THIS Is 90% Of Aikido?! 

It was an absolute honor to teach you Karate! 🥋🙏🌟

He missed out on a golden opportunity to get you to paint his fence and wax his car.

It's good that you're digging deeper into Aikido, which is ultimately what Jesse does. He finds other disciplines and origins and applies them to Karate. It's very possible you could really put Aikido in a good place with all of the "outside the box" studying you're doing and applying it. It's not just fancy throws and takedowns. I'm curious to see what your Aikido looks like in the next 6 months if this is where you are trying to go with it! Good luck!

It's great to see rokas in the Aikido gi and hakama again

At 37 I finally took the plunge to fulfill my daydreams of learning karate and began Shorin-Ryu. 5 years later I earned my black belt. What Jesse was saying is exactly what our sensei taught us, since we were focused on self defense, not sport. Keep up your journey, discovering and growing!

9 minutes went so fast, it is really exciting to watch. 🔥

Hello gentlemen And yes I subscribe to both of your channels. Jesse I just wanted to say that your explanation of the proper hand, elbow placement, and stance for correct striking was very detailed, precise, and extremely useful. Thank you gentlemen your videos are awesome and more people should be subscribing!

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. I remember it started out with disillusionments and now he is doing inductive reasoning as to why aikido is not taken seriously as a self-defense form. Instead of just writing it off, there is an investigation of what is omitted and what could have been. I like this version of rokas. It's not throw the baby out with the bathwater, it's figure out why what could have been isn't and what could have been would have looked like

I practiced Aikido for 8 years until the rona arrived and I also had a single class in punching and kicking, it was on a seminar and although it wasn't as good as the training you had, it was really enlightening. I still love Aikido and specially finding my own way along with it, it's really sad that most teachers keeps the eyes closed to other arts and styles.

I know of at least one karate school in Denmark, that only teaches Aikido to black belt students. To me that makes sense.

I just want to say that it's actually nice to see Rokas back in the Gi and Hakama. It's as if his journey has lead him back to the starting point where a fresh perspective was needed. Even if he never takes up Aikido again, he's shown that he hasn't closed that door entirely.

I've heard of the older Aikido masters using techniques from other martial arts in a real fight! All of Morihei Uyeshiba O"sensei live in disciples (uchidesha) had black belts in other martials. O'sensei only accepted students who had black belts in the other martial arts. Unlike nowadays, O'sensei's students accepted challenges and won!

Nothing feels better as a teacher than passing on knowledge to a student that is eager to learn. Well done vid, great energy-thanks for sharing.

This is awesome, Jesse in his do-gi and Rokas in his hakama, both in their training uniforms. I agree with Jesse, the makiwara helps with striking, whether basic tsuki/punch or shuto/knife hand strike. Love these collabs, keep them going, senseis

GREAT instruction from Jesse! My perspective is that “Aikido is 90% atemi” has to do with using strikes to hold and close distance into takedowns (as the Gracies do with their downward kick in their vale tudo matches).

Wow...Both of you are my favourite martial artist..I could say this is the best collaboration between you and Sensei Jesse from Karate Nerd...You are fast learner....Ossu!!!

Nice to see you in a hakama again Rokas! You may have already discussed this with Jesse, but a Kiai is interestingly the reversal of the Aiki characters. Rather than receiving energy it is being projected out. Unfortunately many aikido schools don't really go into this and just make random sounds for the sake of it rather than it having a purpose.

Man, i absolutely love Rokas.. How humble he is and his sponge-like attitude. What we have here is a true person who's passion for martial art cant be compared to anyone.. Dude, i've never seen a true martial artist doing your craft. What an honorable man... I can't wait for the day you finally put the pieces together and conclude the Martial arts journey. All the best bruh..

Many people dislike Sensei Rokas, but he's one of the most honest aikidoka on RU-vid: he was fully commited to his aikido for many years, then started to question it, found out that the way he was taught wasn't practical, decided to do something about it, was critized, kept going, decided to close his dojo, go to live to aother country to learn functional martial arts, and now he's coming back to Aikido but with a mindset to make it fuctional. He's a nice guy who got burned by saying a simple truth: The way many aikidoka practice aikido doesn't works. How many of us are willing to do such a change to improve ourselves?

