I am not a black belt | Hacker News Reader

I am not a black belt

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I watched that video a dozen times and I still don’t understand where the angular momentum came from. That guy must have been trying to throw himself, right??

OP here. Lots of comments from non-aikidokas. Interesting and unexpected to me. The thing about "throwing himself" is pure self preservation that advanced students acquire with time. It looks nice on public demos, but you can practice the same techniques slowly in a way that the partner feels grounded, unable to create momentum. In those cases, the partner will feel a lot of pressure on their limb/join or back. Do that to beginner students and you'll see their eyes pop-out in desperation because the pressure is too great and don't even know they can tap to ease down. In advanced practice, if you don't do self-preservation, you'd end up with snapped tendons, broken collarbones, toes etc. If you are already injured, you have to tell your partner in advance "I can't roll today. Don't project me." or "Don't apply the elbow lock", and so on. So you won't see great projections either. Those are the details you can't imagine just by watching videos; you've got to be in the mat. It's like me watching fishing videos. To me, fishing can't be anything more than: throwing bait => pulling line.

I don't know in this case.

But I do know some of the moves are:

"If you don't throw yourself, your wrist/elbow/shoulder/whatever will be dislocated or broken."

And so the student, knowing this, saves themselves. IE the idea of rolling with the punches.

Which is to say, some moves are to be judged on the possible result, not the one you saw.

Whether that applies in this case, I don't know.

I came to reply with some form of this.

Aikido demonstration is cooperative. Uke and nage. Somebody throws and somebody receives the throw. I'm not one of those "Aikido is fake" people, but Aikido has no tournaments and isn't represented in MMA for a reason.

If you're in a real fight and properly distributing your weight, things you see in Aikido just don't happen. That's not shade on Aikido. It's a worthy effort for anyone who wants to devote themselves to it. It's just not a real representation of what happens in combat and this is much more true about Aikido than just about any other martial art you could practice.

The philosophy behind what the submission author wrote is strong. I was pretty moved by it and it effectively communicates what most people call beginner mindset. That mindset has brought me a ton of success in life.

> Aikido demonstration is cooperative. Uke and nage. Somebody throws and somebody receives the throw. I'm not one of those "Aikido is fake" people, but Aikido has no tournaments and isn't represented in MMA for a reason.

Judo and Jiu Jitsu have Uke and Tori for demonstrations. Same concept. Except when Uke gets thrown, they really get thrown. They will cooperate with the move but they aren’t providing the momentum.

I don’t know if Aikido is “fake”, but I do think it’s more of a performance than a martial art.

Judo and Aikido founders were pals in the military. There is a handful of koshi nague throwing techniques that are identical in both schools, and are done without any of uke's momentum.

Citation? They were contemporaries who knew of each other and apparently respected each other, including having students cross train across the test disciplines. I didn’t find anything saying they were military buddies.

Aikido, B-Jiu-Jitsu, Ballet, and running laps all have their place in training for "real combat" - the stamina, the reflexes, the flexibility, the locks, being able to roll all help to come through with minimal damage.

Still, the annals of Stand Up, Don't Fall Down comedy eight minutes of Jesse Enkamp entering a Jiu-Jitsu tournament to Prove It Doesn't Work still entertains - the training montage is priceless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAJ2vt8wUbY

Getting back to Aikido, one master is of the opinion it's not in MMA as its either ineffectual non damaging ritual OR it's high damage, crippling, lethal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtibobLK56I

> Getting back to Aikido, one master is of the opinion it's not in MMA as its either ineffectual non damaging ritual OR it's high damage, crippling, lethal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtibobLK56I

Both are true. Pulling off some of these moves in real world situations is absurdly hard -- much harder than other techniques you could be learning. But also the reason people throw themselves is because for some of these moves the alternative is the damage described. It's more complicated than that -- every traditional martial art has its issues.

I stress again that I'm not throwing any shade at it. It's one of those things that's poorly understood by outsiders and even most modern practitioners. There are Aikidokas out there who can absolutely whoop ass in a standup fight -- it's just that the level of nuance and understanding within the art form to get there is immense (comparatively). But then that's defeating the point. The whole point is about _not_ fighting. Spare everyone the damage. If that's your guiding philosophy and you're still intent on training, Aikido is for you.

It should also be noted Aikido’s original purpose was not for battle. It descended from Morihei Ueshiba studying Daito-ryu and wanting something less violent to practice after returning from war.

Absolutely!

Also there's nothing fake about standing joint locks. Aikido just isn't the only martial art where you can learn them. Wing Chun, Hapkido, (Japanese) Jujutsu, etc...

But standing joint locks will only help you in dealing with belligerent drunks, not defending yourself against someone with real intent on your harm.

Aikido is beautiful and historically/culturally relevant.

If you want a stand-up grappling martial art that hasn't lost most of its martial roots, just go with Judo (or one of the various wrestling variants).

