I believe Aikido is a budo and not a martial art in the usual way we
think of that term. As a budo it is a "way" of life organized around
martial principles.

As to effectiveness, if you mean "street effectiveness" as in actually
engaging in fights, no traditional "martial art" is readily effective
for that. Every art has to be modified for street effectiveness. Arts,
such as karate, that rely on kata have to be modified. But it is not
the techniques so much as the underlying principles that can make an art
street effective. The kihon training is aimed at allowing us to
discover those underlying principles that will enable us to adapt to a
street situation.

Another distinction needs to be made. That is between "fighting" and
"self-defense." There is a major difference between a fighting art and
a self-defense art. Aikido does not translate well either in spirit or
practice to fighting. It can, however, be effectively adapted to very
efficient self-defense. The evidence of this is the many law
enforcement and security agencies worldwide that have adopted Aikido as
their "martial art" of choice.

Bottom line: No art coming straight from the dojo is going to be
effective on the street. There has to be modification. So, basically,
we train in kihon because it promotes budo. We don't train with a view
toward using our kihon in street encounters, although we could and we
could do so effectively in many circumstances. Just think of evasions,
which are part of kihon waza. If you know how to evade effectively,
isn't that a great martial street skill? If you remove the target, you
can't be struck.

-----Original Message-----
From: yoshinkan@yahoogroups.com [mailto:yoshinkan@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of captain_black_belt
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 1:36 PM
To: yoshinkan@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Yoshinkan] Aikido as a "martial" art

I have question that has long since plagued my mind. How do you, as
Yoshinkan practitioners, reconcile the fact that you devote so much of
your time to a martial art that isn't really 'martial'. I mean, we
understand that the training curriculum is quite standardized with a
strict focus on kihon, but the curriculum does not have any venue for
actually testing the effectiveness of aikido in violent situations. We
train the kihon, develop the principals, and improve our timing and
power through jiyu waza. But how do you reconcile the fact that this is
a 'martial' art without any means of testing its martial quality. This
certainly isn't a dig at aikido, considering that I practice it quite
regularly and have been for over a decade. I'm just curious to see how
the wider aikido community reconciles this aspect of the art. Or is
this aspect of it even important to many of you?

CBB







Yahoo! Groups Links