“Well, kotegaeshi worked in at least one case. Here is the proof!””
Is it just a coincidence or a quirk of fate that we have this news report of an employee of a Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream store successfully defending himself with aikido? Gabe Sutherland of Portland, Oregon–after having studied aikido for only three months– managed to apply a kotegaeshi on a masked robber who pointed a gun close to his side. Sutherland says, “Instinct just kicked in.” He succeeded in wrested the gun from the assailant’s hand and the man fled the store.
The irony of all of this is that we have just had a very lively thread on this blog about whether nikyo and kotegaeshi–common aikido techniques–can work in a real situation. In this case, it did! Is this man a hero or a fool?!
What’s your take?
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Paraphrasing Ikeda Sensei: “Aikido works. YOUR Aikido doesn’t work.”
I worked as a bouncer for years while I was studying Aikido as a mudansha/white belt. Techniques work if you train them to work. Sparring is different from fighting, period. No one is really TRYING to take you out in a sparring session.
Techniques I have used in real fighting:
Kotegaeshi
Nikyo
Sankyo
Koshinage
Iriminage
Kokyunage (classic sokumen and spontaneous versions)
Chokes
Variations of shihonage
Ikkyo, nikyo, sankyo, shihonage, kotegaeshi, and iriminage are the basics for a reason. Aikido is a martial art, period. If YOU have made the decision to train in a manner that is not effective in ACTUAL fighting and not sparring, that is your decision, and you should not criticize the art or the techniques.
Personally, I don’t use Aikido in sparring against strikers and when they ask why, I tell them this:
We can spar, and you might land your best punch or kick and lay me out, and I’ll get up, recover, and thank you the exercise. But if I pull off MY nikyo or kotegaeshi or what have you, and YOU don’t know ukemi, you’re going to the hospital, and that’s not acceptable to me. They say: “Well then you don’t have to do the technique so hard” and I say “well then you’ll, counter it and say Aikido doesn’t work.”
Aikido works. That’s my two cents.
They say: “Well then you don’t have to do the technique so hard” and I say “well then you’ll, counter it and say Aikido doesn’t work.”
Great line here..
Well said.
I can’t really improve on what Autrelle and others have correctly said in the earlier thread; and Ikeda Sensei really sums it up with “Aikido works. YOUR aikido doesn’t work.”
If Aikido doesn’t work for you, then I suggest either quit and take up less “strenuous” noble pursuits such as philately or macramé.
Otherwise, get serious about Budo and using the Self Correction the Founder pointed out as being the basis of Budo, learn to make them work by putting in the work.
Also, as the serious do, get a job in an industry requiring application.
There are no shortcuts in Budo.
Consider: A thousand years of R&D went into the making of Aikido.
To dismiss it because of one’s own inadequacies is an insult to both oneself and the art.
Advisable it is to first get one’s own house in order before making a fool of oneself commenting adversely on something which has continuously proven itself in real application by people in professions requiring this skill.
There are numerous success stories that far outweigh those of acrimonious excuse making. If people in the industries requiring this skill had the time, they could fill an encyclopaedia of success anecdotes such as this one.
Well, I take it that this is in response to the previous article about nikyo and kotegaeshi. Clearly this incident shows that they can work.
I think the previous author still has a point about wrist locks being ineffective in and of themselves against an opponent with no regard for the pain (s)he is feeling and the damage being done to their wrists. Clearly that wasn’t the case in this instance.
My reply to the previous author, which I haven’t got around to writing yet, is that to me kotegaeshi is just a variation of sumiotoshi, and nikyo is just a variation of irimi. If done well, they should not rely on the wrist locks at all. All the wrist manipulation does is to enhance the connection between the people. It is the rest of it that unbalances and disposes of the attacker.
If I do Tanto Dori in class tonight and the knife gets knocked away rather than held and I don’t end up pinning my partner face down on the ground, I know I train with uke who will act like they think my technique didn’t work. Success is a very different animal than clean practice, and that’s a good reality check.
The previous author did mention he did Hapkido, which uses a number of joint locks but also strikes and kicks. There have been a number of articles on this site (including I believe by Sensei Pranin) advocating the use of atemi in techniques. I know a dojo where I trained briefly ten years ago would make rigid distinctions between striking and applying a Nikyo, but for others an atemi is not separate from applying Nikyo. Perhaps the author was saying he would feel most comfortable hitting someone as an opening move rather than opening with a wrist lock – a sentiment a number of practitioners would otherwise echo.
I am impressed with the overall tone of the conversation in regards to that blog entry – we have been much better and more mature posters than the average Youtube-master-of-all-in-their-own-mind. No one has been insulting, though several letters did come close to asking if the author just didn’t know Kotegaeshi or Nikyo well enough to apply it correctly and at the correct time despite his time in practice. As the one Yoshinkan practitioner noted, we don’t know how the individual actually does his Nikyo or Kotegaeshi without some video. There are many variations. Some variations involve breaks and strikes, some schools insist true Aikido would avoid causing harm. We would all agree that trying to do a specfic variation no matter the attack or circumstances might work, might not. Tunnel vision is bad.
