Is Aikido making a comeback?

That's a great idea. There are quite a few Aikido clubs in Ireland, but they are not coordinated and no one knows what others are doing.

Let me introduce myself. I represent Takemusu Aikido Society, a non-profit Aikido organisation. We have adult classes on Mondays from 18:30 to 20:00 in Ringsend & Irishtown Community Centre and Sundays from 14:15 to 15:45 in Balbriggan. We welcome beginners and people with prior Aikido experience - everybody will find something interesting in our classes.

Once a year we hold a weapons workshop open to everyone - the next workshop will be on 23 June 2024 in Balbriggan.

In September we will hold an International Aikido seminar with Joran Fagerlund sensei, a student of Morihiro Saito who was the longest-serving student of the Aikido Founder. We have more activities but it is better to follow us on Facebook to see all updates.

Aikido is a martial art, and effectiveness for any martial art should mean that it is an effective system of fighting or self defence. Or a subset of either.

I don’t doubt that aikido allowed you land safely in a real situation, such as falling off a bike. It is very good at that. But if that was the primary goal, one could train break falls directly (like stunt training) rather than include the rest of a martial art.

Many, I dare say most, practitioners will present aikido as an effective form of grappling. I disagree. But it’s possible that it’s only the guy on YouTube and not the guy in the dojo that thinks that.

I’d say rather than being one of the goals, it’s the fundamental principle of martial arts.Some become so far removed from they are basically aerobatics or whatever. Which is fine, as long as people don’t fool others that it’s the former.

Aikido is not like the culture extreme stuff obviously. But I’d disagree that it provides all that’s necessary.

I had to apply an Aikido technique on the street and was surprised at how smoothly and easily it worked. It was only one technique, after which an intruder did not dare to continue physical aggression, so from my experience Aikido is effective

What was the technique? What was the guy trying to do.
It’s can be easy to disused some big mouth who bottles it when faced when resistance. I don’t think that proves anything conclusively.

…others can be great masters, but not able to use their skills outside the mats. But this proves nothing - there are such people in any martial arts or combat sports

A technique to be effective needs to work against resistance. If it doesn’t, and needs a compliant partner - it doesn’t actually work imo.
Which combat sports are you suggesting do not work outside the mat, even for great masters?

The issue I see with Aikido (and others), is that it’s rarely if ever trained against resistance. That leads directly to techniques that don’t work.

Aikido has additional goals, which we achieve through practice. In our days, when you may never have to fight, some practitioners can forget that these goals are subsidiary, and then Aikido practice can look like a dance or acrobatic class

What are the additional goals you refer to?

Many martial arts are choreographed displays. By no means easy. They take skills and lots of practise. A perfectly fine sport/hobby. But disingenuous to present them as actually teaching fighting skills.

No, it just happened a few months after promotion.

That's exactly my point - you can't state anything conclusively. Each case is very individual and depends on many variables in the middle of which is a given person with his flaws and fears.

You can state things many conclusively. We have thousands of competition match of wrestling to study. We can conclusively say that wrestling is effective grappling.

A single instance of aikidoka twisting somebody’s arm in the pub, is not meaningful.

100% agree with you. If your technique works only on non-resisting partners - you should learn how to do techniques properly

Yup, Exactly. And if people are not training or testing with resistance. What are their learning/practising…

Vlasco killed during street fight.

Does it prove that wrestling is not effective? No it doesn't. But the purpose of wrestling is not a street fight. And when you use your tool for something it wasn't designed you can get unpredictable results.

He died because he was stabbed. That has nothing to do with wrestling not being effective in a street fight. And in no way suggest wrestling only works on the mats. That’s a really poor conclusion imo.

We need very carefully define the goals of a given martial art or sport and discuss effectiveness only within these defined frames.

If those frames are the rules of combat for that sport or martial art. That’s fine, as they still fall under the meaning of martial art.

But reframing it as something other than fighting, it’s not longer an effect martial art. Even if it’s effect at the other thing.

