Origin of Modern Aikido

[jorvik]

Check out this article
http://www.aikidojournal.com/?id=611
I have often wondered at the way Aikido developed.....and how O'Sensei was so revered and yet the Aikido that I did was so cr*p..that's in my past now .....but I still like to look back and think of what I might have been if I'd found the right club or the right instructor. In many ways this describes the way that Aikido changed from something that was martial to something that wasn't.
To me if you say someting is martial and spiritual.............and then further down the road you discover that it is not martial at all........well then you have lost the spiritual as well ..........and for me that is a very big part of what I do..............and the rational for why I do it

[Rick Wilson]

Hi jorvik:

Excellent question.

I have never studied Aikido but I have read a great deal about it because the founder fascinates me.

If you read his history you find a person fanatical about learning and improving his martial arts. A man who searched out and trained in different arts although the moves from Aikido can be mainly traced back to one Jujitsu style.

The interesting thing is to look closely at how he performs the moves as he ages and learns.

I have had a totally hypothetical theory for some time that people try to perform Aikido in the manner Ueshiba Sensei performed it in his later years. It was in his later years that he became truly fascinating.

However, if you did not have his martial training history behind you, then would you be able to perform the moves as he did?

I believe that the Aikido we see today is people trying to perform like a person who has devoted their entire life to the study. When that fails to work they have to try and, either only work with cooperative partners, or alter what they are doing.

Look for the atemi in the earlier years. People cooperate much easier after a good shoken.

[JimHawkins]

Well, I've said this before, but I think that Aiki has lots of potential and gets a bad rap.

I have never studied Aikido but I have worked at least a couple of Aiki moves into my training with success. Some Aiki moves can be worked within Chi Sao, such as Ikkajo (First Control) and Shomen Irimi Nage (Front Entering Throw.) I find Ikkajo to be a very useful control and quite a reasonable technique in terms of practicality. Some Irimi (entry) techniques involve simply entering off line and hitting, which again is very much like WCK. From what I see many more moves could be trained within Chi Sao, which really helps in gaining sensitivity to these and other kinds of technique opportunities IMO making them that much easier to apply and practical.

In one of my Aiki books, "Total Aikido" there is much discussion of entry, how to clash and use forward energy to gain a read off the opponent. They even address throwing a first strike to bridge with the opponent; this is much the same as in WCK yet rarely discussed by Aikido people that I know or read about. This is where WCK 'operates' and I think it fits in very well with Aikido.

In fact I find many similar concepts and ideas from WCK in Aikido, centerline, elbow power, entering, using uke’s energy against him, etc. People love to make fun of Aikido for training against say the 'running karate chop' but this just trains the defender how to address downward energy in attack and gives the beginner lots of energy to work with. There are only so many energy vectors and as in WCK, Aikido and its techniques are each designed to address a particular energy vector/resistance vector, etc.

IMO many of these Aikido moves are very practical so long as one understands how to bridge and enter against realistic attacks and resistance, something often lacking in many forms of training and schools. So while I can't speak to all the techniques, I find many of them to be quite practical.

[jorvik]

There is a whole world of difference between practising a style .....and reading about it.
Take as an example Atemi-waza, I have never seen this practiced at any level...yet it is very widely talked about in books as though it is commonplace.
The article that I posted tried to address a thing that you will find in Aikido the differences within the style, and indeed the different styles...Tomiki or sport Aikido is very different from Yoshinkan, which is very different from Traditional/Hombu style Aikido
The Saito family now have their own style called "Iwama".....which you can read about in the article which they say is based directly on what Ueshiba practised.
I have not seen this style, maybe they use "Atemi-waza"........I know they punch a makiwara.....and Saito ( senior.now deceased)............is famous for preserving the sword and stick arts of Aikido which are not practised at the Hombu dojo

[gmattson]

and Aikido in Japan. Morihei Ueshiba is reported to have been good friends with Ryuyu Tomoyose and presented him with a copy of his original book. I can't confirm the validity of this, but Ryuyu's son, Ryuko, talked about his father training with Ueshiba and how they would often exchange techniques.

During my 60's visit (and in the video) I'm shown with one of Ueshiba's top students (according to Tomoyose) as he demonstrated a couple of techniques on me.

I'm sure Aikido went through the same type of filtering system all martial arts went through as it was taught and studied by people with different personalities, motivation and abilities. As the art was passed through these different people, much of the art will be influenced by the teacher's understanding.

Some of this "influencing" will be good, some bad. But it will continue.

[benzocaine]

People love to make fun of Aikido for training against say the 'running karate chop' but this just trains the defender how to address downward energy in attack and gives the beginner lots of energy to work with. There are only so many energy vectors and as in WCK, Aikido and its techniques are each designed to address a particular energy vector/resistance vector, etc.

You know.. that makes sense! Makes me want to look more closely at Aikido.

