If you’re really looking for self-defense, in the sense that you want to stop somebody from trying to hurt you, I really don’t recommend Aikido.
Here are the reasons:
[list=1][li]Although the techniques are excellent, Aikido is really not presented (that I’ve ever seen) as a form of combat, but as “spiritual enrichment and fulfillment”[/li][li]You can get almost exactly the same techniques, but with combat emphasis, from jiu-jutsu (ju-jutsu, ju-jitsu, gioue-dzitzou [kidding on the last one])[/li][li]I wouldn’t deign to speak for you, but from reading your posts in the gun control threads, your focus would appear to be defending against attacks by larger, stronger, possibly armed assailants with intent to cause you serious harm. In that instance, I wouldn’t really recommend any sort of method where you would be tying up with and coming into prolonged physical contact with a stronger opponent who means to hurt you. Better, you should look into defense classes given by the police. Yeah, yeah, I also don’t buy the whole “Officer Friendly” thing and I think they’re full of shi’ite. But, their women’s self-defense classes are focused on making a quick strike to temporarily disable them long enough to get the Mini-14 out of your trunk and do some REAL damage. ;)[/list=1][/li]
Aikido is great for people who want to subdue and restrain an opponent, but IMO sort of lacking in self-defense value. Experience has taught me that an opponent who is unwilling to be thrown is much more difficult to throw. Their demonstrations are impressive, but it’s easier to throw people when it’s considered dishonorable and and an insult to your instructor to try to resist his technique.
I agree with the cool one’s assessment of aikido. While it is a really impressive art, I have never seen it taught with an energy that approaches realistic defense. Relationships and responses during training are highly structured and stylized. That is not to say, of course, that an accomplished aikido player could not inflict tremendous damage upon you.
But this brings me to what I consider aikido’s biggest drawback – it has an incredibly long learning curve. While an advanced aikido player might have tremendous practical skills, I believe it would take him a number of years, perhaps 5-10, to attain that level. Applying joint locks, and unbalancing opponents and redircting their energy is extremely difficult against an uncooperative opponent, at full speed, with the adrenaline pumping. Meanwhile, the boxer is hitting things from his first day in the gym. Tho he starts with stationary objects, he is in the ring against an opponent quickly, trying to hit and avoid getting hit. And within a number of months, he is able to throw punches with some decent degree of speed, accuracy, and power.
The one thing I say in aikido’s favor, tho, is that is is one of few “traditional” arts that regularly teaches defense against multiple opponents.
Another thing, anth, that a lot of beginning students have to get over is that actual fighting is really nasty, ugly stuff. And there are no one-step solutions. Everyone has heard that women should carry their keyring with one key sticking out. Well, even if this were an effective weapon, think about what you have to do. The damn key itself won’t help you unless you have the willingness and the ability to jab it into a bad guy’s soft bits. And you have to injure him enough that you don’t just piss him off. Think about what that means. Forcefully jabbing a human in the eye with a key. Ugly stuff.
And no weapon protects you if you do not know how to use it, or are unwilling to do so should the time arise. Carrying a knife does diddly if you don’t know how to use it. And knowing how to use a knife doesn’t help if you don’t practice pulling it and opening it. And all of this ability ain’t worth squat if you aren’t going to be able to seriously injure or kill another individual should the situation arise.
We work a lot of finger jabs to the eye. There are all different kinds of eye jabs. You may wish to bury your digits a knuckle deep into the opponent’s sockets. But the eyes can be an elusive target, especially if your opponent uses any decent head movement. Another approach is to rake across the eye, trying to catch and tear anything in the area you can hook onto. This strike itself does not incapacitate, but it gives you an opening to either run away or follow up and mess the guy up.
Again, practical self defense is brutal stuff. And unless you are able to convince yourself that you can do such stuff when you need to, you will be unable to defend yourself.
capacitor wrote:
Oh yeah? Well … well, in AD&D, I can also create a multi-class (or dual-class) magic-user/monk who can cast fireball at 5th level! So there!
Tsk tsk tsk. capacitor, capacitor, capacitor. Champions is a game of super-heroes! In Ninja Hero, or in most other non-super-heroic campaigns in the Hero System, characters only start out with 75 Character Points to spend, and can’t get nearly as many points from Disadvantages as a Champions character can. If you want to compare AD&D with the Hero System, you should be comparing it with the 75-point Heroic campaign settings, not with the 100-point Super-Heroic ones.
