence is to avoid injury from strikes and joint manipulation. The masters, there is no resistance because their movement timing and position avoids direct force while disrupting uses balance
@@lionsden4563 Nope we're Aikikai members but we focus on kaeshi waza mainly and then the rest are part of Nagare waza which is basically not functional.
I've been practising Shodokan a long time within the UK and am very happy that it is currently being shown by big channels on youtube! So thank you! Raising Supergirls' comment is bang on. I noticed you guys talking about how the tanto strikes didn't look realistic. When you're in a bout you require that "good stab" that Raising Supergirls talks about. It's a little tricky to define, and in the end is up to the refs to decide on using flag/hand signals to vote instantly. However a good strike would normally be one which is below the neck and above the waist, and deep enough to make the tanto bend significantly as oppose to just brushing the gi, or just brushing the person in the gi. Because the person without the tanto is trying to perform techniques on the tanto wielder, there is the dilemma having to avoid a strike coming at you, while aslo having to get in close to break balance and perform a technique, which is why a lot of the avoidance looks like it's inviting the knife in to the person, they are usually trying to avoid the knife while moving in to do a technique. Fouls (shido, much like in judo) are also awarded for different kinds strike which are illegal (for example, above the neck), or for not avoiding a knife strike properly (turning your body without avoiding the strike), or for things like just straight up running away from the knife. The main difference for me between judo and aikido competition is that in Aikido, you can't grab the gi, but you can grab the face. Also, on the topic of how we train, usually we train our techniques with no resistance in a kata form with and without tanto, we then move on to training individual techniques with no resistance, then in to training individual techniques with resistance where we are trying to flow them together, and then we would move in to full resistance, how to break someone's balance when they really dont want you to, etc. We also train counters for competition. We do try and stay realistic, and like most martial arts say "if they have a knife, run" but that if it comes down to a hand to knife fight, then we try and train for that.
Thank you for the clarifications. This type of training should be wholly praised and encouraged. I think it could be improved by giving the knife wielder the freedom for prison shank, but other than that it's great. I thought it was illogical when the BJJ black belts said "if it just looks like another art, then why train that art". One could apply the same exact argument to literally any style, including BJJ, which during its inception was not too different from Judo Newaza. And there are tons of other styles that look similar to each other like Dutch kickboxing and muay thai, Judo and sambo, etc.
@@MaxLohMusic " I thought it was illogical when the BJJ black belts said "if it just looks like another art, then why train that art". Yeah i thought that, i think the bjj guy was just a tad bias and narrow minded. I wish i had took this art seriously than the traditonal one, but its too late now i have a bad back and cannot do it.
I don’t see this as open minded at all and in fact it reveals the commenters as completely laking in understanding of kizushi. I hope they aren’t instructors, I would feel bad for the students.
Tomiki was I believe an 8th Dan in judo. Sent to learn aikido because Kano was impressed by aikido as a budo. O sensei gave permission for kenji tomiki to develop his ideas separately from the aikikai. The randori style is encapsulated in the randori no kata. Later students learn more traditional techniques in the form of koyryu no kata. I apologise for the poor spelling of some of the Japanese terms it’s been 45 years since I practiced tomiki style ( tomiki was the name used by the aikido association in the uk back then)
I have practiced BJJ (I am brazilian living in Brazil) and I also trained a bit of Aikido. Really like Aikido and I did managed do apply some movements from Aikido in BJJ (when you are standing, specially cause Aikido was created when Judo was dominant in Japan), but the main thing you can use from Aikido is the philosophy to try to guide your oponent strength and use it against him. Shironage is a good movement, in the same way you can use it, but if your oponent resist, you turn it in to a take down as osoto-guruma. Anyway, Aikido is interesting and a good art, but it requires you to have some degree of knowledge of some other art to apply its principles and a few movements in a scenario where you have an oponent struggling against you.
exactly! I'm a judoka and this aikido stuff has its place in very specific circumstances, so if you have the time why not drop by some classes? I'd be much more willing to go if there was sparring elements.
I've done some aikido and have pulled off a few moves while rolling Live in BJJ class. That being said, I wouldn't rely on it for my core system but some of the concepts can be useful.
First of all Rokas, thanks so much for doing this again. Also, please let your instructors know how impressive and respectful they come across in all the videos. They do their style and school proud. They are true martial artists in every respect. Now there were some comments made that I would like to add my 2 cents to. One major thing is the misunderstanding of the techniques. Those are definitely Aikido techniques. I saw for instance hiji shime and irimi nage multiple times. To your coach's point, once you start to introduce resistance, it doesn't look as pretty anymore. Another comment was, can this be useful in MMA or combat competition? Probably not. But not because it is ineffective. I've thought about this alot myself. If we look at the true roots of the concept of "Aiki", what is it essentially in its true physical form? It's moving in harmony with your opponent's energy to unbalance and throw them. All martial arts incorporate this concept to some degree. However, the "Aiki" arts specialize in it. If we look at Aikido the purpose of the techniques is not to close in and grapple but to either avoid the physical attack or at best to negate the threat by throwing your opponent. Most major styles of Aikido have lost the ability to do that through a deficiency in training methods. What Kenji Tomiki seems to have done is to have created an ingenious way of keeping the "aliveness" of the technique in practice. Thats why these Shodokan practioners have such strong foot work and movement. From a philosophical perspective, Aikido is almost the antithesis of BJJ. Where BJJ closes in and grapples, Aikido (trained correctly) repels, throws and moves. Is that what you want in competition? No. Who wants to see two people avoiding each other? But how about in real life? Is pulling guard in a back alley more adviseable than a quick throw and running away? Maybe. If looked at in that way, you could conclude that properly trained Aikido and BJJ actually compliment each other. Two sides of a grappling puzzle. Thanks for this though. Great discussion.
Thank you! Excellent observation. I believe that it is important for someone who is interested in self defense to know about how to fight on the ground simply because you don't want to be "that guy" on the bottom getting pounded. But that doesn't mean that you want to go to the ground if you don't half too. It's all about context.
@@boxing.ascetic In a later video Roakas and one of his SBG coaches show that they have discovered that an aikido wrist lock/throw can work against a jab cross IF the aikido practitioner has learned enough boxing to get the timing. So the "Martial Arts Journey" has gone full circle. Who knows how many other "impractical" techniques from aikido can be made functional once the timing of boxing is understood? Aikido was developed around empty hand defense against a sword. But people don't go around today trying to bring a sword down on your head. In one of the previous videos one of Roakas' SBG coaches remarked "Well that defense might work if I came at you with a hatchet." Well...yeah.
Hi Rokas, Love the channel and sharing your search for effective martial arts practice. I am an Aikikai black belt (iwama style) and have trained Shodokan Aikido for 2 years as well and some Goju-Ryu Karate. Whilst competition, Tanto Randori and Toshu randori, are a focus for most players Shodokan Aikido does contain quite a bit of traditional style aikido. Kata style paired competition is also done where two pairs perform the same sequence of techniques, with no resistance, and a winner is decided by judges. I originally bought into the myth that competition in aikido not really possible because the techniques are to dangerous, but this would presuppose that the arts that have embraced competition don't have dangerous techniques which I think is nonsense. Dangerous techniques are simply not allowed in or modified for competition. I am 60 years old and while I am not very good at Shodokan Aikido the thing I love about it is the sparring. Being able to test myself against someone who is actively trying to thwart my efforts while I try to stop theirs is very rewarding and so much fun. Tomiki Kenji the founder of Shodokan Aikido was an 8th Dan in Judo and 8th Dan in Aikido. He taught Shodo (calligraphy) and Judo at Wasada University, as I understand it he also taught at the Aikikai Hombu dojo at this time. Based on my reading (I may be wrong, just my belief) Tomiki Sensei was developing what he called "Judo Taiso" (Judo at a distance). This was to be his addition to expand Judo using adapted aikido techniques filtered through the need to actually work on uncooperative partners. Training in Judo Taiso was open only to senior Judo students and they assisted in the development. Tomiki Sensei was given the opportunity to develop his Judo Taiso and a new art and have it accepted as a university club sport, this was extremely prestigious for him, but competition was a requirement of the university. As a result Shodokan or Sports Aikido was created. When we look at it's development it is obvious that it would look like Judo. Tanto randori the knife wielding competition is done in two parts of 2 minutes each with roles being swapped, with two similarly skilled players it is generally the player that has the tanto first that wins due to the other player gassing out, the unarmed player uses much more energy than the armed attacker. It is my belief that traditional aikido needs to adapt to what's happening in the martial arts world, it is a beautiful art but has limited practicality unless complemented by other arts. Bruce Bookman Sensei is an Aikido Shihan with over 30 years training he is also a BJJ black belt and has done Karate, this is the type of training mix needed to be a more complete martial artist in the twenty first century. I personally find MMA and other full contact combat sports to be a bit to brutal and bloody for my tastes, but they are popular and the top level practitioners are skillful and dedicated to their craft. Once again thank you for sharing your journey, it is one that many of us have found ourselves on.To walk away from aikido took great courage, that courage with carry you forward. Bill
It’s great to see my art recognized. Pretty good analysis on what must look odd when seeing it for the first time. My two cents: 1. There’s a whole lot more in the curriculum than just the sport. 2. The sport aspect is extremely fun and is a great way to meet practitioners from all over (we have national and international tournaments.) 3. A big aspect about the sport that hasn’t been mentioned is we don’t have weight classes. I’m unsure if that’s by design or necessity, but that’s how it is. This must be somewhat unique in competition sparring. Yes the larger competitors have an advantage, but Ive seen many impressively handled by smaller opponents also.
Shodukan Aikido was founded by Weshiba's( founder of Aikido) first student Tomiki. Shodokan is now the main form of Aikido in the UK and Osaka, Japan. Also, this isn't the only form of competition. There are different types of competition that don't involve throwing such as Randori and team sports.
The reL problem is that people seek fighting skills in aikido. You can decide to have a harmony concept, as long as you know if you lack pressure testing, you won't become the fighter of the century.
@@tomprowsemusic4864 If it has the word martial in it it has to teach some kind of fighting method, otherwise is just a dance and shouldnt be called martial art , but just a dance art .
@@arkhust6775 martial art is a Occidental translate from bushido. But bushido is not only about fighting. We just fail to translate this word correctly. Tai chi is an bushido, but have nothing to do with fighting. This is a "spirit" aspect as aikido should be.
I trained with Chiba Sensei in the 90s and the only time I ever heard him talk about an actual confrontation he had, he said he did a judo throw (he came from a judo background). I always thought that was interesting and reflects my experiences of trying to make Aikido work in live situations. I am a BJJ black belt now, and can make certain techniques work rolling (mostly kote gaeshi and sankyo) , but I am really applying those under a BJJ or judo control and off-balancing framework. Anyway, great video and I really appreciate your videos.
@@timsmith3377 I can see where that impression might come from. Taking ukeme from him was terrifying and during technique portions you did not want him correcting you if you were nage (which meant becoming his uke). With that said though, I never felt like he was being a bully. He had a very martial approach to Aikido and I found this approach helped me learn (though did keep me in the fantasy world a little longer than necessary). I don't regret a day I spent training with him.