[jorvik]

A while back I did a search on google and came across a referance to Uechi and Aikido..this said that at the time Kanbun was teaching Uechi in Japan Ueshiba had a dojo across the street from him........apparantly the Uechi dojo was overflowing into the streets because there were so many who wanted to study it.....whereas the Aikido dojo had only a couple of students and was struggling to survive......................it's funny how time will distort things.
One thing that I always wonder about Ueshiba..he is always described as humble......and yet there are thousands of photos of him performing Aikido ( and at a time when cameras were not as commonplace as today).seems a bit of a self propogandist to me....unlike Kanbun, who has very few photos
Maybe the history of Aikido and Uechi are a bit different in the telling than the remembering
quote
"You know.. that makes sense! Makes me want to look more closely at Aikido._________________
I've done Aikido to blackbelt level....Jim has never done it
trust me Ben don't waste your time

[JimHawkins]

I don't buy into jorvik's idea that all Aiki is a "waste of time." Not having traditionally been trained in the art is of little matter to me, though I'd like some time in.

Any technique is either useful or not, it's really that simple IMO. And IMO there are more than a couple of useful techniques in what I call Aikido. I beleive Jorvik does agree with this despite his Aiki bashing... My favorite is the Ikkajo and I have worked it into my Chi Sao and have used it in sparring - it works, period as far as I am concerned.

Not all Aiki techniques are exclusive to Aiki so what does that say about other styles that use similar or the same moves... Again IMO nothing wrong with the moves, it's all how you train and what and how you decide to train/use/toss. Just like any other art IMO.

BTW Jorvik: What do you think of Gozo Shioda? Him and his group look pretty darn good to me, for Aikido that is..

[jorvik]

Quote
"Again IMO nothing wrong with the moves, it's all how you train and what and how you decide to train/use/toss. Just like any other art IMO".

That's exactly my point and why I posted that link............... a lot of the Aiki that I have seen and done is rubbish. Learning to defend against somebody running at you from 30 feet away to either reverse punch you or chop you on the head...won't do you anygood in the city I live in. even the little kids can do better than that

So the next question is..............is Aiki any good? the stuff I've seen ,no........could Ueshiba have done all the wonderfull things we hear about him based on what I've see in Aikido clubs again No.............
Then I see this article ..........and I start to wonder

there are so many conflicting things in Aikido,
Take Takeda the head of Daito-ryu who taught Ueshiba.he was not impressed with Aikido or Aiki-Budo as it was then called, he referred to it as "dancing".........also Aiki is really a modern day version (much simplified) of Daito-ryu
and Takeda said that his art had "No kicks or punches".....so where does Aikido's atemi come from
but then again I've never seen any, anyway
another point
Takeda had a Korean manservant who learned Daito-ryu of him and reportedly went back to Korea when Ueshiba died, he then taught this art mixed with punches and kicks and called it Hapkido.....now I've done some Hapkido and the locks and throws are a lot more effective than aiki locks and throws...same as Chi-na more or less, when somebody gets a lock on you you jump or get a broken limb

[Rick Wilson]

While I agree that reading is not studying the principles can be gleaned and many of them are very sound. Now what people do with principles is an entirely different situation.

I know of one Uechika who trained Aikido and they used atemi, or rather the small group he worked out with did and they trained very hard core.

After they performed on a rank test they had their keys to the dojo taken away and were told they could not train unsupervised because they went “too hard.” Hmmm wonder what some of the problems might be.

There was some infighting and politics between Ueshiba and Takeda so take everything with a grain of salt.

I like the principles I read and can see how they may relate to what can be done in Uechi, but I have not trained in or with any Aikido stylists. But I like a lot of what I read.

[Guest]

We had a guy who did Daito-Ryu visit last week, he was a nice guy , pretty entry level unfortunately. I'd like the oppourtunity to play with some folks skilled in the system.

Looked like an interesting window on yeilding absorbing. Foot work felt familiar.

[MikeK]

A friend of mine is trying to arrange some sparring and playtime with some Aikidokas. If we get it together I'll tell you how it goes.

[jorvik]

Hey MikeKI
go easy now man..these Aikido guys may nail you with there deadly "Atemi-Waza" ( never seen it myself ..after 10 years of Aikido.but other folks speak highly of it ........check out this site
http://www.aikidojournal.com/?id=615
look at the vids..loads of atemi-Waza ( but heck I'm just to stupid to see it ....coz it's 90% of aikido, according to O'Sensei ( great teacher ).never heard that term used for a Thai boxer
Why can't we call cr*p...............cr*p .I do internal styles.....I can

[JimHawkins]

Never heard of Aikido people 'sparring.'

Aikido is not really a "fighting art" in theory or application IME.

[MikeK]

Jim, you'd be surprised what Aikidoka will do. My friend knows some that want to work on their attacks, I want to work on reading different opponents. Should be fun as soon as I get back to training, damn flu!
I don't know about it not being a fighting art, I've visited the magical world of "OH SHIIIT" several times training with Aikido folks.