You can't expect a classical boxer to win an MMA fight without adjusting his training goals for this specific purpose - he will need to learn grappling, kicks etc, but this will not give you the right to state that boxing is not effective.

Sure. That just proves mma is better than boxing for mma. But the opposite is also the case. Under boxing rules boxing wins. Judo wins under judo rules, and BJJ wins at bjj. Winning a match under a different rule set is not a logical test.

Working against a resistant opponent is a more logical test. Boxing and MMA both work against resistance, as is clearly shown.

they are subsidiary goals …imperative for instructors to remember the purpose of Aikido as a martial art.

That’s exactly what I’m saying above. If somebody enjoys boxercise for weight loss, that’s fine. But boxercise is not a martial art.
Ditto for demonstration. If something devolves into purely existing for demonstration. It is not a martial art, imo.

I enjoy these discussion, they are healthy. They used talk place here all the time. Trying to keep the spirit alive. 😉

I think there are some martial arts that are great, but are better understood as being almost entirely focused on preserving a particular physical culture or set of training practices, rather than being focused on how they can be effectively applied outside of the context of how they are practiced (Whether that means in a limited-rules fighting format, or some kind of self defence situation).

These martial arts might focused on preserving cultural practices and traditions, or have to do with physical fitness and wellbeing, and there might be some legitimate argument to be made that by really delving into this practice, people are physically and mentally developing themselves.

I agree. Practising for tradition, rather than martial prowess can be valid. There are various health, physical, mental wellbeing benefits. The issue (for me) that I allude to above, is people not realising it's a traditional representation rather than anything martial. Even more so, when the instructor is actively marketing it as the "ancient, secret, too dangerous for sport" system.

Having practiced Aikido on and off, this is certainly the way I feel about it, and when this criteria is applied to it, there's not much scope for confusion or disappointment. It's a great martial art, if your goal is to study Aikido for its own sake. Rich history, very aesthetic in nature, can lead to some physical and mental development, and so on.

It's clearly extremely technical and aesthetic. But the lack of resistance is a giant question mark/red flag.

I'd put some kung fu and karate styles into this category also.

Kung Fu for sure. At a lot level, its slap hands. At the extreme level it takes years of dedication and performance acrobat levels of strength, flexibility and skill (actually exists as a stage show). But it's definitely a show.

Can you use Aikido as a means of defending yourself? Potentially, yes, but I think the techniques used are suboptimal, and the training methods used to develop application of those techniques is also suboptimal. So in terms of being focused on application, it's an uphill struggle. The healthiest thing is that if an Aikido coach has the confidence to acknowledge this and say that it's just not their priority in Aikido practice - and that should be OK!

I think a lot of physical activates will lend themselves to improving you changes in a self defence situation, even those that are not martial arts at all (eg Rugby). But as you said, sub-optimal.

And totally fine if the coach acknowledges the short comings, and points out it's about tradition not beating a resisting opponent. Again the issue I see is misrepresentation, intentional or otherwise.

An irritation I do have with Aikido is that, for a system so focused on moral development, the way training is set up provides a lot of cover for people who are bad ukes and want to train in a passive-aggressive way.

I'e no direct experience of aikido, but do you mean uke is resisting the drill, or moving badly to screw up the other guy?
That'd be shortly lived at my gym

I agree that everyone should practise at the edge of their abilities. Too far from that line (in either direction) and it becomes close to useless.

I always go full speed – full power on highly skilled masters. It is simply a sign of disrespect towards your teacher if you do not attack him sincerely during the practice

I would distinguish between going full speed/power and full resistance. Resistance is not just attackign ith speed, it means actively trying to resist and avoid being attacked.

Due to the prearranged nature of practice, uke always knows what technique is coming. 

Case in point. If the move is prearranged, and uke is attacking in the way tori wants. It's not with resistance imo.

Resistance would actively evading, changing tact, even countering. In short, randori.