Btw...i did tomiki aikido . grappling & judo is part of the training in addition to the 17 techniques & hand releases, aikido is a high level chess game ...techniques break down at some point..but principle is still there
Hello, I am the media director for Tomiki Aikido of the Americas (tomiki.org). I am happy to offer some clarification on some of the questions in the video: 1. Yes, indeed, Professor Tomiki was a high level judoka - a hachidan, actually. He was part of the 3rd generation of Kodokan instructors, and his studies under O Sensei were officially sanctioned by Jigoro Kano. He worked with O Sensei from about 1926 until 1943, when Tomiki moved to Manchuria. 2. Professor Tomiki modeled his competitions on Kodokan judo shiai, and the scoring is quite similar. This is why there is so much crossover between judo and Tomiki Aikido (The Shodokan in Osaka is actually one of the two main schools in Japan, but both "Tomiki Aikido" and "Shodokan Aikido" are accepted names.) 3. Grasping is permitted in competition, but not the grabbing of the dogi. You are penalized for it. Also, you cannot hold your opponent in a single position for any length of time. The idea is to remain at a safe distance (ma'ai) and entice your opponent in. 4. As noted in the video, if you can grab, this quickly becomes judo. This is why Professor Tomiki introduced the tanto (knife) to the equation. In theory, the presence of the knife reduces the ability of toshu (the guy without the knife) to get inside and grab. He has to deal with the knife first. It took aikido back to its original concept of an unarmed man trying to disarm an armed man. 5. In tanto randori (with the knife), the stab (tsuki) only scores if the tanto bends against the opponent's torso. There are a number of other rules for the stab to score; but that's the basic one. The knife attacks are not "going easy" necessarily; but they are very formalized. The attack has to be a sort of jab, with the same hand and foot moving forward - no sneak attacks or strategic angles. It is not realistic. This was originally meant to limit the attacks so the opponent only used techniques Tomiki deemed safe for randori. (We have a list of 17 techniques permitted in randori.) 6. The person with the knife actually is not allowed to do any throws unless he is grabbed (we call it kaeshi waza). When grabbed, he can perform one of 5 techniques. So, you are correct, the knife does handicap one player. This is why a match is divided into two 90 seconds rounds, with the knife switching between players at the break. 7. I will say, concerning the comment about the "disappearance" of what makes aikido unique, that we should remember that aikido began as a particular understanding of jujutsu - incorporating "aiki" - a particular type of employing what was generally know about jujutsu. So, it is true that competition makes the unique pieces of mainline aikido "disappear." In theory, at least, this is because mainline is not about application or true resistance. I really appreciate you guys taking the time to watch this video and take a look at Tomiki Aikido; and I'm happy to provide more information, videos, etc. Erik DiVietro Tomiki Aikido of the Americas - tomiki.org (By the way, the big guy in the video at 15:03 is Joshua Ramey, an American who won the world title in 2011 (ruclips.net/video/ikZRp32KS7Y/видео.html).The video is his 2013 match against Norihiro Shimada.
Kenji Tomiki fused Judo competition with Aikido. High-level judoka actually do resemble this in some ways, as their understanding of balance and footwork and body mechanics are so fine-tuned, they use very little strength to toss their opponent.
Gotta admit. The aikidokas here arent as effective ad other martial artist but I can see them taking on an untrained thug or streetfighter with those footwork alone.
@@bartfart3847 Striking is not included in many combat sports like BJJ, wrestling and judo. That doesn't make them ineffective. Just pointing out the flaw in your argument... In general though, I agree with you that people need to stop trying to "fix" aikido. Rather, the techniques of aikido should be integrated into other styles (mostly the kind you would see in Shodokan, the style in the video.) With the fundamentals gained through arts like BJJ, muay thai and wrestling, the techniques of aikido would be better executed and are useful in some self-defence contexts.
@@bartfart3847 i genuinely think aikido can be functional, but you would have to revert it back to an actual martial art first, with live resistance. And a few aikido techniques are used in bjj, namely the wrist lock. Granted it would probably end up looking a lot more like western martial arts, but what works, works.
As far as I know, the knife gives one Fighter the ability to score (1 point per Hit) to stop the knife carrier from scoring you have to throw him (with a valid technique). Then the other one gets the knife and the ability to score.
Great points. I think there are ways you could change Shodokan to make it more realistic and still retain it's identity as different to judo or jiujitsu. 1. Focus on toshu, get rid of tanto altogether OR instead... wear headgear and use punches instead of a tanto. 2. Add newaza, but seeing as aikido likes to pin people belly down, make it so that those types of pins are the only ones that score (the reverse of wrestling's goal to pin them shoulders down.) 3. Add submissions (wristlocks legal, of course ;) 4. Allow more/extended grabbing! The 17 techniques can stay the same, but give them more leeway on what you can do to complete the technique.
What are the 17 techniques by name? I tried to google the list but i got nowhere... And i would like to learn them witha friend of mine, since there is no tomiki aikido where we live ñ_ñ
Why get rid of tanto? Self defense against weapons is important for a realistic modern martial art. Add slashing techniques to tanto for the advanced practitioners yes. But don't get rid of it. Not every fight that someone might face in the real world is empty hand against empty hand.
1. You're right in the sense that it is a less hard form of judo. I was told (dont remember by who) that tomiki meant to integrate these 17 techniques into the judo rule set. A TON of these practitioners have judo backgrounds already and like aikido because its softer on the body. 2. The tanto isn't meant to simulate a real knife, it's just supposed to incentivize atemi so that tori has a real, resisting opponent. The reason toshu (knifeless) randori isn't popular is because there isn't much reward to entering the opponents range. It turns into bad judo. 3. Its a specialty sport. Everybody I've trained with in shodokan aikido is totally honest about what they can and can't do. I'm mainly a thai boxer, and can hold my own but would still get tapped by an mma fighter with an existent ground game. Doesn't mean muay thai doesn't work. Means that I prefer to study a very particular sect of fighting because I find it more fun and more dynamic. Shodokan aikido has helped me defend against clinch attempts and taught me to play better from the outside. Yes, its incomplete. So is karate, tkd, boxing, wrestling, and BJJ, though some obviously more than others. That's why we mix them. Aikido is a way to add extra options to already existing striking and grappling skills. It was only ever the aikikai guys arguing that their crap made them untouchable and magic.
Thank you. That's why hybrid martial arts and mixed martial arts exist. Also, it would have been very interesting if Tomiki managed to incorporate his techniques into Judo.
You know that random number generator is a very nice idea for an actual sport. Like you have a tournament and every match there is a random set of rules that allow for or forbid certain things drawn out of a box. Then you would have to be prepared for anything.
I would really like to see you guys look at Yoseikan Budo competitions and Hapkido competitions which often involve applied Daito-Ryu or Aikdo techniques in actual "mixed martial arts" scenarios
ruclips.net/video/x-wJ7EOhGnk/видео.html Randori starts at 24:09 Even Mochizuki a 10th dan in Aikido felt it was essential for a shodan in Aikido to have a shodan in Judo. The newaza of some Yoseikan Aikidoka I have fought was much better than that of Judoka from schools who do not focus enough on winning on the ground. But no, it does not need to devolve into just Judo if your Aikido is good and tested with randori... But sometimes a mule kick to the groin is still needed (see the video).
Also, for the tanto rules... in order to score with the tanto, I believe you have to; be taking a step, you must make contact with the knife & it must be a straight thrust.
@@chaos_omega It's an icepick. The self-defense response issues are why the organization I trained in rejected tanto randori. My issue is it encourages bouncing movement and favors quickness and speed. These are antithetical to the goal of stillness in motion. These people will never attain suigetsu.
You guys should make a video like this today, there is so much more interesting footage of people using aikido in bjj, both in training and competition and it looks honestly legit
The knife attack is a straight attack - it is part of the rules. You have to remember that it is a sport. The throws are similar to judo because Tomiki sensei was an 8th dan judoka. Also, the person with the knife, or tanto, is allowed to do techniques on the other person.
And if you add also small joint locks, japanese ju jitsu would have its Place in MMA competition. It's natural that every martial art has its rules, also BJJ has its rules. Different Styles, different perspectives. People are still discussing on what is better and what won't work, every technique Can work under certain situations.
BlackKalmarSkull in Japanese jujutsu their small joint locks are wrist locks. You’re allowed to use wrist locks in MMA. Small joint in mma means 1 or 2 fingers or toes being grabbed. If you grab 3 or more fingers or toes, or a whole foot or wrist that’s legal.
Lucas Gallindo wrist locks are very easy to accomplish on the ground and make an otherwise loose submission impossible to escape. They’re great Standing wrist locks aren’t bad either, and you don’t need to unbalance someone either. They’re just significantly harder to pull off against people who know how to grapple
Wrist locks are legal in BJJ and MMA. In my last match I should’ve tapped to a wrist lock. Fucked me up for 6 months. They’re very viable in BJJ on the feet and the ground. Jacare and Fredson Paixao are two great examples of good wrist lockers in BJJ. Only reason they aren’t viable in MMA is due to how strongly the wrists are taped up underneath the gloves...they aren’t worth trying in MMA but they aren’t illegal. I’ve seen people get taken down with kote gaeshi in mma (rarely but I’ve seen it).
@Soul Chicken Yeah that is true. If I'm not mistaken the very few differences are Judo being mixed with jujutsu bjj isn't anything revolutionary as we are led to believe its greatest contribution I personally think is the insistence on full sparring. Please correct me if I am wrong.
13:28 - it is very nice to see Adrian Jaoude competing Beach Wrestling on the background. 14 years ago we trained in the same really small dojo of Brigadeiro Jiu-Jitsu/Barra Wrestling =-).
A tomiki trained brown belt came to our judo club a few times. I randoried him some. He could make his stuff work surprisingly well, better than I expected certainly. Most of his stuff seemed to be for when he got a good grip on one arm. I would also add that I have done sankyo on the street several times (I learned it from a Marine as a little kid as a way to get into a hammerlock) and it can work out as you see in this video, where uke actually flips over (tho not always).
I could be wrong, but I think Tomiki Aikido was developed with some Judo concepts as well. I think the reason they don't allow direct grabbing may be to prevent reliance on Judo techniques. From what I've heard, a lot of folks who do this variant of Aikido also have rank in Judo, so the no grabbing thing would make sense to prevent the whole thing from turning into a Judo competition.
Im a BJJ practitioner, and just wondering why are you still so focused on critiquing Aikido. I understand you have spent a big part of your life in its practice, but I personally believe you should let it go, benefit from what you've learned from it and apply what is effective from it to your jiu jitsu. I was a shaolin kung fu practitioner, however once I transitioned into BJJ, 14 years ago, I never looked back. If some people believe it's effective, let them, in tnr hopes they will find your answer the same way you did. When you try to debate with another person with a strong a view, both parties just get entrenched in their view, this making it an arguement as opposed to a discussion and pursuit of the truth. My dad always said, the only way to learn is to feel, and so far, at least in my life, this has come to be true.
I think you have a point here. There seems to be "time wasting" aspect to this: safely critiquing other styles from a distance without having the input of a practitioner to validate your assumptions. What do you truly hope to accomplish here but to get people riled up?
You do t understand really. Its for content purposes. The reason why he put this vid and other aikido videos is because people have been bugging him in patreon. And he needs to placate those people at patreon because they are the ones who pay him. And you? Do you even donate a dime to him? Off course not. Trust me there are a ton of people who messaged him about “Do this style of aikido, you havent featured it yet!” or “Youre not doing it right! Do better!” And these idiot fanboys bring him the dough he needs to feed his family.
@@SereneJudo If i told you i did..or people i trained with did have those experiences would it change anything? Or would you make a video to dismiss that because its not on film?
I practice Aikido to denounce compatition because of deep seated anger. I will study BJJ because I think its fun and I need to learn ground work and Kickboxing to learn how to deal with offense! Thanks again for sharing your hard work
Hello MAJ, great video. A little more info for you. The original Japan Aikido Association set up by Kenji Tomiki split a few years ago. The video you are reviewing is an introduction to a new method of skill assessment “competition”. If you want to know more just let me know.
It would be interesting to hear what your take is on hapkido! From what I've seen so far on RUclips it seems like it's a lot more practical. But there isn't nearly as many people analysing hapkido as there is aikido, and I kinda wonder if I'm romanticising the idea of hapkido or if it actually has practical value.
Haokido is Aikido with kicks. The founder of Hapkido studied Aikido in Japan before World War Ii. In Korea, I had the honor to watch the top Hapkido man in Korea demonstrate his techniques. Utterly amazing! He was on of the top bodyguards of South Korean President Park.
How did they not see the flags being waved every time someone got stabbed with the knife? It's pretty clearly something like "try to throw by getting stabbed as few times as possible".
Just saw this video and really appreciate the critiques and observations from the reviewers. Resisted training is vary valuable and to their point, I do wish refinement of randori would to include standing grapple would occur. I am a former Shodokan player who trained at judo dojo and had previous scholastic/collegiate wrestling experience. Many of the senior judoka were also Shodokan players. We were encouraged to train and roll with judo players quite a bit and we were allowed to take our aikido technics to the ground and use judo holds to try for a finish.
And another very important thing that you forgot to comment on ... The advanced footwork shown by the participants. Creating angles, maintaining a distance, concepts, timing ...
