[robaato]

Aikido covers a rather wide spectrum of practitioners/practices - with widely varying levels of "effectiveness in real life". The key is to understand what you want and then work out if the way you are studying it (and/or with whom) will give you that.

[YorickPeterse]

The key is to also understand that it will never help you in a fight of any kind.

[rusk]

I used it to great effect in a bar brawl once. I was working security, some guy swung at me and I went straight into an arm lock pinning him to the ground. Nobody hurt, no problem and I was able to restrain him with a minimal amount of effort til the other guys came and escorted him out.

Aikido is great in self-defence situations where someone is coming at you. Of course the drills are contrived, their purpose is to train your muscle memory not actually to prepare you for combat.

It's not great for performance really.

The whole "come at me bro, but no not like that" thing is really something that only new practitioners will do because they're amazed by the power of these techniques.

The real weakness of Aikido is the pressure on the joints. I'd love to do it still but my knees can't take it any more.

[magic_beans]

I took a week of Aikido lessons before I had to stop — my wrists and knees just couldn’t handle it.

[ishi]

Perhaps you should try a different teacher. I know guys who started training in their 50s and 60s, so it's entirely possible if you pace yourself, and not exceed the current limits of your body. Little by little, these limits get stretched and your physical condition improves. Of course it's easier if you're fit and flexible to begin with, but that's not a requirement.

[magic_beans]

I do Crossfit, weightlifting and run occasionally; my weight is slightly below average. I wonder if maybe my joint issue is just something with my own body? That said — the class was an all-levels class with full tumbling. Maybe an intro class would be better...

[robaato]

Try a different class/teacher - there are a whole host of ways to approach/practice aikido, and taking care of health should always be paramount according to my line of teaching.

I am still not very flexible - but with lots of practice I am softer than most of the flexible people who join the dojo :)

Things like wrists/ankles/knees need time to (many months) to adapt/get conditioned.

[rusk]

Do you do Yoga or Pilates? Or anything to help you with flexibility?

[ajro]

"I used it to great effect in a bar brawl once." My opinion is - you were lucky. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KUXTC8g_pk I don't know the guy from the video but I think his assessment is very honest and balanced.

[rusk]

I thought I was kind of "unlucky" to have a guy swing at me in the first place ... lucky that I'd had some kind of preparation at all!

I'm a wuss I should never have been doing security ever ...

[ishi]

One of the ideas behind Aikido is to not get in a fight in the first place. In real-life scenarios, it is often very possible to de-escalate a situation and prevent it from deteriorating into violence. Over time, practicing Aikido lets you see these opportunities and solve conflicts without resorting to violence.

[pryce]

> One of the ideas behind Aikido is to not get in a fight in the first place.

I have heard many martial-arts instructors voice this same point. -EDIT: I do not know whether this may be emphasised more in Aikido- but it is hard to regard it as a serious argument when the amount of time spent on learning about this aspect, and practice of how to apply this aspect and the techniques to achieve it seems to be almost invariably a few minutes a year at most.

I had more practice 'de-escalating' tense situations on a 1-term clinical skills paper at medical school than in the 6 years I studied across two different martial arts (one Korean, the other Chinese). The medical school paper amounted to about 2 hrs on that subject that year - 1 theory, 1 practice.

[kaitai]

I did some aikido lessons for maybe 6 weeks (studied Shotokan for 8 years, but that was a while ago). The classes I did spent a lot of time on understanding the intentions of the opponent and trying to find a mutual solution, and a lot of time on mastering one's own emotions. It was some of the best training in "diplomacy" I've had, where by diplomacy I mean "the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions" (Churchill?).

[YorickPeterse]

Self defence techniques such as Krav Maga teach you the exact same, while also teaching you how to actually defend yourself in a variety of scenarios.

[ishi]

There's no question that Krav Maga is effective, but whether or not it teaches you to solve conflicts non-violently depends very much on the teacher. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And if all you know is how to knock your opponent out, that's probably what you'll attempt to do in a conflict.

[stefantheard]

It should be stated that it there are PLENTY of questions about the effectiveness of Krav Maga. Any martial art that cannot be trained at high intensity against a resisting opponent should be looked upon with a healthy amount of skepticism.

[rusk]

I studied Krav Maga and it taught me nothing like that ... I had to quit it because it was having a detrimental effect on how I was approaching real life conflict ...

[YorickPeterse]

This might differ between countries and schools. I practised it for several years, and we had many classes that involved techniques useful for avoiding conflict (some as simple as just running away), keeping people at distance, and so on.

[rusk]

Well, yeah that was the fundamental principle alright. This even, isn't always the best approach in day-to-day life ... but even then once you go beyond that it's "smash their face til it's bloody". It's the space between this, and the nuance that Aikido explores that I found very beneficial.

[robaato]

Maybe it will never help YOU in a fight. I don't get into fights, but have had a couple of physical confrontations where instinctive reactions based on my aikido training, have helped me change the dynamic. So my view is different to yours. Ditto for a few friend's experiences.

That said - if you want to learn to fight, then learn to fight!