Aikijujutsu vs Aikido

[Earl Hartman]

I know that [Ellis Amdur] has aikido experience, quite a lot, no doubt, but I have heard him say, with his characteristic bluntness, that he believes that Aikido is useless for fighting.

Just FYI.

Earl

[Ellis Amdur]

I may have said that, at one point or another, depending on the context, but it doesn't really reflect my far more complex opinion of aikido and Daito Ryu, for that matter. Golf isn't for fighting, but if you expanded the Octogon a bit, so as to get a full backswing, I wonder how Shamrock or Sakuraba or Miletich would do against Tiger Woods, armed with a Big Bertha metal driver.

So, if I said "useless" . . . I take it back - that doesn't well reflect my opinion. It is my opinion that all the "aiki" arts are just a very very long way around to learn how to fight, (Street or Combat) and in the end would not provide nearly the tools that a tight combative art, be it koryu (Shibukawa Ryu, for example) or gendai (BJJ or catch wrestling) would, and in the process, if over-focused on that narrow subject, all the myriad benefits of an aiki training, be it aikido or Daito Ryu may be neglected or lost.

I am sure that a partisan of one of these disciplines (and I do have a near 30 year history of various forms of aikido so I'm not just speaking from the outside here) may name one or another formidible fighter - either, "X sensei defeated seventeen gangsters in a street brawl" or the standard "if you don't think aikido/jutsu is so tough, come to Tucumcari or Tehachipi or Tonapa and try my teacher!" But for me it's simple - if my kid was going to prison, if he were going to go to the battlefield, if he were going to live in the South Bronx or Airin (in Osaka), I would definitely teach him aiki type principles in dealing with people. But aikido and Daito Ryu would be very very far down on my personal list of things to impart regarding survival in hand-to-hand combat.

If, on the other hand, my son is interested in a full life, part of which is being more effective in a number of situations which might possibly include a rather rare possibility of physical confrontation, then I'd have no trouble supporting him in pursuing an "aiki" art if it suited his fancy.

Best

Ellis Amdur



[Edited by Ellis Amdur on 08-31-2000 at 04:55 PM]

[Tom Campbell]

Well, now . . . I wouldn't dispute the general tenor of your observations, Mr. Amdur, fortunately not having been in a lot of fights. I do think it's appropriate to talk about different hand-to-hand fighting ranges or settings, and certainly groundfighting is not a strong element in any aikido or aikijujutsu training that I've seen or done. On the other hand, there are people who have demonstrated effective "aiki" technique both in fights and in control/arrest situations. But I am not in a position to credibly support or detract from the effectiveness of the aiki arts in "combat" (love that word) situations, so I won't go there ;-] .

Mr. Amdur, if you do have the time and inclination to comment, I'd appreciate hearing your opinion(s) on the Chinese arts (xingyiquan, Chen style taijiquan) that you've cross-trained in when compared with the Japanese arts . . . again, for a modern-day hand-to-hand situation . . . say, in the Hilltop or Stadium neighborhoods of Tacoma, or in your favorite part of Osaka, Japan, or down with the big guys in Walla Walla State Penitentiary.

Actually, don't be too concerned about replying. This kind of armchair brawling can't possibly account for the individual's training, physical condition, mindset and control of his/her own fear, regardless of the art.

[Earl Hartman]

Ellis:

I didn't mean to misrepresent your opinion of aikido, so I apologize if I have caused any unintended offense. As I recall, the comment was in the nature of a response to a question as to whether modern aikido as it is usually taught (not Daito Ryu or "aiki principles") was a true martial art in the sense that it taught techniques for fighting that would be useful in a violent confrontation. As I recall, your reply was negative. That is all I meant to convey.

Again, I apologize for any confusion my comments may have caused.

