My Doubts About Aikido. Need help!?

Question

I am a 4th-Kyu holder in Aikido. I train on average about 3-4 times a week. So far, I have spent around 18 months on Aikido. Aikido is my first exposure to the world of martial arts.

I am having doubts because of my inability execute my moves on an uke who is very strong. I had trouble bringing him down when executing a San-kyo Shomen-uchi. I need to use a lot of strength even in the first Shomen-uchi part to bring him down. My uke is a nice guy. He just isn't co-operating. And he has easily 4 years of experience in Aikido compared to my 18 months. But then again, maybe it is a good thing, because on the streets, people aren't going to cooperate with you.

I couldn't execute the sankyo lock on him because the moment I try, he gets up. He is very strong, and moving him around is like me trying to move an ox.

Maybe you would say my Aikido is pathetic. It is probably true. Do any of you experts face similar problems? How do you get around it? Am I too eager to improve?

Answer 1

Hmmm...  Been there - your questions are very common.

First of all consider that, as in all things, practice makes perfect.... or rather practice moves you closer to perfection without actually getting there.  This is a good thing in that there will never be a point that you can't learn more.  Accept that its not the destination that's important; its the journey itself along with all its ups and downs.

O'Sensei said "This old man is still learning"

That said, don't sweat it.  Its totally natural (its instinct) to add more force when meeting resistance.  Find a stuck door that won't open, try pushing harder right?

To illustrate:

http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/7571/...

As you continue, your response to resistance will begin to change.  Right now, when you get resistance, you push harder, pull harder, grab harder, grunt harder, whatever...  Sooner or later you will probably have a moment, then another then another where you just change to something else without thinking about it - this is your instinct changing from 'use more force' to 'change and take advantage of the resistance' meaning change to a different technique or alter the current technique depending on whats ACTUALLY happening.

As you continue further, you'll start to understand that every motion you make - even before anything starts - controls your opponent.  If you can't get a decent grip now, that's ok because you will learn to set your partner up so that what you think of as a decent grip isn't necessary - they want to grab you ok, but YOU decide how and where so you control them through their intention to grab in the first place.

What you think of as a good grip now might be based on how hard you can squeeze...  how well you can control your opponents hand.  You will start to understand that its not about controlling your opponents hand... its about using their hand to control their elbow and their elbow to control their shoulder and their shoulder to control their upper body and their upper body to control their entire body and their entire body to control their balance.  Your hands are smaller than his, but your body is bigger than his hand - use your entire body to control his hand and through that his elbow....

Enter gravity - it effects everyone equally and all you are doing is setting your partner up to get pulled down by gravity or to be unable to get leverage to resist gravity.

A strong partner can resist you but they can only resist the gravity if they have their balance and leverage and they can only resist in one direction at a time - the techniques work when they deny your opponent the opportunity to do so.

Second: My Senseis tell me variations on the same basic idea all the time - 'more of what isn't working isn't going to work any better'.  If a door says pull and it doesn't open when you push, is pushing harder going to help?  Success isn't executing the technique of your choice, its subduing your opponent through their own choices.  You don't choose what to do, rather, your opponent tells you what to do with the openings they leave and the directions they move.

If you have a hard time with Sankyo on someone with tree limbs for arms, you are learning that its not the best choice against that person - you are learning how to choose the appropriate response for a given situation... ok, no Sankyo on The Hulk.... perhaps Aiki Nage would be a better choice...

My guess is your Sensei knows this but also knows that failure is a better teacher than success.

Practice will make you more sensitive to this over time and eventually, you will end up just doing it and when asked, you won't know what you just did exactly - your thinking, calculating brain wasn't involved.

Third: Hiroshi Ikeda Shihan is quoted as saying "Aikido workss.  YOUR Aikido doesn't work".  So....  rather than get frustrated, just keep training.  Its not a sprint, its a marathon - takes endurance, tenacity, patience and effort - just like all things worthwhile (concert pianist, a scientific doctorate, orchid grower, police detective, hunter, etc.,...)  Your Aikido might not work now; what about your Aikido tomorrow?