And besides, in Champions you have to pay Character Points for your magic items, but in AD&D you can get the Wand of Orcus for free. 
i’ve never actually been in a fight, so i can only offer my opinion, but i’d like to put in just a slight clarification re: aikido.
it isn’t generally presented a ‘combat’ because it isn’t. the self defense techniques are just that - defense. destroying an attacker usually isn’t part of the equation, just stopping the ‘bad guy’ from doing what they ought not to have been doing in the first place. i feel that it has a strong ability to tailor ones response to a given situation (you wouldn’t want to use killing techniques against uncle bob when he’s had one too many glasses of wine at thanksgiving dinner, nor would you want to have to resort to sissy slaps against the thug who’s already told you he’s going to rape your wife, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it…).
also, the reason we are taught to not resist techniques isn’t so much because it’s thought disrespectful, but because resisting a quick, dynamic technique can get somebody seriously hurt. in the dojo i am a student at, we often spend time giving certain amounts of resistance to each other to gage effectiveness, albeit at a much slower pace than usual (and yes, i realize that even this in no way approaches a ‘real’ situation, but i think it’s still useful training).
against someone not trained in aikido, you’ll never get a nice, flowing roll or fall from an opponent, especially if they don’t want to be thrown, true. you’re not supposed to - we practice falling in such a way as to prevent injury. not necessarilly (yeah , i know that’s misspelled. i can never get it right, so i don’t bother trying) what you want from throwing a ‘bad guy’.
not to disagree with anything that has been previously posted - aikido isn’t the greatest thing for self defense (no ground fighting, and not enough emphasis on striking, which iirc, o-sensei himself once said that 90% of aikido was in the atemi (strikes)), and it can take a while to get real good. on the other hand, it’s not always as ‘soft’ or useless an art as some might think.
of course, as my sensei is fond of saying, if you’re really interested in defending yourself, buy a gun and learn to use it…
It’s hard to throw an unwilling opponent? When a good aikido master grabs you, he isn’t asking you to do this or that. HE IS TELLING YOU with severe pain and speed. Watching a demonstration is much different from actually having some of these techniques used on you.
Even the most simplistic tasks can be difficult under extreme stress, but that’s why you practice things over and over and over. Eventually it becomes close to instinct and you don’t even need to think about it.
The boxing example is good, but I would venture to say that most women boxers would have a hard time fighting off a man twice their size. That is why I recommended aikido.
Actually, the best thing for you to do is to visit several different schools and find out which one feels right to you. It’s a very personal decision.
As a former practitioner of aikido, I must agree that aikido isn’t the best art to use on the street. It’s a great supplement to what you’ll learn in other arts, however, particularly if you learn well its primary lesson: the best way to win a streetfight is to lead a life such that you don’t get into streetfights.
Really, though, moving in simple circles and triangles, keeping your opponent in your sphere of control, keeping your center, redirecting energy, wrist locks, joint locks, arm twisting…it’s all good stuff, and useful when added to the “forceful” arts. And fighting multiple attackers (rondori, I think it was called; it’s been 10 years) is a hell of a lot of fun. The secret is dropping each opponent between yourself and your remaining opponents, so they’ll have to circle around…
So, just to be sure I’m getting you:
You are saying that, if you ran into, say, Lawrence Taylor or Dwayne Johnson (The Rock from WWF) in a confrontational situation, you could decisively TELL HIM, through severe pain and speed, that you are going to put him on the ground? Somehow I doubt it. Yes, I chose extreme examples, but only to make a point:
Real life is nothing like the dojo!
You don’t get convenient overhand “retard strikes” to set you up for a beautiful shiho-nage in a real fight. You may get a flurry of punches that you’re completely unprepared for. You may get tackled or dragged to the ground. Do you feel that Aikido adequately prepares you for a single-leg takedown or a shoulder block? I doubt that as well.
I’m friends with a number of wrestlers, ranging from guys who used to wrestle in high school all the way to guys who were the top eschelon of collegiate wrestling in the NCAA. All of whom would be at best a challenging fight, and at worst, outright dangerous. Most would say that they would be capable of tying the vast majority of Aikido practitioners into a knot in a matter of seconds. And I would be much more inclined to believe that claim than yours.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking Aikido itself. It’s great exercise, it has very effective techniques, and at the top levels of training (10 or 15 years down the road) you can become a formidable fighter, but until then it’s wholly impractical as a self-defense method.
As an addition to other skills (wrestling, kickboxing, etc), it would be very valuable, but I still think that ju jutsu teaches the same techniques in a much more effective package.
I have been training to fight for a long time, and I’ve been in far more than my share of real fights. Don’t let anybody tell you that defense is not combat. Real self-defense isn’t a game or a dance, where you prance around doing your kata, doling out exactly the right amount of force to stop the attack, then walk away no worse for the wear. It is also not a Steven Seagal movie where you can flash around indiscriminately breaking bones left and right. Real life defense IS combat. If your opponent doesn’t want to hurt you, you’re not in a fight.