Judo and Aikido founders were pals in the military. Those schools were all connected at the time and were complementary. What we see today is a kind of a "commercial struggle" between different schools and martial arts for $tudents. I practiced judo and BJJ as well throughout my life, and that wasn't an issue. I see that the ideal practice for anyone could be an MMA having the self-defense and the non-competitive healthy side of things. We don't see that mindset around.

> "If you don't throw yourself, your wrist/elbow/shoulder/whatever will be dislocated or broken."

Usually that happens during free sparring at exams, where it's more likely that the ukes miss cooperating properly.

> If you don't throw yourself, your wrist/elbow/shoulder/whatever will be dislocated or broken."

Or, you know, you can just let go...

Yes, he’s throwing himself. Aikido is often practiced solely as a non-competitive art.

If you want to see what competitive throws/takedowns with a kimono/gi look like against live resistance, watch Judo. Example https://youtu.be/fLD87nqwp3Y

For the same but without kimono, watch Greco-Roman. Example https://youtu.be/4Xc-wxNSsTk).

Doing ukemi to save himself. This is just the first step of the practice. Uke (receiver) co-operates in a way that tori can practice the thing being taught. Only after that things start to change: uke changes something, tries to evade, resists etc. However, this phase is rarely shown in demonstrations. Even more rare if you see the step(s) after that.

"Martial Arts" can be looked at from one of three different perspectives; viz. 1) For Health Maintenance 2) For Competitive Sport 3) For Self-Defence.

With age, the emphasis on (2)&(3) diminishes and the focus becomes (1). This is why many martial arts masters toned down their fighting styles over time. With age one needs to focus more on cultivating mind, breathing, balance, awareness, sensitivity, and less on strength and power.

Aikido and Taijiquan/Taichichuan (except the original "hard" Chen style) were uniquely developed for this. So if you think of these as martial arts for self-defence you will be completely disappointed. However training in them allows you to develop certain aspects, specifically sensitivity and awareness, which are vital in real combat.

Aikido does this via defender learning to turn attacker's momentum and Taiji/Taichi does the same via push-hands practice. Depending upon how well you have practiced and internalized this you may/may-not be able to use this in a very limited number of real-world scenarios. Not all conflicts need hard kicking/punching.

All students will do well to study the concepts/theories/ideas behind these arts and interpret/adapt them for use in their own lives.

Having done multiple martial arts (Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Filipino martial arts and, if you count it, fencing) I've come to the conclusion that Aikido is the Lisp of the martial arts world:

- it's considered very beautiful

- it takes a long time to become fluent in it

- it "expands your mind"

- in theory it can "work on the street" but in practice people reach for other tools

Not having practised Aikido, but somewhat familiar with Lisp:

> it's considered very beautiful

Funny, I've heard it described as 'porridge with fingernail clippings', which doesn't seem to me like a description evoking a 'very beautiful' image.

> it takes a long time to become fluent in it

Not more so than many other programming languages. Of course, most people don't start with Lisp, so their frame of reference is off.

> it "expands your mind"

A fairly meaningless statement which is claimed of a great many things. Is Lisp any more or less mind-expanding than, say, marijuana?

> in theory it can "work on the street" but in practice people reach for other tools

What do you mean, 'in theory'? Lisp has been used, in practise, by NASA, for running a robot on Mars: <https://www.corecursive.com/lisp-in-space-with-ron-garret/>. If that isn't 'working on the street', then, by golly, that's a mean street you've got there.

Agreed it looks beautiful in those vids. It feels like almost more of a dance than something that might “work on the street”.

Hopefully not offensive, just my layman observation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48304232

I agree. And it gets better with age as you won't care too much if it works on the street or not; you'll have acquired better tools like firearms and good lawyers to defend yourself.

You are not the first person to make that connection: https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.00485

When I was a young kid in the 80's I thought Steven Seagal was a real badass, and Aikido was THE best (and coolest) martial art. Watching his movies and fight scenes was like watching that video at this website. Effortlessly using attackers own momentum against them, snapping limbs and the principle of no fist/kick hits harder than the ground. I remember going to the library and getting some Aikido books and practicing the steps from photographs.

Then Royce Gracie with Brazilian Jujitsu and the very beginnings of UFC came along and completely upended the traditional glamor of movie star Martial Arts for REAL fights against opponents of all sizes (Early UFC didn't have weight classes). Most real fights end up on the ground pretty fast anyway and against larger/stronger opponents you want to be on the ground.

That isn't to say that a black belt in say Karate, or even Aikido wouldn't still be effective in a no-choice self-defense situation, but I'd rather be more proficient in Boxing at that point or one of the many other more modern fighting arts that have grappling as a core.

Nico choreography.

Interesting, other choreographies don’t use belts to indicate levels. Like “I am 2nd dan salsa dancer”

Oh no my wrist is in a weird position. Instead of letting go I'll summersault into the ground.

Regarding the title:

Shodan black belts in most martial arts mean you can execute 80% of the techniques competently. After shodan you're supposed to perfect them and worry about stuff like when to use one technique and not another...

The title connects with my current stage in literary production as a complete white belt.

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