I was recently in the US for a business trip and stopped by some aikido dojos and also to Josh Barnett’s MMA fight team gym, California MMA. I had desperately wanted to train in my beloved CACC (Catch wrestling, also known as catch-as-catch-can) but alas there was nowhere in California that practiced straight up CACC. The reasons for that, like anywhere else in the world, are purely for marketing purposes. If you don’t promote MMA or BJJ in your gym, you won’t get students. For me though, my love is for the purest form of combat there is, submission and pin fall grappling. They are the only ways you can win. I also found myself having to explain to many of my new American aikido friends exactly what CACC was, and how it helped my aikido game, hence this blog post!
I would estimate that of all the aikido practitioners in the world today, less than 10% are doing cross training of any kind. Of the 10%, I will take a wild guess that most of those people do Brazilian jujitsu. Others probably do kendo or karate, or maybe judo, if they are living in Japan (iaido, I don’t count as cross training). I think it’s safe to say that I am the only person in the entire aikido world that is practicing CACC, mostly due to a lack of places to do it, and also because 90% of aikidoka are content with bland, modern day aikido. Of course, that is just my personal description of it and there is absolutely nothing wrong with only wanting that, unless you think you’re a YouTube star.
Why is cross training important in aikido?
In my eyes, modern day aikido is only half of a martial art. It’s the long distance compliment to judo, and judo (or another grappling art such as CACC) is the short distance partner of aikido. They go together and should be taught together, and with aikido as the base. Further, bring in the addition of striking and that would provide us with a true sougou-budo, an all encompassing martial art. This is what we need, and what some of us desperately want. Whilst I was in California, I was very fortunate to get some short tatami time in with Bruce Bookman sensei, a kind of long lost kindred spirit of mine, where we discussed classical aikido as a base with striking and grappling arts part of it. That was fun!
Striking in aikido is terribly weak at best, with atemi now almost completely lost to the art. Certainly in the Aikikai hombu dojo where I train, atemi and bukki-waza (weapons training) do not get taught at all. My sensei, Yokota shihan, is the only shihan that comes to mind that teaches both bukki-waza principles and karate principles together in the same sentence. I don’t attend other classes enough to really know if other shihan are.
Yokota sensei sometimes throws on an arm bar and is well known for throwing muay thai style knees to the abdomen when ducking under a yokomen strike, usually leading to this arm bar. Are there other shihan there that can do it? Sure, maybe, but they don’t show it. Some people tell me that the shihan are afraid of the Ueshiba machine, and don’t want to teach it, but in my humble martial opinion (my well travelled eyes do not lie), I don’t think that is true because aikido is an expression of oneself, and things would come out when you teach and train that show you know what you know. The tatami never lies and I don’t see it at hombu, nor do I see it in any other styles of aikido. Yoshinkan and Iwama are firmly stuck on their own little planets, and Tomiki can’t decide if it’s trying to do aikido or judo, and seems lost somewhere in between. Certainly when I see their shiai (matches), this is exactly what comes to mind. I do like the tanto stuff in Tomiki though, that is not bad. Aikikai is, well, it’s Aikikai, otherwise known as Kisshomaru-ryu aikido. If you’d like to read about the original second doshu before Kisshomaru sensei (who I think was a great man and established aikido as what it is today), check out this post I wrote about him previously. I am sure Nakakura Kiyoshi was also a great man.
Having a budo mind!
It’s important to be martially aware and focused when training in budo and cross training helps bring this out. This awareness also means being aware that it’s ok to make mistakes on the tatami, and it’s ok to admit you don’t know everything.
What is the long distance form?
I think it’s pretty self explanatory. Aikido as we know it today, only works when the attacks come from a distance, as an overcommitted empty handed or weapon strike, or a lunging grab. To handle this overcommitted strike or grab, you judge the maai (distance) and react accordingly. I believe this is what Ueshiba sensei meant by harmonising and blending… none of this hippy peace to the world stuff that is promoted today. Harmonising for him I think originally meant simply watching what uke does and react without force accordingly.
What does overcommitment mean?
It’s the opposite of static, and why I really dislike any and all styles that promote static movements to begin with. Static form is great for beginners but that is all. It’s not advanced martial training. You must attack (grab, strike) with complete intent to grab and pull someone down, or hit them, and it’s then and ONLY then that our aikido waza can work the way it was intended to work. If you are not attacking with pure intent, from your heart with all of your heart, then you are cheating both yourself and your partner on the tatami. Aikido blackbelt blockers live in the grey zone of looking like they are training hard, but actually not attacking properly and with full intent. I wrote about them here on Substack and here is the post about it:
If I attack with intent to do damage, it becomes a question then of who is faster to react or recover. I’ll get onto this later with CACC but this game of chess is vital to good martial training. Catch wrestling is known as physical chess, and my brand of aikido is known (only to me so far!) as martial chess. When A happens, do this. If it doesn’t go to plan, do B, then C etc. sometimes setting up your moves in advance knowing how their reaction will be. Incredibly high level and difficult stuff that I’ve yet to master.
