Some of you may know that I tried my hand (no pun intended) at the Japanese martial art, Aikido, a while back. The philosophy of Aikido was extremely interesting to me. The best way I can describe Aikido is that it is a non-violent martial art. It emphasizes balance, coordinated motion, and respect for your attacker. Your goal in Aikido is to take your opponents energy and us it against him/her. It rarely, if ever, teaches strength vs. strength. Anecdotally, I once practiced with a woman who was probably 50 years old, probably 5' tall and a biscuit over 100 pounds. Using some simple techniques, she threw my 200 pounds around the mat like i was a rag doll. We were taught ways to redirect the attacker's force and use that same energy to subdue, pin, or generally immobilize the attacker. There were ways to make the techniques more unpleasant for the attacker, but in general it felt like you were putting your opponent to bed. You took their energy and used it to put them on the ground. Then you applied a wrist or arm lock until they felt uncomfortable and asked you to stop (tapped out). Then you released and backed away. Aikido is often called a soft form, or a soft martial art. If someone throws a punch, you don't try to block it, you simply blend with it, redirecting the energy and putting it to your own use. Since you never meet force head on with more force, Aikido is called a soft form or a soft martial art.
A practitioner of a hard martial art once said that fighting a practitioner of Aikido was like trying to fight a ghost.
There are several Dojos that teach aikido in the greater columbus area, but I decided to join The Fighting Librarian's Dojang where I knew some people and my friend Sam wanted to start at the same time.
Now, Hapkido is very similar to Aikido as you can probably tell from the name. The difference being Hapkido incorporates some hard forms and also some weapons training. On one of the first days after I joined, we were doing some techniques that are similar to Aikido. In Aikido, if someone were grabbing your wrist, you can turn their arm, take their balance, and put them on the ground. In Hapkido, we learned to turn the attacker's arm, take his balance....but now you take his arm across your leg, strike down to shatter the elbow, then strike across to break the jaw. Therein lies the difference.
In Aikido, you leave your attacker in a position where he doesn't want to you attack you again. In Hapkido, you leave your attacker in a position where he isn't physically able to attack you again.
I'm very much enjoying my practice as it gives me an escape from my otherwise sedentary lifestyle. That, and it gives me a better chance against Fast Eddie's attack ninjas. I take my yellow belt test August 13th. I'll let you all know how it goes.
-SP