Wow, great job! This is a living example of the perfect combination of hard and soft styles integrating to become more whole. What Jessie said at the end is one of the wisest and insightful statements, which is to strike first (to stun), then apply submission techniques. It’s all about knowing not just how to perform a technique but, more importantly, knowing when to apply it during the fight stage.

Thank you and Jesse for sharing. I’m speechless…there’s so much knowledge there…. Keep working and bringing the good stuff! Good luck! Domo!

Came from Jesse's channel. Think ill stick around.

Love these videos. You humble yourself and you are never afraid to fail which in turn makes you a success. Jesse is awesome too!!

I've had many revelations in my martial arts journey. One of them has to do with creating your own personal Jeet Kune Do...Bruce Lee's was adding wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, etc., to his Wing Chun foundation. Mine added many different styles to my Karate foundation...It's all about 'assembling your puzzle', and discovering which pieces fit well together and which do not...and learning how to express yourself, seamlessly, with what you have learned. Rokas, I commend you for searching outside your foundation and seeing there's more than one answer to the question of 'What would you do if X happens?' May you continue to thrive in your journey. Thank you, for the video, and special thanks to Jesse for sharing his knowledge. Sekai no Budo!

The Dream collab . Thank you . Please posting such content like this 🙏 ❤️

I've been waiting for one of you to go into more detail on this. Can't wait to watch!

That’s such an awesome video. It hits very close to home. My story is actually backwards to the one you told today. I had achieved my black belt in karate. But I wanted to learn more advanced ways to roll and fall. I met an Aikido instructor at a seminar and approached him about private lessons. He was actually needing a training partner and offered to teach me for free if I would let him practice on me. I agreed and so began a long friendship. 25 years later and we are still friends. An interesting side note: The teachings of Aikido actually helped me become a better striker. I also spent a number of years training in Kali and Silat. Im always amazed by how all of these arts are so closely related. Thank you so very much for posting this video! It was a blessing to me.

Absolutely AWESOME video so informative and respectful and cool. Well done both Rokas and Jesse! You guys have great energy together.

I really enjoy these clips . I feel like im relearning or sharping my skills. I without a doubt am adding to my knowledge. 👍🏻 Thank you for posting

Combining Karate and Aikido, that's great! Love Yours collaboration.

I love these videos with Jesse. I'm excited for what Aikido may look like in a few decades if you keep this up

Love both channels, it was so fun to see you two on the same video!

Fantastic video! It’s refreshing to see this journey and learning more about what seems to be some lost considerations on how to apply Aikido.

Jesse knuckle push up is really strict and tight. A sign of strength.

I have a guy who trains shorinji kempo in my aikido group. I got him to teach us how to strike because we usually aren't taught the most important 90% of aikido!

You deserve a sub for this... have been watching your videos for a while now, never realizing, I wasn't subscribed... changed that immediately after you broke the Monster Board 🥋🥊

It's awesome seeing you get back to your roots and make your Aikido practical. And you found the exact purpose of board breaking: It forces you to focus and fully commit to your strike. A side point is that the snapping of actual board somewhat replicates the sound of a bone breaking, which is to condition your mind to hearing that so you don't freak if it happens in real self-defense. While my opinion doesn't matter in the slightest, I genuinely hope you do open another dojo.

So far, The most detailed and concised, I like how they smiled and enjoyed the teaching and studying.

This was a very great example of how you guys did a great job showing how things worked. Comparing both karate and aikido with modern day stuff.

Great to see you guys together again!!

Great video. Tnx for publishing it.

That first punch says it all lol. This is actually a much better video than your previous work. With way less chit chat and complaining, even better. Thumbs up for this one

Cool video! If you are planning more collabs with Jesse, a good one would be about learning his distance management. Exploring concepts like 'maai' and 'ashi sabaki', and applying those concepts to sparring. Another good collab would be if he tries to use concepts from karate to make your aikido functional in sparring.

It's so interesting to see you delve into Karate, given that I feel there's a certain degree of cross-pollination between the various japanese martial arts, and that they tend to complement one another well. I also think that, while there is obviously a lot of bad karate, and a lot of karate that isn't functional, there are a lot of concepts there that can be used. I can only say that I'm looking forward to more from you and Jesse, Rokas.

