Talk:Aikido

Article Checklist for "Aikido"

Workgroup category or categories	Sports Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Stephen Ewen 19:21, 16 June 2007 (CDT)

To learn how to fill out this checklist, please see CZ:The Article Checklist.

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IMPORTANT NOTICE

This article contains or at one time contained text used by licensing/permission. See Talk:Aikido/Permission for details.

Please do not archive this message.

Stephen Ewen 12:45, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

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Did you write this yourself, Yann? Well done! --Larry Sanger 10:16, 14 February 2007 (CST)

Whoa!

This article is largely a copyright violation from material at http://www.york-aikido.org. I have deleted it. Stephen Ewen 01:14, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

See CZ_Talk:Approval_Announcements#Aikido for more info. ---Stephen Ewen 04:55, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

Matter resolved. Stephen Ewen 12:46, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

Approval

Hi Yann. I was just browsing. The article looks great, but we need to have an editor approve it. Clearly we seem a little short on the "Sports" front. :) I'll start hunting around to see what we can do to move this through the process. -- Sarah Tuttle 15:03, 25 March 2007 (CDT)

In my view, this article needs to go back into the oven a while longer and come back out in when it is more done. Nice start, though! Stephen Ewen 01:09, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

By the way, how would the approval process work for an article like this. Do we have any editors who are experts in this subject? If not, can it still be approved?—Nat Krause 19:47, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

Some comments

• Overall, nice article. I'm glad to see an article about Aikido.
• I wonder whether more could be put in about the philosophy or purpose of Aikido. As I was taught it, Aikido is a martial art because you learn to defend yourself from being killed -- but you don't learn to kill or learn to attack, except just enough to help other students practice defence. This makes it different from other martial arts. The purpose is to get out of a situation in such a way that not only are you not harmed, but the person attacking you is not harmed either. As my teacher said, if you find yourself in a situation such that you can't get out of it without either being harmed or harming the other person, that means that you haven't studied enough Aikido.

The introduction mentions self-defence and lack of attack moves, but it fails to mention the efforts that are taken in Aikido to avoid injuring the attacker. OK, I just edited in "without injury to either party"; maybe that covers it.

I'm not sure I got the above quite right. The goal is not exactly to avoid injury to either party, but to make sure each party has a reasonable option of avoiding injury. For example, you push your hand towards the attacker's face in such a way that they have the option of moving their head (and losing their balance, but not getting hurt); they also have the option of not moving and being hurt in the face. --Catherine Woodgold 20:22, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

• Is a "pin" different from a "lock"?
• This is a short introduction to about a century of history. This sentence seems unnecessary to me.
• Please note that Japanese names are given in the Japanese tradition of Last, First. I laughed out loud at this. Sorry. Wouldn't it make more sense, or be more acknowledging of diversity of culture, to say something like "Family name first, then individual name" or just "Family name first", rather than the nonsensical "Last, First"?
• When Morihei Ueshiba is first referred to as "Ueshiba-Sensei", maybe readers unfamiliar with the term "sensei" need something to let them know that it's the same person being talked about? (Or maybe not? Is this like saying "John Smith ... Mr. Smith" and just expecting the reader to be familiar with the term "Mr."?)
• He started to teach Daito ryu Aikijujitsu in 1916 in the town of Engaru in Hokkaido. On 15th September 1923 he became qualified to teach. He was teaching for 7 years before he was qualified to teach? Maybe this should be reworded?
• Aikido is for the entired world. Train not for selfish reasons, but for all people everywhere Is this a translation? I presume he would have been speaking Japanese? I would like to see the original Japanese words here, perhaps in a footnote. If it's a translation, probably the "d" needs to be deleted from "entired world". --Catherine Woodgold 19:27, 6 April 2007 (CDT)
• The founder's name is given in one place as "Morihei Ueshiba" and in another place as "Ueshiba Morihei". I think Ueshiba is the family name but am not sure. I'm not sure how best to fix this. Maybe where it says family name is given first, it could specify that that applies only to "this section", i.e. the history section. --Catherine Woodgold 19:35, 6 April 2007 (CDT)

In Los Angeles?

