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Comment by kod | Hacker News Reader

Studied Aikido for many years.

Can confirm it is "that fantasy martial art".

Your partner has to be in on it because otherwise you'd never have the opportunity to apply the technique; no one's going to let you e.g. just grab a wristlock off of their punch.

This is all down to how it is trained, training with no resistance leads to fantasy land bullshit.

Watch black belt level Aikido randori. Contrast with judo, wrestling, bjj sparring. The difference is obvious, one group is dancing in response to choreographed zombie attacks, the other is learning how to really apply techniques against resisting opponents.

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Have done judo, and it’s just as fictitious. It just operates by a different contrived set of rules.

And yes, of course aikido is choreographed. That choreography is hard as hell. On the other hand I’m pretty fearless about getting thrown. I’ve been to judo dojos and traditional jujitsu dojos where my training partners had breakthroughs because I was willing to commit completely to my attack rather than hedge my attack for fear of “losing.”

Aikido is metal, because the curriculum is sprawling and deep, the ukemi is far and away the hardest part of the practice (harder than applying the techniques), and the psychology of the practice is often inscrutable to people who are fixated on an incompatible model of instrumental utility.

Jeet kune do teaches speed and improvision. If you can react to your opponent, your at an advantage. If your opponent cannot react to you, you are at an advantage. Simple and true.

While knockout/stamina/appearence of futility/tap out may be a path to a win condition, there is nuance to when you have multiple opponents, are in grab/hold positions, when you want to be in a location and/or keep your opponent(s) in a location.

Aikido offers a way to use momentum and joints against your opponents allowing you to have more control over space and situation you normally would. This is also helpful for transitioning into submissions or broken limbs more elligently than punch, tackle and look for an opportunity.

My experience is that aikido is often taught with a delicateness and with less importance on competition/hunger. While I certainly enjoy adrenaline, winning i believe favors the adaptable which aikido seems to provide

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