Labas Rokas!! Thanks for the interesting video. You talked me out of shifting from aikikai to Tomiki aikido. I was thinking of visiting the Tomiki aikido main dojo since I live in Osaka, but thought the approach doesn't take into account a REAL attach using cloth knives and forcing aikido to attach when the BEAUTY of aikido is to use one's opponent strength into flowing in an aikido technique. You talk a lot about effectiveness of aikido, but I guess NO MARTIAL ART can be suitable to ALL SITUATIONS. I'm looking forward to seeing your aikido again. dėkoju!
Great Video. I'm from the tradition aikido side and have always wanted my training to be a s real as possible. From the Chiba/Tamura school. I have thought many times to give it up and go train BBJ. But as with any martial art. It will always open to criticism. Martial Arts are so varied and I think each suit a person to the type of character you represent. Also, the life you live and not by choice in many circumstances, where you live. I'm reading Meditations on Violence by Sgt Rory Miller. Very interesting read. All Martial Arts practitioners should read. The reason I'm still drawn to Aikido?
This was a really cool, interesting video. I enjoyed the commentary here and I think I have very similar sentiments to the coaches here. Aikido, in my opinion, needs a bit more of this. Aikido and judo are actually pretty dang different and I think we would see that even more if there were more aikido competitions. I would love if there were different types of aikido competitions, too. I'd like if there were competitions similar to what we saw in the first video (just certain forms of throwing/pinning techniques, basically). Then allow one with more grabs and takedowns. Maybe one with strikes. And maybe one where anything goes where actually applying the techniques in the curriculum rewards you more points. I think this would result in a more respectable martial art.
a person learning jiu jitsu can begin to apply their learned techniques from day 1 and feel a continuous improvement in their defensive capacities coupled with a confidence that those techniques are applicable in a real life scenario. Thats not to say aikido doesn't have any "good techniques" but basically what it seems to me is that you might not have the capacity to apply any of those "good techniques" until one has become quite proficient in the art. And then if you take someone from BJJ or Kickboxing who has trained for an equal amount of time as the Aikidokan, how good was the investment of your time and energy then? Its not that Aikido "cant teach you anything" its just that for the same investment of your time and energy, other forms are more likely to provide you with real world combative advantages. But ultimately not everything has to be done for real world advantages and the advantages can be in the value someone derives from a thing. A person that devotes all his time to learning chess is unlikely to have an advatage over an MMA fighter in a fight but we do what we do because it is enjoyable to us and therein lies its value.
This is a good assessment. I have known people who practiced Aikido for over 20 years. They definitely got some benefit as far as knowledge of the body, correct movement, philosophy, etc. But I wouldn't want to put them against someone who has been actively training in JuJitsu for 20 years. This is due to the training style, level of resistance, and what is emphasized.
I was just thinking about sending you a message to ask you to talk about the Tomiki Aikido and it´s competitions. Glad to see you are doing a video on it.
It would be interesting to get more of your take on the Tomiki Aikido. Did you know of it when you trained your style of Aikido, did you ever think of trying it, especially after you started to want to make Aikido more effective etc? I had a lot of the same thougths on the competition videos as they had in the video. It´s a lot like Judo with no grabbing the body of the gi, just the arms and they seem to get thrown because they have to make these large movements (like they said "overcommit") to get the proper angles on one another, where they otherwise probably could probably avoid being thrown at all by these kinds of techniques.
I started off studying ju Jutsu more or less simultaneously with aiki Jutsu. What gets missed in a lot of demonstrations is atemi. If you study Ueshibas teachings he stresses atemi which we also used in our ju Jutsu. In our aiki classes we even used to put on the headgear and go for it with the punches to pressure test our aikido. It absolutely does work but you need to train like that regularly to get to that level.
Why are the BJJ black belts saying "if it looks like another style, why train it"? That argument can be applied to literally any style including BJJ (which looks like Judo newaza), dutch kickboxing which looks like muay thai, sambo which looks like Judo, etc. Other than the knife rule gimmick, I think this is an excellent competition ruleset to foster a specific skill set that can be combat effective in niche/specific situations.
Very interesting that there is a style that does live Aikido sparring. One of the big critiques against Aikido is that it's possible it would only work with a compliant partner, I guess this goes a fair way towards debunking that. However I guess the obvious critique is that this may only work, or mostly only work, in a competition enviroment with rules in place. Almost always when a fight goes to grappling people grab on to each other and with both hands. I wonder how practical it is pulling off a lot of these moves once someone does grab hold of you?
The answer to Sumo is easy: run. Do you think that fat geezer is going to catch me if I take off at speed? I sure as hell am not going to wait for him to finish stamping and slapping himself!
I believe sumo is related to aikido. IIRC, Ueshiba practiced some sumo as well as daito-ryu. I see the influence, and when I watch sumo I like to call it "the true aikido." lol
Aikido competition can actually be an interesting sports/game. And from non-expert perspective it looks even better than Judo, because in Judo you just see two dudes hugging each other on the ground, while in Aikido you see fast and complex footwork, sometimes combined with beautiful throws.
This looks like it has applications as a form of no-gi judo, while staying out of the relm of wrestling by ruling out clinches or long holds. It might be applicable in an MMA form with no-gi and used as a "surprise throw" or "counter sweep" that takes an opponents commitments of punches or takedown attempts in an attempt to reverse them. I don't think this is a primary grappling technique but like taekwondo's spinning kicks which are not primary and has vulnerabilities, this could be useful as surprise moves that the dynamic of a fight due to it's presence.
Allow gi grabbing yes it’s judo now, allow hand grabbing you’ll see a lot of aikido. What’s one thing in common mma, wrestling, judo, jujutsu all have in common: no hand grabbing. Allow it and it will completely change what we will see in competition
As someone who came up learning a lot of Hapkido, I would love to see a more pragmatic version of competitive stand-up grappling exclusively centered around throws and standing submissions. Basically like shoot boxing without the strikes. If this were to be done, I would structure it like this: -No gi (to emphasize body grabs rather than Judo throws) -No gloves (in shoot boxing these limit dexterity which pushes the emphasis more on the kickboxing aspect) -Points awarded per round based on takedowns -All joint locks must start from a solid grab, striking or wrenching the joints would be illegal -Submissions only allowed if both opponents were standing when the technique started -If an opponent goes to the ground to squirm away from a submission, the top opponent can attempt to finish the technique as long as they don't drop below a kneeling position -Any submission (joint lock or choke) counts as a condition for automatic victory I imagine that these rules would work against the long-range grappling style seen in the Tomiki Aikido here. Getting a submission from standing, if we can learn from shoot boxing and Shinya Aoki's MMA, requires first gaining control of the opponent's center mass by way of grabbing their body and/or neck. Snatching a hand mid-motion as it flies through the air is just too difficult and risky, and you can see that even in the Tomiki video; they really struggle even just to get that initial grab. Decelerating the arms by shooting in to clinch or choke seems much more probable, and we've seen it work in other combat sports (shootboxing and MMA).
I can see some of this stuff applicable if a grappler gets hand control, for instance the guy who pressured in with his wrist and then got taken down with the throw In the clinch people get wrist control all the time. All the running around makes it less realistic but I feel like if the medium was that you need to be holding no more than one arm or hand at a time and no sleeve grips it could be a better art Another thing I liked is the knife could simulate someone trying to punch you from the clinch while you execute your throws, it clearly wasn’t knife work but someone who’s gassed out and throwing body shots in the clinch may be susceptible to this
The argument made about this competition can be made about any martial arts competition. There is no striking in a BJJ tournament, no submissions in a muay thai fight, no soccer kicks or groin strikes in American MMA.
And yet BJJ has proven time and time and time again to be effective in MMA and aikido has not. Not even a little bit. Before you tell me that's because there is no biting or groin striking or some other nonsense then yes I'll give you that much but BJJ has proven effective at the best strikers in the world trying to punch and kick your head off.
I do agree with the tanto issue you guys highlighted. Once the tori is stabbed they shouldn’t continue with their takedown. Just like in fencing, when a successful stab made contact the one that made the contact would have won the turn. No one could ever perform a nage technique with a hole in their lungs. Especially if the attacker pulls the knife right out. I guess that would realistically be the case anyway. In regards grabbing... I think Aikido excels exactly when the uke grabs the tori. Those are my favourite situations. From the point of contact, the hand they grab with is occupied and there for the taking. It gives an advantage to the tori and as uke, I would probably try to avoid grabbing the other Aikidoka. I am not sure if there is a rule against it but if not I would still try not to grab an Aikidoka. Kudos to the BJJ guys.
Awesome! I'm guessing everything has ironed out by now right? Nutrition and sleep and your body has caught up? Hey, are you more buff now? ;-) @@MartialArtsJourney
Pretty on point discussion. I just wish that a high level shodokan practitioner could add to the discussion where the natural breakdown of understanding shows up in the narrative. Totally understandable that 3 people from other arts would have questions about the pedagogy
Glad you featured Tomiki style. Am disappointed at the LACK of preparation. Too much theory and not enough practical as the BJJ MMA Gaykido that the 3 brought. Ryoka now has enough foundation in Gaykido and BJJ to get himself into some Tomiki classes. Heck he already got himself into some BJJ competition anyway. My clicks gotta pay for something.
Interesting thing, the angle moves are similar to a weapon duel, specifically dagger vs dagger or dagger vs unarmed - not the tanto randori, the normal competition. That is because in weapon combat striking is ineffective most of the time (outreached by dagger, can perhaps augument it or be useful if surprising), kicking is risky (you can get stabbed in the leg very badly) and long grips get you stabbed or cut unless you also control the weapon or weapon arm at the same time. But it's like a duel drill not a self defense drill. And in HEMA duels we do score points for slices and stabs... Enough points and round is done. This makes the moves and angles different from old Judo (the tanto - caused because no points for knife hits) and from the unarmed circling done in their competition. (because again no points for hits) The rounds are short. For sword we usually use one point, for dagger sometimes more. (tried up to 4, it changes the game a bit but not a whole lot) We sometimes use no points for slices with knife or weak strikes when simulating armored fighting. These turn out closer to tanto randori but less throw and more grappling and wrestling most of the time.
“In what was known as jujutsu in the old days, everyone used the same sort of techniques as Ueshiba Sensei. The problem, however, is how to incorporate them into training.” - Kano . My understanding is that Aikido pre-war was developed as a counter to judo - that emphasizes grappling. The big fault of Aikikai Aikido of today is that it does not emphasize atemi waza (strikes) and kansetsu waza (joint locks) enough - that Uesiba Sensei did, and also aikijujutsu Aikido (Tomiki Aikido - Tomiki's first teacher was Jigoro Kano) continued to do. If Aikido was much more competitive it would start to look like Hapkido (from Korea) and Systema (from Russia), there is many apparent similarities in principles (avoiding grappling and not focus on one enemy and stay mobile) but Post-war Aikikai Aikido became intently the spiritual Japanese reversal of Chinese Tai Chi with same focus on balance, wagō (harmony) and heiwa (peace) . Aikido become interesting for me with previous knowledge of Karate and Taekwondo. It is very possible to apply Aikido’s principles and a few movements in a scenario where you have a real opponent struggling against - But most Aikidokas lack the mental toughness and experience from real fighting so they will never connect the dots when it is applicable. Aikido has this strong focus on not harming your opponent. To be good at real fights take experience and being hit for real many times. Aikido would be more relevant of today if Ueshiba had not put a ban on shiai randori post-war.
Jimstein Peerless no, Aikido wasn’t developed as a response to Judo. Aikido came into existence in large part due to A) Ueshiba’s desire to distance himself from his teacher, Sokaku Takeda of Daito Ryu and B) Ueshiba’s philosophy as influenced by the Omoto Kyo religion.
@@sevynn3970 In Aikido you are supposed to be able to torque and move despite if someone is pinning/grabbing you. What I was getting at is how pins in Judo are used differently than in Aikido. Pins in Judo are used to control a person's upper body or to transition into a joint lock. The essence is that Aikido’s torque movements makes it hard for the uke to have control over the tori.
