Aikido vs BJJ, Karate, Judo, Jiu-Jitsu, Kung-fu, etc.

After a long break I'm writing again to add to this blog my thoughts inspired by the discussion at one of our videos in Youtube. The main point of the discussion is: which martial art is better, which one is more effective in real life situations.

Many people think that aikido cannot be effective in "street fighting" or "in the street", because all of its movements are choreographed and if the attacker does not attack the way we can see in aikido demonstrations then the aikido technique simply can't be done. Questions in this topic are frequently asked be my beginner students, and they often start to compare martial art styles to one another. They also try to categorise the martial arts.

Based on my experiences, what I can say about this question might make some of the people, who are devoted practicioners of a particular martial art or style, sad or angry, because I say that none of the martial arts is better than aikido but it's true the other way round as well: aikido isn't 'better' than any other martial art or martial style.

If we simply take the fighting aspect of martial arts, I can't there are some of them that are better than any others. At one particular moment, at a particular place, in a particular fight it is the knowledge of the warrior, their mental capabilities, readyness, etc. that decide who is going to win. So in a fight, the particular martial art or technique has little importance over the above mentioned ones. The outcome is not the determined by the martial art but by the martial artist at that moment.

The choice of particular techniques becomes emphasised when there are competitions, rules, or when an art has a sporting aspect. It is determined what you can do, how you can attack. When you have rules for what techniques can be used against what attacks then the fight itself loses its life-death nature, and from this point we cannot regard it comparable with another martial arts that do not use (such) restrictions or rules (I'm not particularly talking about aikido here). Let's think about how principles and views can change by the introduction of rules. It might be useful to find a practical example to illustrate this. Let's have a look at initial distances, or fighting distances, and two styles of karate which have different rules of competition. In kyokushin karate competitions, punching the head area is forbidden whereas it is allowed in shotokan karate competitions. In the latter, there is obviously some protective gear involved but the small differences in rules result in a situation where, in case of kyokushin karate, the fighting distance is significantly smaller because punches to the body can be 'survived' but a straight hit to the head might lead to a straight KO. In consequence of the rule differences, the base distance between people in a shotokan karate competition is higher, so KO by a punch can be more easily avoided.
However, in judo or BJJ, where there are no punches but throws and locks, the base distance between people is even smaller than the above.

The examples above show that various martial arts' techniques are based on the base distances they use (just to come back to techniques). One style might be more effective in very close range combat while the other in other situations. In addition, martial artists are usually better at arts and distances in which they are trained. So based on the above, I don't think there can be an objective comparison to determine which martial art is better than another.

A martial art is not better than another, not worse than that, it's just different. It might also be interesting to think about their basic underlining principles. All martial arts have their basic ideas, foundations, some kind of starting conditions which might seem very different from the uninformed point of view but in reality they are very similar, or sometimes the same. This can probably be best noticed or experienced when someone is at a relatively high level of at least on martial art. Once you have a deeper insight in your favourite martial art, and you are open towards other arts, you might be able to see the similarities between techniques of different martial arts, or even styles within one. And if you consider technical similarities, we might see that, although the art or style is different, they tend to go to the same direction. Similarities might be milestones in understanding, and to continue walking on your path towards your goal. According to my current views and level of experience, a quote from O-Sensei describes this appropriately: "There are many paths to the top of Mt. Fuji, and yet only one summit. This summit is, in other words, the Way of Love."