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"Your guide for newbies covers vastly all the points that worry me the most ... I read it eagerly the minute I received it, and several times more after. ... I wonder how people used to prepare for their first gradings in the olden days, before you guys wrote this guide ... In general, I like the understanding and friendly style of yours, and the tricks to gain a few secs in case you feel too tired! ..." Patricia, London
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I totally agree. The reason that you can't do ikkyo on a non-aikidoka is exactly what you have stated: He doesn't react like in the dojo. Choosing a technique beforehand and then try to demostrate it on a random attack will never work in real life. It works in the dojo, because that is the way we train and there are certain rules in formal training as to what uke is allowed to do and what he isn't. For example, an aikidoka will always try to keep the connection to tori, whereas an untrained person is likely to lose it. If that happens you have two options in my opinion: either you hit him with atemi or switch to a different technique, where you try to connect again. But you will never be able to finish the same technique.
Outside of my dojo training I used to attend a beginners training at the local university, where most of the people had never trained anything like aikido before at all. It was hard during formal training, because these guys tried to counter me with anything they had, which made training of a single technique, like it is done in any aikido dojo, almost impossible. However, when we did jiyuwaza, it was a whole different story. I realized, that whenever they tried to make one technique harder for me, others inevitably got easier. For example, if they tried to make ikkyo harder by grabbing really tight and stiffening their arm, it was really easy to do shionage, hijikime osae, kokyo-ho, udekimenage or kotegaeshi, depending on the situation.
So I think it is really a key aspect to focus on doing aikido, not doing a technique, as Connor said. It is easy to forget that when you train techniques or when you have "nice" ukes in jiyuwaza, that are not trying to really attack you or resist your counterattacks (which - I think unfortunately - many aikidokas do not do). But once someone attacks you in REALITY, you can rest assured that they WILL attack you for real and do everything to counter you - and then you can't just say "Ok, that's a katatedori aihanmi grab, I'll do ikkyo".
Have a nice day,
Stefan