Is Aikido a real martial art?

I have a question does aikido serves has a real self defence martial arts |||Yes!


Aikido is a superb art. More difficult to achieve senior standing than those typical strip mall %26quot;dojos.%26quot;


I studied Aikido for about 2 years but I found I was better and liked Judo more.


Judo in my opinion can be applied to street fighting more quickly than Aikido which worked out well for me.





A few times a year our dojo has a friendly workout with both the local Aikido and BJJ/JJ guys. We ALL learn something new from the cross training.


All the grappling arts from Daito Ryu, Aikido, Shuai Jiao, Judo, Japanese Jujitsu, Brazilian Jujitsu to Aiki-Jujitsu......... are superb for discipline, conditioning and real street fighting.|||The term %26quot;martial arts%26quot; covers a wide range of categories, including the following:





1. Sport competition - this is the MMA, Boxing, Greco-roman wrestling, olympic fencing, and the like. Also includes a lot of TKD sparring as well as the semi-professional kata folks.





2. Self defense - the practical, simple stuff of how to injure someone very fast. Krav Maga is well-known for this; however, most martial arts have some form of this in varying degrees. However, it%26#039;s all pretty darned basic. (A punch is self defense. A flying spinning axe kick isn%26#039;t.)





3. Performance art - fight coreographers, stunt cordinators, Professional wrestling, etc. Basically the stuff that Jackie Chan does: you really wouldn%26#039;t learn it as part of a self-defense course, but it%26#039;s definately martial arts, with an emphasis on %26quot;art%26quot;.





4. health/fitness/flexability - the tai chi, qui gong stuff. Can also include the aerobic kickboxing fitness folks, technically. Obviously, there%26#039;s a good part of overlap with #1 on this, as well.





5. spiritual development - again with the tai chi, but can also be a part of sports fitness (developing your mental focus) as well as kid%26#039;s classes (helping achieve discipline and the like.)





So - in using this list? usual Aikido classes hit #4 and 5. However, yes - it can be used for 3 (self-defense). However, it takes a lot longer to get there than if you studied, say, krav maga or a weekend self-defense seminar. It also depends on who is teaching the class. Very often, a lot of aikido training has your training partner helping out by giving you openings and %26#039;feeding%26#039; you shots that flow into locks and throws. However, if you%26#039;ve got a hard-core instructor who is teaching akijutsu, then he%26#039;ll probalby focus more on the practical aspects of breaking people with the techniques. But again, if you do %26quot;normal%26quot; Aikido long enough you%26#039;ll get good enough that you don%26#039;t need people to feed you





But at the end of the day? I would put Aikido above tai chi in terms of %26quot;practical ability to harm another person%26quot;, but not by a whole lot. You really do need to study it a LOT before you can start using it for self-defense. |||Aikido is a internal martial art. It isn%26#039;t about teaching outwardly visible techniques that you memorize and then reproduce in a fight. It is about harmonizing your inner energy and intention with the flow of an attack so as to neutralize the injurious effect of it, to firstly place yourself out of danger and secondly place yourself in postion to attack your opponent(s) where they are vulnerble. People frequently don%26#039;t get it and so wrongfully think it doesn%26#039;t work or that it is not real martial art. They think martial art is about grandiose displays of physical prowess.


All demonstrations of martial art are just that, demonstrations.


Aikido is not about fighting an opponent toe to toe. Aikido is partly derived from samurai sword culture in which it is assumed you will face multiple attackers, where you are not afforded the luxery of concentrating narrowly on one solitary oppponent.


|||Aikido is a real martial art and is Japanese for the way of coordinated power.It was developed from style such as daito-ryu aikijutsu and kenjutsu among others. It is a post WW2 martial art that was also used to alleviate stress and bring about peace as well. It incorporates mainly joint-locks and manipulations that lead to effortless throws and is extremely effective. Though he sucks now,Steven Seagal made aikido popular in america with is first movie - Above the Law|||Yes Aikido is a %26quot;real%26quot; martial art. It is however harder to master than most more common styles. Also there are fewer really good instructors of Aikido than there are for many other styles.