@@sevynn3970 Of course, Aikido was not developed in a vacuum but at a time in japan when Judo was very popular - and Jujutsu was considered too dangerous to teach in schools. Aikido was also used as self defense - however it was evolved because of what Morihei Ueshiba was believing at the different periods religiously-wise.
Also this is basically pressure testing against knife attacks/strikes. As a self defence training method it's going to be better than rolling about on the floor.
Out of the series of videos with the BJJ experts this is the best one. The first one was a little tough, they butchered a technique meant to be performed on a Samuria in full body armour trying to cut you in half with a Katana and turned it into sport grappeling. This was actually a great video, sport grappelers who have an eye for sport grappeling trying to uncode Aikido "sports". I use the term "Sport grappelers" not as a pejorative term, I did Gracie BJJ almost a decade myself.
The knife in Aikido is based on Japanese Tanto but is now used as a baton and is simply used to score points - it is not intended to be knife fighting ( we know its not realistic). Aikido is based on giving you opponent movement and as the commentator said prevents getting close - and grip. The Tanto (Baton) person has to provide movement by attacking to score points by hitting opponents chest. This provides energy to be used by Tori.Sport Aikido is not a form of self defence in this format, although was used by british Police for many years under the direction of Brian Eustace. Bob Jones
My martial arts "journey" has been folk style wrestling, shotokan style karate (trained specifically in the context of MMA with LOTS of contact sparring and allowing tying up/throwing/ground and pound), and currently BJJ. (So all very very practical and truly pressure tested stuff). Within that context I'd like to say, I personally like stuff like aikido, tai chi, wing chun, etc. My understanding of aikido specifically was that the developer was a very, very experienced martial artist and developed the art from his life philosophy he'd developed in his older age about trying to preserve all life, even an attackers. My understanding has also been that it was more of a finishing art (i.e. You already know how to fight using other martial arts in the first place...) Maybe I'm wrong about that info, not sure, but the problem I've seen now days isn't the art per se, simply the way it is taught. Think for instance, we all agree boxing, wrestling, muay thai, bjj, etc are "real" and "effective" ways to fight. But if you went to a boxing gym, and they taught you all about boxing AND taught you all the legit techniques, but you never even once had a sparring session, do you really think you'd stand a chance against an attacker who is stronger and meaner than you? Boxing works, but in that scenario your "boxing" would fail. The same is absolutely true for bjj. In my opinion (and it is just that), "traditional" martial arts get a horrible wrap now days, not because they never worked, but because at some point they devolved into weird cult-like behavior that became detached from reality, and that learning techniques somehow trumped experience sparring or fighting.
Although it does look more like Judo, on the technical level Judo has fewer neck, elbow and wrist techniques and most of them are barred from competitions due to safety. Judokas also prefer to go inside while Aikido has more outside techniques. What would be nice to see is an attempt to control an opponent on the ground right after a throw for even a few seconds.
@@Dragon749 Huh? you don't know he closed his own dojo to explore other martial arts when he realised the flaws of Akido? Just watch his introductory video and his old Akido videos. ruclips.net/video/RfEYwF5ioEM/видео.html
Interesting vid, not seen some of these styles before. Aikido was basically developed from samurai culture where people run at each other in war, which is the martial aspect and explains the circular movements that sometimes look stiff and robotic - when practiced by people that don't understand the real function(s) of them. How well these translate to hand to hand combat really depends on the practitioner imo. Couple of postives in the street fight scenario imo are (if done properly) the footwork and the rolls, both should help keep you out of harms way if done right.
I should comment on the first part of the video - the toshu (grappling) segment. It was quite rare to see it done that way - possibly because of the skill level. Often it does look like bad judo - where one grabs an opponent and presents fake openings to an opponent to invite a throw - then tries to counter throw at just the right moment in their throw. Countering a good throw takes exquisite timing and technique. It is not too hard if one is large and skilled practitioner to do a 3 minute round and no one throws anyone - by blocking everyone's throws immediately - but it makes for a very boring, unscored match. The trick is a bit like poker - you have to fool your opponent into believing you have left too much of an opening so that they attempt a real throw on a resisting opponent. Any real throw has a very small moment when balance is channeled down a very specific path - which means the throw can be countered by a specific technique at just the right counter angle and precise timing. Knowing this one has to wonder if your opponent is inviting you to throw them just so they can counterstrike your throw at precisely the right time - and they are hoping you won't be able to counter their counter and so on. The throw and counter throw timing is really tenth of a second timing or less. When I practice with the Australian champion he goes really soft. Peter lets me get any hold I want and generally just before I manage to throw him is exactly when he dumps me on the ground. If I manage to throw him even once I have had a really good night - and this is with him giving me a really big head start in terms of offering any hold I want anywhere on his body. I can do the same with most brown belts - from being stiff and rigid and powering down any throw they want to do instantly - to letting them almost think they've won and countering them about 80% of the time. You both learn a lot more if you are grappling if you start softly at say 20% - 30% power to probe and test each others balance and response and only go above 80% power very briefly and exactly when its needed. The Toshu also teaches connection - if my partner keeps me away from walls I could do Toshu against most brown belts with my eyes closed - and if I follow or mirror their movements I can be very soft but still give them almost no openings to throw me - so it teaches staying in balance by quick repositioning of hips and feet at a very early level. Very light toshu is a great way of warming up a class of experienced students. With beginners we often introduce them to toshu by going really soft with senior belts and tell the juniors stop the technique just before you throw a senior who isn't attempting not to be thrown - then have the seniors slowly demonstrate the counter - then stop before they throw the beginner, then have the beginner find an escape and launch a counter to the new throw. This teaches every throw has a counter and how to flow from one throw to the next to the next to the next. Once they can do this well we slowly speed it up. In the end it all comes down to timing and technique!
Again, what about bjj with its limitations on stricking in a bjj competition, or wrestling, or boxing which doesn’t involve kicks? I mean this is the first martial art where I have see a competition involving a knife and they don’t see any value in a competition where one person has a knife? The basis that this channel has is huge. I study wing chun, bjj and I have dabbled in Muai Thai and I would love to test myself against a knife in that type of environment to learn something and be pressured, but three bjj guys can’t see the value? Wtf....
Aikido is a weapon based style. This point seems to missing in analysis performed by BJJ experts here. Fight break down as grappling + striking is incomplete from Aikido's point of view. I guess if you add any weapon knife / sword /staff / bottle / rock, then some aikido stuff will make a bit more sense.
Agreed. From first moving to avoid a blade, then moving to control the weapon hand, and finally to create escape distance or throw and restrain --- this, to me, seem to the practical context of aikido. In contrast, while judo is fine, once a weapon is introduced, I think even a competent judo player would look to avoid the weapon and then to control the weapon hand and then throw or restrain the attacker.
Im am really really really skeptical about that. I dont think that any of this technics would work. So i suggest you could find a kendo or hema (historical european martial arts) club, people who actually train a weapon based martial art, nearby who you can test it with
@@whotubedyou yes, and then judo would look like this too. The experts were saying that if you added stronger grips to competetive aikido it would become judo. but if you add a knife to judo it would end up looking like this.
I think the reason why people hate this style is that it exposes the cracks in Aikido's foundation. without resistance it's basically just a really pretty, if slightly violent dance. though the biggest thing competition does add to Aikido is that it adds pressure/stress safely.
This series of Video I think is quite fair to Aikido. It's really quite nice to see competitive Aikido as well. Never seen that before. It looks like quite a lot of fun actually. Enjoyed seeing how these two BJJ coaches were also able to see some positive aspects about functionality of techniques in the principles of Aikido in the other video. Again I reiterate that Aikido has its place and purpose in martial arts , and that the problem arises when people try to sell it as something it's not. Namely a valid every day defense art. To my knowledge it's a budo study. So it stands to reason it's a study of principles and the daily application of the study is a means to forging of character. It's not really about fighting at all. When you make it about fighting it starts to look more like Judo which isn't surprising as when you trace things back before the beginning of budo studies to a more "aggressive" or "nationalist" Japan you find the various schools who preserved the more combative techniques associated with Feudal Japan. So when you take all this into account and you ask the right question which is do you actually want to learn how to fight and the answer is yes, then you need to study an art that caters to that. That appears not to be Aikido. At least you couldn't just study Aikido. You'd need to really study applying those principles and study at least one striking art and one grappling art. The simple way to tackle that for time's sake would be going to an MMA club. However if you want to study Aikido because you find it beautiful and you like the social aspect an want to be able to continue to old age and just apply yourself to something positive and cool then why not. From this video we've seen that there is even a rare middle ground where you can go compete. So there's certainly something for everyone in that sense and for that Reason Aikido can still have a valid place in martial arts. ( I don't practice it but I do study other budo, so that's the angle I'm coming from here. )
7:11 that really was an absolutely beautiful throw. I had to rewatch it a few times. Imo (w/ the dawn of mixed martial arts) for aikido to stay relevant as a self defense, including competition is necessary or else it'll become just an art practiced for tradition's sake. There are some fantastic aspects within aikido & I'd really like to see shotokan aikido get respect & grow. If the non competitive aikido styles want to say "that isn't aikido," send your best to these schools & prove it in a fight or match. Otherwise stop blowing smoke 🌬️💨( ( |
Break Down of Aikido Masters Demonstration: ruclips.net/video/I8VcKQT_BCQ/видео.html&t
I have little knowledge of this styles rules . I believe it is divided into 3 or 4 categories.. Story is that Kano went to see Ueshiba and was totally taken by Aikido proclaiming this is the ju I'm searching for. He asked Ueshiba to accept some of his top students. Tomiki was one of these student . He and Kano was an educator and trying to create a sport . Tomiki then went on his on . The history isn't hard to find. Ueshiba didn't want his system of training to water down to degrade into sport. It was the pressure test when practiced with uke that could protect themselves. The problem is now you have ranking people still training at beginners level. In lower levels resistence is to avoid injury from strikes and joint manipulation. The masters, there is no resistance because their movement timing and position avoids direct force while disrupting uses balance
@Juan Colinas,
What is the name of your school? Any videos? Thanks.
@@lionsden4563 Nope we're Aikikai members but we focus on kaeshi waza mainly and then the rest are part of Nagare waza which is basically not functional.
Please react to Sumo,the traditional and the sport
@Juan Colinas you might like sugawara tetsutaka sensei. he taught in china for decades. learned t'ai chi as well.
I've been practising Shodokan a long time within the UK and am very happy that it is currently being shown by big channels on youtube! So thank you!
Raising Supergirls' comment is bang on. I noticed you guys talking about how the tanto strikes didn't look realistic. When you're in a bout you require that "good stab" that Raising Supergirls talks about. It's a little tricky to define, and in the end is up to the refs to decide on using flag/hand signals to vote instantly. However a good strike would normally be one which is below the neck and above the waist, and deep enough to make the tanto bend significantly as oppose to just brushing the gi, or just brushing the person in the gi.
Because the person without the tanto is trying to perform techniques on the tanto wielder, there is the dilemma having to avoid a strike coming at you, while aslo having to get in close to break balance and perform a technique, which is why a lot of the avoidance looks like it's inviting the knife in to the person, they are usually trying to avoid the knife while moving in to do a technique.
Fouls (shido, much like in judo) are also awarded for different kinds strike which are illegal (for example, above the neck), or for not avoiding a knife strike properly (turning your body without avoiding the strike), or for things like just straight up running away from the knife.
The main difference for me between judo and aikido competition is that in Aikido, you can't grab the gi, but you can grab the face.
Also, on the topic of how we train, usually we train our techniques with no resistance in a kata form with and without tanto, we then move on to training individual techniques with no resistance, then in to training individual techniques with resistance where we are trying to flow them together, and then we would move in to full resistance, how to break someone's balance when they really dont want you to, etc. We also train counters for competition.
We do try and stay realistic, and like most martial arts say "if they have a knife, run" but that if it comes down to a hand to knife fight, then we try and train for that.
Thank you for the clarifications. This type of training should be wholly praised and encouraged. I think it could be improved by giving the knife wielder the freedom for prison shank, but other than that it's great. I thought it was illogical when the BJJ black belts said "if it just looks like another art, then why train that art". One could apply the same exact argument to literally any style, including BJJ, which during its inception was not too different from Judo Newaza. And there are tons of other styles that look similar to each other like Dutch kickboxing and muay thai, Judo and sambo, etc.
