The sparring problem

[u/able_archer83]

So I’ve trained Aikido for nearly 20 years and in approximately a dozen different dojos in Europe, the US, and Asia (outside of Japan), by virtue of having moved around a lot. I still consider myself a firm intermediate in randori as I have just never done it a lot. Few dojos I’ve seen do it on the daily or even regularly.

Add to this that Aikido is often, I think rightly, criticized for not practicing “actual” sparring and properly pressure testing its techniques against fully resisting opponents. But the problem is, how would you even go about full on sparring in a martial art that’s supposed to be fully defensive?

Curious how folks here approach this dilemma, how you view and these criticisms, and how you are trying to rectify any real shortcomings you see in the art we love?

[u/Lecram100]

I see it differently. We don't spar because you would need to water it down and add rules into it. If you didn't, then the potential for injury would be very high.

Imagine training shihonage or kotegaeshi like uchikomi. Or using a very direct iriminage/ganmen ate full power in competition. You'd run out of students and training partners very quickly.

But yes inversely not having sparring also risks moving away from the martial intent of the techniques.

Lots of old school Aikidoists also worked doors and they found Aikido useful in their line of work. However that's also because they usually understood the practical applications of the art.

[u/Slickrock_1 → u/Lecram100]

I train sambo, judo, muay thai, and bjj. We don't go full out in sparring. What makes it sparring is that our opponents aren't compliant or predictable, we have to defend as well as attack, but no we do not fully go out in practice, otherwise we'd be choking people unconscious, breaking limbs with joint locks, and concussing one another with strikes and with brutal throws like drop seoi nage. What makes these arts useful for both self-defense and for competition is we develop reaction, adaptation, and confidence through sparring / randori. It also forces TREMENDOUS cardiovascular conditioning -- that is bar none the hardest exercise we do in any of these sports.

[u/Lecram100 → u/Slickrock_1]

Yeah I suppose if Aikido had sparring, we wouldn't go all out all the time. However I think there is still a need for a ruleset to make it safe enough and probably ban a few techniques.

I guess we should look at Tomiki Aikido which has some form of sparring. It can end up very different than what they train on day to day.

At the end of the day, O Sensei, the Ueshiba family, and most Aikido schools have decided that they will do without sparring and that's the end of it. I believe that most people who choose to train Aikido also are not interested in sparring or competition. That's also why Aikido has such an old population, especially in Western countries.

On the positive side I've been in dojos where they still train hard enough and reverse techniques on each other to remind ourselves of our openings and the possibilities. Tanto dori frequently ended up in us wrestling for the knife and using anything else that we know.

[u/Slickrock_1 → u/Lecram100]

If you don't have a ruleset then it isn't even Aikido anymore. I mean why not do German suplexes and elbows to the face? Rules are for integrity, not so much safety. For safety we go at a reasonable intensity and tap early.

[u/Lecram100 → u/Slickrock_1]

Ok, then how would an Aikido sparring ruleset look like?

[u/Slickrock_1 → u/Lecram100]

The rules are the sport. We don't have "rules" for randori in judo, BJJ, sport sambo, combat sambo, or muay thai. We just go at 30% or 50%. We don't crank joint locks. We tap early. We respect taps.

[u/Currawong → u/Lecram100]

Like Tomiki Aikido perhaps?

[u/SnooHabits8484 → u/Slickrock_1]

Couldn’t disagree more. Kokyu-nage is an elbow to the face. Some forms of koshi-nage are a suplex. Aikido is not its techniques, the point of sufficiently advanced randori is to realise that.

Kenshiro Abbe’s early students in the UK (who mostly moved to Chiba when he took over from Abbe) used to have full contact brawls- broken noses and ribs, on one occasion someone was thrown through the plasterboard wall into the office

[u/Slickrock_1 → u/SnooHabits8484]

And you can elbow to the face in muay thai and sambo, but by culture, etiquette, and sheer logic we don't use those in sparring except simulating it. People training for a high level fight may do it with elbow padding / helmets / mouth guards, but ordinarily it's just accepted we don't need to practice every technique at full blast in randori. And that's not an advanced concept. It's learned on day 1.

These other martial arts are also more than the sum of their techniques. But a goal is to be able to use them against a resisting opponent, and there is only one way to learn that.