P.S. An aikido demonstration video of effective self defense technique against a sword:
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The deal is, different forms of fighting and martial arts have different levels of practicality in the real world, and in competition. My two shooting buddies both practice martial arts, one Akido, and one a mix of Kung-Fu (it isn’t Jeet Kung Do, but similar) and Filipino stick fighting. Both cross train with other forms. So they have their skill sets of katas for their art, plus real world fighting techniques that are a blend.
I didn’t think Tai Chi was a fighting art at all. But even those who are experienced in fighting arts will arguably be outmatched by someone with a broader skill set. Maybe. If they are really good at their style the can still beat a lesser opponent, but some who can hold their own against your style, and has a second style you can’t defend against will cause you to lose. i.e. stand up fighting vs ground fighting in MMA matches.
It isn’t just martial arts vs MMA, but things like Boxing or Kick Boxing vs MMA. There is talks of Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor, but it is hard to put those to together and make it fair. I think boxing rules Floyd would win. MMA rules Conor would win. In a street fight, not sure.
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Running out the fire exit should have also won points there.
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The MMA artists (LOL) I know are really good at BJJ, but they all say they prefer not to go to ground and try to keep the fight a kickboxing match. Some say it’s because BJJ is not very entertaining, especially to an uneducated public. All of them say it’s because they covet that badge of honor the KO. Going to ground gets the win, but to them that path to the win is second to getting the KO.
I’ll also say this about comparing one martial art to another. I’ve done martial arts since the 80’s. Lots of them, some better than others: grappling, kicking, striking, Aikido for many years. MMA is probably the best at ensuring one’s survival. But each martial art has its place. MMA isn’t even a martial art. It’s a combination of everything that works to immobilize an opponent (in the octagon), but mainly boxing, bjj, muay thai. So, in that sense, MMA is ALL martial arts - everything with your bare hands and feet, except the plethora of rules that have come up, like no biting, gouging, headbutting, etc. Hands, elbows, knees, feet OK.
I’ve practiced with a few of the best Aikido people. They are really dodgy. Extremely hard to pin down. However, they are poor at following up. Catch one with a sneak elbow and it’s game over for them. You have to train being struck in order to take blows in a fight, deliver your own and come out on top. A really good Aikidoka has but one task: do not get hit when you square off. But follow it up with something.
Throwing a dude down on his ass is not the end of the fight. The end of a fight is something else. If it’s a real fight, the end of the fight is a KO, death, combatants walking or running away and deciding to stop fighting, or other people breaking it up and rendering them unable to fight. Aikido alone may not get you there. Just as grappling or Karate or Krav Maga or catch wrestling might not get you all the way there. So, I say there really is no superior martial art. There are superior fighters, who are aware of all these things, but there is no “art” that is better than the others.
Did you train to fight to the end or did you train to dance and show off your moves?
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I think that most single form martial arts are more dedicated to practicing the form than they are to actual combat.
Look at something like Krav Maga or the techniques they teach Navy SEALS- that stuff has nothing to do with form and everything to do with breaking bodies.
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Well the reason he picked that demonstration was that two women had recently been attacked by someone with a baseball bat – one died and the other ended up in hospital in critical condition – and running hadn’t helped against a guy who wanted to hurt someone and could run faster. The point of the exercise, therefore, was to do something so you COULD run away.
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That’s because the boys generally just want to throw a couple punches to prove who’s toughest. The girls aren’t going to start a physical brawl unless they’re ready to commit an actual homicide.
I always thought that if women ran the world, there would be no border skirmishes, no Vietnam or Iraq or Korean wars, but Germany and Afghanistan would be nothing but 1000 rad volcanic glass.
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It ain’t pretty, but it is in fact your best option in 99% of cases.
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It started out as one certainly. (The Chi in Tai Chi is not the same chi or qi meaning vital energy; Tai Chi Chuan means something like “supreme ultimate fist”.) The slow-motion movements are all supposed to be teaching you very precisely the movement techniques for either defensive or attacking moves, similar to a karate kata, and then you’re supposed to learn how to do them very quickly and learn exactly how to apply them in combat. Some teachers still do teach it that way.
The big problem is that it’s been taught as an abstract form for health purposes, building your “energy”, and so on for so long that many Tai Chi teachers have never even learned the applications and can’t teach them at all, let alone effectively.
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Yes. Aikido at the highest heights is beautiful and amazing. And I’ve personally experienced being thrown by some of those guys. It’s unnerving how they are so “not there.” But you are 100% right about some of its weaknesses. It is taught to people in a very simplified way. That’s so that it is accessible. O Sensei didn’t do this. But in order for the martial art to thrive it HAD to be distilled and simplified. But it is lacking in how to deal with the messiness of a fight. And it is poor about understanding the pocket and face defense. The attacks are all weird shomen-uchi, yoko menuchi crap that nobody ever does in real life. Don’t get me wrong. I love Aikido. But it must be seen for what it is and isn’t.
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I agree with your points as well. (Also, to add another point we both glossed over, there’s nothing taught about defense against kicks until you’re very far along, and little even then as far as I know.)
As you probably know, the attack techniques which aikido teaches you to defend against start making a lot more sense once you’re learning to perform them in a weapon context. A guy with bare hands is likely to simply punch you in the face straight on, or with an upper-cut, but a guy with a knife is likely to come in with a low thrust and try to gut you, or try to slash at your neck, or do a swinging stab, etc. But the stuff you learn initially doesn’t line up well with a bare-hands attack, and it could really stand to have the techniques expanded to apply to the kind of things you’re likely to run into in a typical fist-fight.