With regards to movement in aikido, in my eyes, there are also no circular movements. You enter (irimi) or you retreat back the same distance as the attack. These are the only two, there are no sideways (1 out of 10 times maybe ok) or circles (never) because your opponent can adjust too easily. If you do the irimi movement (to enter - not irimi nage! irimi means simply to enter!) then you have closed the distance, and you are now in the short distance form.
What is the short distance form?
This is when you find yourself at a distance close enough for either you to simply grab your opponent, or throw an atemi and hit them. Likewise, they can also grab or strike you from the same range. What techniques in the modern aikido curriculum can truly handle something at a short distance? Most of the modern day aikido short distance techniques end in a nage (throwing) movement. The real intent of the waza should be that the jutsu comes first, and the do comes second. We don’t do that anymore. Most people are already thinking of the throw before they’ve taken their first step. That’s how you get fainted and knocked or and tapped out.
A good example would be irimi nage. The objective of irimi nage is not to take your partner/opponent around in big circle for a ride on the horsies, it’s to enter behind him only. We do the throw so that all kinds of people may enjoy aikido, but we must remember the true intent of the movement. You can see in the comments in my video below that one of the people couldn’t tell the difference.
Why is the long distance form and short distance form not being taught together?
Good question. We know that accomplished kendoka, judoka and karateka were sent to Ueshiba sensei to get the cherry on top, the last piece of the puzzle that their respective arts had been missing. Judo teachers (including the founder of judo, Kano Jigoro, and others) sent their top students to either challenge or learn (often both) from Ueshiba sensei and his top students. Most of them stayed on, and made aikido their main art. Judoka turned aikidoka Minoru Mochizuki sensei (he was another person O’sensei tried to adopt and take over the Ueshiba name and mantle of doshu) was famous for telling Ueshiba sensei about his teaching of martial arts briefly in France.
I went overseas to spread Aikido and had shiai matches with many different people while there. From that experience I realized that with only the techniques of Aikido it was very difficult to beat them. In those cases I instinctively switched to judo or kendo techniques and was able to come out on top of the situation. No matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t avoid the conclusion that the techniques of Daito Ryu Jujutsu were not enough to decide the issue. Wrestlers and others with that sort of experience are not put off by being thrown down and rolling away. They get right back up and close for some grappling and the French style of boxing is far above the hand and foot techniques of karate. I’m sure that Aikido will become more and more international and worldwide in the future, but if it does, it’s technical range will have to expand to be able to respond to any sort of enemy successfully.
(thank you Aikido Journal for this quote)
The results were clear . Without his cross training background, he’d have been pommelled into the ground by the much larger Frenchmen.
What is CACC?
Catch wrestling (catch-as-catch-can wrestling) is a style of submission grappling with a heavy emphasis on wrestling, but not the wrestling you are thinking of, which is probably NCAA collegiate style wrestling. Today, what we know as modern catch wrestling is based on the catch-as-catch-can style developed by John Graham Chambers. Chambers was a Welsh sportsman famous for being a rower, devising the Queensbury boxing rules, and developing catch-as-catch-can wrestling.
In catch-as-catch-can, wrestlers started on the ground on all fours and competed for dominant positions. They used various tactics to pin opponents by holding their legs and twisting their arms. This is quite different to the version we have today, which is more Lancashire wrestling fused. In old Lancashire English, the term catch-as-catch-can translates to “catch me if you can.”
Lancashire wrestling
Catch wrestling started to develop within the Lancashire area of northwest England. Many residents of this area were tough miners who practiced their own wrestling style and were called hookers. They liked the catch-as-catch-can wrestling style and began implementing their style within it. This included brutal submission holds that could break limbs in multiple places. Many catch-as-catch-can practitioners were also members of the British Navy. During their travels around the world, they would pick up different grappling techniques from places like India and the US and bring them back to England. This sharing of knowledge would help further continue the development of catch wrestling.
Catch wrestlers also worked in traveling carnivals, taking on all challenging spectators in sideshow events. This would eventually lead to modern day professional wrestling, and eventually today’s stunt show like WWE style entertainment.
Since money was on the line and there were few rules, the catch wrestlers had to be well prepared. They practiced many different pins and submissions to finish the fights quickly and stayed in peak condition.
Billy Riley and the Wigan Snake Pit
The most influential person in the development of catch wrestling was champion wrestler Billy Riley. Billy was a native of Wigan, Lancashire, and a lifelong wrestler. He was one of the best “hookers” in an area known for producing the toughest English wrestlers. Riley’s wrestling career lasted for decades, and he would win numerous wrestling titles during this time. After his competitive career was over, Riley decided to teach catch wrestling back in his home of Wigan. There, he would open the world-famous Snake Pit Catch Wrestling School.