@@MaxLohMusic " I thought it was illogical when the BJJ black belts said "if it just looks like another art, then why train that art". Yeah i thought that, i think the bjj guy was just a tad bias and narrow minded. I wish i had took this art seriously than the traditonal one, but its too late now i have a bad back and cannot do it.
I must say that the commentary/discussion in this video is much more open minded. I Thank you for that.
Thanks for the video...
Thank you
It’s not open minded at all and Ive never practiced Aikido. Read my comment below.
I don’t see this as open minded at all and in fact it reveals the commenters as completely laking in understanding of kizushi. I hope they aren’t instructors, I would feel bad for the students.
Tomiki was I believe an 8th Dan in judo. Sent to learn aikido because Kano was impressed by aikido as a budo. O sensei gave permission for kenji tomiki to develop his ideas separately from the aikikai. The randori style is encapsulated in the randori no kata. Later students learn more traditional techniques in the form of koyryu no kata. I apologise for the poor spelling of some of the Japanese terms it’s been 45 years since I practiced tomiki style ( tomiki was the name used by the aikido association in the uk back then)
I have practiced BJJ (I am brazilian living in Brazil) and I also trained a bit of Aikido. Really like Aikido and I did managed do apply some movements from Aikido in BJJ (when you are standing, specially cause Aikido was created when Judo was dominant in Japan), but the main thing you can use from Aikido is the philosophy to try to guide your oponent strength and use it against him.
Shironage is a good movement, in the same way you can use it, but if your oponent resist, you turn it in to a take down as osoto-guruma. Anyway, Aikido is interesting and a good art, but it requires you to have some degree of knowledge of some other art to apply its principles and a few movements in a scenario where you have an oponent struggling against you.
exactly! I'm a judoka and this aikido stuff has its place in very specific circumstances, so if you have the time why not drop by some classes? I'd be much more willing to go if there was sparring elements.
Totalmente,eu uso algumas coisas do sumo no judo. Me ajuda muito
Train Luta livre along bjj this shit is too find out of Brazil
@@oneguy7202 I have never seen a Wrestling school here in Brazil, nor have met anyone who trains it. It is not a very popular fighting style here.
I've done some aikido and have pulled off a few moves while rolling Live in BJJ class. That being said, I wouldn't rely on it for my core system but some of the concepts can be useful.
First of all Rokas, thanks so much for doing this again. Also, please let your instructors know how impressive and respectful they come across in all the videos. They do their style and school proud. They are true martial artists in every respect.
Now there were some comments made that I would like to add my 2 cents to. One major thing is the misunderstanding of the techniques. Those are definitely Aikido techniques. I saw for instance hiji shime and irimi nage multiple times. To your coach's point, once you start to introduce resistance, it doesn't look as pretty anymore. Another comment was, can this be useful in MMA or combat competition? Probably not. But not because it is ineffective. I've thought about this alot myself. If we look at the true roots of the concept of "Aiki", what is it essentially in its true physical form? It's moving in harmony with your opponent's energy to unbalance and throw them. All martial arts incorporate this concept to some degree. However, the "Aiki" arts specialize in it. If we look at Aikido the purpose of the techniques is not to close in and grapple but to either avoid the physical attack or at best to negate the threat by throwing your opponent. Most major styles of Aikido have lost the ability to do that through a deficiency in training methods. What Kenji Tomiki seems to have done is to have created an ingenious way of keeping the "aliveness" of the technique in practice. Thats why these Shodokan practioners have such strong foot work and movement. From a philosophical perspective, Aikido is almost the antithesis of BJJ. Where BJJ closes in and grapples, Aikido (trained correctly) repels, throws and moves. Is that what you want in competition? No. Who wants to see two people avoiding each other? But how about in real life? Is pulling guard in a back alley more adviseable than a quick throw and running away? Maybe. If looked at in that way, you could conclude that properly trained Aikido and BJJ actually compliment each other. Two sides of a grappling puzzle.
Thanks for this though. Great discussion.
Thank you! Excellent observation. I believe that it is important for someone who is interested in self defense to know about how to fight on the ground simply because you don't want to be "that guy" on the bottom getting pounded. But that doesn't mean that you want to go to the ground if you don't half too. It's all about context.
Hats off! You managed to write down what I have been thinking for years! To my mind you nailed down basic and unquestionable truths
@@boxing.ascetic In a later video Roakas and one of his SBG coaches show that they have discovered that an aikido wrist lock/throw can work against a jab cross IF the aikido practitioner has learned enough boxing to get the timing. So the "Martial Arts Journey" has gone full circle. Who knows how many other "impractical" techniques from aikido can be made functional once the timing of boxing is understood? Aikido was developed around empty hand defense against a sword. But people don't go around today trying to bring a sword down on your head. In one of the previous videos one of Roakas' SBG coaches remarked "Well that defense might work if I came at you with a hatchet." Well...yeah.
But then...why not Judo?
@@percivalconcord9209 Because Tomiki Aikido already has Judo and Judo self defense incorporated into it. By no less than Jigor Kano himself.
Hi Rokas, Love the channel and sharing your search for effective martial arts practice. I am an Aikikai black belt (iwama style) and have trained Shodokan Aikido for 2 years as well and some Goju-Ryu Karate. Whilst competition, Tanto Randori and Toshu randori, are a focus for most players Shodokan Aikido does contain quite a bit of traditional style aikido. Kata style paired competition is also done where two pairs perform the same sequence of techniques, with no resistance, and a winner is decided by judges.
I originally bought into the myth that competition in aikido not really possible because the techniques are to dangerous, but this would presuppose that the arts that have embraced competition don't have dangerous techniques which I think is nonsense. Dangerous techniques are simply not allowed in or modified for competition.
I am 60 years old and while I am not very good at Shodokan Aikido the thing I love about it is the sparring. Being able to test myself against someone who is actively trying to thwart my efforts while I try to stop theirs is very rewarding and so much fun.
Tomiki Kenji the founder of Shodokan Aikido was an 8th Dan in Judo and 8th Dan in Aikido. He taught Shodo (calligraphy) and Judo at Wasada University, as I understand it he also taught at the Aikikai Hombu dojo at this time. Based on my reading (I may be wrong, just my belief) Tomiki Sensei was developing what he called "Judo Taiso" (Judo at a distance). This was to be his addition to expand Judo using adapted aikido techniques filtered through the need to actually work on uncooperative partners. Training in Judo Taiso was open only to senior Judo students and they assisted in the development.
Tomiki Sensei was given the opportunity to develop his Judo Taiso and a new art and have it accepted as a university club sport, this was extremely prestigious for him, but competition was a requirement of the university. As a result Shodokan or Sports Aikido was created. When we look at it's development it is obvious that it would look like Judo. Tanto randori the knife wielding competition is done in two parts of 2 minutes each with roles being swapped, with two similarly skilled players it is generally the player that has the tanto first that wins due to the other player gassing out, the unarmed player uses much more energy than the armed attacker.
It is my belief that traditional aikido needs to adapt to what's happening in the martial arts world, it is a beautiful art but has limited practicality unless complemented by other arts. Bruce Bookman Sensei is an Aikido Shihan with over 30 years training he is also a BJJ black belt and has done Karate, this is the type of training mix needed to be a more complete martial artist in the twenty first century.
I personally find MMA and other full contact combat sports to be a bit to brutal and bloody for my tastes, but they are popular and the top level practitioners are skillful and dedicated to their craft.
Once again thank you for sharing your journey, it is one that many of us have found ourselves on.To walk away from aikido took great courage, that courage with carry you forward.
Bill
Tomiki Aikido. FINALLY!!
It’s great to see my art recognized. Pretty good analysis on what must look odd when seeing it for the first time. My two cents:
1. There’s a whole lot more in the curriculum than just the sport.
2. The sport aspect is extremely fun and is a great way to meet practitioners from all over (we have national and international tournaments.)
3. A big aspect about the sport that hasn’t been mentioned is we don’t have weight classes. I’m unsure if that’s by design or necessity, but that’s how it is. This must be somewhat unique in competition sparring. Yes the larger competitors have an advantage, but Ive seen many impressively handled by smaller opponents also.
The people in the video have very beautiful footwork! Thank you for sharing this video and the commentary
Shodukan Aikido was founded by Weshiba's( founder of Aikido) first student Tomiki. Shodokan is now the main form of Aikido in the UK and Osaka, Japan. Also, this isn't the only form of competition. There are different types of competition that don't involve throwing such as Randori and team sports.
The real problem is the non competition, peaceful and harmony concept what has done most of the damage to aikido in my opinion.
The reL problem is that people seek fighting skills in aikido. You can decide to have a harmony concept, as long as you know if you lack pressure testing, you won't become the fighter of the century.
That’s because you don’t understand the point in the art lol
@@tomprowsemusic4864 If it has the word martial in it it has to teach some kind of fighting method, otherwise is just a dance and shouldnt be called martial art , but just a dance art .
@@arkhust6775 martial art is a Occidental translate from bushido. But bushido is not only about fighting.
We just fail to translate this word correctly. Tai chi is an bushido, but have nothing to do with fighting. This is a "spirit" aspect as aikido should be.
@@fabienbordes7788 i dont agree but ok.
I trained with Chiba Sensei in the 90s and the only time I ever heard him talk about an actual confrontation he had, he said he did a judo throw (he came from a judo background). I always thought that was interesting and reflects my experiences of trying to make Aikido work in live situations. I am a BJJ black belt now, and can make certain techniques work rolling (mostly kote gaeshi and sankyo) , but I am really applying those under a BJJ or judo control and off-balancing framework.
Anyway, great video and I really appreciate your videos.
In the Aikido world, Chiba was considered a "bad ass." But I think he was just a dick who abused his ukes.
@@timsmith3377 I can see where that impression might come from. Taking ukeme from him was terrifying and during technique portions you did not want him correcting you if you were nage (which meant becoming his uke). With that said though, I never felt like he was being a bully. He had a very martial approach to Aikido and I found this approach helped me learn (though did keep me in the fantasy world a little longer than necessary). I don't regret a day I spent training with him.
@@timsmith3377 I have seen him do thing that were border line criminal.
There are lots of judo throws in aikido.
Btw...i did tomiki aikido . grappling & judo is part of the training in addition to the 17 techniques
& hand releases, aikido is a high level chess game ...techniques break down at some point..but principle is still there
Great, great video! I really admire their attitude towards this experience and other arts! And I completely agree with their observations.
Hello, I am the media director for Tomiki Aikido of the Americas (tomiki.org). I am happy to offer some clarification on some of the questions in the video:
1. Yes, indeed, Professor Tomiki was a high level judoka - a hachidan, actually. He was part of the 3rd generation of Kodokan instructors, and his studies under O Sensei were officially sanctioned by Jigoro Kano. He worked with O Sensei from about 1926 until 1943, when Tomiki moved to Manchuria.
2. Professor Tomiki modeled his competitions on Kodokan judo shiai, and the scoring is quite similar. This is why there is so much crossover between judo and Tomiki Aikido (The Shodokan in Osaka is actually one of the two main schools in Japan, but both "Tomiki Aikido" and "Shodokan Aikido" are accepted names.)
3. Grasping is permitted in competition, but not the grabbing of the dogi. You are penalized for it. Also, you cannot hold your opponent in a single position for any length of time. The idea is to remain at a safe distance (ma'ai) and entice your opponent in.
4. As noted in the video, if you can grab, this quickly becomes judo. This is why Professor Tomiki introduced the tanto (knife) to the equation. In theory, the presence of the knife reduces the ability of toshu (the guy without the knife) to get inside and grab. He has to deal with the knife first. It took aikido back to its original concept of an unarmed man trying to disarm an armed man.
5. In tanto randori (with the knife), the stab (tsuki) only scores if the tanto bends against the opponent's torso. There are a number of other rules for the stab to score; but that's the basic one. The knife attacks are not "going easy" necessarily; but they are very formalized. The attack has to be a sort of jab, with the same hand and foot moving forward - no sneak attacks or strategic angles. It is not realistic. This was originally meant to limit the attacks so the opponent only used techniques Tomiki deemed safe for randori. (We have a list of 17 techniques permitted in randori.)
