No Attack In Aikido? The First Principle Says Otherwise
There is an elephant in the room that is so large it isn’t simply a case of nobody talking about it. It’s so big that somehow most people don’t even notice it. At this point, the elephant is the room. It relates to a simple concept that you hear about aikido all the time. Namely, there is no attack in aikido. This has become a fundamental part of the art. There is even a quote from O Sensei about this in the Art of Peace as translated by John Stevens:…
One Thing You’ve Never Seen In An Aikido Dojo
There are many things that you can expect to see in an aikido dojo depending on its focus. You might have training in meditation, break falls, joint locks, weapon classes, and so on. There is one thing though, that is strangely absent from an aikido dojo. You just don’t see it anywhere, not even in the thousands of hours of video footage available online. While many people will tell you aikido is missing several key elements, very few notice this missing aspect. What is missing then? Somewhat surprisingly, it’s aikido.…
Why it’s important to train with stiff uke
There is something that most aikidoka hate to do. It can’t be avoided but most people do try to get out of it. Training with a stiff uke. A large number of people just do not like to do it. Understanding why is not difficult at all either. In contrast to a flowing uke, training with stiff ukes is never really fun. It’s hard to make them move, techniques don’t flow, everything becomes gummed up and clunky. Training with a stiff uke is the worst. The problem with this view…
Stop Judging Old People For Moving Like Old People
Recently, the Aikikai released the 58th All-Japan Aikido Embukai to YouTube. It’s an interesting watch and, in some places, has prompted much criticism from aikidoka. Some have described it as embarrassing, others have been less kind. These criticisms are a little unfair, but they do shine a light on some of the problems with aikido embu in general. If you watch the Embukai a couple of things should become clear immediately. The first is that in some cases the standard of demonstration was lower than you would expect. There are…
To Be The Best You Have To Do The Work
The new student, after a few training sessions, goes over to the instructor and says, “You are so good, how long have you been training?”, or something similar. Another example is, “How long does it take to get a black belt?” These are common questions that crop up almost every time a new student joins a dojo. They’re important questions, but they’re not the real questions. What the student wants to know is how much work they have to do to achieve the same level. So What Is The Answer?…
How to make your aikido dangerous again
Last month we introduced a new concept. You shouldn’t be claiming aikido is lethal unless you’ve given it some serious thought, and worked out how to do it. The first part of that is actually quite simple and easy to achieve. The second part though, how to actually make your aikido dangerous, requires a bit more consideration, and a fair bit of practice. The techniques of aikido, the ones we see in every session on the mats, are brutal. As aikidoka we have a tendency to focus on the opposite.…
With Weapons Training You Need To Finish The Technique
Over the last number of months, as the world has been shut down, there has been an increase in weapons training. As noted in a previous post I think this was a missed opportunity but it has revealed something else that was unexpected. The world over aikidoka are performing weapons techniques and kata. Now, more than ever, social media groups are flooded with videos of aikido weapons. Watching these videos it’s almost impossible not to notice a problem. Failing To Finish It seems that when aikidoka are performing weapons kata…
What will aikido look like in the future?
Another question that has come up on social media recently was, ‘What would you like aikido training in the future to look like?’ Again, this was an interesting and thought provoking question that prompted many responses. I’ve expanded on my thoughts on this topic here. Unsurprisingly, there’s a few factors to take into consideration on this subject. Self-defence The first and most obvious is the self-defence aspect. 99% of people (and that’s being generous) have no real concept of what self-defence actually is. This includes the vast majority of self-defence…
Learning what it feels like to be hit
There is an interesting conundrum in aikido that is simply neither acknowledged nor talked about. It’s actually built into the fundamental training method of the art and, in my opinion, is a bad thing. Aikidoka, in general, do not know what it feels like to be hit. On the surface of it this is a good thing. The whole point of aikido is that you do not get hit. If you are being hit then you are messing up on Rule #1. I completely accept that and do actually agree.…
You Need to Stand Up Straight
One of the most difficult things that aikidoka have to do is maintain their structure. In this post I’m specifically going to focus on the importance of being upright. There are many aspects to having good posture and one of those is simply standing up straight. Many people think they are standing up straight but when you look at them it is quite obvious that their spine is bent and they’re hunching over. This isn’t always our own fault though. Almost everything around is is designed to make us slouch.…