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AIKI
Resource Solutions Page
General questions and training challenges are addressed with reference to BUSHIDO-KAI's book and video resources.
Bookmark this page and come back regularly to see if your training challenge is addressed.
1. I have trained in Aikikai aikido, ju-jutsu, and a hybrid style of aikido. Each seems to insist that a technique like ikkyo or kote gaeshi not only be named differently but be performed differently. I can understand that different styles have different requirements, but isn't the success of a technique about adapting it to the opponent rather my adapting to the style?
Yes, the success of a technique always depends on adapting to the opponent; however, without a style, what would we have to adapt? Instructors have to demand specifics in your execution of a technique otherwise there is not way of marking you. Sure, they can give you a passing grade if your partner goes down but we all know that compliance too easy to fabricate. Instructors have reasons for wanting this or that in the execution of a technique. That having been said, however, I agree with your underlying premise that stylistic adjustment is more important than stylistic conformity. And the names, of course, are just referents that seldom matter at all.
You can't change your style insistence of its method but you can learn variations so that you will be able to more readily adjust to a given opponent. Many variations to most of the popular aiki and ju-jutsu techniques can be found in the 6 DVD set Comparative Aiki in Action and the book Comparative Aiki in Action .
2. Your DVD set Principles of Aiki was enlightening to say the least. What is the difference between it and your Principles of Advanced Budo ?
The Principles of Aiki was based on Soke Don Angier's pioneering work in the study of principles. His Yanagi Ryu was formulated around 50 of these principles many of which he has been kind enough to share in various seminars. I created The Principles of Advanced Budo to widen the range of principles study by including karate. The 25 basic principles and the much longer chart we use can be interpreted many ways so that they can apply to both hard and soft arts. These specific principles serve as the okuden (private teachings) of Takeshin Sogo Budo.
3. It is difficult to believe that your "invisible aiki" will actually work in a street confrontation. I have a difficult enough time applying hard and fast ju-jutsu let alone the supposedly superior subtle stuff. Isn't all that fancy "invisible" stuff just for show?
There are a lot of preconceived noitons embedded in your question. First, let me clarify that "invisible aiki" is a name I borrowed from a correspondent who was training using our early videotapes as a guide. It came from Don Angier's "invisible block" and is echoed in aikido's aiki-nage. The assumption is that an attacker can be off-balanced and sometimes thrown by deflecting his intent visually and mentally.
In the dojo, where timing is much easier than on the street, the invisible stuff, as you put it, works. Obviously, as with any other skill, the techniques must be practiced against several different opponents for months and years before you can depend on them.
I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but I believe that ALL techniques, hard or soft, ju-jutsu or aiki, are difficult to do as shown in the dojo when dealing with a street confrontation. I also believe that that sort of application is not what training is about. Training is using specific techniques and specific drills to result in generic skills that, in application, may not look like their training counterparts. Here's a simple analogy: if you are a baseball player, your batting coach drills you on the specific details and timing of a swing. Sure, you apply your own body idiosyncrasies to it, but he makes you change some of your bad habits. Your body learns not the exact swing but the concepts the swing is based on. When the pitcher throws a screwball rather than a fastball, you adjust so that your swing is not the practiced perfect swing, but one appropriate to the situation (see question 1 above.) All martial arts techniques are perfect blueprints for the imperfect world. Once you learn techniques, you can then learn variations, then the principles on which the techniques were based. After mastering principles, form is incidental. Our DVD set The Road to Mastery is based on this developmental journey from basics to mastery.
When a street confrontation comes, you don't apply technique A, B or C, rather you react, functioning by the principles and habits your body has absorbed. So, if you study both An Introduction to Minimal Motion Invisible Aiki and Instructing Invisible Aiki AFTER you have a pretty solid knowledge of both technique and principles, you may see how much of what is taught CAN be applied, but probably not exactly the way it is demonstrated on DVD. Instructional demonstrations are to teach. Like anything one learns, the more obvious, simpler skills are used as illustrations first.
