Aikido worked

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2002/March/16/local/stories/02local.htm

March 16, 2002

Black-belt prosecutor stops fleeing prisoner cold
By JASON SCHULTZ

Sentinel staff writer

SANTA CRUZ — A prosecutor specializing in white-collar crime got to show off his black belt in aikido on Friday when he took down a fleeing inmate at the county courthouse.

Dave Genochio, with the District Attorney’s Office for more than 20 years, was sitting in the gallery in Judge Art Danner’s courtroom around 10 a.m.

Hearing a commotion, he looked up and saw 29-year-old Peter Hurd of Olympic Valley, clad in a jail-issue orange jumpsuit, leap through the jury box trying to flee the courtroom. Several bailiffs and other prosecutors were in hot pursuit.

Genochio, who holds a black belt in the martial art of aikido, stood up and threw a move called the “tenchi nage.”

Santa Cruz Aikido instructor Michael Chojnacki said the name translates to “heaven and earth throw.”

Genochio compared the move to a wrestling move known as a “clothesline.” He threw his left arm across Hurd’s upper body from his shoulder to his waist.

Hurd came to an abrupt stop, and Genochio drove the inmate into a row of seats, where both were tackled by the pursuing bailiffs.

Neither Hurd nor Genochio were hurt.

“It was awesome,” said prosecutor Jeff Rossell, who was in the courtroom. “It was like poetry in motion.”

Genochio said he "just reacted. I was just thinking, ‘He is not getting out that door.’ "

Aikido centers on immobilizing attackers without hurting them, unlike kung fu or more traditional types of karate that focus of punches and kicks, Chojnacki said.

Hurd was facing charges of burglary, vandalism and battery.

Prosecutors will now add attempted escape to the list.

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Re: Aikido worked

Originally posted by shaolinboxer
Aikido centers on immobilizing attackers without hurting them, unlike kung fu or more traditional types of karate that focus of punches and kicks, Chojnacki said.
So true. There is also a greater chance that the target won’t avenge, because the fight doesn’t leave him as bitter as if he was beaten up. When people are beaten up and left angry, they tend to have revenge with more brutal consequences (like Germany after WWI).

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Lol @ the germany comment.

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Well, isn’t it true? :slight_smile:

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At its very basics, yes, but its awful funny that you used that as your example. :smiley:

Kind of like using Nagasaki as an example of overwelming power. :eek:

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The Germany comment doesn’t always apply. Look at France. They were beaten up and left for bloody and all they did is…surrender.

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Aikido has cool stuff, and that revenge concept may be true, although I would think maybe not as they would still view themselves as being beaten, therefor humiliation would still be an issue, so back to revenge. I wonder how the severity of beating influences the intensity of revenge when injury is a variable.

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I actually think I would be more humiliated if I got beaten by an opponent that never threw a punch or kick :slight_smile:

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I dunno, if anger WASENT the reason for fighting in the first place, wouldent being beaten by a ‘peaceful “art”’ make someone more likely to seek revenge?

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Cool story, but…

Isn’t the move described an iriminage, not a tenchinage?

As an aside, I’ve never understood the claim that aikido was designed not to cause any harm.

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You got a point there. Getting your ass kicked when the guy didn’t even really lift his leg or move at all just plain sux. He basically tossed his ass around like a rag doll with a lift of his arm. The old “martial arts master defeats newbie without breaking a sweat” scenerio (we all wanna be that one day :D). I think if i’d ever commited a crime and anyone stopped me from getting out of prison time i’d be ****ed regardless of how he did it. I’d be ****ed at the jury, the judge, the witnesses, the prosecutor. It doesn’t take much to set someone off. If they attack you for no reason in the first place then a defeat is a good enough reason as any. A loss is a loss.

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Originally posted by Braden
[B]Cool story, but…

Isn’t the move described an iriminage, not a tenchinage?

As an aside, I’ve never understood the claim that aikido was designed not to cause any harm. [/B]

It has to do with the teachings of the founder, he wanted a MA that was more designed for spiritutal development than killing and injuring.

Morihei Ueshiba was a devout Budhist and thus hated causing any form of suffering or pain.

Said that both Aikido & Daito Ryu contain deadly force moves as a last resort option.

A lot of people claim that Aikido has parts of TCC or Bagua in it, for which no documented proof exists.
Aikido, Aiki-jutsu & Tai-Jutsu are also often classed as Internal Martial Arts.

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“It has to do with the teachings of the founder, he wanted a MA that was more designed for spiritutal development than killing and injuring.”

Maybe in the later days. But then we should say, aikido has been developed by some of it’s practitioners into an art which was designed not to cause harm.

“Morihei Ueshiba was a devout Budhist and thus hated causing any form of suffering or pain.”

