How To Deal With The Idea That Aikido Is Worthless?

Last week a Redditor on the r/martialarts sub posed a question to the group. They wanted to know, “How to feel about your chosen martial art being considered worthless?” Their chosen martial art is taekwondo, but the same question is frequently presented by aikidoka. It’s an issue that affects many that start training in aikido. It’s especially true when they start to interact with other martial artists who are not aikidoka. Statements like ‘aikido is useless’, are not that uncommon. The question then becomes, how do we deal with that? There are plenty of ways to cope with the idea that aikido is worthless, and we’ll take a look at them here.

Effective for what, precisely?

There is something important to realise when people talk about aikido being worthless or ineffective. They’re generally referring to self-defence scenarios. It’s never directly stated, but that’s what they mean. There is no rule, anywhere, that says the effectiveness of a martial art is decided by a practitioners fighting ability. It’s not difficult to argue the precise opposite. For example, I will gladly take the advert of my octogenarian (80+y.o.) sensei that still teaches and trains, over the advert of a punch drunk boxer with CTE.

Most physical activities, will promote strength, fitness, flexibility, mental health, and longevity. Why would we consider something that has those outcomes to be worthless? We shouldn’t, because they aren’t. Regardless of what you think of the annual All-Japan Aikikai Embukai, you cannot deny that the majority of people demonstrating are old. A 40, 50, 60 year career in aikido is not beyond most practitioners. There are few empty-handed martial arts that can make that claim.

Consider some of the numbers

It’s also worth realising something about training for self-defence. It’s an edge case. The vast majority of people will go through their entire life without ever being in a physical confrontation. When you look at the statistics, you can ‘age out’ of the risk category. Younger folk tend to end up in these situations. If you can pass through a certain period of time, your odds of ending up in a self-defence scenario drop dramatically.

This does not mean that training for self-defence is useless, because it isn’t. Simply understand that it does not have to be the primary reason for training, or even a measure of value.

So why are you training?

It’s a fairly safe bet to say that you are not training in aikido to become the next UFC champion. It’s also not a stretch to suggest you aren’t training for competition. Not impossible, just not too common.

To determine if aikido is worthless to you, you have to know why you’re training in the first place. Many aikidoka train as a form of exercise. Given that it’s possible to burn ~600 kcal/hr while teaching, that’s not a bad idea. That puts it on a level with things like circuits, rowing, and sprint sessions for calorie burn. 

Other reasons to train include mental well-being, improved confidence, friendship and community, and even that it’s just good fun. Work out why you are stepping onto the mats each week. If you are getting that from your training, then aikido is not worthless to you.

Why do you actually care?

This is a big one. Ask yourself why you actually care what other people think. There are several reasons why this is important. In first place is the amateur aspect. Unless you are receiving money for your aikido, then you are not a professional. 99+% of aikidoka will fall into this category. Nobody’s really in this for the money. For almost all aikidoka, that means this is a hobby. There will always be somebody willing to insult someone else’s hobby. Do not let those people put you off your hobby. Hobbies are meant to be fun, if you are having fun, then you’re in the right place.

Which leads to the next thing, martial arts should enrich your life. If you get that from aikido then your aikido is not worthless. For many people, this will not mean that it makes you street lethal. For the majority of people, in any art, it is more likely to relate to physical and mental well-being.

If you find yourself getting wound up because somebody on the internet said aikido is worthless, step back for a moment and ask yourself why you care. Chances are it’s rooted in ego, and if you can let that go you’ll take a major step forwards in life. Notably, the ability to let go of your ego and walk away is a very useful self-defence tool to develop. You’re not going to change their mind by arguing, haters gonna hate.

Stop letting other people decide

The idea that someone else can decide what is of worth to you is ludicrous. Everyone is responsible for their own decisions, and that includes assigning value to things. Just because someone else thinks aikido is worthless doesn’t mean you have to. A lot of people think martial arts in general are worthless, are they right? For them, yes. For us, no.

Understand that the majority of the detractors are coming from a sport background. The focus of their chosen art is to engage in competitive combat with another person. Of course they will regard aikido as worthless. But much of what they do is worthless to aikido. The core philosophies are often very different, so who can say which is the best? Nobody.