I have had teachers do very effective Nikyo and Kotegaeshi techniques that never put my fingers in jeopardy – the broken finger sounds like the finger was the focus of the force and not the author’s center.
After a discussion in class months ago, I wrote this in my own blog on Yonkyo. I hear even more people question the effectiveness of Yonkyo. I have small hands, and I have come across Uke with enormous wrists I have difficulty affecting. I like to train it anyway. Some fo the same points already covered, and I know there is no new information to some of the posters here. Comments welcome. Sorry if this misdirects the conversation.
http://john-hillson.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html
First and foremost, I am very happy the young man is okay, and I am happy for the success of our Art.
We all know better than to recommend this to everyone, to believe that Kotegaeshi would work every single time before the attacker’s finger twitched. This attacker was trying to intimidate – he would have behaved differently if his only thought was to kill our hero. The attacker never needed to get this close to pull the trigger effectively. At some point, this young man (or the next target) might face a now smarter attacker, a man who feels he is being made a fool of in the media and will be angrier. Or, the attacker might have been intimidated enough that he never obtains another gun with that $100.00.
If the young man had been killed trying a move he only started learning three months ago, what would be the tone of this conversation? Would we even post it, or would we dismiss his death as irrelevent to the conversation because he hadn’t trained long enough/hard enough? “Yellow Belt gets killed trying to use his martial art after X number of lessons.” We’d be sad, some of us would laugh at the stupidity and we would make him an object lesson to our own beginners. The wrist strength gained from all the ice cream scooping would be a factor in why this man’s Kotegaeshi was effective. The young man’s state of mind is the product of the rest of his life and not the results of the handful of classes at his dojo more than likely.
We can’t take all the credit.
Sorry, I went back to the previous blog entry and I now see that the broken finger wasn’t from an attempted Nikyo. Sorry for my confusion.
The only observation I have in reply to this excellent post is that the robber already had the money and approached the young man with who knows what intent, perhaps even the desire to shoot him. The young man acted instinctively and not on a premediated basis. Maybe his instinct saved his life. We’ll never know.
John says:
July 10, 2012 at 10:52 am
The young man’s state of mind is the product of the rest of his life and not the results of the handful of classes at his dojo more than likely.
I think this is a perfect point. Regardless of training, experience or strength, some people tend to have a different SPIRIT which allows them to act extremely relaxed and peacefully under stressful conditions. I am unfortunately on the other end of the spectrum, and I am not sure whether if I will be able to respond calmly under a life threatening situation. I know my aikido would work IF I would be able to control my nerves, excitement and adrenaline…
I can not say I am experienced enough to talk about the effectiveness of Aikido techniques (since I have been practicing only for 9 years) however, from my practical experience, different uke might have extremely diverse FLEXIBILITY on their elbows, wrists or ankles. And in this situation where our brave brother applied kotegaeshi so effectively only with 3 months of training, I am suspecting that the physical features of the robber might have helped a lot. Some aikidoka with very tense forearms and not-so-flexible joints experience a lot more pain compared to others during even the ‘softest’ kotegaeshi applications during practise.
Regarding the efficiency of Aikido, I have to second all comments above. Aikido WORKS. And it works VERY SEVERELY. It is all about DEVOTION and following the path correctly, taking Aikido seriously, enduring the pain and the sweat and the blood for many many years.
Keep in mind that this was used as a disarming technique, I’m assuming the robber wasn’t thrown to the ground. I think that is a different aspect than the other article was discussing.
In 1961 I was in the Army overseas with the 51 INF 3RD ARB/7 Army when I got into a fight with a GI who pulled a knife and attacked from the side with a yokomen-uchi. I used a Tenkan Irimi-Nage movement which to this day I can still see it play out. Yes, aikido works.
1SG Earl Rogers,Jr. US.Army (RET)
Only one thing I think deserves to be added to this thread.
An acquaintance of mine broke up a gang fight trying to protect his kid. He is a very skilled martial artist, and put five armed people in hospital.
When the TV cameras showed up on his doorstep trying to interview him, he refused and kept anonymity as much as possible. With as much information as was given, we now know:
1. Baskin Robbins in Portland Oregon has only one staffer on Sundays if we want to knock over a store.
2. I was able to find Gabe Sutherland in Portland Oregon on Myspace and Facebook. If he uses the Facebook location app, I could locate him very easily.
At least several websites offered to give me his address for a very small fee. As there are four Gabriel Sutherlands coming up, it might be a tiny bit more effort.
If this theft was part of a gang initiation, his life could be more difficult for the press given to this.
Quite apart from Aikido, try not to go public with this type of information if you are ever in an altercation.
John,
Your points are I think very important and have indeed been overlooked!