Here’s a video about the school:
The Snake Pit would produce countless champion wrestlers that would spread catch wrestling across the world. Everyone from Karl Gotch, Billy Robinson, and Jack Dempsey.
CACC in Japanese pro wrestling
I am also a Japan based professional wrestler. Karl Gotch, one of the champions from the Wigan Snake Pit, is known as the GOD of professional wrestling in Japan, and Billy Robinson was also an extremely well known superstar who later coached at my current dojo (Snake Pit Tokyo) for 10 years. Both men were brought to Japan to make Japanese professional wrestler more real, and even today, the training methods of the Japanese pro wrestlers are all basically from the menu of Gotch and Robinson. That’s how I was raised, however the hooking/shooting legitimacy has also been somewhat lost on the Japanese (although still much more than the US for example). In 2015, seeking to become a legit shooter/hooker, I sought out Yuko Miyato, the owner of Snake Pit Tokyo and Billy Robinson’s greatest ever student, and enrolled in the dojo.
How did CACC change the Aikido game for me?
Catch helped me understand the three levels of training, and the chess aspect. The three levels are:
Katageiko. The kata part is the form/pattern, creating muscle memory. You need a 100% compliant partner to get off the ground and learn the techniques.
The next step of katageiko is controlled resistance. Learn how to do the technique if you partner is applying a moderate amount of pressure. Most times you’ll find that unless your timing is not exact, you won’t do the technique correctly. And you know what, that is totally ok. We need to learn what to do and when to do it, and we need to learn it so that these thoughts and ideas appear spontaneously, without any thought given. This is actually what takes a lifetime, and where aikido has gone horribly wrong. This is why I also judge myself harshly whenever I make a mistake. Not being perfect every time sux! But that’s what drives us to always want to be better.
DO NOT confuse “a moderate amount of pressure” with the proverbial aikido blackbelt blocker, who just wants to stop you to booster his or her ego. A moderate amount of pressure is done at speed, with a pure and honest, open heart. But it must be honest, and honestly is a two way street that tori and uke must strive to aim for. There is no place on the tatami for these blackbelt blockers.
The final step in CACC is sparring but when doing aikido it can be randori. Ran-dori, free-style practice, basically means that tori (turned into a “d” and pronounced “dori”), applying technique to a random (ran) succession of uke attacks. In judo, jujutsu, and Tomiki aikido, among others, it most often refers to one-on-one sparring where partners attempt to resist and counter each other's techniques. We don’t have this in Aikikai, unless you practice with likeminded people in private, away from the eyes of judgement.
The point of randori is to test your technique but how can you skip step 2 (moderate amount of resistance) and jump straight to step 3? In aikido we are trying to run before walking. That’s why it ends up sloppy if anyone goes off script.
Of the aforementioned three steps, katageiko - number 1 - is a vital part of martial arts, the learning of technique in a relaxed and safe environment. But it’s just the first step of three. It’s first base, and the goal is to get to home plate. That’s why numbers 2 and 3 are also vital.
Martial chess, as I like to call it, is having as much in your technique toolbox as possibly possible! You pull out the right tool depending on the situation at hand, because uke will respond differently every time when their reactions are full of pure martial intent. You do this, I do this. Then I do this, if you counter like this, I can do this, or I can do that. Here I taught a class about waiting for uke to react before changing things up. Unfortunately it went over their heads a little, but I hope some of the points and concepts stuck.
And lastly, here are some cool CACC techniques that I like to add to my aikido!
How did CATCH WRESTLING change my AIKIDO?
Thank you very much Rick!
Good summary I more or less agree with. I've been intrigued by catch wrestling and related disciplines ever since it was introduced as a dark art by a very powerful villain in The Legend of Korra, many years ago!
I started my martial arts practice in Yoseikan Budo--Mochizuki's art, under one of his top students--Patrick Auge. I probably would have stayed in it had I not moved away. It took me a long time to find another aiki-or any-kind of teacher or art that were up to the same standard, or even remotely near it. I finally found something like it in Kokikai Aikido, which I was doing for many years before branching out to other things--but I agree that most aikido is pretty bad, and there's not much aiki in there to begin with. The real meaning of aiki, by the way, that Ueshiba meant, and has been taken out of context, is harmony within yourself, and your own connection, fascia, etc..which then allows you to control other people and generate a lot of power. Same thing Sokaku Takeda had, and the really good people in the internal Chinese martial arts have. Since you are in Tokyo, I would urge you to visit the dojo of Akuzawa Minoru. By all accounts, he's the real deal, is one of the few people actually capable of generating real aiki, and has done significant cross-training and core conditioning he's incorporated into his own art. If ever go back to Japan, I'll 100% visit. Ellis Amdur, among others, has written about on sites like Aikido Journal how he literally felt like he was having electricity sent through his spine from Akuzawa's strikes and spinal movements. They seem pretty open to visitors: https://www.aunkai-tokyo.jp/en/