6. The person with the knife actually is not allowed to do any throws unless he is grabbed (we call it kaeshi waza). When grabbed, he can perform one of 5 techniques. So, you are correct, the knife does handicap one player. This is why a match is divided into two 90 seconds rounds, with the knife switching between players at the break.
7. I will say, concerning the comment about the "disappearance" of what makes aikido unique, that we should remember that aikido began as a particular understanding of jujutsu - incorporating "aiki" - a particular type of employing what was generally know about jujutsu. So, it is true that competition makes the unique pieces of mainline aikido "disappear." In theory, at least, this is because mainline is not about application or true resistance.
I really appreciate you guys taking the time to watch this video and take a look at Tomiki Aikido; and I'm happy to provide more information, videos, etc.
Erik DiVietro
Tomiki Aikido of the Americas - tomiki.org
(By the way, the big guy in the video at 15:03 is Joshua Ramey, an American who won the world title in 2011 (ruclips.net/video/ikZRp32KS7Y/видео.html).The video is his 2013 match against Norihiro Shimada.
Thanks for educating these guys! The ignorance is staggering!
Kenji Tomiki fused Judo competition with Aikido. High-level judoka actually do resemble this in some ways, as their understanding of balance and footwork and body mechanics are so fine-tuned, they use very little strength to toss their opponent.
I am glad you featured the Tomiki style..!
As a former practicioner of Tomiki Aikido I apreciate that
Gotta admit. The aikidokas here arent as effective ad other martial artist but I can see them taking on an untrained thug or streetfighter with those footwork alone.
I would bet on one of these guys over say... the majority of wing chun or ninjutsu practitioners.
@@bartfart3847 Striking is not included in many combat sports like BJJ, wrestling and judo. That doesn't make them ineffective. Just pointing out the flaw in your argument... In general though, I agree with you that people need to stop trying to "fix" aikido. Rather, the techniques of aikido should be integrated into other styles (mostly the kind you would see in Shodokan, the style in the video.) With the fundamentals gained through arts like BJJ, muay thai and wrestling, the techniques of aikido would be better executed and are useful in some self-defence contexts.
Okiwaga They punch yeah, but punching alone aint worth shit if your opponent can dodge and position like that aikido guys
@@bartfart3847 i genuinely think aikido can be functional, but you would have to revert it back to an actual martial art first, with live resistance. And a few aikido techniques are used in bjj, namely the wrist lock. Granted it would probably end up looking a lot more like western martial arts, but what works, works.
@Tim Hanselbach Try Alan Orr's students. Those guys can fight for real.
As far as I know, the knife gives one Fighter the ability to score (1 point per Hit) to stop the knife carrier from scoring you have to throw him (with a valid technique). Then the other one gets the knife and the ability to score.
Great points. I think there are ways you could change Shodokan to make it more realistic and still retain it's identity as different to judo or jiujitsu.
1. Focus on toshu, get rid of tanto altogether OR instead... wear headgear and use punches instead of a tanto.
2. Add newaza, but seeing as aikido likes to pin people belly down, make it so that those types of pins are the only ones that score (the reverse of wrestling's goal to pin them shoulders down.)
3. Add submissions (wristlocks legal, of course ;)
4. Allow more/extended grabbing! The 17 techniques can stay the same, but give them more leeway on what you can do to complete the technique.
What are the 17 techniques by name? I tried to google the list but i got nowhere... And i would like to learn them witha friend of mine, since there is no tomiki aikido where we live ñ_ñ
@@gingercore69 Look up the term "randori no kata"... or "tomiki randori no kata" maybe.
@@chaos_omega give "Ju Nana Hon" a google
Why get rid of tanto? Self defense against weapons is important for a realistic modern martial art. Add slashing techniques to tanto for the advanced practitioners yes. But don't get rid of it. Not every fight that someone might face in the real world is empty hand against empty hand.
@@johndrake5467 I agree, no reason what so ever to get rid of the knife defense aspect IMO
Effectiveness aside, this looks super fun
1. You're right in the sense that it is a less hard form of judo. I was told (dont remember by who) that tomiki meant to integrate these 17 techniques into the judo rule set. A TON of these practitioners have judo backgrounds already and like aikido because its softer on the body.
2. The tanto isn't meant to simulate a real knife, it's just supposed to incentivize atemi so that tori has a real, resisting opponent. The reason toshu (knifeless) randori isn't popular is because there isn't much reward to entering the opponents range. It turns into bad judo.
3. Its a specialty sport. Everybody I've trained with in shodokan aikido is totally honest about what they can and can't do. I'm mainly a thai boxer, and can hold my own but would still get tapped by an mma fighter with an existent ground game. Doesn't mean muay thai doesn't work. Means that I prefer to study a very particular sect of fighting because I find it more fun and more dynamic.
Shodokan aikido has helped me defend against clinch attempts and taught me to play better from the outside. Yes, its incomplete. So is karate, tkd, boxing, wrestling, and BJJ, though some obviously more than others. That's why we mix them. Aikido is a way to add extra options to already existing striking and grappling skills. It was only ever the aikikai guys arguing that their crap made them untouchable and magic.
Thank you. That's why hybrid martial arts and mixed martial arts exist. Also, it would have been very interesting if Tomiki managed to incorporate his techniques into Judo.
You know that random number generator is a very nice idea for an actual sport. Like you have a tournament and every match there is a random set of rules that allow for or forbid certain things drawn out of a box. Then you would have to be prepared for anything.
I would really like to see you guys look at Yoseikan Budo competitions and Hapkido competitions which often involve applied Daito-Ryu or Aikdo techniques in actual "mixed martial arts" scenarios
ruclips.net/video/x-wJ7EOhGnk/видео.html
Randori starts at 24:09
Even Mochizuki a 10th dan in Aikido felt it was essential for a shodan in Aikido to have a shodan in Judo. The newaza of some Yoseikan Aikidoka I have fought was much better than that of Judoka from schools who do not focus enough on winning on the ground.
But no, it does not need to devolve into just Judo if your Aikido is good and tested with randori... But sometimes a mule kick to the groin is still needed (see the video).
Also, for the tanto rules... in order to score with the tanto, I believe you have to; be taking a step, you must make contact with the knife & it must be a straight thrust.
@Lucas Gallindo Yes, only stabs are counted unfortunately.
@@chaos_omega It's an icepick. The self-defense response issues are why the organization I trained in rejected tanto randori. My issue is it encourages bouncing movement and favors quickness and speed. These are antithetical to the goal of stillness in motion. These people will never attain suigetsu.
You guys should make a video like this today, there is so much more interesting footage of people using aikido in bjj, both in training and competition and it looks honestly legit
The knife attack is a straight attack - it is part of the rules. You have to remember that it is a sport. The throws are similar to judo because Tomiki sensei was an 8th dan judoka. Also, the person with the knife, or tanto, is allowed to do techniques on the other person.
And if you add also small joint locks, japanese ju jitsu would have its Place in MMA competition.
It's natural that every martial art has its rules, also BJJ has its rules.
Different Styles, different perspectives.
People are still discussing on what is better and what won't work, every technique Can work under certain situations.
BlackKalmarSkull in Japanese jujutsu their small joint locks are wrist locks. You’re allowed to use wrist locks in MMA. Small joint in mma means 1 or 2 fingers or toes being grabbed. If you grab 3 or more fingers or toes, or a whole foot or wrist that’s legal.
Lucas Gallindo wrist locks are very easy to accomplish on the ground and make an otherwise loose submission impossible to escape. They’re great
Standing wrist locks aren’t bad either, and you don’t need to unbalance someone either. They’re just significantly harder to pull off against people who know how to grapple
Wrist locks are legal in BJJ and MMA. In my last match I should’ve tapped to a wrist lock. Fucked me up for 6 months. They’re very viable in BJJ on the feet and the ground. Jacare and Fredson Paixao are two great examples of good wrist lockers in BJJ. Only reason they aren’t viable in MMA is due to how strongly the wrists are taped up underneath the gloves...they aren’t worth trying in MMA but they aren’t illegal. I’ve seen people get taken down with kote gaeshi in mma (rarely but I’ve seen it).
@Lucas Gallindo and some catch wrestlers
@Soul Chicken Yeah that is true. If I'm not mistaken the very few differences are Judo being mixed with jujutsu bjj isn't anything revolutionary as we are led to believe its greatest contribution I personally think is the insistence on full sparring. Please correct me if I am wrong.
... the first video is actually that of a demo match (I was there and did the US demo, not an actual match), just an fyi
13:28 - it is very nice to see Adrian Jaoude competing Beach Wrestling on the background. 14 years ago we trained in the same really small dojo of Brigadeiro Jiu-Jitsu/Barra Wrestling =-).
A tomiki trained brown belt came to our judo club a few times. I randoried him some. He could make his stuff work surprisingly well, better than I expected certainly. Most of his stuff seemed to be for when he got a good grip on one arm. I would also add that I have done sankyo on the street several times (I learned it from a Marine as a little kid as a way to get into a hammerlock) and it can work out as you see in this video, where uke actually flips over (tho not always).
I could be wrong, but I think Tomiki Aikido was developed with some Judo concepts as well. I think the reason they don't allow direct grabbing may be to prevent reliance on Judo techniques. From what I've heard, a lot of folks who do this variant of Aikido also have rank in Judo, so the no grabbing thing would make sense to prevent the whole thing from turning into a Judo competition.
Hey, let's give some props to Aikido. At least this style is trying with competition.
They've been having competitions since the 1960's.
aikido guys have some decent footwork and angles and flow.
Im a BJJ practitioner, and just wondering why are you still so focused on critiquing Aikido. I understand you have spent a big part of your life in its practice, but I personally believe you should let it go, benefit from what you've learned from it and apply what is effective from it to your jiu jitsu. I was a shaolin kung fu practitioner, however once I transitioned into BJJ, 14 years ago, I never looked back. If some people believe it's effective, let them, in tnr hopes they will find your answer the same way you did. When you try to debate with another person with a strong a view, both parties just get entrenched in their view, this making it an arguement as opposed to a discussion and pursuit of the truth.
My dad always said, the only way to learn is to feel, and so far, at least in my life, this has come to be true.
I think you have a point here. There seems to be "time wasting" aspect to this: safely critiquing other styles from a distance without having the input of a practitioner to validate your assumptions. What do you truly hope to accomplish here but to get people riled up?
I know right? Lol these three guys seem to critique from an mma stand point and they’re not mma fighters...
You do t understand really. Its for content purposes. The reason why he put this vid and other aikido videos is because people have been bugging him in patreon. And he needs to placate those people at patreon because they are the ones who pay him. And you? Do you even donate a dime to him? Off course not.
Trust me there are a ton of people who messaged him about “Do this style of aikido, you havent featured it yet!” or “Youre not doing it right! Do better!” And these idiot fanboys bring him the dough he needs to feed his family.
2 old bjj folks & 1 guy with a pony tail critiquing an Art the have no clue about, how many fights have these guys been in again?? Yeah
@@SereneJudo
If i told you i did..or people i trained with did have those experiences would it change anything? Or would you make a video to dismiss that because its not on film?
I practice Aikido to denounce compatition because of deep seated anger. I will study BJJ because I think its fun and I need to learn ground work and Kickboxing to learn how to deal with offense! Thanks again for sharing your hard work
Hello MAJ, great video. A little more info for you. The original Japan Aikido Association set up by Kenji Tomiki split a few years ago. The video you are reviewing is an introduction to a new method of skill assessment “competition”. If you want to know more just let me know.
It would be interesting to hear what your take is on hapkido! From what I've seen so far on RUclips it seems like it's a lot more practical. But there isn't nearly as many people analysing hapkido as there is aikido, and I kinda wonder if I'm romanticising the idea of hapkido or if it actually has practical value.
Haokido is Aikido with kicks. The founder of Hapkido studied Aikido in Japan before World War Ii. In Korea, I had the honor to watch the top Hapkido man in Korea demonstrate his techniques. Utterly amazing! He was on of the top bodyguards of South Korean President Park.
How did they not see the flags being waved every time someone got stabbed with the knife? It's pretty clearly something like "try to throw by getting stabbed as few times as possible".
