Sure. Another thing about war is that one is allowed to rely on deception. If a violent man confronts you with a claim that you’ve been harassing his girl, it may be best to just deny everything; accuse the girl of something; claim that you’re gay; whatever.
Sometimes the best defense is the ancient martial art of Bullshitsu.
That’s the common peroneal pressure point. And yes, it works that well. It’s one of the two primary pressure points to take someone out fast, the other being the brachial plexus origin.
That guy, sadly, is just one of the reasons that martial arts has the problems that it does. There are too many people like him that are willing to play the “master of 97 different martial arts” bullshit card. Sadly, there are too many people that get suckered by them.
Of course not, and I don’t see whether or not it matters if he was ‘in tune with the universe’. The question being asked is: How much better is a martial-arts master then just a well-trained fighter? For all their flashy moves styles like Taekwondo and Muay Thai require evenly matched opponents. Aikido on the other hand is all about using the opponents force against them, and the more force the better. Kicking and punching can be obsorbed, but a broken wrist is a broken wrist.
What on earth is the old sensei doing in the first part of the video? Does he have his students brainwashed into believing that just a wave of his hand can hurt them? Or are they just playing along with his delusions? That was very bizarre (and also funny at the same time)!
He (apparently) believes that he has mastered the life force kiai, sometimes known as chi, or ki, or qi. Cite. In my opinion, the students are brainwashed. See Clothahump’s post above. What stuns me is that he seems to have come to believe it himself.
Also, the guy he fought was pretty run of the mill, and appeared to be be deferential towards him. If a UFC middleweight had stepped onto the mat, it would not have lasted ten seconds.
[Takes a Deep Breath]
What’s wonderful about the world of martial arts today is that finally we have experimental evidence of what works and what doesn’t; it’s called “Mixed Martial Arts” competition - the U.F.C. and Pride are the leading examples of this phenomenon. Why is it wonderful? Because for the first time a pragmatic, empirical approach has been taken to fighting that is very visible in the media - for all the world to see.
The people who compete at this level will do anything to get an edge. Whenever someone comes up with something new and effective, it isn’t long before everyone is using it and figuring out how to counter it. MMA is survival of the fittest, in terms of fighting techniques against skilled, scary opponents.
My point is this: not only do you not see Aikido winning any matches in the UFC, you don’t see Aikido at all in the UFC. Given the environment, the obvious conclusion is that Aikido is simpily not an effective fighting method. This is nice, because it is also the right conclusion.
There really is no excuse for not thinking otherwise anymore, short of a dogmatic belief based on your opinion of your teacher. A basic knowledge of highschool statistics should be enough to stop you drawing general conclusions based on a biased sample of size one! If I come across as harsh, then it’s because I have to put up with this kind of thinking every day and it wears me down no end. The classic excuse for the lack of Aikido in serious competition is that it’s supposed to be defensive in nature; you shouldn’t be using Aikido in this manner. The fatal flaw in this argument is that the people who do get in the ring look at anything and everything in order to get the edge. If Aikido really was “the ultimate” (better than Thai Boxing?! Please.), then the fighters would be using it. They don’t.
The argument that Aikido takes a lifetime to master is possibily true, but is actually an argument against studying it! Uhh, I’d like to be able to kick ass within a couple of years please. I have never, not once, seen an Aikido practitioner in action (IRL or on film) who could take my adult students who have been training for 18 months or more.
Forget competition for a moment. Leading experts in the field of self defence training (Geoff Thompson, Peter Consterdine, Dave Turton etc.) also agree that Aikido is about as much use as a chocolate kettle when it comes to defending yourself in the real world.
There’s always someone who chimes in with how they used their Aikido (or other impractical “fighting style”) to defend themselves this one time. Great for you, you got very lucky indeed. You’d better hope you don’t need to again though, because the statistics say you’re unlikely to get lucky twice.
[Settles Down and Looks Grumpy]
you break the knee by kicking it from the side. It’s not too easy because the knee can just bend to get out of the way, but if it doesn’t it can’t resist dislocating and tearing.
Martial arts are exactly like chess. There are moves, and there are countermoves.
This can’t be emphasized enough because techniques can’t be “good” in and of themselves. E.g. if you fight an untrained opponent, you can throw a crazy spinning round kick to their head and knock em out instantly. Against anyone who can duck, such a move is very ineffective. Similar thing holds for much milder strikes including most kicks. In UFC people fight very conservatively. The only kick they usually use is a low kick to the leg because it’s so quick and the target so big. But does that mean this is the ‘ideal’ style? Well, not necessarily. A giant guy at a biker bar might be able to take a kick to the leg easy, but won’t know what’s coming if you land one on his head. (Or even, do a spinning back kick – think a mule – which is risky but probably the most powerful kick their is.)
