Is Aikido an effective martial art?
It can work on the streets, but only after spending many years in practice. When I use to train at the Hawaii Aikikai many many years ago (When I saw Steven Segal in “Above The Law”) there were many Honolulu Police Officers who trained at the dojo. I would ask them if they ever used Aikido in a situation and they said “Yes, many times, but mostly to control a suspect and cuff them.” I switched to Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu after training Aikido for 8 years when a good friend who trained Jiu-Jitsu beat me in a sparring match 10 out of 10 times after training Jiu-Jitsu for just 6 months. I was never taught how to defend against leg kicks, defend against a double leg takedown slam, and once on the ground I was clueless to what was happening. I would say 95% of all Aikido schools do not train realistically for the street. Most don’t even practice defense against kicks. Look at the United States Aikido Federation Testing from 5th Kyu to Shodan (1st dan black belt) there is no testing for defense
