Replay: Mixing martial arts

The following is a replay of an article I wrote in July of 2007 that is related to our current discussion of some people's ideas of combining martial arts like aikido and tai chi into a synthesis state. In the following replay I talk about drawing distinct strategic lines between your martial arts in order to gain a processing speed advantage in the OODA loop.

Fences, Hard Challenges, and Strategy

Karl discusses in the beginning of this Aikido Journal Interview how practicing two martial arts with different fundamental strategies can lead to confusion. In a situation where the defender has to choose between force-avoids-force and force-joins-force, the decision becomes a conscious mind thing which takes much longer than the subconscious application of either one of these strategies. For those of us who practice more than one art, we need some concrete rule of practice to tell us when we are doing one strategy and when we are doing the other. Various self-defense gurus call this concept fences or hard challenges.

With Judo and Aikido it is pretty straightforward. Aikido (force-avoiding) works best in the range of 1-2 arms-lengths and it works especially well when there is an early awareness or connection (metsuke) prior to the attacker crossing ma-ai. Judo (force-joining), on the other hand, works almost exclusively in ranges less than one arm length and Judo works great when tori is surprised, overwhelmed, and borne down to the ground. So there is our rule: avoid-force only outside of one arm's length and join-force only within one arm's length.

It is important that the vast majority of practice time in both arts abide explicitly by this rule of practice. If you spend part of your time in Judo trying to oppose-force or avoid-force or working outside one arm length then you undermine the rule that allows rapid reaction in self-defense. It is similarly counterproductive to spend much Aiki time trying to oppose-force or join-force or work closer than one arm length.

We are pretty good at following this rule in Aiki, where we try to stay near ma-ai and react at ma-ai, but the sportive aspect of Judo forbids force-avoiding while starting the opponents outside ma-ai. I think a more productive judo practice would be to either teach some basic Aiki ideas in Judo for use outside the Judo encounter distance or to start Judo practice inside Judo range.

For our students practicing Karate and Judo or Karate and Aikido, it is vital that you develop a fence between the two arts, and practice working with that fence in both arts.

What do y'all think about these ideas now? Leave me a comment.

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[For the rest of this week I will be camping with my family. In my absence I have scheduled several great re-plays from my archives. Check in each day to see what I've dug up in my trip back in time. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think and I'll see y'all again Monday!]