So... keep practicing.  Be eager to learn, but don't get discouraged - even when you think you aren't making progress, you ARE learning...  its just that the lessons haven't shown themselves yet in application.  Give it time and they will.

Forth:  Small, persistent thoughts in your head like 'I couldn't execute', 'He has 4 years experience in Aikido compared to my 18 months', 'He is very strong', 'Maybe you would say my Aikido is pathetic.  It is probably true."

These things won't help - they just hold you back and learning to tell these tiny voices to shut the h**l up is THE most important part of your training.  When you say 'But then again, maybe it is a good thing..' you are on the right track - admitting a fact but seeing it as a good thing.

Never 'can't' only 'haven't yet'

Never 'failed' only 'one more bad possibility understood'

Never 'small and weak' only 'underestimated'

Never 'pathetic' only 'steep learning curve to look forward to'

Never 'inexperienced' only 'beginner's mind'

Your experience is normal and is, from what you describe, exactly as it should be - your Sensei isn't supposed to teach you anything - they are there to guide you as you teach yourself by giving hints and steering you away from things they found out themselves to be 'wrong'

Sensei doesn't mean 'master' or 'god'.  Sensei means 'one who has gone before' - they have been in the same boat you have and understand the thoughts you have now - they thought the same thing at one time.

Answer 2

Don't let it bother you.  After all, I'm Nidan and I think I'm pretty good.  While, last week this very delicate looking 6th Kyu woman from another dojo attacked me, shoulder grab, we were throwing ikkyo irimi, I'd never thrown her before.  I thought I was almost finished with the technique and she just stood up.  I tried it again, and the same thing happend.  It's not like she's a large, muscular person either.  I wondered to my self, what went wrong?  Was I throwing her "easier" because she is new?  Was it because I threw her slowly so she had time to get her balance back?  In a way what she did was impractical because it left her in danger of another attack, if this were a real fight, but it left me wondering about my skill as a martial artist!  So we all have our doubts.  I did get to thinking about what we're doing here and why we have certain rules when we practice.

For example, I was thinking that I and another black belt could get together, and we could probably find a way to block some of the techniques that we do, especially the more complicated ones.  Why?  Well, we know the techniques pretty well, and we've been doing Aikido for awhile, so we know where to block them.  But it wouldn't be much fun to do something like that, and what would we learn?

What we're doing is to take a specific attack and isolate it to work on how to defend against it.  That being said, the actual technique one chooses to use would depend upon the attack.  Not only the specific attack, but how that attack is being executed.  In order to practice we do technique slowly, and it is up to the uke to give the attack that we are expecting.  

If the person is not giving a committed attack, that is if he has it in his mind to block you, then he probably can.  He has an advantage in that he knows what technique is coming, and therefore he can set himself to block that technique.  In his own way, he is trying to test to see if Aikido works, or try to disprove it.

In class, one of the tenants, is to help each other.  If your partner spends all his time and energy trying to block you, then what is he learning?  Plus, if he does block you, he himself leaves himself in a very vulnerable position.  If you were in a fight, you or your friends could easily attack him from there.  So, most times this is not very sensible.

Listen, if he were to attack you for real, believe me, you probably would choose a different technique in Aikido based on how he was attacking, were you more advanced.  You don't get a choice of technique, and he knows that.  Some of the technique we do regularly could be more or less impractical in a given situation.

If you see he's doing a specific action, it might be interesting to suddenly do a different technique and see what happens.  Most probably it would be quite effective in immediately taking him to the ground, because he wasn't expecting it.

Don't give up.  You're a martial artist after all.  Maybe ask your instructor for help/advice.  It's not worth throwing in the towel for this.  

All games have rules, even UFC has rules.  We do have to help each other to practice.  I think staying relaxed in this situaiton might help you though.  Ask him to slow down so you can practice effectively.  If your partner is being uncooperative you have every right to ask him to behave differently.  Also, he's probably not learning as much if he's so focused on beating you!