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For a much more realistic example of an Aikido black belt vs an MMA fighter, here’s a great recent video, created by the Aikido practitioner, with his perspective and thoughtful commentary:
It’s worth watching if you’d like to see a realistic depiction of a very well-qualified, modern Aikido practitioner, who has 13 years Aikido experience but no “MMA-style” experience, versus a friendly, not-too-aggressive, experienced MMA fighter. (He also has a good follow-up video.)
Spoiler:
The Aikido practitioner really has almost no idea what to do against an experienced fighter, and admits as much. An experienced fighter really does not move in the same way that a Uke moves in Aikido class. And had the MMA fighter actually been moving aggressively, instead of this friendly spar, it would have been a very short bout.
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So his actual plan to win a real fight was unironic faith in every Dragonborn’s favorite meme?
That’s edging toward ‘too dumb to live’.
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I’m sure he’s great at bending spoons though.
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This was a great video. Thanks.
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I only looked at the first one (for which I apologize, I will look at more another day). It was highly ritualized, ceremonial combat. In the first few minutes it looks like one fighter’s face is pressed against the other’s carotid artery but he doesn’t bite, later you can see that one has a weapon in his pocket he is not using. A large crowd of bystanders are actively preventing anyone else from interfering. For whatever reason - most likely, male dominance display - this was a show fight, a tournament. That is exactly where grappling based systems like Gracie’s are highly effective.
When I call Gracie-do a tournament style, I do not mean to disparage the practice of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu - there’s nothing wrong with an enjoyable, physically and mentally challenging martial art oriented towards winning tournament fights.
I do roll my eyes at martial artists who believe their winning tournament techniques are equally effective in a life or death combat, though, because I run into loud “ultimate fighting technique” people a lot. In real combat, anyone can lose, at any time. It’s not like video games where people soak up infinite bullets… most people are strong enough to kill another human with a single well-placed blow, and nobody has eyes in the back of their head.
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Here’s an example (again, with lots of bystanders, but it would be hard to get a video of a situation with no one watching): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXrcN-WFApk
The key point that I wanted to make was that, with a good triangle (which doesn’t require a ritualized setup, in this case the fight was very scrappy), it looks like his opponent’s teeth are right next to sensitive equipment and blood vessels, but actually there’s really no way for the guy on top to bite.
It might also look like the guy on bottom has left the crown jewels open for punching, but from the look of the bloodied attacker’s face, it’s pretty clear that if he had that option he would have taken it. In reality, he really couldn’t.
I’ve been practicing BJJ for four years, and I definitely don’t buy into the myth that it’s some ultimate fighting technique (someone with minimal MMA training would knock me out in a minute), but it does have the advantages that you are constantly sparring with people who are going full-force against you – and sometimes with newcomers who don’t know the rules and spaz and try to break your fingers or body-slam you. This testing against people who really want to win is what sets it apart from martial arts with ritualized “uke” roles (read: the person who gets magically flung around by the master).
Of course it’s not magical, and there’s are all sorts of reasons why someone who has BJJ training, or even MMA training, could still lose against someone who hasn’t. But if I were a betting man I’d bet on the trained person every time.
People always bring up the “it-couldn’t-work on a biter/groin-puncher/eye-gouger” line, but those who do have never trained themselves, and forget that the BJJ practitioner can bite and groin-punch as well, and are much better at scrambling to get on top of you while they do it because they wrestle like that several times a week, every week.
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This is true, but having an extra 30 lbs or 6" of extra reach will really improve your percentages. Same with good technique, including good BJJ technique. It won’t win every fight for you, but it gives you a toolkit that allows you to respond more quickly and more effectively to a wider range of situations. That increases the percentages of fights you’ll win or at least survive.
This is key. Biting is allowed in street fights, but that doesn’t put the BJJ practitioner at a disadvantage – no one is spending 20 hours a week honing their biting and eye gouging techniques. Everyone’s about equally good at those things (excepting people who really do get in a lot of street fights, but they’re losing in other ways), but the BJJ practitioner is going to know a lot more about immobilizing the opponent’s head and limbs and getting good positions such that he or she is in the better position to effectively bite or gouge.
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BJJ is a tournament style. It takes advantage of the existence of rules. Rules like “no weapons” and “no biting”.
Oof, that’s such a misconception. Bjj evolved for street fighting, period. Sure there’s lots of bjj tournaments, but that doesn’t mean it’s for tournaments. As far as bites and stuff like that defeating it, no offense but that’s just not true, and remember that the bjj guy can fight dirty too, with the added advantage of being able to completely control the other person.
I’m an advanced blue belt, at a Gracie school so we get tons of people dropping by to show us how tough they are, and I hate to sound like one of the over enthusiastic acolytes you’re talking about, but I have yet to spar with someone from another art that can even give one of our white belts a challenge. And we allow strikes and simulated bites and things like that when we’re screwing around during open mat to test techniques.
That said (not talking to you specifically here), I think bjj gives all the spiritual and physical health benefits of aikido or whatever other traditional martial art you want to compare it to. And there’s something about it that appeals to geeks since it’s all technique based, half my academy including me are programmers or at least in tech, so if anyone reading this is looking for a martial art to try, I couldn’t recommend it any higher.
As far as bjj not being dominant in mma anymore, I’d argue it’s as dominant as it ever was, except that now everyone trains in it (or something so similar as to be identical) so the advantage evens out. Every single modern mma fighter is at least blue belt level, and most train at least an hour a day in bjj.
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I did karate for several years as a kid, but my 70 year old mom started Tai Chi a few years ago. A friend who is an MMA guy pointed out that Tai Chi was REALLY nasty if you watched the forms and visualized an actual opponent. Sure enough, next time I watched Mom, I realized that other than dodging/blocking the strikes were all kicks to the sides of the knee and groin, hand strikes to the windpipe and groin and eye gouges.
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