Tenkei Aikido Dojo

By Darren Williger

The power over life and death can be held quite easily in the hands of a single individual. This individual may choose to slow down when people are crossing the road or to squeeze the trigger when hunting for deer. Certain unsavory elements in society will cause great harm so that they can get money easily instead of working hard for it. A person can easily fall victim to these criminals when you’re walking to your car after you’ve completed your shopping or when you’re returning home from work at a late hour.

The presence of the police at every crime isn’t a guarantee so the best thing is to be prepared at all times. Preparation in its best form will involve the study of a martial art. An individual doesn’t need the skills of Bruce Lee but can learn how to deliver a simple yet effective punch. One popular and peaceful means of protection is Aikido. During actual Aikido combat the purpose is not to kill or injure the opponent. The ultimate aim is to subdue your opponent by employing minimum force so that you can easily get to safety.

Different Dojos and centers of study around the country instruct on Aikido. A person can easily register in one of these centers of learning and move up the Aikido ranks. Beginners start learning by using techniques that are based primarily in training area the shape of a square. When these individuals develop their skills, they will proceed to a triangle and from there to a circle. This whole phase takes months to achieve and requires commitment for the duration of the entire process.

The aim is that the person learns the various techniques by employing the least amount of effort. By doing this a person can have the energy to succeed in combat with more than one person involved. In practice things like hold, falls and grips are quite incomparable with what goes on in the real life situations in the streets. An inexperienced person can do anything so a student should be prepared for any eventuality in real life.

The great thing about all this is that competitions are held on a regular basis in order to test combat skills effectively. A student can easily register especially if their own dojo participates in such tournaments. Whenever you’re practicing or during competitions a person should focus on lowering the tempo of the battle and refrain from injuring their partners. The real battles will occur out in the streets and should only be as a last resort.

A situation may occur where the person attacking you is some proficient in martial arts, in such a situation the only way to win is to employ the mind as by doing this you can react faster during the fight. Different secrets exist in Aikido. These secrets range from simple hand to eye coordination to the simple flexibility of persons wrists as well as their breathing and their speed. These different things will eventually count for something as the person is trying to handle a life or death situation.

In the 1950’s movie “The Fastest Gun Alive”, Broderick Crawford portrayed the bad guy. He claimed to be the fastest gun alive but was taunted by an old timer in the saloon who claimed “no matter how fast ya are, there always someone faster’n you”. In the end, the story’s central character, Glen Ford, out draws and kills him.

Which art is “better” is an age-old question that is the center of much discussion by people who are focused on a specific martial art. So many bad martial arts movies show one dojo sending its best guy to another school for a showdown to settle it once and for all. Of course, it only answers the question of who had superior skills on a given day. YouTube is full of clips that pit experts from different arts against each other in an attempt to address “the big question”.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu vs. Karate, Aikido techniques vs. those of BJJ, the permutations are too numerous to count. Regardless of the outcome of an given competition, such match ups can never settle the issue for the same reason that Broderick Crawford’s loss in the gunfight didn’t prove who was the fastest gun alive (you have to keep “proving it”). Even within an apparently “no holds barred” match like the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the championship is elusive even to skillful competitors such as Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell.

Part of the answer to the question is that it depends on your frame of reference. It involves asking oneself “what is the goal for martial arts training?” Is it so that you can enter a bar, pick a fight and kick someone’s butt or are you interested in how your training can help the lives of others? Even if you could knockout someone in a bar, does that prove you are “better than they are” or does that make you the just fastest gun in the West…that day? In reality most of the popular martial arts have virtues AND limitations. Judo has rules that prevent striking but an accomplished practitioner, such as Karo Parisian, can definitely do substantial damage by throwing a person directly on his head, even if he had to take many punches to “get inside”. Striking arts such as Shotokan or Jeet Kune Do, can be very effective in self-defense.

However, if taken to the ground by a skillful opponent, all of these techniques would be rendered useless. Even MMA has specific rules of competition, which exclude certain blows and even if they were allowed, how would these techniques hold up against an expert with a knife, not to mention the fact that “Smith and Wesson always beats four aces”. Many arts focus on one-to-one competition, but how would these arts hold up with multiple attackers? If one’s goal is to dispatch (kill) an opponent, then joining the Special Forces might be the most appropriate choice.

To summarize, to answer the question “which art is the best” we need to look at ourselves objectively and ask “what are the core beliefs that provide the framework for this comparison?” The answer is that the best martial art is the one that gives you what you are looking for. Under the right circumstances and in the hands of the right person, each art can be effective in self-defense. For those interested in an intense physical workout, Judo or Jiu Jitsu can give you a real run for your money. If you are not as interested in grappling, an art like Karate, or Jeet Kune Do may be what you are looking for. If you search for an art with a spiritual dimension, Aikido techniques may be worth checking out. Trying to “prove” that one art is better would be the same as saying the heavy weight champ in the UFC would remain so…forever. The answer then lies in the attitude of respect that many of these arts include in their fundamental training. Respect, then, is accepting that each person takes martial arts for their own reasons and that its purpose is meaningful from their perspective.

Dan Kudo has been a practitioner of Aikido for thirty-seven years and teaches the art in Santa Ana, CA and holds the rank of Yondan (fourth-degree black belt). His interests also include other sports such as skiing and flyfishing as well as music, photography, and videography.