Also, what separates a martial arts master is complete a love, passion, and total preoccupation. Unfortuantely, what martial arts masters practice most of the time are fancier, more difficult moves that are easier to counter. A lot of times, they just practice breaking bricks and such things (which don’t even hit back). But anyway, the best fighters (certainly most of the guys on UFC) can be safely called martial arts masters too.
The school of fighting is not of as much importance as the skill and spirit of the individual fighter. There are many schools of fighting, and each one has its strengths and weaknesses, but no one has an irrefutable claim to supremacy. Since the history of martial arts is both long, and well known, if there had been one school of training that produced uniformly superior fighters, it would be common knowledge.
The existence of the controversy is proof of the fact that technique is not the entire answer in who shall prevail in a contest. When the contest is a sporting event, it has little bearing on the outcome of some other contest where deadly intent exists, and the concept of sportsmanship does not. There have been great fighters in the past who have maintained that one combatant wins, and one looses in the moment that combat is joined. Others reflect that they do not know why they prevailed, while their opponents died, saying rather that is was fate, or luck, or strength of will.
A trained person, especially a person who practices regularly, will have a very strong advantage in actual combat, but mostly that advantage comes from not needing to think about tactics. However, since most martial arts training includes learning how not to kill or injure another person, against a person trained to kill, sports experience can even hinder the combatant. Again, the difference between schools is not entirely definitive.
Tris…snip…
Well stated, Tris.
I beg to differ, in that there are schools of training that produce uniformly better fighters, and that this is common knowledge, to those that have studied this area.
Laypeople know just about nothing about what does or does not consititute a good martial art. Most people who have trained in martial arts also know next to nothing - sometimes their level of ignorance actually increases as a result of their training, as they are fed a crock of bull by instructors who were fed a crock of bull by their instructors who were…ad infinitum. So most people simply are not qualified to say what is and is not effective, and yet everyone seems to think that they have a valid opinion.
Only by taking a step back from what you have trained and spending some time learning about different styles from their practitioners, learning from those who have achieved high qualifications in a wide variety of fighting arts, can you say that you know something about martial arts in general. There are martial arts that produce consistently better fighters, and they include Boxing, Wrestling, Thai Boxing, Judo. Obviously it all boils down to the practitioner in the end, but the fact is that if you’re looking at the average Joe who takes up a martial art, Joe is more likely to be an effective fighter if he studies an effective fighting style. If Joe could have a chance to fight all the other joes who, in parallel universes, studied different fighting styles, then some would make a good account of themselves and some would get pasted.
IOMDave
I wholeheartedly agree with you about Aikido. As a martial art, it’s right up there with chess and badminton. One thing on this. Whenever I’ve made similar remarks about Aikido, I get hit with;
“Well, they teach it to the Tokyo police! So there!”
Do you know whether they actually teach this to the Tokyo police? I keep thinking that Tokyo must have a much more law-abiding class of mean drunks than the US or UK if Aikido is actually capable of controlling them.
While I’m bitching about MAs that aren’t; What is your take on the various Chinese things? I’ve never actually seen anyone sticking with Chinese arts prevail in a competition. Maybe I just haven’t seen it but in my experience, most of it doesn’t work well at all.
Regards
Testy
To be honest, I’ve spoken with Police Officers here in the UK and the standard of hand to hand combat training they get is scarily inadequate. Considering that the UK’s crime stats stand head and shoulders above those of Japan, that’s an interesting nugget. Of course, if it’s Japanese police, then it must be good, right? Right? Because they’re all such ass-kickers! This argument is nothing more than a demonstration of the argumentor’s simplistic view of the world.
Police officers are taught control and restraint techniques, pressure point work and joint locks a la Aikido, (along with the more effective “hit them with a stick” methods). Most of this is inspired by the idealistic views of a politically-correct government, rather than the practical, informed views of those who’ve been there and done it for real.
This all adds up to caring less what they teach the police force of any nation.
Link:
http://www.seikeikan.com/yoshinkanaikido.php
Excerpt from that link:
“After the Second World War, in an at- tempt to develop better human values, a decision was made to train young people in the more technical aspects of Aikido and its use in creating harmony and peace.” - Part of which was it’s inclusion in the Tokyo Police training programme.
Note that nowhere in this article is Aikido referred to as combat-effective.
As far as “Chinese Martial Arts” goes, there’s got to be some useful stuff out there. I’ve not seen it yet though. Too much pretty, not enough fighty.
