Basic Considerations

Certain considerations are implicit in Aiki techniques. Because they are implicit and not explicit they tend to be very confusing. The first of these is grabs. When someone grabs us with any grab the assumption is that the person is so strong and so skilled that we cannot get them to let go. This means that the technique must work if we cannot get the attacker to let go. The other side of this is that most attackers are not going to be strong enough or skilled enough to hold on so our technique must also work if they let go.

Many Aikidoka forget this second part. Much of common Aikido practice is having someone grab your wrist and then you swing them around with them letting you do anything and them holding on. In a real fight the attacker would not be able to hold on and in reality most people who grab just want to hold on for an instant to set you up for something else. They have no intention of holding on. When you point out to these Aikidoka that their technique would not work if the attacker let go they say that they would turn and hit the attacker. To me that is pure fantasy. In the first place that is admission that the technique failed. In the second place they are not training to do that and in the third place do they think the attacker is just standing there waiting to be hit. The technique must work whether the attacker lets go or holds on!

For some reason Aikido is thought of an art based on wrist locks. This is a very strange idea. At the time of this writing there are 15 basic Aikido techniques listed in this document. Only four of these are wrist locks. These are Kote Gaeshi, Nikkyo, Shiho Nage and Sankyo. Almost every art has Kote Gaeshi and many arts have the others. Wrist locks are not easy to do. That is why in Aikido we usually strike the person and take their balance before trying to apply the wrist lock in the few situations where we use them. One can rarely get a wrist lock while wrestling on the ground. When you can get them on the ground it is usually the same as standing. You have to break the attackers balance first. The basis of Aikido is the way we control balance. Wrist locks could be eliminated and you would still have Aikido.

The third consideration is that Ikkyo and Waki Gatame are both basically arm breaking techniques. In Aikido we assume that the attacker is so skilled that we cannot break the arm. That has lead to the Aiki version of Ikkyo and Waki Gatame where the technique works so well without breaking the arm that many Aikidoka will be enraged that I have the audacity to claim that they are really arm breaking techniques. They have not even learned how to use these techniques to break the arm. If you do not know how to break the arm then you have a limited view of these techniques.

The final consideration is that Aikido is a martial art. As such the techniques must have devastating lethal power. If you cannot take life you cannot spare life! As O'Sensi evolved he realized that he had reached a point where he could readily control most situations without seriously harming his partners. This also has to be kept in perspective. His personal students describe him as being rough. It took a high level of skill to take Ukemi from him. He was a tough warrior. His idea of gentle was very different from our soft perspective. Students I have trained with from Tokyo were brutal! They would break your wrist in a heartbeat.

It is both immoral and illegal to use excessive force. This is not Japan. If you are hurting your partners they will not attack you and you cannot really train. We must be gentle and very careful with our partners! We must not do excessive damage in applied situations! On the other hand, to survive a lethal attack we must be able to deliver more violence than the attacker. I know that violence is not a politically correct word but that is reality. This does not mean that you should use force in your techniques. If you are trying to muscle your partners and use arm strength your techniques will not work in applied situations because you do not get it! On the other hand your techniques must be capable of producing lethal devastation if you are doing martial (war) art.