On a very similar vein to this is that you shouldn’t live by what other people think you should be doing. Frequently accompanying the claim that aikido is worthless, is a declaration that you should be doing X art instead. (X usually is MMA, BJJ, or muay thai.) It’s your life, it’s your hobby, it’s your choice. You get to do what you want to do. Don’t let other people choose for you.

They are often young and inexperienced

Stop for a moment and think about who told you that aikido is worthless. Chances are they weren’t an old master in another martial art. About a year ago a couple of polls were posted on the martialarts subreddit. They were about the length of time folk have been training, and how old they were. The results were fascinating. The majority of commenters on the sub were <25y.o. and training for <2 years. Many of them did not train at all. While it’s not impossible to develop a comprehensive knowledge of all martial arts in that time, it is somewhat unlikely.

If you’re going to believe someone that says aikido is worthless, at least pick someone who knows what they are talking about.

Where were you when you heard aikido is worthless?

These days, the chances are that you were on the internet. Remember, e-thuggery is so much safer than real thuggery. There are two things to remember about the internet with regards to this. The first is that it’s an echo chamber. People parrot plausible things, not because they’re true, but because it’s populist to say it. Currently, it’s popular to say aikido is worthless bullshit. That doesn’t make it true, it just means that in the majority of cases they haven’t thought about it. If you challenge them, which I do not recommend as it’s a fruitless task, they have one, perhaps two, ill-conceived criticisms.

The second thing is that many internet discussion forums degenerate into cess-pools of despair. Do not feed the trolls, and do not take their food either. It’s not worth it.

MMA is not a good benchmark

There, it’s been said. MMA competitions are not a good benchmark for determining effectiveness in a street fight. They are not even a good benchmark for determining effectiveness in competitive fighting. Pretty sure nobody has won a kendo match with MMA. Consider Jake Paul though, amateur boxer and YouTuber. He has defeated numerous MMA champions in boxing matches. Connor MacGregor lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a boxing match.

All martial arts have rules, and all martial arts tend to fail when used outside of that ruleset. Especially in another ruleset that it was never meant for.

During a recorded conversation with Randy King and Marc MacYoung, they observed that the statistics on usefulness of MMA in a self-defence scenario are appalling. The MMA practitioner frequently loses. (Note: those statistics have proven extremely elusive, if anyone knows where they can be found please leave a message in the comments below.)

MMA competitions are a great benchmark for measuring effectiveness in MMA competitions. That’s it. 

Are you really going to let fans and practitioners of MMA tell you which art has worth? Why on earth would you let them decide for you that aikido is worthless?

The Curious Case of the Non-Martial Artists

Their’s a really interesting concept at work here that just makes no sense. Let’s assume that people studying martial arts make up 5% of the global population. Let’s also assume that people studying so called worthless martial arts make up 1% of that.

For some unknown reason we’re all okay with 95% of the population doing no martial arts at all, but we have to despise the 1% doing the wrong martial art.

This makes no sense at all.

There is more than one aikido

The idea that aikido is worthless is put around by folk that have only really seen some YouTube demonstrations. Arguably, this means they have never seen aikido. Importantly though, it likely means that they have only seen one style of aikido, and it was being used in a demonstration as well. There is more than one type of aikido.

The other less well known side, is a more violent version. That’s not to say it produces lethal killing machines, simply that there are hard and soft versions of the art. Most people have never seen the hard version.

Is aikido worthless for self-defence?

In short, no. 

One of the stated goals of aikido, and the real goal of self-defence, are identical. To get out of the situation as quickly as possible.

The problem though is that most aikido training will not produce that stated goal. That’s not a problem of the art though, it’s an issue with the training method. If this aspect bothers you to a substantial degree, then simply change the training method. Fair warning though, if you go down that route, you will encounter a large amount of resistance. People do not like to change from the status quo.

Aikido is not worthless

There are many reasons why you should not let someone else determine the worth of your activities. Denigrating another martial art is a common practice, especially on the internet. No art is exempt, but some receive it more than others. When it comes right down to it though, there is a lot more to martial arts than fighting ability. Do not let the supposed value of a single aspect determine the value of the whole.

Provided above are many reasons why you should not accept the claim of someone on the internet that aikido is worthless. They just haven’t thought about it, and have likely never considered it from another point of view. Aikido may be worthless to them, and what they want from life, but that does not mean the whole art is worthless.