I thought he was a Shintoist. Curious that he would have joined the army and become an avid martial artist if those were his beliefs though. :wink:

“Aikido, Aiki-jutsu & Tai-Jutsu are also often classed as Internal Martial Arts.”

By who?

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Braden

Maybe in the later days. But then we should say, aikido has been developed by some of it’s practitioners into an art which was designed not to cause harm.

I will get back to you on that after I spoke to one of Ueshiba’s direct Students. We share the same Dojo space.


I thought he was a Shintoist. Curious that he would have joined the army and become an avid martial artist if those were his beliefs though. :wink:

Doubt that considering that at a young age he wanted to become a buddhist priest. But than most Japanese follow both Shinto & Buddhism in their lifes.

Yes, he joined the Army as he loved MA.
But Aikido also means the “Way of Peace”.

[B]
“Aikido, Aiki-jutsu & Tai-Jutsu are also often classed as Internal Martial Arts.”

By who? [/B]

By a lot of people, look for yourself into their teachings and you will find many parallels. Like usage of Ki/Qi/Chi, breathing, deflection of attack, little use of muscular power, overcoming big force with little force.

Read a Book called “Ki no Renmei” which is a Qi-Gong(Ki-Ko) technic that was developed for Aikido by 9th Dan Tada Hiroshi, direct Student of Morihei Ueshiba.

It is all about how the correct breathing to the Tan-Ten(Dan-Tien), Body alignment and structure can be used to enhance Aikido.

There are many MA outside of China that follow similar principles.

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Braden I think we are booth in agreement, due to our old discussions on the subject, that in the beginning Aikido was not geared for the hippy crowd, as a number of its schools seem to be in today’s enviroment, for those that are just fascinated with its philosophies, in the beginning it had a serious martial/combative mindset.

I think it was Gozo Shidoa of the Yoshinkan lineage that stated that 90% of Aikido was atemi, something that from what I hear is neglected in some modern aikido schools, which was one of ther reasons I was worried for a buddy of mine who I thought was entering a KI school but found out he is entering the organization of Chiba instead, which from what I have found out is much more martial in mindset.

NEVER will I be in the believe that their is a non-violent martial art, that is bunk, trying not to hurt the other guy in a serious situation IMHO will get you hurt, the example up above was not a balls to the wall street slugfest, it was of a LEO restraint atmosphere.

My thoughts,

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Black Jack & Braden.

Don’t take my word for it, rather read the following 2 Biographies of the man himself.

The 1st Link is an online copy of his “Art of Peace”.

http://www.cs.ucsd.edu/users/paloma/Aikido/artpeace.html
http://www.cs.ucsd.edu/users/paloma/Aikido/morihei.html
http://www.aikidofaq.com/history/osensei.html

Yes, there were disagreements with his philosphoy and thus we now got several styles of Aikido around as some of his Students split of and did their own thing.

Some things might also seem familiar to the JKD guys.

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Braden.

Just checked.

We both are correct:

Morihei Ueshiba also pursued spiritual studies — as a child he studied Zen under Mitsujo Fujimoto of the Shigon School of Buddhism.

He later embraced the Shinto sect Omoto-kyo founded by Wanisaburo Deguchi.

Seeya.

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Redfists - I did not claim he never spoke of using aikido as an art of peace. I said it wasn’t designed that way. What exactly am I supposed to garner from those links that disagrees with this?

“Yes, there were disagreements with his philosphoy”

No, there’s no disagreements. Shioda studied aikido with MU when he was martially minded. Later, MU no longer saw the need to train the populace in martial skills, but did see some other needs, so changed what he was active in. Shioda didn’t want to be part of this change, so he formed the Yoshinkan to preserve the old way. MU supported this, and the two organizations have always been friendly. Other people studied with MU at this point, and their idea of aikido reflects this. We see similar things in other peoples aikido. Where’s the disagreement?

Blackjack - I know Gozo Shioda said that (re: atemi) about aikido, but I believe it was said by many others as well. Kenji Tomiki said that aikido was a methodology for training with relative safety in striking and joint attacks, analogously to how judo was intended as a methodology for training throws and grappling. I think if you examine the techniques, this makes sense.

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Originally posted by Braden
Redfists - I did not claim he never spoke of using aikido as an art of peace. I said it wasn’t designed that way. What exactly am I supposed to garner from those links that disagrees with this?

The 1st Link shows that Aikido does share a lot of Internal principles.
And that is why I put there.

The others are just for info.

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Oh. I thought they related to aikido not being meant to hurt people. I’ve actually heard alot of people call aikido internal; it’s more taijutsu and aikiJJ that I wondered about.

Could you quote some of the internal principles from the links?

BTW, here’s a list to the taiji classics if you want something to compare with http://scheele.org/lee/classics.html .