My Martial Arts Backround • Rokas, the AIKIDO GUY 

He's pretty serious about it! :) Now, if it was only Rokas, I would have my own little fears, and at least expect it to take a very long time - but what Rokas is doing, is something you haven't been able to do in the past. Via the internet, he's essentially crowd-sourcing knowledge and ideas on how to improve a martial art, as well as talking to some very skilled people about their input, and then actually traveling to other strong fighters to have them help in the betterment of this style of Aikido. Just 50 years ago, this would have been impossible - no internet, and much higher travel expenses. So I'm very excited to see how this develops over time!

Thanks!

You are welcome to come. In some time I am planning to start organizing special camps to share the gathered and developed experience

Lol, I'd love that :D Although I don't feel I deserve the title of Batman yet :) Still need more skill I think... Also, it's a title people should nominate for, would be too arrogant to start calling it myself that way :) Batman for me was always so absolute

I nominate Rokas the Batman.

Maybe Batman in training, a Robin perhaps? lol. AikiBats!

Nice!

I’m a white belt and I’m famously bad at it. My new job has free yoga classes everyday for employees. I’ve thought about doing yoga to help improve my aikido, as much as I’m into weight lifting and running, I’m terribly uncoordinated and not flexible at all! I’m a 35 year old dude, will yoga help me get better at Aikido? Will it help me be less less sore after practice? What’re the benefits?

Thank you Cesar!

I agree with this assessment, if it's true. An aikido sensei assumes that his students are dedicated to the cause of non-violence, self-development, and to spreading the gospel of love, where concerns of efficiency, utility, power are secondary if not irrelevant to this awakening. Sadly, we live in the Kali-yuga age with so many who don't believe in love, or inspired enough by the spirit of universal love to dedicate their lives to its cause. They love violence instead. Selling violence is so cheap, easy, and sick.

Keni-san, the only thing I would add is that peace and love also need efficacy and practicality. Peace and love need to work otherwise they do not grow. I think this is the challenge Aikido has as a martial art, and one that Rokas-san is pursuing. As Aikidoka, do we truly understand violence? Or do we pretend to understand it? Have we really quelled our violent nature, or do we hide from it? I see many Aikidoka preach non-violence and love who then turn around and use manipulation and the power of the sensei to control others....this is still a negative action. So how do we find true emptiness? How do we let go and embrace others? Perhaps the path of martial art, one of violent action, must be taken head on. Then we can truly rise above it. Not by being better than it, but by understanding it. Food for thought and good contribution!

Thanks for sharing. With RU-vid being a certain type of media, I have only 5-10 minutes windows to share opinions in where only part of what I really think will be expressed. It's an amazing type of media, yet at the same time it sometimes creates confusion of knowing only part of the story. I am happy you had a chance to get to know better where I come from and that we can see eye to eye :)

Let me save you some time: www.gracieuniversity.com 😂

Hi! Thanks for the question. Right now my Karate training is really small, so I am a very poor kicker. I will ask myself this question, of whether to include them later on in my journey, right now I am not emphasizing this question. Yet I want to be open to everything and to include anything that really works and matters. In terms of Karate, I used to be inspired by Kyokushin, specially the bio of Oyama Masutatsu, but I've also been exposed to a bit of Shotokan. Other styles I am simply not so much familiar with

I see! I used to train Kyokushin too but now I practice Shotokan as it’s less injuring. Otherwise, for almost 3 years we’ve been inntroducing Savate to Poland and this sport is famous for its efficient kicks. If you ever have time, please feel free to come and train with us: www.extremeest.pl/kontakt/ :-)

Isn't Aikido specialized on one thing and that is the issue why everyone says it sucks..? Aikido is all about redirecting force with little force and leading that up to a joint manipulation resulting in a throw. And some say the joint manipulation is great self-defense, others say it is too likely too fail as it only works when the angles and whatever needed is right and that only happens in one out of many attempts in real non-optimal situations.

By specialized I mean like how boxers specialize in punching and taekwondo specializes in kicking. Aikido can specialize in the small joint manipulation that other arts lack. Yes, it is hard to pull off, but an experienced grappler can do it if the opportunity presents itself. One of the biggest reasons Aikido sucks is lack of sparring and blindly clinging to tradition.

400 yrs

:D Sorry, it's my bad. Bad name choice for an international channel :)

Maybe you could've said the name in the intro every time. I bet we would learn quickly!

I know the feeling bro!