Yours,
Earl

[Nathan Scott]

[Post deleted by user]

[Ellis Amdur]

Mr. Campbell -

Hong I-hsiang, (see Smilth's: Chinese Boxers), quickly picking up on my interest/obsession with "combat," said to me, "If you want to learn how to be a really strong fighter in six months, go to Thailand and study Muay Thai. If you want to be as strong or stronger, and you want to be able to be healthy through your old age, give me ten years and study with me." (I ended up studying both muay thai and hsing i, tho' neither in nearly enough depth).

In my experience, "internal martial arts" make 95% of us, healthy, more agile, more flexible, and conceivably somewhat better to take care of oneself in the relevant situations. Then there is is "leap" that a few people take (in my personal experience, Wang Shu Chin, Hong I-hsiang, Su Deng Chen and Fhen Zhi Jiang) where one can be as good, body to body as anyone on the planet.

As far as areas of Tacoma go, seeing as there are a lot of guns on the street, context is everything, isn't it? Just the other day, eight kids beat to death a man with feet, fists and sticks, however, and if it had been me and I was unarmed, and I had a choice of a sudden skills/method transplant I would rather have the skill and method of one of the four men I mentioned than it's equivalent in aikido/jutsu. I'm not claiming I would survive. I'm just saying that, given a choice between those options, I know what I'd rather have on my side. Walla walla? Since one usually gets stabbed from behind or in a crowd, again - context is everything. But in this armchair speculative question, given what I have personally trained in, observed, learned, IF one could attain the skills of the very few that I've seen in "internal arts," and I had no weapon, AND, it is a melee, so I'd have to stay on my feet, then I'd be very happy to have Su's, for example, skills. Because, altho' I agree, in some respects, with the "it's the man, not the method," idea, the method can be paramount, be it Phalanx against the Persian 10,000 Immortals, Roman Legions against Phalanx or BJJ against stand-up karate in a closed ring.


What I personally prefer about Chinese internal arts to aiki arts is although the movements seem sophisticated and elaborate, they are interwoven with a few very general principles which train specifically in the development of efficient use of power, AND the ability to make micro-shifts in lead/reaction to the enemy's balance points. To my mind, the unifying principles of the various aiki systems, regarding coordination, grounding, fluid movement, micro-adjustments are far less unified, have far less coordination.

AND Mr. Scott -

AS I said, I speak from a perspective both "inside" and "outside" the aiki arts, and the problem I have has to do with complexity - at least if one is trying to develop effective skills for the specific purpose of fighting (in whatever context we imagine). My viewpoint, certainly open to disagreement, is that Daito Ryu has far too many elaborations of minutiae - and that in training for rough-and-tumble, it's not a very efficient way to learn, makes far too many assumptions about what people will do in attacking you (thereby not training in fluid response) and it neglects certain parameters.

A lot of koryu are, as you say, focused only on archaic situations - but as for Shibukawa Ryu, I've done some great cross training with a guy who also has years of Greco-Roman, and he makes things work! (Not kata here - rolling).

What I want to make clear here is that I am not comparing myself to so-and-so, whoever someone might think could beat me six ways to Sunday, be it aikido, aikijutsu, or O-Sensei Tiger Woods himself. Maybe so, maybe not, so what. I love aikido and profoundly respect it. That's why I've written a whole book on the subject, considering all the myriad values it offers, beyond combat, but that would NOT exist as values if combat was still not a question. Aikido and its values (and to a lesser degree, Daito Ryu) rests on the question of combat, whatever other elaborations lie beyond it.

But in simply in attempting to address Earl's quote, I am really discussing that, to the best of my 33 years of martial experience, IF combative ability, in certain contexts is my goal, what training do I think will help me or my sons achieve that, what limitations would it have, how long would it take.

