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#aikido#don#martial#more#arts#real#practice#https#lisp#momentum

Discussion (21 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

titanomachyabout 11 hours ago
I watched that video a dozen times and I still don’t understand where the angular momentum came from. That guy must have been trying to throw himself, right??
rodolphoarruda16 minutes ago
OP here. Lots of comments from non-aikidokas. Interesting and unexpected to me. The thing about "throwing himself" is pure self preservation that advanced students acquire with time. It looks nice on public demos, but you can practice the same techniques slowly in a way that the partner feels grounded, unable to create momentum. In those cases, the partner will feel a lot of pressure on their limb/join or back. Do that to beginner students and you'll see their eyes pop-out in desperation because the pressure is too great and don't even know they can tap to ease down. In advanced practice, if you don't do self-preservation, you'd end up with snapped tendons, broken collarbones, toes etc. If you are already injured, you have to tell your partner in advance "I can't roll today. Don't project me." or "Don't apply the elbow lock", and so on. So you won't see great projections either. Those are the details you can't imagine just by watching videos; you've got to be in the mat. It's like me watching fishing videos. To me, fishing can't be anything more than: throwing bait => pulling line.
_carbyau_about 10 hours ago
I don't know in this case.

But I do know some of the moves are:

"If you don't throw yourself, your wrist/elbow/shoulder/whatever will be dislocated or broken."

And so the student, knowing this, saves themselves. IE the idea of rolling with the punches.

Which is to say, some moves are to be judged on the possible result, not the one you saw.

Whether that applies in this case, I don't know.

nottorpabout 4 hours ago
> "If you don't throw yourself, your wrist/elbow/shoulder/whatever will be dislocated or broken."

Usually that happens during free sparring at exams, where it's more likely that the ukes miss cooperating properly.

busterarmabout 10 hours ago
I came to reply with some form of this.

Aikido demonstration is cooperative. Uke and nage. Somebody throws and somebody receives the throw. I'm not one of those "Aikido is fake" people, but Aikido has no tournaments and isn't represented in MMA for a reason.

If you're in a real fight and properly distributing your weight, things you see in Aikido just don't happen. That's not shade on Aikido. It's a worthy effort for anyone who wants to devote themselves to it. It's just not a real representation of what happens in combat and this is much more true about Aikido than just about any other martial art you could practice.

The philosophy behind what the submission author wrote is strong. I was pretty moved by it and it effectively communicates what most people call beginner mindset. That mindset has brought me a ton of success in life.

dparkabout 10 hours ago
> Aikido demonstration is cooperative. Uke and nage. Somebody throws and somebody receives the throw. I'm not one of those "Aikido is fake" people, but Aikido has no tournaments and isn't represented in MMA for a reason.

Judo and Jiu Jitsu have Uke and Tori for demonstrations. Same concept. Except when Uke gets thrown, they really get thrown. They will cooperate with the move but they aren’t providing the momentum.

I don’t know if Aikido is “fake”, but I do think it’s more of a performance than a martial art.

defrostabout 10 hours ago
Aikido, B-Jiu-Jitsu, Ballet, and running laps all have their place in training for "real combat" - the stamina, the reflexes, the flexibility, the locks, being able to roll all help to come through with minimal damage.

Still, the annals of Stand Up, Don't Fall Down comedy eight minutes of Jesse Enkamp entering a Jiu-Jitsu tournament to Prove It Doesn't Work still entertains - the training montage is priceless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAJ2vt8wUbY

Getting back to Aikido, one master is of the opinion it's not in MMA as its either ineffectual non damaging ritual OR it's high damage, crippling, lethal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtibobLK56I

oceansweepabout 10 hours ago
It should also be noted Aikido’s original purpose was not for battle. It descended from Morihei Ueshiba studying Daito-ryu and wanting something less violent to practice after returning from war.
Onavoabout 8 hours ago
If you want a stand-up grappling martial art that hasn't lost most of its martial roots, just go with Judo (or one of the various wrestling variants).
raspasovabout 8 hours ago
Yes, he’s throwing himself. Aikido is often practiced solely as a non-competitive art.