But the city is called Šiauliai. Isn't the Š pronounced differently from an S?

Wow. Based on your comment it does sound that you know my former teacher. You both hold the truth and everyone else who does differently is wrong

Wolfram, that doesn't make any sense mate. I don't mean that harshly, I mean that literally: I don't know what your point is, or rather, how you arrive at the point that says that Rokas will somehow be forever haunted the rest of his life for this. That's pretty far out dude.

AikidoSiauliai no, that is not what i mean and i am not his student nor do i belong to his school. I think he was trying to save you from an effort doomed to fail. But this is your choice to live by.

Philip Zeplin it is how it is. It is not a matter of opinion. Rokas effort is doomed to fail from the beginning. Self defence is not a game like martial arts. Unless you can have a training method which is save but you would lose your life when you do it wrong, then you would never be able to create any self defence effective martial arts. It is a contradiction in itself. Sorry.

Wolfram, I don't follow... are you saying it's impossible to train for self-defense? People all around do that every day. The police do it. The military does it. Private security does it. Individuals all around the world do it. Why would training have to result in death for it to train for self-defense? I really don't follow.

Yes, Leeds it is. Do you live in Leeds? :)

i do indeed yes

Bilbo Baggins already cross trained/experimented

oscar delgado I mean real life out in thr world ..... not in a dojo or a school.

Mean Sausage Lol!!

Sausage, I agree! Aikido vs an orc?! NOT A CHANCE! FAIL! This training is so unrealistic!

I don't know whether Rokas Sensei or others will agree or disagree but I for one see Aikido as straddling the boundary between traditional and modern, as it has traits of both, and because of its history. Historically, its primary root is in the definitely-traditional art of Daito-Ryu, in which the Founder received his credentials, and under the name of which he taught for years. Essentially, he created Aikido by refining Daito-ryu, by choosing a core set of techniques, each representing a range of similar techniques that are grouped together in Daito-ryu. And of course, he focused on using the chosen techniques as vehicles for trying to achieve high-level aiki. The result is that Aikido looks rather different in some ways from old-school Daito-ryu, but the relationship remains, and is close enough that some Daito-ryu teachers have also used the name Aikido. I believe it would be valid to consider Aikido to be a branch of Daito-ryu still. On the other hand, Aikido, particularly starting with the second generation, was modernized to make it accessible to the population in general. Originally, Daito-ryu and early Aikido were almost always taught to people who were already proficient in other arts. O Sensei only accepted students who came with recommendations, and many of them were yudansha (black belts) or the traditional equivalent in other arts. In samurai times, Daito-ryu was similarly exclusive, primarily confined to the noble Takeda clan and its elite retainers. It should, incidentally, be obvious that the change from being limited to already-skilled martial artists to the acceptance of completely neophyte students is a prime cause of the issues that inspire Rokas Sensei's current quest. Meanwhile, the change also takes away some, but not all, of the traditionalness of the art. Then too, it is possible for teachers and students to make it either more or less "traditional" according to their particular methods, protocol, etc. As an example of standing on both sides of the line, Aikido uses the non-traditional kyu-dan ranking system (it comes from a ranking system for board games and cultural arts, which was adapted to martial arts by the founder of Judo; and other arts quickly took it up); on the other hand, most Aikido dojos do not use colored belts for the kyus, which effectively mirrors the older systems, in which there was a series of only a few degrees, of which the first one was basically equivalent to "black belt" indicating competence in the whole core curriculum of the art. Similarly, most dojos simply have white and black belts, despite using kyu ranks (many dojos do give children colored belts for their kyus). There are many other aspects that could be considered, but in short, Aikido has both some modern traits, and maintains, deliberately, aspects of traditional arts, in particular the Daito-ryu of which it is, again, arguably a branch.

*traditional martial art, drop the s.

:) I think it's partially a lack of your investigation. If you look at my videos from my first RU-vid carrier you'll see that I was all about Aikido traditional techniques and history. Here are two examples: - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uMz20Z16HFU.html - ru-vid.com?o=U&video_id=uhPu6iNV7jE There are also some direct attempts to modernize specific Aikido techniques like here: - ru-vid.com?o=U&video_id=TV2Gpozt058 - ru-vid.com?o=U&video_id=uhPu6iNV7jE So I don't think your argument is really correct. In part I don't do talk about Aikido history or specific techniques anymore, because I already did. And I don't feel it's necessary. Yet if you are hungry for techniques I will start releasing videos I receive direct help at making Aikido functional starting from next week.