It really comes down to this, however. A friend of mine, who was truly one of the scariest people I've ever known empty-handed or with small weapons in hand went to an unnamed country and participated in some action with indigenous people in the jungle. I asked him if he did any sparring with them, as these folks had their own "combative traditions." He laughed kind of ruefully, and said, "yeah, one night we all smoked a little of the local herb and we tried a few things. I had absolutely no problem with any of them. They are little guys, and their hand-to-hand stuff is pretty limited. So the next day we went out on patrol, and suddenly, I'm all alone. I can hear giggles coming from one bush or another, someone threw a pebble and hit me on the back of the head, then silence. I have no idea where I am. They let me wait about fifteen minutes and then, there they all were - laughing. I got the message who knew how to fight."

Best

Ellis Amdur

[Nathan Scott]

[Post deleted by user]

[Tom Campbell]

Thanks for your responses, everyone. And thanks in particular to Mr. Amdur, who has a wealth/breadth of experience that's always interesting to hear about. I'd love to hear more about Wang Shu Chin and his visit(s) to Japan some time. I recall C.W. Nichol's account of waking up in Donn Draeger's Tokyo house feeling the house shake from Wang punching the posts. But that's best left for another thread . . .

[shinja]

I've got something I would like to bounce off of you guys.

These are my observations:

It would seem that the popularity enjoyed by aikijujutsu in the US was more or less spearheaded by the interest Segal genterated in aikido through his movies. As folks investigated this "new" martial art (aikido) they found that much of aikido was derived from Daito ryu.

Was it not Takeda who specifically applied the term aiki to the term jujutsu which gives us aikijujutsu? If this is then the case, would it not be fair to say that anyone claiming to teach aikijujusu would have to be able to show some sort of direct link to Takeda and Daito Ryu? (and not some crudely executed aikido)

I'm not going to point at any one particular person or school. It just seems that there has been an explosion of aikijujutsu sytems croping up in the US.

What are your thoughts?

[Cady Goldfield]

As far as I'm concerned, if the art doesn't contain those 17 herbs and spices, it ain't the Colonel's secret recipe. A lot of people seem to be trying to backtrack from an aikido education, to see if they can pick up the original principles that were lost or altered from aikido's ancestral system. But they won't find them unless they train in a classical system that still contains those principles.

And unlike KFC's chicken recipe, it's not as easy to "crack the code" and self-discover what the ingredients are. You have to get them from someone who has them and can and will impart them, but most of those guys are a pretty closed bunch! At least, the ones who really *do* have the ingredients. A few will demonstrate and give seminars, but they won't impart in you what you really need to know -- just give you a taste of the Colonel's secret herbs 'n' spices.

Cady

[szczepan]

this is very known story, he learned it from a book some of his uchideshi read him for a while.
Not all of us are O'senseis yet, but if one develop very good sense of observation&good level in MA, I'd say he will see "Original Principles which are Lost".

As far as possibility to execute techniques without "Original Principles" - I don't believe it is possible.So everyone who gives a public demo, he presents these principles anyway.
Why we think they are hidden in a shadow? Cos our level is not high enough to see them.


regardz

[Brently Keen]

Nice analogy Cady. I think you make a good point. I'm sure that you'll agree that it's a simplification though.

Discovering and reproducing real aikijujutsu is substantially more difficult than just getting a hold of the "secret" ingredients in the recipe. Just being able to recite or even explain the "principles" means nothing if you haven't got (a clue about) aiki to start with.

Some of these folks think they have the recipe, secret ingredients and all, but they're not even frying chicken. They think they've got the "principles" of aiki learned from attending a few seminars and watching tapes, but what they're serving is a lot more like a flock of crow, than the Colonel's famous chicken.

* * * * *

While Seagal's movies have certainly made the general public more aware of aikido, and maybe even contributed some to it's recent growth and popularity, I think it's fair to say that aikido was already growing steadily here in the USA for 15+ years before 'Above the Law' even came out. Certainly many aikidoka have learned about Daito-ryu from reading about the history of aikido. We can all thank Stanley Pranin for his efforts in this area.