Answer 3

A hakama Aikido-ka should be helping you with your technique rather than pulling it to pieces.  If he evades it then ask him directly "What did I do wrong?"

The san kyo move should work on bigger people because it's finger manipulation - but it's quite technical.  Your sensei should check you've got the right grip.

The san kyo pinning technique needs you to change hands in the final stages.  Maybe this is the problem.  Bending uke's arm at his/her elbow weakens resistance.

If aikido wasn't difficult - then it wouldn't be rewarding.  So look forward to the day you get it right.

Answer 4

You need to understand that executing stand up grappling is very difficult to do specially in a dangerous situation where you are not 100% focused on form and technique , also on these types of situation you do not have enough time to gauge the opponent's strenght contrary to your gym training where a few minutes with a person can help you understand better their strenght and do modifications to your technique in order to execute it better.  So pretty much you should start cross training your reflexes besides your aikido training , good arts for developing quick reflexes and quick responses are boxing, muay thai , wing chun , jeet kune do or silat.  Once you are able to control an opponent by knocking him or distracting him with a blow , then you may find it easier to apply a joint lock or any other stand up grappling move.

Answer 5

In my personal opinion, pretty much all Aikido is c**p. There isn't much practical appliction in it....except for the kind Steven Segal does. That WORKS. You have to weed out what techniques could work and which ones leave you open for an attack.

Answer 6

Alastor and heather have given you some great advice.

Remember that Aikido is an art that was developed at the height of Ueshiba's study. It is an extremely deep art that isn't easily understood or "mastered" (I dislike that word but cannot think of a better word at the moment).

I will say though that IDEALLY you shouldn't need any atemi or "shock" techniques. These are, actually, ways to cheat and imply that your art is not sufficient. They are tools for lower levels (which you are, so it is best to learn them now but then try to avoid them...).

Don't give up! Good luck!

PS. I do recommend though that you study another art part time. Something not too similar as it will warp your current learning. So, try something like karate instead of judo. Or kick boxing, etc. But be warned that it will shake your faith in Aikido all over again...

Answer 7

Firstly you are quite right in maintaining that people will resist on the street,I know very little about aikido although I possess many books and videos,but I do know about jiu-jitsu to move him around even though he's bigger is about getting him off balance which is the core of jiu-jitsu,judo and aikido,secondary if he's resisting against locks you need to apply a strike or atemi waza as its called in Japanese ,I know for a fact that somewhere in any of the techniques you are failing in will have as a prerequisite a strike before applying the said locks just break it down and take a closer look, try watching these two utube links.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vop2KHEk2...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=T6_um148OmY

You are not pathetic so don't think that ever, just keep practising and ask your instructor to break things down for you and most importantly tell him your partner is resisting any coach/instructor worth his salt will be able to deal with a resisting uke easily as to prove it can be done.

Hope this helps good luck and best wishes :)***

Answer 8

okay

Answer 9

In Aikido, as I'm sure you know, strength shouldn't be necessary to preform the technique. Aikido is about manipulation of the uke's strength and force, and the momentum of their attack. The harder they attack, the more you have to work with.

Your uke's "cooperation" should not decide whether or not you can execute the technique. If he's getting up when you try to preform the sankyo, then there is a hole in your technique. If he's able to get up, you're not locking him down enough. I can't say for sure, but chances are you're too far away from him, and you're not positioning your body correctly. Again, I can't tell you exactly what's wrong without seeing your preform this. It could be a number of things.

One thing you have to remember is that for different people, you may have to alter your technique very slightly. On the streets, if your attacker is a really big guy, throw a strong atemi in there to disorient him and take some of the bite off his attack. Now, in the dojo, obviously, you can't do that. But, you can alter your technique to fit the uke.

Working with big, strong guys is a blessing in disguise. It really helps you see the holes in your technique. So, be patient, and get someone experienced, preferably a Sensei, to watch as you preform this technique. From that perspective, it will be easier to find what is wrong and where there are holes.

Goodluck!