Just saw this video and really appreciate the critiques and observations from the reviewers. Resisted training is vary valuable and to their point, I do wish refinement of randori would to include standing grapple would occur. I am a former Shodokan player who trained at judo dojo and had previous scholastic/collegiate wrestling experience. Many of the senior judoka were also Shodokan players. We were encouraged to train and roll with judo players quite a bit and we were allowed to take our aikido technics to the ground and use judo holds to try for a finish.
And another very important thing that you forgot to comment on ... The advanced footwork shown by the participants. Creating angles, maintaining a distance, concepts, timing ...
Labas Rokas!! Thanks for the interesting video. You talked me out of shifting from aikikai to Tomiki aikido. I was thinking of visiting the Tomiki aikido main dojo since I live in Osaka, but thought the approach doesn't take into account a REAL attach using cloth knives and forcing aikido to attach when the BEAUTY of aikido is to use one's opponent strength into flowing in an aikido technique. You talk a lot about effectiveness of aikido, but I guess NO MARTIAL ART can be suitable to ALL SITUATIONS. I'm looking forward to seeing your aikido again. dėkoju!
Great Video. I'm from the tradition aikido side and have always wanted my training to be a s real as possible. From the Chiba/Tamura school.
I have thought many times to give it up and go train BBJ. But as with any martial art. It will always open to criticism.
Martial Arts are so varied and I think each suit a person to the type of character you represent.
Also, the life you live and not by choice in many circumstances, where you live.
I'm reading Meditations on Violence by Sgt Rory Miller. Very interesting read. All Martial Arts practitioners should read.
The reason I'm still drawn to Aikido?
I’d be interested to see a Shodokan Aikido video especially since you’ve never done it before where you went to a competition possibly.
Speaking of Tomiki, have you tried Judo yet?
This was a really cool, interesting video. I enjoyed the commentary here and I think I have very similar sentiments to the coaches here.
Aikido, in my opinion, needs a bit more of this. Aikido and judo are actually pretty dang different and I think we would see that even more if there were more aikido competitions. I would love if there were different types of aikido competitions, too. I'd like if there were competitions similar to what we saw in the first video (just certain forms of throwing/pinning techniques, basically). Then allow one with more grabs and takedowns. Maybe one with strikes. And maybe one where anything goes where actually applying the techniques in the curriculum rewards you more points. I think this would result in a more respectable martial art.
Excellent video!
a person learning jiu jitsu can begin to apply their learned techniques from day 1 and feel a continuous improvement in their defensive capacities coupled with a confidence that those techniques are applicable in a real life scenario. Thats not to say aikido doesn't have any "good techniques" but basically what it seems to me is that you might not have the capacity to apply any of those "good techniques" until one has become quite proficient in the art. And then if you take someone from BJJ or Kickboxing who has trained for an equal amount of time as the Aikidokan, how good was the investment of your time and energy then? Its not that Aikido "cant teach you anything" its just that for the same investment of your time and energy, other forms are more likely to provide you with real world combative advantages. But ultimately not everything has to be done for real world advantages and the advantages can be in the value someone derives from a thing. A person that devotes all his time to learning chess is unlikely to have an advatage over an MMA fighter in a fight but we do what we do because it is enjoyable to us and therein lies its value.
Agreed the thing i want to ad is that you need to be honest (to yourself?!) about it
This is a good assessment. I have known people who practiced Aikido for over 20 years. They definitely got some benefit as far as knowledge of the body, correct movement, philosophy, etc. But I wouldn't want to put them against someone who has been actively training in JuJitsu for 20 years. This is due to the training style, level of resistance, and what is emphasized.
I was just thinking about sending you a message to ask you to talk about the Tomiki Aikido and it´s competitions. Glad to see you are doing a video on it.
It would be interesting to get more of your take on the Tomiki Aikido. Did you know of it when you trained your style of Aikido, did you ever think of trying it, especially after you started to want to make Aikido more effective etc? I had a lot of the same thougths on the competition videos as they had in the video. It´s a lot like Judo with no grabbing the body of the gi, just the arms and they seem to get thrown because they have to make these large movements (like they said "overcommit") to get the proper angles on one another, where they otherwise probably could probably avoid being thrown at all by these kinds of techniques.
I started off studying ju Jutsu more or less simultaneously with aiki Jutsu. What gets missed in a lot of demonstrations is atemi. If you study Ueshibas teachings he stresses atemi which we also used in our ju Jutsu. In our aiki classes we even used to put on the headgear and go for it with the punches to pressure test our aikido. It absolutely does work but you need to train like that regularly to get to that level.
Why are the BJJ black belts saying "if it looks like another style, why train it"? That argument can be applied to literally any style including BJJ (which looks like Judo newaza), dutch kickboxing which looks like muay thai, sambo which looks like Judo, etc.
Other than the knife rule gimmick, I think this is an excellent competition ruleset to foster a specific skill set that can be combat effective in niche/specific situations.
Hey keep it up, you're really inspiring and should continue this journey ignore the negatives.
Judo and Aikido share many similarities as both came from Jujustu. Judo has pins and grips that are nearly identical to Aikido.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is just Judo without standup and throws
Tomiki was sent by Kano sensei of kodokan to learn aikido so yes, there are definitely image of judo here. Tomik was a 8 th Dan Judoka
Very interesting that there is a style that does live Aikido sparring. One of the big critiques against Aikido is that it's possible it would only work with a compliant partner, I guess this goes a fair way towards debunking that.
However I guess the obvious critique is that this may only work, or mostly only work, in a competition enviroment with rules in place. Almost always when a fight goes to grappling people grab on to each other and with both hands. I wonder how practical it is pulling off a lot of these moves once someone does grab hold of you?
They should react to Sumo.
You mean like pure Sumo Wrestling?
The answer to Sumo is easy: run. Do you think that fat geezer is going to catch me if I take off at speed? I sure as hell am not going to wait for him to finish stamping and slapping himself!
@@MartialArtsJourney yeah,because there are two "styles" of sumo
What's bad about sumo wrestling?
I believe sumo is related to aikido. IIRC, Ueshiba practiced some sumo as well as daito-ryu. I see the influence, and when I watch sumo I like to call it "the true aikido." lol
Aikido competition can actually be an interesting sports/game. And from non-expert perspective it looks even better than Judo, because in Judo you just see two dudes hugging each other on the ground, while in Aikido you see fast and complex footwork, sometimes combined with beautiful throws.
Maybe your best video yet, great!
This looks like it has applications as a form of no-gi judo, while staying out of the relm of wrestling by ruling out clinches or long holds. It might be applicable in an MMA form with no-gi and used as a "surprise throw" or "counter sweep" that takes an opponents commitments of punches or takedown attempts in an attempt to reverse them. I don't think this is a primary grappling technique but like taekwondo's spinning kicks which are not primary and has vulnerabilities, this could be useful as surprise moves that the dynamic of a fight due to it's presence.
they should make a ruleset that would allow for more than just BJJ or?
Allow gi grabbing yes it’s judo now, allow hand grabbing you’ll see a lot of aikido. What’s one thing in common mma, wrestling, judo, jujutsu all have in common: no hand grabbing. Allow it and it will completely change what we will see in competition
Dear Rokus. Your journey reminds me of the work of Karl Popper and his treatise on Falsificationism. Good luck with everything you do.
Loving this type of videos
As someone who came up learning a lot of Hapkido, I would love to see a more pragmatic version of competitive stand-up grappling exclusively centered around throws and standing submissions. Basically like shoot boxing without the strikes.
If this were to be done, I would structure it like this:
-No gi (to emphasize body grabs rather than Judo throws)
-No gloves (in shoot boxing these limit dexterity which pushes the emphasis more on the kickboxing aspect)
-Points awarded per round based on takedowns
-All joint locks must start from a solid grab, striking or wrenching the joints would be illegal
-Submissions only allowed if both opponents were standing when the technique started
-If an opponent goes to the ground to squirm away from a submission, the top opponent can attempt to finish the technique as long as they don't drop below a kneeling position
-Any submission (joint lock or choke) counts as a condition for automatic victory
I imagine that these rules would work against the long-range grappling style seen in the Tomiki Aikido here.
Getting a submission from standing, if we can learn from shoot boxing and Shinya Aoki's MMA, requires first gaining control of the opponent's center mass by way of grabbing their body and/or neck.
Snatching a hand mid-motion as it flies through the air is just too difficult and risky, and you can see that even in the Tomiki video; they really struggle even just to get that initial grab. Decelerating the arms by shooting in to clinch or choke seems much more probable, and we've seen it work in other combat sports (shootboxing and MMA).
I can see some of this stuff applicable if a grappler gets hand control, for instance the guy who pressured in with his wrist and then got taken down with the throw
In the clinch people get wrist control all the time. All the running around makes it less realistic but I feel like if the medium was that you need to be holding no more than one arm or hand at a time and no sleeve grips it could be a better art
Another thing I liked is the knife could simulate someone trying to punch you from the clinch while you execute your throws, it clearly wasn’t knife work but someone who’s gassed out and throwing body shots in the clinch may be susceptible to this
Very nice breakdown.
The argument made about this competition can be made about any martial arts competition. There is no striking in a BJJ tournament, no submissions in a muay thai fight, no soccer kicks or groin strikes in American MMA.
And yet BJJ has proven time and time and time again to be effective in MMA and aikido has not. Not even a little bit.
Before you tell me that's because there is no biting or groin striking or some other nonsense then yes I'll give you that much but BJJ has proven effective at the best strikers in the world trying to punch and kick your head off.
I do agree with the tanto issue you guys highlighted. Once the tori is stabbed they shouldn’t continue with their takedown. Just like in fencing, when a successful stab made contact the one that made the contact would have won the turn. No one could ever perform a nage technique with a hole in their lungs. Especially if the attacker pulls the knife right out. I guess that would realistically be the case anyway.
In regards grabbing... I think Aikido excels exactly when the uke grabs the tori. Those are my favourite situations. From the point of contact, the hand they grab with is occupied and there for the taking. It gives an advantage to the tori and as uke, I would probably try to avoid grabbing the other Aikidoka. I am not sure if there is a rule against it but if not I would still try not to grab an Aikidoka.
Kudos to the BJJ guys.
Any videos on your own training coming soon?
Ha, I was thinking about you today Mohseen! Yes, probably next week, a next recorded sparring
Awesome! I'm guessing everything has ironed out by now right? Nutrition and sleep and your body has caught up? Hey, are you more buff now? ;-) @@MartialArtsJourney
Pretty on point discussion. I just wish that a high level shodokan practitioner could add to the discussion where the natural breakdown of understanding shows up in the narrative. Totally understandable that 3 people from other arts would have questions about the pedagogy
Great video, always wanted to get into Tomiki aikido when I was into aikido.
Glad you featured Tomiki style. Am disappointed at the LACK of preparation. Too much theory and not enough practical as the BJJ MMA Gaykido that the 3 brought. Ryoka now has enough foundation in Gaykido and BJJ to get himself into some Tomiki classes. Heck he already got himself into some BJJ competition anyway.
My clicks gotta pay for something.
Interesting thing, the angle moves are similar to a weapon duel, specifically dagger vs dagger or dagger vs unarmed - not the tanto randori, the normal competition. That is because in weapon combat striking is ineffective most of the time (outreached by dagger, can perhaps augument it or be useful if surprising), kicking is risky (you can get stabbed in the leg very badly) and long grips get you stabbed or cut unless you also control the weapon or weapon arm at the same time.
But it's like a duel drill not a self defense drill. And in HEMA duels we do score points for slices and stabs... Enough points and round is done. This makes the moves and angles different from old Judo (the tanto - caused because no points for knife hits) and from the unarmed circling done in their competition. (because again no points for hits) The rounds are short. For sword we usually use one point, for dagger sometimes more. (tried up to 4, it changes the game a bit but not a whole lot)
We sometimes use no points for slices with knife or weak strikes when simulating armored fighting. These turn out closer to tanto randori but less throw and more grappling and wrestling most of the time.
Maybe the best commentary ever seen.
I can draw the thread to grappling, at least for the first. I'm 130 lbs, but for most my life my fight weight was
I'm a shodokan aikidoka. If you have any questions about it I'd be more than happy to answer.
