Expert: Keith Patton - 1/22/2011

Question
Dear Mr. Patton:

I used to belong to my university's Wing Chun club, but after moving, the closest martial arts school is an academy affiliated to Chendokan Schools of Aikido. I think I would like to try, since a recent knee injury has left me a bit limited in my options about martial arts, and aikido seems gentle enough for my leg. I would like to know if you can tell me something about this organization. I have read your answers in this site and you come out as both knowledgeable & honest.

Thanks

Answer
Orlando:

It looks like a spin off of Traditional Ueshiba Aikido by a 6th or 7th tier student.  Like I said in my last post, students do that a lot. By Tier, I mean, how far removed from Ueshiba.  I learned under a guy who was third or fourth tier.  He learned from an instructor who had studied under Tomiki, who had studied directly under Ueshiba.

I may be breaking a few unwritten rules here, about not badmouthing other schools or styles.  I have never see Chendokan, but it appears to have an element of ego, he names the style after himself?  Looking at his background, he is strong in Akijitsu, Karate, Kempo (these guys are really bad about ego and how bad ass they think they are, I know, my son studied it and left for that reason) which is where the "applying them to real situations" comes from in his description of the style.  It is probably an amalgam of different things to make if more useful in a street fight, or like it should be.

I don't know how friendly it might be on your knee.  I have had the ACL grafted on both my knees and aikido was never a problem.  But the fact that he goes out of his way to mention the role of Uke, makes me wonder if they don't use them as throwing dummies.  Don't get me wrong, we all do, but some schools require the Uke to attack at real life speed and Aikido is all about energy, and the more you put in the more you get out...it also makes Tori or the thrower's life easier.

What I am trying to say, is if Uke attacks hard, it is all the more easy to do what you want to do, and takes less finess.  We trained slow, by Musashi's addage "Fast is slow, Slow is fast."

View some of the Aikido demo clips on Youtube to see what I mean, the Ueshiba Uke's are taught to attack, attack, attack, but to wait their turn...lol.  You'll see what I mean.  You can see it in Segal's demos too.  But you can also see what a full speed attack means to Uke...a lot of hard falls.  The smaller guys seem to be able to do this pretty easily, they just land and literally bounce back onto their feet, not so much for the bigger guys.

There might be some "right of passage" deal going on here...pay your dues as a throwing dummy in order to make it.  Don't get me wrong, it takes a good Uke to make a throw happen; what I mean is he has to attack within the parameters laid down for that throw, else you are doing something else.  A good Uke can make Tori look "marve-elous!"  That is why some Ukes are highly sought after.  The opposite is true, a bad Uke can make a good Akidoka look horrible if they do everything but what they are supposed to do.

I use to demo a full speed attack on Ushiro-ate or back fall to demonstrate the difference between how we practice and what the result would be in real life.  The difference is at controlled speed, Uke can do a nice controlled back fall vs at full speed, his feet going nearly up over his head and he comes down from about 4 feet in the air flat on his back.  

We were forbade to do full speed attacks in our dojo due to liability and injury risks.  Aikido can be devastating it practiced in an uncontrolled way.  That is why it is not recommended that kids under age 12 be taught.  By then they should know the difference and will not go to school and start breaking elbows and such while showing off to their friends.

Therein lies a risk in demo'ing Aikido things to others versed in martial arts.  The Karate-doka or Kempo player are all about speed.  That works fine if we decide before hand that I can do my Aikido response at full speed too and break your elbow toss you on your head.  What usually happens is the Aikido-ka controls his speed and the other bozo whips in a fast punch or something and then says, "See?  Aikido does not work..."  So get the ground rules laid out first, lol.

Bottom line is I would go and watch what they do at the dojo before signing anything.  If it looks a bit too aggressive for your knee, take a pass for now.  Since this is a dojo affiliated with his style, it might be a lesser student, but with the culture and attitude of the founder.

I can only get a sense of it from his resume, but he mentions having studied under European instructors.  If you know Judo, then you know what the Europeans did to it.  Their style of Judo is totally lacking in finess, it is all about brute strength even at the Olympic level.  I make that observation after seeing and having been taught Kodokan Judo to a limited degree by a former Olympic Judo coach who was also my Aikido Sensei.  The difference was night and day.  I could not even recognize what they were calling Judo as such.  It was more like uncontrolled grappling, kind of like Sumo, but not the finessed foot sweeps and unbalancing we were taught.