EDIT:





NICK I like you for many years felt that Aikido was a joke. Not so any more. Being a senior martial artists it takes a lot to impress me. While at a martial arts weekend in PA in the early 1990%26#039;s I was grabbed for an impromptu demo one morning. Several martial artists like myself were up early drinking coffee in the dining room. A senior Aikido instructor came in and asked if anyone wanted to work on something. Before I knew it I was being thrown around like a rag doll. It takes someone that knows what they are doing to move me. Never make that mistake of saying that Aikido is not for real. I%26#039;ll agree that 90% of the Aikido I see is a waste of time. That is not because the art is not good. It is simply because there are a lot of bad martial artists out there. Aikido is very much for real!|||I feel that it depends greatly on what sort of attack you are defending against, and what circumstances you are likely to find yourself. A lot of people in my class are bouncers, and they use the techniques on an almost daily basis. In this case, Aikido is an amazing art simply because of the ability to control the other person without injuring them.





For the same reason, we also have a lot of cops, one of whom is a trainer for the academy. Again, this is great for people who know that they must take the initiative, are typically alert, and would be legally liable for causing more injury than was necessary.





For a stand up fight, you have a bit of a different story. Against linear arts, like karate for instance, it has an advantage of being circular in nature - and linear arts typically don%26#039;t train for that. You also have an advantage in that most Aikido schools practice the rondori - multiple attackers - that helps in that sort of situation.





Still, there are two types of attackers that I have trouble with using straight Aikido - the boxer, and the soldier. The soldier is a no brainer here, if you are against an opponent that wants to kill you, you have to be in that same mindset to win. My sensei taught Aikido to American soldiers during the Korean war, but admits that he had to modify it to to a more brutal (and simpler) form for it to be the most effective in the given situation and the limited training time.





Boxers are difficult because of the jab. The job doesn%26#039;t use the whole body, and is difficult for the Aikidoka to properly off-balance and lead the opponent. In my style, we incorporate trapping to offset this - but I have to admit it%26#039;s the hardest thing I%26#039;ve tried to do. Usually, when I spar against boxer types, I stay out of range until they get pissed off and finally give me a good hit to work with - I need to make my traps more mindless.





This is the really difficult thing about Aikido, and all martial arts really. Knowing intellectually what you need to do to counter an attack is relatively easy. Training your body to execute the most appropriate technique without thought, while maintaining composure and awareness of the environment, is the hard part. This is why I think rondori is so important for the practice of Aikido, it forces you to stop thinking and start doing what you can to avoid getting clobbered.





One thing that may seem odd at first, you will never see white belts in Aikido doing anything that resembles combat. Hell, you really don%26#039;t start seeing anything that looks like combat until you see two high Kyu grades or even Dan ranks working together. This is simply due to the fact that lower ranks can%26#039;t fall really hard. Since they can%26#039;t fall hard, they typically work out at 1/4 speed - different from the usual 3/4 speed for sparring in other styles. As you get better at falling though, the more speed and power you can use, and the more fun you have!|||It appears as if everyone that says Aikido is real is going to get a thumbs down. But I have to admit that aikido is a real martial art. It is cinsidered a passive art. Believe it or not many of the techniques used in aikido are also in jujitsu. They may have different names for them. But they use the same joint locks and manipulations. Many of the throw are done from those locks. The intent in aikido is usually meant not to harm but to control. They are taught not to meet force with force. But to blend. They can harm but choose not to harm if possible. |||yes you can learn self defense from aikido, but it takes longer then other martial arts.


that doesn%26#039;t mean aikido is inferior compared to other style but due to its passive nature and limited strikes it takes longer to learn the self defense aspects.


all styles have there pro%26#039;s and con%26#039;s and aikido is no diffident from them. it is an excellent style.|||Yes, it is a real martial art. It%26#039;s a little too defensive and peaceful for my tastes but it can be used in self defense and can be very effective.|||yes it is a real martial art





a Master in my federation is also a Master in Aikido|||Yes it is , man go to www.wikipedia.com or www.google.com .|||No, the stuff just doesn%26#039;t work. It%26#039;s not a matter of time like people are claiming. It just doesn%26#039;t work.





Demos and everything like that aren%26#039;t like real live settings with resisting opponents. Find a martial art that%26#039;s proven under those contexts.|||i love mixed martial arts and call my self a semi expert :) i believe it is a real technique of self defense in mma yet it probably is a subdivision of another technique.