In real life, you get hit. You get hurt. You get pumped full of adrenaline and miss grabs and locks and throws. If you are not prepared to hurt your opponent, and you think you’re just going to throw him to the ground stylishly or break his arm and walk away happy, you’re going to get yourself hurt really badly.
In real life defense, you want to keep your moves SIMPLE and DIRECT, like a quick HARD jab to the throat or eye. Or stomping the knee. Or a solid punch to the solar plexus. The object is to incapacitate the attacker as quickly as possible.
And for the record, Anthracite,
I have no doubt of your willingness or ability to injure or kill somebody attacking you. 
If a good aikido master was in a confrontation situation with The Rock, he would back down. That’s the first rule. If that didn’t work, he would try to get away and then as a last result he would take him down.
Like I said, it’s a very personal decision. You obviously prefer a style that puts an emphasis on power, and that is not an option available to everyone.
To think your personal choice is the best for everyone is just having way too high an opinion of yourself.
Sigh…TKD has a horrible rep. I figure I’ll just throw in a few cents since I trained for 6 or so years in it. I’ve seen people run around doing sloppy slow spinning kicks thinking their Van Damme move is going to take people out right off the bat, but I’ve also seen people that kick as fast as other people can punch. Find a tape of a Korean TKD tournament sometime…Even while falling backward, they’ll throw like 4 kicks in the air as they go, and that’s when they’re off balance. TKD isn’t useless, it’s just that you have to be brighter than a rock to understand that you don’t run into a fight and try a jump spinning kick right off the bat. You use it when you have an opening, just like any other move in any other art. And if you’re fast (ie - you train instead of sit around bragging about your art), a well-placed leg is much more painful than a fist.
As another TKD-ist once said: If I can kick high, what makes you think I can’t kick low?
Anyway, just defending TKD since everyone pretty much seems to agree that it’s completely useless unless you’re making movies, sigh…
- Tsugumo
P.S. I avoid getting into fights (like everyone says, the best way to win them is to not be in them), but if someone really wants to pick a fight with me, I’m going to jab some knuckles into their eyes and throat, not try to put them in a headlock, heh.
Tsunamisurfer:
To quote S. M. Stirling:
In my own words: “'Tis not the tool, but the purpose to which it is applied.”
It’s all too sad but true that any concept of restraint or of “measured response” went out the window, probably in the 80s, certainly by the early 90s.
I had my share of dust-ups in school, but by-and-large, they never got out of hand, and no one was ever seriously injured. I won some, I lost some. When I won, the loser stayed out of my way. When I lost, I took my lumps and stayed out of the winner’s way.
Nowadays? You beat a man with your hands, he comes back with a knife. Beat him with the knife, he comes back with a gun. So the idea started that it was best to just short-circuit the lengthy process and go straight to the gun.
If a weak-kneed wannabe badass has his “Nine” strapped and gets into some serious confrontation, to protect his image he’s “going to the nine”, instead of taking his lumps from the true badass.
I blame it on the “thug” or “gangsta” culture perpetuated by urban rap on “Yo MTV Raps” and BET, where pre-packaged badasses are cloned from one video to the next by the same image-consulting firm, and the droves of blighted urban sheep (and their little suburban wannabe imitators) that consume this rot and try to live it.
I recently had a sort-of run in with one of our local hires/temps. He was talking trash about what a complete badass he was, and he had the “Nine” to prove it to anyone who doubted.
I started laughing and told him he needed to come heavier than a “Nine” to get into my shit. He said he’d just get some of his “Homies” (sp?) to catch his back…you see how that sort of “oh yeah?/says you” talk goes?
So I asked him, in all seriousness, to show me his “Nine”. Right then and there. Just to prove that he was a badass, and strapped. He demured. I could plainly see that he wasn’t strapped. I then told him that I could put him on the ground, right then and there, in two seconds flat and have him screaming like a 12-year-old girl.
Since the discussion had moved away from the fanciful to the theoretical, he asked how.
I asked him if he had any idea, whatsoever, of what a hot cup of coffee does to a person’s eyeballs.
Like Glitch says: It’s less “what you know” than “how prepared you are to use it”, and to what effect.
Actually, I have immense respect for TKD, just not for the skill level of perhaps 90 percent of TKD practitioners here in the States. Fact is, TKD was the second style I studied, right after studying Judo in Tokyo. And, I totally agree with what you say about practitioners in Korea–they are fabulous fighters.
My problem with all too many American TKD’s, if I can generalize, is that they are sloppy and flashy and cling to this illusion that their high snap kicks (or spin kicks, for that matter) would prove decisive in a lightning-fast fight.