Aikido is great for a intercepting style blocking used to redirect energy. They can easily break limbs, or throw people around.
“In what was known as jujutsu in the old days, everyone used the same sort of techniques as Ueshiba Sensei. The problem, however, is how to incorporate them into training.” - Kano .
My understanding is that Aikido pre-war was developed as a counter to judo - that emphasizes grappling. The big fault of Aikikai Aikido of today is that it does not emphasize atemi waza (strikes) and kansetsu waza (joint locks) enough - that Uesiba Sensei did, and also aikijujutsu Aikido (Tomiki Aikido - Tomiki's first teacher was Jigoro Kano) continued to do. If Aikido was much more competitive it would start to look like Hapkido (from Korea) and Systema (from Russia), there is many apparent similarities in principles (avoiding grappling and not focus on one enemy and stay mobile) but Post-war Aikikai Aikido became intently the spiritual Japanese reversal of Chinese Tai Chi with same focus on balance, wagō (harmony) and heiwa (peace) .
Aikido become interesting for me with previous knowledge of Karate and Taekwondo. It is very possible to apply Aikido’s principles and a few movements in a scenario where you have a real opponent struggling against - But most Aikidokas lack the mental toughness and experience from real fighting so they will never connect the dots when it is applicable. Aikido has this strong focus on not harming your opponent. To be good at real fights take experience and being hit for real many times. Aikido would be more relevant of today if Ueshiba had not put a ban on shiai randori post-war.
Jimstein Peerless no, Aikido wasn’t developed as a response to Judo. Aikido came into existence in large part due to A) Ueshiba’s desire to distance himself from his teacher, Sokaku Takeda of Daito Ryu and B) Ueshiba’s philosophy as influenced by the Omoto Kyo religion.
@@sevynn3970 In Aikido you are supposed to be able to torque and move despite if someone is pinning/grabbing you.
What I was getting at is how pins in Judo are used differently than in Aikido. Pins in Judo are used to control a person's upper body or to transition into a joint lock. The essence is that Aikido’s torque movements makes it hard for the uke to have control over the tori.
@@sevynn3970 Of course, Aikido was not developed in a vacuum but at a time in japan when Judo was very popular - and Jujutsu was considered too dangerous to teach in schools. Aikido was also used as self defense - however it was evolved because of what Morihei Ueshiba was believing at the different periods religiously-wise.
Also this is basically pressure testing against knife attacks/strikes. As a self defence training method it's going to be better than rolling about on the floor.
Out of the series of videos with the BJJ experts this is the best one. The first one was a little tough, they butchered a technique meant to be performed on a Samuria in full body armour trying to cut you in half with a Katana and turned it into sport grappeling. This was actually a great video, sport grappelers who have an eye for sport grappeling trying to uncode Aikido "sports". I use the term "Sport grappelers" not as a pejorative term, I did Gracie BJJ almost a decade myself.
The knife in Aikido is based on Japanese Tanto but is now used as a baton and is simply used to score points - it is not intended to be knife fighting ( we know its not realistic). Aikido is based on giving you opponent movement and as the commentator said prevents getting close - and grip. The Tanto (Baton) person has to provide movement by attacking to score points by hitting opponents chest. This provides energy to be used by Tori.Sport Aikido is not a form of self defence in this format, although was used by british Police for many years under the direction of Brian Eustace.
Bob Jones
This is good, you might be the first to merge Aikido with BJJ and judo
Fascinating stuff. I've always thought Tomiki competition looks like incomplete judo.
maybe you did not read the comment on the previous video but it would be kind of you to name your Bjj instructors. Thank you.
I didn't hear back from you about my question on this however, I'm glad you looked into it and made a video
My martial arts "journey" has been folk style wrestling, shotokan style karate (trained specifically in the context of MMA with LOTS of contact sparring and allowing tying up/throwing/ground and pound), and currently BJJ. (So all very very practical and truly pressure tested stuff). Within that context I'd like to say, I personally like stuff like aikido, tai chi, wing chun, etc. My understanding of aikido specifically was that the developer was a very, very experienced martial artist and developed the art from his life philosophy he'd developed in his older age about trying to preserve all life, even an attackers. My understanding has also been that it was more of a finishing art (i.e. You already know how to fight using other martial arts in the first place...) Maybe I'm wrong about that info, not sure, but the problem I've seen now days isn't the art per se, simply the way it is taught. Think for instance, we all agree boxing, wrestling, muay thai, bjj, etc are "real" and "effective" ways to fight. But if you went to a boxing gym, and they taught you all about boxing AND taught you all the legit techniques, but you never even once had a sparring session, do you really think you'd stand a chance against an attacker who is stronger and meaner than you? Boxing works, but in that scenario your "boxing" would fail. The same is absolutely true for bjj. In my opinion (and it is just that), "traditional" martial arts get a horrible wrap now days, not because they never worked, but because at some point they devolved into weird cult-like behavior that became detached from reality, and that learning techniques somehow trumped experience sparring or fighting.
Although it does look more like Judo, on the technical level Judo has fewer neck, elbow and wrist techniques and most of them are barred from competitions due to safety. Judokas also prefer to go inside while Aikido has more outside techniques.
What would be nice to see is an attempt to control an opponent on the ground right after a throw for even a few seconds.
Next video: Taekwondo experts breakdown Boxing competitions.
Hahahahaha
huh, you do realise the channel owner is an Akido master himself right?
@@howardlam6181 lmao master??? U gotta be shitting me.
@@Dragon749 Huh? you don't know he closed his own dojo to explore other martial arts when he realised the flaws of Akido? Just watch his introductory video and his old Akido videos. ruclips.net/video/RfEYwF5ioEM/видео.html
Some of his videos are good but the aikido videos just make aikido look very useless. I like the one where they teach him mount skills
Interesting vid, not seen some of these styles before. Aikido was basically developed from samurai culture where people run at each other in war, which is the martial aspect and explains the circular movements that sometimes look stiff and robotic - when practiced by people that don't understand the real function(s) of them. How well these translate to hand to hand combat really depends on the practitioner imo. Couple of postives in the street fight scenario imo are (if done properly) the footwork and the rolls, both should help keep you out of harms way if done right.
Rokas I have read on Wikipedia that Shodokan Aikido is taught at Waseda University in Japan historically.
I should comment on the first part of the video - the toshu (grappling) segment. It was quite rare to see it done that way - possibly because of the skill level. Often it does look like bad judo - where one grabs an opponent and presents fake openings to an opponent to invite a throw - then tries to counter throw at just the right moment in their throw. Countering a good throw takes exquisite timing and technique. It is not too hard if one is large and skilled practitioner to do a 3 minute round and no one throws anyone - by blocking everyone's throws immediately - but it makes for a very boring, unscored match. The trick is a bit like poker - you have to fool your opponent into believing you have left too much of an opening so that they attempt a real throw on a resisting opponent.
Any real throw has a very small moment when balance is channeled down a very specific path - which means the throw can be countered by a specific technique at just the right counter angle and precise timing. Knowing this one has to wonder if your opponent is inviting you to throw them just so they can counterstrike your throw at precisely the right time - and they are hoping you won't be able to counter their counter and so on. The throw and counter throw timing is really tenth of a second timing or less.
When I practice with the Australian champion he goes really soft. Peter lets me get any hold I want and generally just before I manage to throw him is exactly when he dumps me on the ground. If I manage to throw him even once I have had a really good night - and this is with him giving me a really big head start in terms of offering any hold I want anywhere on his body. I can do the same with most brown belts - from being stiff and rigid and powering down any throw they want to do instantly - to letting them almost think they've won and countering them about 80% of the time. You both learn a lot more if you are grappling if you start softly at say 20% - 30% power to probe and test each others balance and response and only go above 80% power very briefly and exactly when its needed. The Toshu also teaches connection - if my partner keeps me away from walls I could do Toshu against most brown belts with my eyes closed - and if I follow or mirror their movements I can be very soft but still give them almost no openings to throw me - so it teaches staying in balance by quick repositioning of hips and feet at a very early level. Very light toshu is a great way of warming up a class of experienced students.
With beginners we often introduce them to toshu by going really soft with senior belts and tell the juniors stop the technique just before you throw a senior who isn't attempting not to be thrown - then have the seniors slowly demonstrate the counter - then stop before they throw the beginner, then have the beginner find an escape and launch a counter to the new throw. This teaches every throw has a counter and how to flow from one throw to the next to the next to the next. Once they can do this well we slowly speed it up. In the end it all comes down to timing and technique!
Again, what about bjj with its limitations on stricking in a bjj competition, or wrestling, or boxing which doesn’t involve kicks? I mean this is the first martial art where I have see a competition involving a knife and they don’t see any value in a competition where one person has a knife? The basis that this channel has is huge. I study wing chun, bjj and I have dabbled in Muai Thai and I would love to test myself against a knife in that type of environment to learn something and be pressured, but three bjj guys can’t see the value? Wtf....
Aikido is a weapon based style. This point seems to missing in analysis performed by BJJ experts here. Fight break down as grappling + striking is incomplete from Aikido's point of view. I guess if you add any weapon knife / sword /staff / bottle / rock, then some aikido stuff will make a bit more sense.
I agree totally. The problem is the majority of Aikidokas don't train weapons which gives way to poor technique.
Agreed.
From first moving to avoid a blade, then moving to control the weapon hand, and finally to create escape distance or throw and restrain --- this, to me, seem to the practical context of aikido.
In contrast, while judo is fine, once a weapon is introduced, I think even a competent judo player would look to avoid the weapon and then to control the weapon hand and then throw or restrain the attacker.
Agreed, I think it could complement kendo or iaido.
Im am really really really skeptical about that. I dont think that any of this technics would work. So i suggest you could find a kendo or hema (historical european martial arts) club, people who actually train a weapon based martial art, nearby who you can test it with
@@whotubedyou yes, and then judo would look like this too. The experts were saying that if you added stronger grips to competetive aikido it would become judo. but if you add a knife to judo it would end up looking like this.
I think the reason why people hate this style is that it exposes the cracks in Aikido's foundation. without resistance it's basically just a really pretty, if slightly violent dance. though the biggest thing competition does add to Aikido is that it adds pressure/stress safely.
This series of Video I think is quite fair to Aikido. It's really quite nice to see competitive Aikido as well. Never seen that before. It looks like quite a lot of fun actually. Enjoyed seeing how these two BJJ coaches were also able to see some positive aspects about functionality of techniques in the principles of Aikido in the other video. Again I reiterate that Aikido has its place and purpose in martial arts , and that the problem arises when people try to sell it as something it's not. Namely a valid every day defense art. To my knowledge it's a budo study. So it stands to reason it's a study of principles and the daily application of the study is a means to forging of character. It's not really about fighting at all. When you make it about fighting it starts to look more like Judo which isn't surprising as when you trace things back before the beginning of budo studies to a more "aggressive" or "nationalist" Japan you find the various schools who preserved the more combative techniques associated with Feudal Japan. So when you take all this into account and you ask the right question which is do you actually want to learn how to fight and the answer is yes, then you need to study an art that caters to that. That appears not to be Aikido. At least you couldn't just study Aikido. You'd need to really study applying those principles and study at least one striking art and one grappling art. The simple way to tackle that for time's sake would be going to an MMA club. However if you want to study Aikido because you find it beautiful and you like the social aspect an want to be able to continue to old age and just apply yourself to something positive and cool then why not. From this video we've seen that there is even a rare middle ground where you can go compete. So there's certainly something for everyone in that sense and for that Reason Aikido can still have a valid place in martial arts. ( I don't practice it but I do study other budo, so that's the angle I'm coming from here. )
Does anyone know the name of the technique at around 13:05?
Tenkai kote hineri
@@tomikiaikidospb thank you!
Which one is better Tomiki or Shodokan
They're the same thing
7:11 that really was an absolutely beautiful throw. I had to rewatch it a few times. Imo (w/ the dawn of mixed martial arts) for aikido to stay relevant as a self defense, including competition is necessary or else it'll become just an art practiced for tradition's sake. There are some fantastic aspects within aikido & I'd really like to see shotokan aikido get respect & grow.
If the non competitive aikido styles want to say "that isn't aikido," send your best to these schools & prove it in a fight or match. Otherwise stop blowing smoke
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