What does aikido look like?

A few weeks ago somebody asked me if I'd ever "used my aikido for real." Now, of course that question really means "did you ever get attacked and then kick the guy's ass?" to which the answer is no. But the answer I gave was that I use it every time I have to walk through crowds on the subway (and elsewhere. Hong Kong has a lot of crowds). I don't think my friend was terribly satisfied by that answer, and I'll admit it sounds a bit cute. But I wasn't trying to be cute when I said it, and I think it's not as stupid as it sounds.

I talked in my last post about the idea that aikido is a very different kind of thing from martial arts like karate or sports like judo. One of the big differences, on the technical level, is that aikido scales naturally with the intensity of the attack. If somebody grabs and pushes hard, they're setting themselves up for a big throw. If they're not holding or pushing as hard, they can be lowered to the ground pretty gently. And if somebody who isn't paying attention just happens to walk into you, well, you know how to use tenkan and other movements to just get out of the way. No need for violence.

So what does "real aikido" really look like?

There are a lot of people who say that, if you're really under attack, your aikido techniques should become more vicious, with additional strikes and more violent application of joint locks. But I don't think that's true. I think that the techniques of aikido are entirely capable of dealing with serious attacks. What they're not so good at dealing with is unserious attacks. We can see this in practice all the time with partners that don't seem to want to attack. Partners whose strikes miss by inches if not feet, who grab a wrist but don't really want to do anything with it, who don't turn and reorient after their initial attack misses--these people are difficult to throw. (And that makes it easy to imagine that a real attacker will be harder to throw) But, of course, these are precisely those situations which don't require us to throw our partner. If somebody walks up to you and punches you in the face, that's something you have to deal with. If somebody walks up to you and swings their arm near your face, that's a different sort of thing entirely. Irritating, sure. Definitely rude. Probably something to be concerned about. But as long as that's all they're doing, we're still in "irritating little brother" territory and not "terrifying murderer."

We all have a picture in our heads when we practice of what our aikido should look like. Usually that's the kata we practice: a grab, a body movement, a throw, and a roll or breakfall. But when your partner doesn't attack fully, what you end up with looks quite different. I think it's useful to stop and look at what does happen, rather than forcing a throw awkwardly. Sometimes your technique just winds to a halt. You turn, your partner doesn't and you stand there awkwardly holding onto your partner at some weird angle. But that's fine! He's not doing anything to you, after all. Not throwing someone who doesn't need to be thrown is just the same as "not thinking of defeating an opponent." Of course, as nice as that is, it's not a good way to learn throws. This is why it's important for the attacker role to be taken seriously--not because it makes the techniques look better, but because otherwise they make no sense at all.

One of the things I really enjoy when I watch Endo sensei demonstrate is that it always feels like he's calming the interaction. His partner might attack quite seriously, but as the technique progresses there seems to be less and less energy on both sides. Finally, somebody falls down, but it's not a big deal. That's wonderful. Imagine all of the arguments that you've been in that started over something small and ended up with a lot of screaming. Now imagine those other arguments where you both calmed down and ended up in a more or less relaxed discussion. Which was better? With aikido, it seems like physical interactions--fights--can be treated the same way.