I think Bruce Lee would have been the first to admit that if he were faced with a huge opponent, he would try not to fight and perhaps even run away. Lacking that, I doubt if any of his kicks would have been above waist level. (Lee had the ripped musculature of a 180-pound man on a 5’5" body.)
Another point: Aikido, IMHO, is a beautiful art/philosophy. That said, I’ve never for one moment believed all that Hollywood buzz about Steven Seagal as this real-life badass walking killer. I’ve seen dozens and dozens of world-class MA’s who could kick, punch, gouge, and generally beat the shit out of him in 10 seconds flat and not even break a sweat.
There was a picture of Steven Segal with my teacher at my old school. I think he came in for a demonstration or something. He has some amazingly high rank that supposedly takes 30 years of training. One of my instructors said he actually purchased it for $20,000.
That being said, I don’t question his skill. I’m sure he could whip my skinny ass, but that’s not saying much.
Pagan wrote about aikido:
I believe it is a misconception that an average person can “defend” themselves without hurting the other guy. (I know of one extremely accomplished fighter, an original student of Bruce Lee’s, whose current goal is to be the best fighter he can be without injuring his opponent. By this is a phenomenally talented man who has been training at the top of his art for 40 years. Not an “average” person.) Of course, TKD trains both offense and defense. I agree on the “defensive mindset” of TKD. And tho I believe it is of value to most fighters, I consider it incomplete in itself.
I fully agree you do not want to have a single response for all situations. We often work grappling with the “drunken uncle” scenario specifically in mind.
Pump-action says:
I think this may get at the crux of my argument concerning aikido. I think it has a really long learning curve before it is effective in reality. Don’t get me wrong. Aikido is a marvelous art. And I believe that anyone who has any decent level of ability in practical defense, could do well to study aikido. But let’s take identical twins, you train yours in aikido, I’ll train mine in boxing. Who will win in 6 months? A year? I don’t think there is any question. But you are certainly free to disagree.
And I have no doubt that a “master” in aikido, or any number of other arts, could throw me all over the joint. But just because Michael Jordan can do a nifty 360 dunk doesn’t mean I should plan on incorporating thhat move into my game.
Tho I have attended only a few aikido classes at a couple of different schools, I do train dumog, I work judo and BJJ considerably, did traditional JJ in the past, and practice a number of joint/limb manipulations, primarily influenced by FMA. So I’m not entirely ignorant of the subject. And I love doing lock flow drills. It is almost magical. However, IME fighting, or even intense full contact sparring, tends to get pretty simple pretty fast. I consider many aikido moves to be relatively low percentage in such situations. Sure, if the joint presents itself, manipulate it. Take advantage of any relationship that develops. But I repeat, IMO it is hard for at least a low to medium/level aikido player to manipulate or unbalance an unwilling opponent.
Similar with Tsugumo’s observation of some TKD fighters who can kick faster than others can punch. Sure. Such folk exist. And not just in TKD. Ever work with Daniel Duby? Whoa! But I (and I suggest anthracite) are not exactly like such folk.
Here is the essence of my “criticism” of TKD.
TKD is taught both as a sport, and as a method of self defense. There are benefits to both, but just don’t be under the false impression that you are learning to defend yourself if you are in a “sport” school.
There has been such a tremendous proliferation of TKD schools, that a potential student has to beware that they are not hooking up with a belt factory.
TKD works best for certain people. I am not a big fan of the big, high kick. And I think this would also be true if I weren’t a creaky out of shape 40 yr old. Kicking high depends on sufficient warmup, proper footwear and clothing, and decent footwork. Any or all of these might be absent in a street encounter.
On the plus side of both aikido and TKD, the “defensive” mindset. Try to get away from opponent. I regularly spar with a TKD black belt. He has a really nice quick punch to the midsection. He tags me with it even when I know it is coming. I like working with him because not that many guys work body shots, and I like working on my defense and counters against them. His footwork, however, is mediocre at best, I can kick as well as he (which isn’t saying much), and he has absolutely no grappling or weapons ability.
Also, TKD widely available. As I noted far above, it may well be that whatever is best for a particular individual is what is a convenient distance from their home. And if that happens to be a TKD school, as long as it isn’t merely a belt-factory, you are likely to have a lot of fun and develop some practical ability there. And I wish you the best.
Tank, along the lines of your hot coffee story, it reminded me of a tale a buddy of mine in England told about some knife wielding maniac who was terrorizing customers and holding police at bay in a supermarket. Was he stopped by any mystic secret technique? No. He was taken down after a quick thinking customer cold cocked him by hurling a tin of beans at him and hitting him in the head. In that situation, hurling a tin of beans was THE BEST martial art.
Good to hear from you, bro.