Aikido Martial Arts Demonstrations
Aikido martial arts demonstrations
Aikido martial arts demonstrations are the time-honored way for teachers of Aikido or any other martial arts to recruit some new students for the dojo.
I ended up putting on this martial arts demonstration of Aikido at the Top Ryde shopping center, in Sydney, New South Wales, some years ago.
I wasn’t planning any kind of martial arts demonstration at that time, but we were approached by a local shop keeper.
The man was the owner of a health-food store. and he wanted to attract a crowd. So, what the heck, we went ahead and did the Aikido martial arts demonstration.
We hired a small truck to carry our rubber gymn mats to the shopping mall, and started our class in the usual manner… Bowing to show respect, warm-up stretches, some quick basic exercises, and then a demonstration of Randori No Kata – the basic 17 techniques of Shodokan Aikido.
Then the senior students went through their paces with some Kageri Geiko – free practice between aiki students, one using a rubber tanto knife.
This practice is done loosely and with no resistance by Uke at this stage. (Resistance to the techniques comes later, and is built up by degrees.)
You can see a kotegaeshi aikido throw at full power in the above photograph. Uke (the guy who receives the throw) has to flip his body over his own arm to prevent it from being broken. The person doing the throw is called Tori in our style of Aikido. Traditional Aiki styles call the thrower Nage.
At this speed, Kote-gaeshi is an Aikido technique for advanced students only.
All the students enjoyed the Aikido demonstration, and so did the onlookers. The shopkeeper was pleased also since he managed to boost his store’s profile.
These public martial arts demonstrations are often the first time ordinary people see “real” martial arts, as opposed to watching “kung fooey” martial arts movies or looking at Youtube.
The movies and videos are all very well and fine, the techniques shown are often excellent … but the average person never realizes how much skill and years of practice were required to build up to that level of skill. Folks seem to think a martial art can be mastered in a few weeks. But it is never that simple.
It takes many months or even years to get good at this stuff, training three or more times a week. You build up your throwing (and falling) skill levels by measured degrees. The guys taking the falls need to be darned good to avoid getting crippled. If you did many Aikido throws ‘full bore’ like that on an unskilled person, they’d be sure to break a limb or maybe even their neck.
People never realize the work that goes into making this stuff look good.