Congratulations for that great video Definitely gonna adjust my punching practice with those advices

I loved this video. Also I come from a more Chinese/Korean style karate. But I love the different ways you guys incorporate stuff into karate from other sources of martial arts.

Excellent video! It's so neat to see some of my favorite martial arts youtubers studying martial arts together

I've noticed a resurgence in activity with your content and I'm extremely happy for you!

Love your material! Great work my friends!

Awesome video.I really received great pointers about punching.I do TKD,Tai Chi Chuan,and just began my training in Aikido/Aikijutsu.And I still learned a lot.Thank you for a wonderful video.Job well done by the both of you.

Great video! Keep making great videos like this to assist people through this process.

Great video guys. I’ve always felt learning both traditional and modern striking techniques is important. Like loving many different styles of music, or many different painters, learning striking from all kinds of sources expandes your horizons!

I should've subbed forever ago. Congratulations on defeating the Monster.

I had to subscribe bro! Good job. I love how humble and down to earth you are. Your videos are always informative and easy going. Keep doing what you're doing.

Another great video Jessie 👍👍 Thanks for keeping this "Old Dog" motivated to learn "New Tricks"🤗

It's awesome that you have to step outside your world to perfect your own. Great job!

The more I've followed you on this journey, the more I'm convinced that Aikido was never really supposed to be an art in isolation. Even the videos of old Aikido instruction seem to be operating on the idea that you "know" what is supposed to happen for certain actions, and so they skip those parts for the sake of brevity; almost as if they're assuming you already know what good striking technique is supposed to be

Very nice karate-striking intro and demos. Can’t over-compliment the dynamic duo that you and Jesse have become: such wonderfully complementary personalities, experiences, and skill sets. I hope you’ll consider further exploring atemi’s role in aikido - and I’ll reiterate that “atemi”, like so many highly nuanced Asian-language terms that get over-simplified in Western languages, can be interpreted as any tactical body contact - in this context it’s easy to justify the high percentage values assigned to it by Morihei Ueshiba and Gozo Shioda - and there are clearly atemi that are not strikes / punches / kicks codified and n certain ryu (and I’m not liberally adding in the concept of “sakki” and other forms of kiai [vocal and non vocal] to the interpretation of atemi to help get to a higher percentage).

IT's so nice to see you together. Just fun. Great. I like it

I love the fact that you two collaborated. This was awesome

It's been a long time since I did martial arts, yet this teacher's mannerisms show his excellence as an instructor.

Very interesting and helpful, thank you!

Thank you, that was enjoyable to watch

Wow! You guys always inspire. Lots of good stuff to take in

I just love this collaboration!

Great video. My view after seeing this is we have artificially separated these arts. At the moment I'm really enjoying cross training

Great video! Congratulations.

