Why is Aikido Bad For Self Defense?
Founded in the early 1900s in Japan, Aikido is a very popular martial art. It is present in over 140 countries around the world, and it seems like every town has at least one dojo. People who deserve a lot of credit for this are the action movie figures like Steven Seagal. But if we move from movie screens to real life, how effective is Aikido? Is it good for self-defense or street fighting?
In short, Aikido is not good for self-defense or street fighting because it is too soft. On top of that, the concept of training is far from any realism, and the techniques it teaches are not practical. For sure, aikido training has many other benefits, but it won’t teach you how to fight.
Keep reading this article to find out more about aikido. We will focus on why Aikido is not good for real life fighting, and we will touch on the benefits as well.
The lack of sparring
Aikido training doesn’t include any sparring or live drills. Yes, students do practice various throws and joint locks on each other. But, they learn the moves alone and train in pre-arranged forms that are not good for self defense. In short, you won’t spend any time learning how to fight doing live drills against the partner who is fighting back. Why is this so bad for real fighting, you may ask?
Well, you can’t learn how to fight in real life or defend yourself without sparring and that’s a fact. You can have all the talent in the world and know all self-defense techniques. But this is useless if you don’t know how to apply them when it matters the most. This is where sparring plays a key role because it simulates real life fighting to some extend. And it is also the only way you can develop timing, reactions, and how to keep the distance.
Sparring will give you the same rush of adrenalin and fear as real fighting. This is notably true for beginners who tend to freeze or get too scared. But this is good because it allows you to get to know your emotions and reactions. Over time, you will learn how to control them and stay calm in the heat of the moment. Having a calm mind in a self-defense situation is crucial because that is the only way you can apply techniques you know.
Aikido training doesn’t include any of this. You won’t spend single second sparring against the partner who is trying to hurt you. That’s why its students would all look lost once the real fight breaks out. Even if they stay calm, they would have a hard time trying to execute aikido throws or joint locks. You just can’t expect to learn how to fight without sparring against a moving target who is fighting back.
The mindset
Don’t get us wrong here, we are not saying that all people from the Aikido world are crazy or delusional. But for sure, most of them are blinded by the idea that Aikido is better than other arts or useful for things that it clearly isn’t good for. Let us explain this in more detail below.
First of all, the main reason why there’s no real sparring in Aikido is that they believe it is too dangerous. Yes, Aikido experts believe that their throws and joint locks can cause a lot of injuries and be fatal. To be fair, some moves like Nikkyo and Sankyo might hurt a person, but overall, this is just a bad excuse, and here is why.
Some other arts like BJJ and Judo include very much the same or even more powerful throws and joint locks. You will learn how to choke the opponent out or place a joint lock that can easily break their arm or leg. But at the same time, students in both of these arts spar every single training session. And I don’t want to bring some wrestling moves like suplex into the conversation.
Things get even weirder when you see that some Aikido experts believe that this art is the most effective one. But at the same time, students are not allowed to go into other dojos like boxing or MMA to test their skills. Why? Once again, the answer is because Aikido is too dangerous and you might hurt or even kill a boxer or Muay Thai fighter.
This is one of the reasons why so many people see Aikido as a heavy cult following. It forces you to believe in something that it’s clearly not true.
The concept of Aikido
People from other arts are often too hard on Aikido when it comes to real fighting. Yes, Aikido training won’t help you much once the fists start flying in the bar and you might get hurt trying to apply some of the moves. But at the same time, let’s not forget that Morihei Ueshiba didn’t create Aikido to be that good for real fighting. If you don’t trust us, just take a look at the concept of Aikido.
Ueshiba created Aikido as a martial art that allows a person to defend without hurting the attacker. The main goal of the art is to overcome oneself and avoid violence at all costs. One must be careful to not hurt the attacker while defending.
Although this sounds good and it works in Aikido dojos, the reality is a bit different. You have to use force and be violent to some extent in a self-defense situation. Once the fight breaks out and the mind goes into fight or flight mode, you have to use force to defend.
Don’t get us wrong here, you should always choose the safest method of defending. You should try to talk your way out of the fight or run away. And if you land a punch and the attacker goes down, you should use this precious time to run away from him/her. It is a thin line between defending yourself and using too much force. You don’t want to beat the attacker too much and then go to a police station to answer a couple of questions about injuries.
Aikido techniques are not practical in real life
On paper, Aikido teaches a wide range of techniques. But the art puts a lot of emphasis on various throws, pins, and joint locks. These techniques all look very effective and like something you can use in a real fight. It’s very easy to fall into a trap that these techniques might help you to get out of trouble.
And this is the main issue with aikido. It’s even dangerous in some way.
This is because having strong Aikido skills might give you the wrong feeling that you know how to fight. In fact, it will because training doesn’t include any sparring and students don’t know if their skills work or not. No matter if you are a black belt or beginner, being trained in Aikido, may fool you that you have the skills to deal with the situation you are in. What’s the worst thing that can happen?
Let’s not forget that Aikido teaches you how to deal with various weapons like a knife for instance. If a fight breaks out and the attacker pulls out a knife, the best thing you can do is to run away as fast as possible. But some people may think that they can disarm the attacker using the moves they learned in Aikido training. We don’t want to spend too many words on how dangerous this is. It’s crazy to even think that someone would do such a thing.
And it’s not just about the disarming techniques. Aikido throws, joints locks, and pins all look good against a person who is not fighting back. But in reality, it’s really hard to use these moves in the middle of the wild street fight.