It was a follow to Lumpy’s question, which was
Aikido, at least as taught by Uyeshiba during his later years, was a lot more about spiritual enlightenment and a good deal less about kicking butts and taking names. This is for the most part - some styles of Aikido are more street-oriented than most - see the book Angry White Pajamas for a description of a Westerner being trained in a style of Aikido that Japanese police do actually use, at least in part. But police work is subject to constraints that ordinary self-defense is not.
I think IOMDave has dealt with this adequately. If aikido were better than Muay Thai against a larger opponent, one would expect some light weight aikido exponent to be shiho-nage-ing his way thru the UFC. Using one’s opponent’s force against him is all well and good, but part of the training in any decent fighting style is learning not to overcommit. I would like to see some aikido master explain how he is going to send a boxer flying who is standing back and snapping jabs at his head.
It depends on the fighters, of course, as has been pointed out, and training usually helps, but some styles are better at actual combat than others.
Aikido (for the most part) bears the same relation to combat training as Tae-bo does. If you do Tae-bo for four hours a week for six years, you will be in better shape than the average couch potato, which is a major advantage even if all you do is beat feet. You might even be better equipped to use some of the techniques incorporated into Tae-bo in combat than you would be with no training at all. So compared with the average guy, you might be better off than with nothing more than a recent viewing of Bruce Lee movies.
But compared to someone who spent four hours a week learning jujitsu or Muay Thai, you are a lamb for the slaughter. Same with aikido. Better than watching TV for an equivalent amount of time, and maybe you have some idea of how to apply a wrist lock. But the idea that you could then take out a boxer who has trained as long as you have is not real believable.
You want to have fun and learn Uyeshiba’s notions of Zen enlightenment, by all means study aikido. If you want to defend yourself, spend the same amount of time learning combato or defendu or one of the modern composite arts.
Or just get into a lot of street fights. You get your ass kicked a lot, especially at the beginning, but such “training” puts you at a huge advantage over the average strip mall black belt.
Regards,
Shodan
Are you permitted to name these schools? Is there a society that guards the ancient secrets or are they protected by National Security concerns? If it is common knowledge how come no one just points out that “Kahn Karate” on Ninth St. has never lost a championship at any level in forty years of operation?"
I think there is no such school, but if you can name it, please do, and a link to a comparison of it’s graduates records over a few decades would be nice. It’s odd that such a wellspring of martial arts wisdom avoids notoriety. Perhaps that is an element of their effectiveness.
TrisMy dad was a noted brawler in his youth. He had had a little training in boxing, but wasn’t what you would call a “skilled boxer.” However, being disproportionately strong, pretty aggressive, and the veteran of a lot fights made the difference for him. After he put his feet on the straight and narrow he became a cop, the local ne’er do wells and hooligans were not wont to initiate physical conforontations with him because he was good not only with his hands but also with the nightstick and blackjack.
He rather nicely illustrates, in fact, Shodan’s point a post or two upthread. You learn fighting by fighting.
He did list several styles that he considers more effective than others such as Aikido. A cite for this would be that successful fighters in MMA competitions such as Pride and the UFC use those styles.
Ah, so “schools of fighting” wasn’t a flowery way of saying “martial arts styles” 
The styles I mentioned in my previous post have a habit of turning out consistently good fighters; look at anyone who’s been at it seriously for 2+ years. As far as actual, physical “places where people go to learn how to fight”, there are many around the world. Most of the big-shot UFC fighters have their own “stables” where they train the next big things how to kick ass for example. The Gracie school of Brazillian JJ tends to turn out great fighters (although there seems to be some worrying trends developing over there). Iain Abernethy runs a fantastic Karate school in the North of England - those guys are very, very good.
Peter Consterdine runs a training group full of some of the scariest SOBs I’ve ever met.
I could go on - in fact, if you’re really interested in quality training, let me know where you’re situated and I’ll see if I know anyone who knows a good place near you.
Your tone is a little patronising. I specifically said “common knowledge to those that have studied this area.” That doesn’t mean that you should have heard of them mate, unless you’re well versed in the field. Here’s another example of something which is common knowledge to the expert: The Erdnase Change. What’s that you say? It’s a technique used in card magic. Common knowledge to anyone who knows anything about card magic, but not to the laity. See my point?
In this case, the area you need to study is the comparitive strengths and weaknesses of various fighting styles. Study means going and having a go at them, reading about them, watching instructional DVDs from the top exponents of them, debating the issues with other knowledgable people and generally taking an objective view to the whole thing. Do this over a period of a few years and guess what? Almost everyone reaches the same conclusions as to what works and what doesn’t, with the usual “the practitioner makes all the difference” disclaimer.