As an aikido practitioner (Tomiki/Shodokan, with more real resistance than most other aikido schools/organizations) I love these aikido-critical videos and Rokas' journey, since I've been watching Rokas's aikido videos since before he "strayed" (though now he seems to be coming back to aikido, with new training and teaching techniques to make it more effective). Since I also watch other martial art videos I've also discovered and really like Jesse's videos, and near-instantly recognized him as one of the excellent teachers on YT. So happy to see the two of them together! Anyway, I wanted to point out that although this is a really great video on proper uchi and tsuki technique, there is a LOT that is skipped regarding aikido atemi. Rokas really was not taught aikido atemi and much of the philosophy, purpose and techniques of aikido atemi are simply skipped. So, this video - excellent for what it does cover - has almost nothing to do with aikido atemi. First, most aikido dojos don't even teach atemi. Atemi is controversial with some schools/organizations, unfortunately, who hold the philosophy that as an aikidoka "we don't strike, and certainly we don't strike first." That would be aggressive and not consistent with aikido's principle of living a peaceful life, etc. And that "there is no atemi in aikido." This is BS. It is a somewhat less publicized teaching from O-sensei that 90% of aikido is atemi. But what did he mean by that? It isn't literal, obviously. Atemi is but a small part of aikido. But it is (or should be) present within almost all techniques, when practiced correctly. But the PURPOSE of atemi in aikido is different from the purpose in karate. The primary purpose of atemi in karate is to hit the opponent - to impart kinetic energy in order to do physical damage - as is the common understanding for any strike or punch. In aikido the atemi should be effective at this (it should be a proper strike) but the primary intent is to distract or illicit a defensive reaction from the opponent, i.e. to get them to move their head out of the way, for example. At that instant, with head and neck bent and turned, the opponent has broken their own structure and are then are in a state of kuzushi - imbalance. Kuzushi is an absolute fundamental of aikido. No aikido technique works, or can be effective without kuzushi. Atemi is one of the tools used to help acquire kuzushi. Now if the opponent DOESN'T move his head out of the way, then he/she will receive the actual strike, i.e it IS a real atemi, and so must be thrusted, aimed and done with the same intent as a real strike. It IS a real strike. We just prefer that you you evade (and suffer kuzushi and the consequence of the aikido technique that evolves from that kuzushi) rather than receive the actual strike. But it must be a real atemi. A fake or soft atemi will simply not illicit the self-kuzushi effect. But since the primary purpose of the aikido atemi is to get the opponent to move and break their own structure and balance, there are many types of aikido atemis. Sensei Strange has an excellent YT video where he uses atemi by simply giving a relatively light belly slap that causes the opponent to instantly tighten up and flinch their center for just an instant, which is all the kuzushi Sensei Strange needs for his effective technique. In aikido, atemi doesn't have to be a deadly strike; even a gentle belly slap can be an effective atemi. Learning all types of atemis is part of the life-long journey of aikido. Also, aikido atemi tries to avoid using the front of a fist or a fist at all. There are too many small bones that get messed up (and hurt!) when you punch with a fist (unless you practice a LOT, like karate practitioners). We use other samurai battlefield-tested atemi, using more open-hand type strikes, with the point of contact being the solid bones at the base of your wrist (actually, the ends of your forearm bones), for instance at the hard solid bone down from your pinky and also the one down from your thumb and also at the back of your wrist with your hand bent in but arm projecting forward (while hand stays completely relaxed). Try slowly and gently extending forward using the back of your wrist to strike an opponent's eye socket to see how fast and how solid this can be, or try VERY gently tapping that forearm-wrist bone below your pinky on your own temple - what's called a yokemenuchi, a deadly atemi. Jesse's excellent teaching of fist-punching technique has little transference to aikido, except the concepts of full intention during the atemi. Intent must be real, i.e. aiming beyond the target, using kiai at the instant of release of the power, always trying to keep the shoulders down and using lats and hip power, etc. But Jesse wisely and openly says up front that "I can only speak from a karate perspective." Rokas may want to also try exploring atemi from other aikido schools or traditional koryu senseis to answer his initial question, "how do you think the atemi in aikido should look like?" Atemi is it's own whole universe of study.

Lovely spending time with quality people

Great video! Jesse always an amazing teacher!

As a person who practiced both aikido and karate for few decades I must say that reason of atemi-waza in aikido is NOT to break uke's rib, but DISTRACT him or her in attack, to gain time and space for often quite long and complex movement necessary to complete aikido technique. In fact, atemi performed as 'the Monster' tamashiwari presented at the end of the clip will stop the fluidity of movement and thus make already difficult technique even more hard. I was lucky enough to participated in the past in a number of seminars with great Japanese aikido shihans, including some of close Ueshiba's students. Unfortunately many of them are not with us anymore, but what I remember is that in fact in each technique they exercise - atemi was a very important part. I was uke for them in many occasions, and i was NEVER hit, not in destructive way for sure. When they used atemi, I was SURE they WILL hit me, and this triggered my unconscious reaction, affecting my balance, changed direction of movement, or speed, or all - and this created space for tori to effectively throw me away, or 'opened' for some painful pinning. I remember how 'magical' for me was when I discovered that 'simple' atemi may in fact execute extremely dynamic ikkyo omote after jodan tsuki or even mae-geri attack: tori just escaped from line of my attack in omote direction and 'almost' hit my face with atemi - well, at least I was sure, that impact of his fist on my face is inevitable... When I reacted by instinct covering myself with hand raised to head, tori just lock my elbow with his second hand, turn hips a little and my own speed of attack pin me to the ground, and fast... For sure, 90% of this technique was tori's atemi, but I WAS NOT hit by him! Another thing - the aikido base is the art of sword. Everyone who practicing aiki for long enough, and studying the sword can see this, especially in techniques like shi-ho nage, irimi-nage, kote-gaeshi or sankyo, but in fact in all of them. Proper movement in these techniques is NOT POSSIBLE if we'll deploy karate-style atemi: short, linear, 'explosive' and sourced from hips. This type of atemi will be very effective and can stop any attack for sure, but they will disrupted proper aikido body movement...