Invisible Aiki is definitely not just for show (although it does make a nice demo,) rather it is an upper level study, premised on the idea that one already has substantial self-defense knowledge. Therefore, many students are not ready for it. If it is not right for you, stay with what you feel is more practical.
4. As a karate-ka, I have long held a fascination for the softer arts like Aiki but did not believe it would work on the street. Then a friend of mine who is a cop said he wasn't allowed to strike or choke a perp unless he was in danger. That got me thinking. Do you have anything that addresses the practical side of aiki?
You make an excellent point. Both bouncers and law-enforcement professionals are restricted in what they can do to the bad guy, but they still have to subdue or arrest him. Makes sense since he is innocent until proven guilty and you wouldn't want to concuss a fellow who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Police brutality is good for lawyers but not for cops.
Ju-jutsu and aiki-ju-jutsu are two of the best choices for those who arrest for a living. I discussed this subject with New York Warrant Office and senior aiki-ju-jutsu-jin, Miguel Ibarra years ago. We decided that we could not show aiki defenses to every possible attack, but that there were a few attacks that were common in arrest situations. The result was the two-DVD set Aiki for the Streets in which Master Ibarra shows the ju-jutsu he common uses, and tells stories of some of his applications. I contribute a receiving system that deals with the majority of striking attacks without having to memorize a reception for each attack. This method is recapitulated for karate-ka in our Sudden Attack Defense set, One-step Sparring for Today's World . You also may wish to consider Pascal Serei at Bushido-kai . Pascal is a bodyguard and has taught SWAT teams in Canada.
5. Today most ju-jutsu is Brazilian ju-jutsu, which has proven to be victorious over karate, boxing and other systems. Isn't aiki-ju-jutsu, which doesn't even have grappling, kind of old school?
Yes, very old.
There are a couple of imbedded assumptions here, not unusual when martial artists ask questions based on seeing only part of the martial elephant. It is true that the fashion in ju-jutsu today is to either teach or adapt some sort of ground grappling now that the Gracie family has made it so popular. I support the idea that a complete martial artist should have some ground grappling in his repertoire. Brazilian ju-jutsu is an attempt to hearken back to the ju-jutsu that was at the root of judo. Traditional Japanese ju-jutsu, having been defeated by the more scientific judo in a famous match at Tokyo Police Headquarters, went into disrepute and almost died out. Then it was judo's turn to take a nosedive. In the 1960s, karate appeared and showed the weaknesses of judo as a sport. Karate first dominated in popularity, took its own sport route then, in the 1990s, Brazilian ju-jutsu showed the weaknesses of karate as a sport.
The problem is that we tend to compare apples and oranges. Sport, no matter how brutal it is, is not self-defense. That does not mean that sport guys are not tough--in fact they train much harder than self-defense students. But, the sport arena is limited to a certain type of individual and a certain age group. The self-defense areana is not.
Brazilian ju-jutsu, has indeed been victorious over karate and boxers at times. At other times, it has not. Regardless, the sport contest does not tell us anything about what art is best for an individual in a self-defense situation. Do you really expect a 45-year-old mother, even in tip-top shape, to perform a double-leg takedown on and grapple with a 225-pound perp? In fact, for self-defense, it is far better to avoid any situation that leads to grappling. That's why we issue Inferior Superiority: Ground Defense. I don't mean to suggest that it is the final word in defending against a Brazilian ju-jutsu fighter--it is not. Rather, it helps self-defense students avoid entering into situations that even cage fighters would avoid on the street.
Another hidden assumption is that aiki-ju-jutsu does not have grappling. I think you mean to say that it does not have ground wrestling. True enough. Nevertheless, most of aiki is grappling albeit standing grappling. The emphasis on standing up was supplemented by traditional kneeling techniques because samurai did not want to be on their backs at any time: pretty hard to defend against weapons or more than one assailant from that position. The kneeling techniques are obviously inappropriate to Western society that uses chairs instead of tatami, but they can easily be adapted as chair-sitting techniques. Some of these kneeling techniques are show in our Aiki Hachikyu DVD and our Modifications for Mastery: Aiki Nidan DVD.
The old school still has something to offer those who are interested in self-defense rather than sport.
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