Is Aikido a Martial Art?

Question

I thought I'd post some interesting coments made by Henry Ellis Sensei on Modern Aikido in an article by the same name as the question and see what you think:

"I am fully aware that every martial art has its own ver of Harry Potter, what i fail to understand is that there are more of them in aikido than in all other martial arts combined"

"I was contacted by an aikido student to tell me she had stopped training in aikido because her teacher sayed he was going to teach the students to "breathe through their toes"

"The early style of aikido was very compact and powerfull.....today, the fantasy aikido-ka needs a football pitch"

"I have seen some so called masters twirling Uke around on the end of one finger and pirouetting several times before being thrown the full length of the mat"

"i often hear and have seen some of these people who say they can throw an oponent without touching them"

" If you do attack on balance you will then be accused of "not harmonising"

"They make these claims, knowing that if they were ever chalanged ti prove their mettle, they can claim that this is against the principals of aikido"

Obviously alot of people didnt read the whole question, the title was simply the name of the article talking about what has happoned to aikido in mordern times, the person saying those quotes and doing the article is himself an aikido instructor and the point he was making was not that all aikido is weak but that some aikido cannot be called a martial art because of the standard they teach at and is more like dancing than any combat art he knows, he himself talks about the aikido training he learned from his yonger days, and from what he says, if i ever do aikido again it will be at this guys dojo, but its fun to see so many people defend aikido as this guy points out, its one of those arts which needs ALOT of defending

Answer 1

Aikido is a real art and Martial art, it derives from ancient Aiki Jujitsu, that is where the origins of Aikido come from. It is a very good art and if it were not it would not be used by the Japanese police force in their training.

I have never heard of breatheing with your toes, though your toes to breathe in the sense that they release built up sweat and release it when it become vaporable. so your toes can breathe in a NON literal sense but certainly not literaly.

i think Aikido is a good art, it is a Modern art form so to compare it to ancient would be comparing it to Aiki Jujitsu. aikido is not even 150 years old, not even 125. Many of the main Martial Arts todays names did not come about until 1937 and later, before that their were just basic styles like Te, gung fu and a few others. the official names came later in the 20th century thats when Modern MA was born.

Answer 2

Yes Aikido is a "real" martial art. It is however harder to master than most more common styles. Also there are fewer really good instructors of Aikido than there are for many other styles. EDIT: NICK I like you for many years felt that Aikido was a joke. Not so any more. Being a senior martial artists it takes a lot to impress me. While at a martial arts weekend in PA in the early 1990's I was grabbed for an impromptu demo one morning. Several martial artists like myself were up early drinking coffee in the dining room. A senior Aikido instructor came in and asked if anyone wanted to work on something. Before I knew it I was being thrown around like a rag doll. It takes someone that knows what they are doing to move me. Never make that mistake of saying that Aikido is not for real. I'll agree that 90% of the Aikido I see is a waste of time. That is not because the art is not good. It is simply because there are a lot of bad martial artists out there. Aikido is very much for real!

Answer 3

Ellis Sensei has a point in some of what he says. Too many Aikido schools fail to get that the martial aspects of Aikido are essential to the training. The philosophical aspects can only be really appreciated from the vantage of being martially effective.

But, "no touch" throws, done correctly, do work. There's no magic. It's timing and energy. One person disparagingly described this as "the attacker throwing himself". Except that that is exactly what happens.

But to rely on such throws is a mistake. They aren't that easy to do correctly and they're very easy to fake in a training situation. They look cool and they're *very* fast (one of the very few instructors I've trained with where I *knew* his no-touch throws were real could throw people almost before they attacked. It was kind of spooky being his uke).

There is no magic in Aikido as a martial art. There is an attitude of - for lack of a better word - love. But it's important to remember that love often looks more like a firm nikkyo than a group hug. Saying, "there, there, it's alright" to the out-of-control friend with a knife doesn't help. Taking the knife away and insisting he calm down might.

As for the last comment (attacking on balance), that speaks to a misunderstanding of kuzushi, commitment and how an attack will really work.

Answer 4

This is a simple Q&A but I will go futher into that in a moment: You wish to know if it was a MARTIAL art. No. It is a CIVIL art. Aikido could not be used in battlefield tactics, but at its best, in a civilian / street atmosphere. If you don't know what I mean, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jnLqdD5hoQ

More to that though, is the background to it.
1) Morihei Ueshiba Was a practitioner of Aikijujutsu, and during a war, he was captured and almost executed. At that point, he decided he was done with fighting and wanted to develop Aikido as a spiritual art instead of one of fighting. That is why traditional systems do not grab their attacking opponent.
2) Ueshiba was illiterate. As with most Japanese words, Ai and Ki have 2 different meanings depending on the kanji. Since he couldn't read, he couldn't tell that the kanji for Ai was (united - not love) and Ki was (energy - not harmony). United energy was the whole concept of aikijujutsu, one that was lost when he made it Aikido. (and for those who wish to point out the kanji paintings done by Ueshiba, I would also like to point out that history shows that a master of the brush actually guided his hand to make those pieces of art, he didn't do them on his own)

Answer 5

Aikido is a Martial Art & a good 1. As in all other styles, there are a lot of fakes claiming to be masters.