Where do you recommend to learn in LA? -Tom Kelly (Talk) 21:27, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

wikipedia has a long article, can we use any info here?

Can we utilize wikipedia's article on this to add more information? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido -Tom Kelly (Talk) 21:30, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

Pictures?

I think the article should get some pictures. Also, check out this template at wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorin-ryu_Shido-kan. I think all martial art styles should have something like this. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 12:06, 22 April 2007 (CDT)

Some new references

Safety

I thought this abstract might interest you. I did not see a place to incorporate its findings into the article, and so I did not. Nancy Sculerati 17:00, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

Zetaruk MN. Violan MA. Zurakowski D. Micheli LJ. Injuries in martial arts: a comparison of five styles. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 39(1):29-33, 2005 Jan. UI: 15618336

OBJECTIVE: To compare five martial arts with respect to injury outcomes. METHODS: A one year retrospective cohort was studied using an injury survey. Data on 263 martial arts participants (Shotokan karate, n = 114; aikido, n = 47; tae kwon do, n = 49; kung fu, n = 39; tai chi, n = 14) were analysed. Predictor variables included age, sex, training frequency (<or=3 h/week v >3 h/week), experience (<3 years v >or=3 years), and martial art style. Outcome measures were injuries requiring time off from training, major injuries (>or=7 days off), multiple injuries (>or=3), body region, and type of injury. Logistic regression was used to determine odds ratios (OR) and confidence intervals (CI). Fisher's exact test was used for comparisons between styles, with a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. RESULTS: The rate of injuries, expressed as percentage of participants sustaining an injury that required time off training a year, varied according to style: 59% tae kwon do, 51% aikido, 38% kung fu, 30% karate, and 14% tai chi. There was a threefold increased risk of injury and multiple injury in tae kwon do than karate (p<0.001). Subjects >or=18 years of age were at greater risk of injury than younger ones (p<0.05; OR 3.95; CI 1.48 to 9.52). Martial artists with at least three years experience were twice as likely to sustain injury than less experienced students (p<0.005; OR 2.46; CI 1.51 to 4.02). Training >3 h/week was also a significant predictor of injury (p<0.05; OR 1.85; CI 1.13 to 3.05). Compared with karate, the risks of head/neck injury, upper extremity injury, and soft tissue injury were all higher in aikido (p<0.005), and the risks of head/neck, groin, and upper and lower extremity injuries were higher in tae kwon do (p<0.001). No sex differences were found for any of the outcomes studied. CONCLUSIONS: There is a higher rate of injury in tae kwon do than Shotokan karate. Different martial arts have significantly different types and distribution of injuries. Martial arts appear to be safe for young athletes, particularly those at beginner or intermediate levels.

Philosophy

Flower J. Doing or being?. Physician Executive. 24(5):56-8, 1998 Sep-Oct.

Abstract: The founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, would occasionally distill the essence of the art into three simple shapes--a circle, a square, and a triangle. These are three basic ways of dealing with what's coming at you. The square is the simplest. It is about, essentially, doing nothing. The saying here is from the old spiritual: "I shall not be moved." You meet the challenge head on. The triangle is about forward motion--attack, cutting right to the heart of what is coming at you, or cutting right past it to the space beyond. The circle is often the most interesting space. The circle is not about standing ground or cutting through. The circle is about dancing with whatever is headed your way. The real danger lies in being stuck in any one mode--perpetually intransigent, always flailing away in attack mode, or forever slip-sliding through one dance step after another. It is only when our response is embodied in who we are that we will have the power truly to lead other people.

The rate of actual injuries while studying Aikido is not the point. We would not point to a study finding broken legs from skiing as evidence that the purpose of skiiing is to break legs. The purpose of Aikido is to get out of a situation in which one is being attacked in such a way that everyone involved has a reasonable option of avoiding injury. I suggest this edit: Append to the end of the following sentence "An Aikidoka will rely principly on re-directing the energy of an attacker to either throw, control in a lock or pin the attacker." the phrase "with the goal of leaving the attacker the option of avoiding injury." --Catherine Woodgold 17:18, 28 April 2007 (CDT)