Whether or not Sokaku Takeda actually coined the term "aikijujutsu" is still up for debate though. He certainly popularlized it. Oral tradition in Daito-ryu maintains that the terms aiki and aikijujutsu (as well as the fundamental techniques), were both part of the tradition prior to Sokaku Takeda.

Because the earliest surviving documents (hiden mokuroku) issued by Sokaku Takeda contain the kanji for "Daito-ryu Jujutsu", and more recent scrolls refer to "Aikijujutsu" it is believed by many that it was Sokaku who coined and/or added the term "aiki". However, while that may be true, another (perhaps more accurate) interpretation is that the terms "jujutsu" in the earlier mokuroku refer to the content of the scroll's curriculum (techniques) rather than to the art or tradition as a whole.

In other words, we could interpret the earlier hiden mokuroku scrolls to simply refer to the "jujutsu" curriculum of Daito-ryu, which comprise the entry level techniques of the greater Daito-ryu tradition.

This perspective is consistent with the clearly stated fact (by all the top Daito-ryu masters) that Daito-ryu as a tradition contains both jujutsu and aiki (or aikijujutsu). And that aiki and jujutsu are two distinctly different things. The techniques contained in the hiden mokuroku scroll are clearly comprised of jujutsu techniques. The earlier scrolls simply described the techniques contained in the hiden mokuroku (accurately) as 'Daito-ryu Jujutsu', as opposed to describing (inaccurately) the whole art of Daito-ryu as 'Jujutsu'.

Later, the hiden mokuroku was changed to reflect the opinion that because the term "Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu" was already being used by Sokaku, and it more accurately described the art (tradition) as a whole, that it should also be indicated as such on all the scrolls.

Oral tradition claims that it was Kotaro Yoshida who made this suggestion to Sokaku Takeda. My own guess is that he probably made this suggestion when he was copying a scroll for Sokaku to give to someone else (it's known that both Kotaro Yoshida and Kodo Horikawa frequently copied scrolls and wrote for Sokaku). My own guess is that Sokaku probably didn't care too much one way or the other since he basically held writing in disdain and reportedly couldn't write much more than his own name (while he was a swordsman extraordinaire, he didn't subscribe to the dual way of the pen and the sword as stressed by his father and ancestors).

We do know however that Sokaku believed aiki was the pinnacle and very essence of the tradition that he taught, and whether he created aiki himself or just developed it to the next level, he certainly defined it as we now know it. And so I think it's probably safe to say that if it can't be traced directly to Sokaku Takeda through one of his senior students then it's probably safe to say it's not authentic aikijujutsu.

Tracing an art through Morihei Ueshiba's Aikido is certainly respectable, but it does not qualify as "aikijujutsu" IMO. Athough Ueshiba received a kyoju dairi certification, Sokaku clearly stated that he hadn't finished teaching him, before he struck off on his own. Although Ueshiba did teach "Daito-ryu" for some years before the war and even issued some "Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu" certificates, these were "hiden mokuroku" scrolls and thus only contained the first 118 entry level 'jujutsu' techniques of Daito-ryu.

So again, I believe the kanji for "Aikijujutsu" on these scrolls reflect the later change describing the 'art of Daito-ryu' as opposed to the 'Daito-ryu techniques' actually described in the mokuroku. Furthermore, I think the existing photo's, films, student notebooks, and Ueshiba's own book "Budo" all clearly describe the techniques being practiced and taught as shoden and chuden level techniques and variations derived primarily from the 118 jujutsu kata contained in the hiden mokuroku scroll. Ueshiba borrowed many concepts from Daito-ryu, but (IMHO) he did not teach "aikijujutsu". He taught aikido which was his own slightly modified form of jujutsu.

Brently Keen

[Edited by Brently Keen on 10-23-2000 at 11:33 PM]

[Nathan Scott]

[Post deleted by user]

[shinja]

I was wondering if there are other legitimate Japanese arts NOT conected with Daito Ryu that refer to themselves as an "aiki" art.

[Nathan Scott]

[Post deleted by user]