Answer 6

It is a martial art that focuses on agility, knowledge of the human body, movement, calm under pressure, balance, defensive responses rather than direct attack, and many other things beside.

The complaints you quote have some validity to them, but these are not criticisms of aikido per se; these are criticisms of bad schools of aikido. It's true aikido emphasizes a lot of softer techniques, but these techniques meant that the student should be efficient without muscling his way through. They were never meant with the idea in mind the art itself should remain soft.

There is a lot of charlatanism out there. Aikido, unfortunately, has not remained untouched. It's not a question of good style / bad style, but, like most things, a question of good teacher / bad teacher.

Answer 7

Aikido is most definitely a martial art. It is often considered to be the "youngest" traditional Japanese martial arts. Morihei Ueshiba founded the art, which officially became known as Aikido around 1942. It is derived from Daito Ryu Jujutsu, and various staff and sword forms. As Ueshiba was developing the art in the 1920's and 1930's it went through a couple of different names, such as, Aiki Jujutsu and Aiki Budo.

Many of the taijutsu techniques have a correlating sword or staff form. The jujutsu techniques are "softened" with the intent to allow an aikidoist to immobilize, or throw an attacker without dislocating joints or breaking bones. The ultimate physical expression of Aikido is to end confrontation peacefully without injury to self or attacker(s). Note, that is the "ultimate" expression. It doesn't mean that Aikido is always implemented this way. It is a partnered practice and uke, the person receiving the technique, is equally responsible for their own safety. Aikido technique fully and successfully applied to a person without training has a high probability of injuring that person to a degree. If you throw someone to the ground and they do not know how to fall, then you better believe that landing is going to hurt that person, period.

Philosophically, Aikido teaches confrontation, conflict, and the desire to injury another arises out of ego. The idea is to resolve the issue of ego, to remove it from the equation so to speak, so that conflicts can be resolved as calmly and a peacefully as possible without undue injury.

Some people interpret these ideas to mean Aikido and its techniques should never result in injury, or cause the most momentary pain. They practice in such a manner to engender these results. They take the Martial out of the Art. If they practice Aikido as a life-style alone that is fine, but if they are intending to practice Aikido as a Martial Art it creates a dilemma.

This is where Ellis Sensei's article was really great because what he is espousing is the view that Aikido is a Martial Art with a fantastic history and has the tools to be totally effective. It is also a foundational philosophy for living. He rails against the watering down of Aikido into a choreographed dance of motion absent the martial application; a sacrifice to the alter of the philosophy.

I do agree with a lot of what Ellis Sensei has written about, but I also see room for things he dismisses. Very thought provoking.

Answer 8

Many good points made here. Aikido is a martial art, however there are teachers / schools of Aikido that do not believe that. I would invite anyone who doubts Aikido's efeciency to visit a Yoshinkan Aikido Dojo. Yoshinkan is reffered to as the old school or hard style of Aikido, and is closely related to / uses the termonology of Aiki - Ju Jutsu. Yoshinkan is mandatory training for the eliete Tokyo Riot Police (like SWAT), and all female police officers in Tokyo.

Answer 9

Actually there are two major styles of Aikido, one is the traditional Hombu aikido that was taught by the founder and is currently headed by his heirs, while the other style is the one popularly known as Ki-Aikido. Ki-Aikido was founded by Koichi Tohei, the founder's senior student and at the time of the founder's demise, Tohei was the head instructor of the school's headquarters. But Tohei sensei placed more emphasis on developing Ki over physical techniques and since this was considered contrary with the original art's principles, he later broke away from the main school to start his own branch and teach his own applications of aikido which he named "Shin shin toitsu Aikido" or "Unified mind and body aikido" which is more popularly known today as Ki-Aikido. He migrated to the west and became responsible for popularizing the art of Aikido to westerners and amassing a large following. So when you hear of someone performing "Harry Potter" stuff in aikido, it's most likely that the practitioner is a Ki-Aikido student.

Answer 10

I had no idea there were so many variations!

But yes, it is a martial art.

It is the type of art for someone with a long term focus. It takes like 15 years to get a black belt.

The way those guys move around is just amazing. Once you really know aikido, not much can touch you.