If you want to see what competitive throws/takedowns with a kimono/gi look like against live resistance, watch Judo. Example https://youtu.be/fLD87nqwp3Y

For the same but without kimono, watch Greco-Roman. Example https://youtu.be/4Xc-wxNSsTk).

alexpotatoabout 10 hours ago
Having done multiple martial arts (Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Filipino martial arts and, if you count it, fencing) I've come to the conclusion that Aikido is the Lisp of the martial arts world:

- it's considered very beautiful

- it takes a long time to become fluent in it

- it "expands your mind"

- in theory it can "work on the street" but in practice people reach for other tools

JsonDemWitOster3 minutes ago
You are not the first person to make that connection: https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.00485
tmtvlabout 4 hours ago
Not having practised Aikido, but somewhat familiar with Lisp:

> it's considered very beautiful

Funny, I've heard it described as 'porridge with fingernail clippings', which doesn't seem to me like a description evoking a 'very beautiful' image.

> it takes a long time to become fluent in it

Not more so than many other programming languages. Of course, most people don't start with Lisp, so their frame of reference is off.

> it "expands your mind"

A fairly meaningless statement which is claimed of a great many things. Is Lisp any more or less mind-expanding than, say, marijuana?

> in theory it can "work on the street" but in practice people reach for other tools

What do you mean, 'in theory'? Lisp has been used, in practise, by NASA, for running a robot on Mars: <https://www.corecursive.com/lisp-in-space-with-ron-garret/>. If that isn't 'working on the street', then, by golly, that's a mean street you've got there.

j_bumabout 8 hours ago
Agreed it looks beautiful in those vids. It feels like almost more of a dance than something that might “work on the street”.

Hopefully not offensive, just my layman observation.

Scottn1about 7 hours ago
When I was a young kid in the 80's I thought Steven Seagal was a real badass, and Aikido was THE best (and coolest) martial art. Watching his movies and fight scenes was like watching that video at this website. Effortlessly using attackers own momentum against them, snapping limbs and the principle of no fist/kick hits harder than the ground. I remember going to the library and getting some Aikido books and practicing the steps from photographs.

Then Royce Gracie with Brazilian Jujitsu and the very beginnings of UFC came along and completely upended the traditional glamor of movie star Martial Arts for REAL fights against opponents of all sizes (Early UFC didn't have weight classes). Most real fights end up on the ground pretty fast anyway and against larger/stronger opponents you want to be on the ground.

That isn't to say that a black belt in say Karate, or even Aikido wouldn't still be effective in a no-choice self-defense situation, but I'd rather be more proficient in Boxing at that point or one of the many other more modern fighting arts that have grappling as a core.

nottorpabout 4 hours ago
Regarding the title:

Shodan black belts in most martial arts mean you can execute 80% of the techniques competently. After shodan you're supposed to perfect them and worry about stuff like when to use one technique and not another...

rramadassabout 7 hours ago
"Martial Arts" can be looked at from one of three different perspectives; viz. 1) For Health Maintenance 2) For Competitive Sport 3) For Self-Defence.

With age, the emphasis on (2)&(3) diminishes and the focus becomes (1). This is why many martial arts masters toned down their fighting styles over time. With age one needs to focus more on cultivating mind, breathing, balance, awareness, sensitivity, and less on strength and power.

Aikido and Taijiquan/Taichichuan (except the original "hard" Chen style) were uniquely developed for this. So if you think of these as martial arts for self-defence you will be completely disappointed. However training in them allows you to develop certain aspects, specifically sensitivity and awareness, which are vital in real combat.

Aikido does this via defender learning to turn attacker's momentum and Taiji/Taichi does the same via push-hands practice. Depending upon how well you have practiced and internalized this you may/may-not be able to use this in a very limited number of real-world scenarios. Not all conflicts need hard kicking/punching.

All students will do well to study the concepts/theories/ideas behind these arts and interpret/adapt them for use in their own lives.