Rokas, the way you stand and walk in your gi makes you look a lot more imposing and badass than in your early videos. This is cool!

More content between you guys. Very good!

Shuto uchi is really important in aikido. It makes easy to hit and control same time.(you can apply it on head, neck, hip joint, knee and arm) Fast and heavy shuto is the key. In the oldest aikido text book”Budo renshu”, I find that most techniques are shuto waza.(It’s like kata bunkai techniques) Yes, aikido is not wrist lock jitsu.

Great clip respect to you both! I've said for a long time that aikidoka should learn to punch effectively. Not only to obtain a legitimate atemi, but also so we get to practice against more realistic strikes, rather than the typical yokomens, shomens, and a big lunging tsuki.

The two strikes at 5:42 are so impressive

Thanks for the punching tips. I many things I had learned seemed to “gel” and I picked up some new things too. It may be a simple video to most but I thought it was superb.

This was beautiful. Ous!👍💗🙌🤜💪

Beautiful collaboration

I'm with you again! 👊

2 favorite Sensei !!! Jesse nailed it !!!!

Fun video! Ty, guys!

Loved the crispness of Jesse's back fist to hooking punch.

Educational on fundamentals. Thanks guys!

I've been at this for a long time... this video helped me understand techniques that I've been using for decades.

This is absolutely fascinating, Rokas, and I am certain it was such an honour to have Jesse on this episode.

This is some quality stuff. Good job, dude! Ya know what? I'm gonna subscribe to both of you. Karate Nerd is great too :)

great as always when jessy is onboard :)

I’m impressed Jesse that you mentioned gripping the floor. Many even Sandan/Yodan Karate people have forgotten or never learned to grip the floor. You might have corrected how he held his punching arm before he punched. During at least one of the board breaks, his fist was pointing about 45 degrees upwards before the punch. Oh, one last thing: hitting with the flat part of the back of the hand during Uraken can result in breaking the small bones on the back of the hand. I always bent my wrist so that the same knuckles make impact as when doing Tsuki. Many years ago (1970?), I was doing Jiyu Kumite with another White Belt (future Godan) when he decided to go full contact to my face. The next time the instructor said “Hajime” I threw a full power Uraken. He was VERY quick and his block was up long before my Uraken landed, but my wrist bent just before the moment of impact and wrapped around his block allowing my knuckles to smack him in the side of the head. 20+ years later, I ran into him just after the Nisei Week Exhibition. My students were with me and I pointed out that he was the guy (he wasn’t very big) who had hit me with the best Mai-Geri that I’d ever been hit with. He responded, “Yeah, and you hit me with the best back fist I’ve ever been hit with!” I was honored that he remembered! LOL

Subscribed well before you brought it up at 8:27 :D Love the channel, learning lots from it!

Hi I like your content and have kept watching it. I have learnt both Karate (gojuryu) and Aikido (Aikikai) for over 15 years. 1st Dan Karate and 3rd Dan Aikido. I started both of these arts at the same time since white belts trying to understand external and internal ways of martial arts

Amazing video!

A great meetup of two of my best preferred Martial Arts youtuber! :-)

I've learned so much about punching...thank you

Love the collab between you two :D

Aikido really complemented my karate, judo and fma. Its all related. I wish you continue your aikido journey. if you do, I might sub again.

Atemi and then jujutsu is how I was taught...hit to hurt then break to finish him. The strikes set up the throws and breaks...note how I say breaks there were no locks back in the day and a lot of old katas call for breaking the limb afterwards.

Everyone who watches this should take the time to go back and watch Jesses face! Pride, joy, and even a bit of surprise when Rokas popped through the board!

Inteligent vídeo show pure martial practice and philosophy.

Great descriptions regarding the hips and lower body. Very similar in horsemanship.