Tag: nikkyo

二教 nikyō in MMA

二教 nikyō in MMA

I did MMA many years back with a very good school Fight G. I think it was for 3 months, once or twice a week.

It was in one of those training sessions that I realised Aikido has a value in MMA, although more often than not, using Aikido specifically to win an MMA bout would be next to impossible, well that is my opinion.

I was on the ground with this guy, or rather, he was on the ground and I was up. In terms of MMA, we were both kind of a novice. In terms of martial arts, I can tell, he has little or no prior martial arts experience.

He was a fit guy, but while we sparred, I got the better part of it, and started my ‘ground and pound’, and out of instinct, he grabbed my wrist. It was more like a ‘Gyaku Hanmi’, opposite hand grab.

That sets it up nicely for a nikyō, The MMA gloves was thick, but I knew I got the lock, and began to apply pressure. The poor guy, probably pumped up with adrenaline, has no idea what is his predicament, with his free hand, he tried to make something out of it, but it was in vain.

I applied pressure, the lock was there, but I decided to let it go. I would have severely injure him, had I continue.

That incident never left my mind.

The martial arts world is wide, there are many many moves out there that we have never heard of, or even think was possible.

Catching that guy in a nikyō, in an MMA training taught me that anything can happen in a fight. Aikido locks are almost never taught in MMA, and when someone in MMA encounters such a lock, or pin, they usually have no response or reaction to it. Which is a dangerous indication that the training has gone past the learning stage, right into dogmatism.

Letting it go

I let the lock go partly also because we are all kind of a recreational MMA students, we are not fighting for keeps. The guy was like me, just going there for ‘fun’, imagine, going home with a broken wrist, or worse, a wrist that is permanently  broken. That would have been on my conscience for the rest of my life. It was just practice, so let’s not injure each other with malice.

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All the Small Things

All the Small Things

The difference between experience is the ability to notice how the small things contribute to the big picture. Having spent this amount of time in Aikido, my progress is getting smaller, improvements made is not significant, but minute adjustments to the hand tension, position of the fingers, small, small awareness.

When we first started out as beginners, our teachers showed us big adjustments to how we stand, our body posture, movements. from there we learn awkwardly how to do an irimi-tenkan, how a nikkyo is done, with big exaggerated movements, using lots of physical and muscular strength.

All the small movements necessary to tip the balance lies in incessant practice and training.

The longer we practice, the more we noticed how we are nagged with a level of incompetency that no matter how hard we try we can never improve? Those countless of nikkyos we did over the years didn’t seem to make much of a difference. until we discover for ourselves that the difference is in the certain tension we have in our wrists, the small turn of the finger, will tilt the uke’s entire body to our favour. All the small things.

I trained with Gabriel on Nikkyo yesterday and from that I observed that the level of ‘noticibility’ between us is quite significant. He is caught up in the level of technical, geometric approach of how the lock is done. As much as I would like to point this out to him, I can’t because it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. There is no way that I can move him to a level of noticibility similar to mine. It took me about fifteen years to notice what I notice in him, will he be able to harness my observations and bring his awareness to my level. hardly, if he can, I wouldn’t have need to point it out to him would I?

All the small movements necessary to tip the balance lies in incessant practice and training. No one can point that out for anyone, everyone has to take these lesson personally, feel, and experience. Open your heart, and allow the essence of the training to touch and change you. There is no logical discussion, or technical discourse in Aikido. The longer you stay learning Aikido, the less significant the form and functions matter. At the end of the day, all you need to do is to twitch your fingers and the world is with you.

First posted Dec 23, 2010