06/08/2026
𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚'𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙙𝙚𝙗𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙞𝙠𝙞𝙙𝙤'𝙨 𝙚𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡 𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨. 𝘼𝙨 𝙖 𝙥𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙗𝙤𝙩𝙝 𝙨𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙢𝙨 [𝘼𝙞𝙠𝙞𝙙𝙤 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝘿𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙤-𝙧𝙮𝙪], 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩'𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣?
𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗺𝗲 𝗘𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗱: Does aikido claim to be effective on the street? If you read O Sensei's writings, or the documents published by the Aikikai, absolutely nothing suggests that. So the case against aikido's effectiveness seems flawed to me. It's up to the minority of aikidoka who claim effectiveness to defend that position, not up to the aikido community to defend it on their behalf.
As for Daito-ryu, it was once considered a highly effective system, but in a very specific context. Takeda Sokaku and Ueshiba Morihei taught, among others, military personnel and law enforcement units. Today, though, the parameters of engagement are quite different, and the formal Daito-ryu curriculum is largely outdated as a system of self-defense or law enforcement. That said, it was already outdated in O Sensei's time.
This is true of all traditional martial arts. From the 16th century onward, bujutsu took on the meaning of "arts of living" rather than pure combat systems. Then came the transformation of bujutsu into budo after the Meiji Restoration. Nobody asks kendo or kyudo practitioners whether they're effective. Honestly, I'm surprised the question still comes up.
In the end, what remains are the fundamental qualities the art develops, physically and mentally, and those remain very valuable in themselves. I place a lot of importance, for instance, on the distinction between satsujinken, the sword that takes life, and katsujinken, the sword that gives life. Aikido has greatly contributed to making my life beautiful and full of joy, and I keep growing through what I learn in it.
Aikido was specifically formulated around a contradiction: the non-violent resolution of conflict. Technically, it means positioning yourself along a line, with very direct, incisive martial principles on one side, and highly elaborate movement and complex use of the body in space on the other. From there, everyone is free to set the balance wherever they want between effectiveness and performance, so in the general Aikido landscape, you really see everything. And that's exactly what I find fascinating. Aikidoka are engaged in a lifelong practice confronting that paradox.
That outsiders find this at least puzzling is understandable, even predictable, and far from undermining aikido's premise, it makes it all the more relevant.
Then there's the fact that we all age. We won't always be able to keep the physical upper hand, so that has to be factored in too, being a bit wiser, sharper, and anticipating things. We talk less about this in terms of effectiveness, but I think it matters a great deal.
That's why reducing everything to what would hypothetically work on the street seems so uninteresting to me, even a little sad.
𝙆𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝘽𝙪𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙙𝙤 𝙈𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙯𝙞𝙣𝙚: 𝙎𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡, 𝙬𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣'𝙩 𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙖 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙨. 𝙄𝙨 𝙖𝙞𝙠𝙞𝙙𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢, 𝙞𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬?
𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗺𝗲 𝗘𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗱: In an assault situation, none of the conditions for success are in our favor: the element of surprise, the freeze response, no rules, no referee, no warm-up, an opponent who may be armed or in an altered state. Can you ever really prepare for that? For a lot of martial disciplines, not just aikido, I'm not sure the answer is yes.
I don't know your readers' profile, I'd imagine they're mostly physically active men. Are these the people who feel the need to learn self-defense? If so, what about people with disabilities, children, the elderly? Every study shows that they're disproportionately victimized, so the conversation should really be happening elsewhere. The State holds the monopoly on violence, and if security is a major source of concern, then I think we need to be worried about the state of our society. I doubt self-defense is the solution, unless we want to open a debate about carrying weapons. Having spent time in the US, personally, I don't wish for that.
That said, I don't mean aikido isn't meant for the people you're describing, quite the opposite. I've managed reasonably well the few times I've had to use it in the street, but it's not my role to teach people self-defense. Others are far more competent than me at that. My role, in aikido, and maybe as a long-term resident of Japan, is to carry positive values forward, in the hope of contributing to a paradigm shift.
𝗞𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗱𝗼 𝗠𝗮𝗴𝗮𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗲: 𝗜𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲?
𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗺𝗲 𝗘𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗱: Resolutely, yes. There's not much we can do about hardened criminals, but we can decide together to help reduce, or at least not add to, the ambient violence around us, whether symbolic, verbal, or physical. My experience of life in Japan suggests that's possible. I can look to protect myself, to develop the capacity to fight back, or I can think about how I act and react. Am I listening, or am I pouring fuel on the fire? Can I behave in a way that doesn't add extra friction to an interaction that's already going badly? That's where I find aikido truly relevant, not as technique, but as posture. Kindness and leniency, a sense of the collective, these work on the street.
As a teacher and as a biologist, I worry less about a hypothetical street threat than about the very real existential threat tied to dwindling natural resources, climate change, and the rise of extremism. I dare to believe that today's social, environmental, and political problems could benefit from an approach like aikido's: a cooperative process of self-improvement without recourse to competition. The physical world is finite, of course, so tensions inevitably exist between those who have more and those who have less, but within a social construct, nothing stops us from moving from a zero-sum game to a context where everyone ends up winning. That challenges an entire conception of happiness and success built on competition and the accumulation of wealth, but that cultural shift, in my view, is exactly what will determine whether our species survives or not.
This isn't some whim of mine, I'm not going off on a tangent, O Sensei insisted heavily on this. It's not naive either, it's a deliberate choice about what we want to bring into the world. I often quote Albert Jacquard, a fellow geneticist, because what he says reminds me of Ueshiba's own words. He argued that in a competitive society, every winner creates losers, and that we need to build a human society free of competition, where strength comes not from besting others but from growing stronger through them. There's nothing more natural than competition, it's in our genes, so moving past it is precisely what progress means, especially for a social species.
Source:
https://karatebushido.com/magazines/karate-bushido-n-458/
