"That's Why We Practice": Aikido Bloopers

Also known as the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Deshis". Just to show that not all martial artists take themselves too seriously. We can't always be as graceful as Sensei. ;-)

This video is a long time coming --- a belated Christmas gift to my fellow students at Open Sky Aikikai (formerly the North Winnipeg Aikikai) Aikido club.

Video clips from:
- various classes and open practices in 2007
- the Aikido demonstration at Ai-Kon 2007 Japanese Animation convention
- a dojo Gasshuku demo in July 2007

Music:
- "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, recorded by the National Youth Orchestra of Wales; rather appropriate, I thought, since obviously many nuts get cracked on the mats. :-D

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• aikido
• aikikai
• bloopers
• martial
• arts
• outtakes
• funny

[nudist0885]

The move at 0:50 looks interesting.

[haymakernumber4]

@nudist0885 Definitely give it a try - outward deflection against a straight kick - still very circular and blending; it's one of the things we practice during our Adapted Aikido classes. Unfortunately, the attacker in the rep above had exceptionally poor balance that time! :D

[dpanon]

Love the off-balancing from a kick at 0:48. I will definitely try that one myself. Hilarious! :-D

[haymakernumber4]

@dpanon Yeah, Garry (the attacker) was a tad too light on his feet during that rep. :) It was from one of our adapted aikido classes; at them, we condense techniques to deal with more close-quarters attacks (ie. if someone's trying to box or Muay-Thai you, etc.). If you're interested, sensei posts his vids from these on another channel (user name: nwaikikai)

[k94845]

These soft folks like to spin around like pretty dancer.

[haymakernumber4]

@k94845 Actually, it's the other way around - just attack the likes of Yukio Kawahara, Mitsugi Saotome, George Ledyard or Christian Tissier and you'd end up on your can so fast, you'd think *everyone* was spinning. XD

[haymakernumber4]

@mrtraditional31 Exactly! Thank-you; finally, someone understands. It's sad that I'd have to, but I'm realizing that I need to put a disclaimer in the description to the video explaining that these bloopers are exceptions, not the norm, which is why it would be foolish to judge the whole art on this basis. It's the same as say, AFV - if these sorts of things happened all the time, they wouldn't be considered very funny. :)

[mrtraditional31]

That's why there are erasers on the back of penciles, because people do make mistakes. And we train to correct and learn from our mistakes. So it's ok to make a mistake in class, that's why it's called practice. The key is to polish our technique to make it perfect and flawless, that way in the street, mistakes don't happen. Just some food for thought, thanks for showing the video :) Oos!

[patrickh2525]

i like this videos for real hahahahhhahhahahahahahahahaha

[aminokad]

01:38 = 1000 years of pain of naruto haha

[aphor]

This video is so bittersweet. All of the really beautiful technique people usually show off makes Aikido look, at least from video distance, fake. What you've got here is a nice portrait of Aikido Shugyo!

[AtmanxId]

@k94845 Actually, soft is no insult. What is hard, can be easily broken by someone stronger.