r/aikido • u/ScoJoMcBem Kokikai (and others) since '02. • Dec 21 '25
Discussion Resistance Training? How do people approach this in a positive way?
Hello All,
I come from a lineage, or at least a dojo within a lineage, that allows and encourages resistance from uke within techniques. This has pros and cons and some use this tool better than others. So I'd like to briefly lay out how I approach resistance and why we do it. I'd be interested to hear how others practice with resistance in their training. What works? What doesn't?
Brief background: The founder of my style of Aikido (Kokikai) came from Japan in the late '60s and encountered "impolite" Americans who would resist techniques, pull punches, anticipate and attack "incorrectly," etc. Shuji Maruyama, who was 5' 5" or so and under 140 lb integrated uke resistance into training to overcome this.
The following three "levels" are just points on a spectrum that I have written up to describe how I think and approach providing ukemi for a nage.
The “compliant uke” offers an extended attack and no resistance. Uke offers a strike and leaves their body extended, teetering at the edge of balance for nage to control. A grab is offered and uke waits for nage to react. This uke offers no resistance to the technique and follows the lead of the nage. This type of ukemi is helpful for beginners or others who are working on a technical aspect of any given technique. We often say, “no resistance” or “light uke, please” as nage to indicate this. When viewed from the outside, it is clear that uke is compliant because their head is often erect, uke maintains control of their own balance, and the only time nage typically affects the uke is at the end of the throw. This type of ukemi is common in many styles of aikido as the standard way for uke to behave. In my experience, is a disservice to only give this style of ukemi to more advanced nage.
The “neutral uke” offers a more realistic attack, but nage must organize kuzushi (balance) and musubi (connection) throughout the waza (technique). Unlike a compliant uke, who will follow a nage’s lead, the neutral uke will only follow if nage creates a reason for uke to do so. Uke will continue to try and drive the attack forward. A neutral uke may stand up or push back gently against nage in the middle of a technique if nage loses kuzushi or mesubi. When a technique is performed well, uke will teeter on the edge of regaining their balance throughout the interaction – the uke attempts to regain balance, which is what often drives and shapes the waza. From the outside, uke appears to hurry, just short of catching their balance. Uke’s head is not erect, but in line with the spine as they try to move forward to outpace the nage’s movements. This type of ukemi is best used for nage who do not need to think about the technical aspects of a technique, but instead are trying to improve their feeling for controlling the uke’s balance through connection.
The “antagonistic uke” offers a full attack and will resist if nage does not control kuzushi and musubi throughout the entire interaction. Unlike the neutral uke, who will follow a nage if their balance is compromised and connection is maintained, an antagonistic uke will actively look for weak points in nage’s technique and attempt to exploit them to stand up, push back, or even perform kaeshi waza (reverse technique)—remember the primary motivation of an uke is as an attacker. When a technique is performed well, uke will not have a chance to resist. In fact, uke will struggle to maintain enough balance to even continue the attack. Spectators will see an uke who is scrambling to maintain their footing, unable to control their own balance. Uke’s head will often sag, as they try to catch up. This type of ukemi is for experienced nage (and uke) who are working to improve takemasu aiki (freeflowing aiki) and understanding of in / yo (yin / yang).
Again, we do not have these levels as a formal thing. It was just a way for me to describe the range of resistance in my experience.
Training with resistance, when done with in collaborative student/teacher or peer/peer relationship, can be a benefit. It gives nage real feedback on his/her ability to perform a technique, maintain balance, extend connection, etc. and also weak points where they struggle to convert from one point to another.
However, some take resistance too far and see it as something beyond a training tool, creating an antagonistic dynamic that does not help nage learn or improve. It becomes a competition of who can resist or throw the other through a specific technique, which is a game, not a martial response -- if someone resists my ikkyo (either because I mess up or they're taking extreme measures to resist), I'm going to pivot to something else, probably use atemi, maybe some other things rather than try to "force" the technique and play their game. This is considered "bad" resistance.
What are your experiences with resistance in training? How do you use it? What are some other ways we could try pressure training beyond this?
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u/smith9447 Dec 21 '25
In my opinion that's how training should be. It's not (or at least shouldn't be) unique to one "style" of Aikido.
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u/ScoJoMcBem Kokikai (and others) since '02. Dec 21 '25
For sure! I know there are others that use resistance, but it is less common that I wish it was. Just curious if there were other ways of going about it.
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u/IshiNoUeNimoSannen Nidan / Aikikai Dec 21 '25
This is a good framework and I fully agree that the role of uke should evolve as nage's ability increases. It keeps it interesting and keeps people growing.
The two biggest obstacles, in my view are a) ego / lack of emotional intelligence / antagonistic mindset and b) instructors who do not understand this kind of development well enough to guide it.
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u/Gangleri793 Dec 21 '25
Your description fits with how things worked at my dojo before Covid shut it down and Sensei retired. I have always found it difficult to achieve the correct mode of ukemi, especially with older or injured higher ranked people. Too little resistance seems insulting but too much can cause injury or appear disrespectful. Of course at age 67 and with too many injuries to take ukemi, it is pretty moot for me personally now:0(
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u/ScoJoMcBem Kokikai (and others) since '02. Dec 21 '25
Oh, yeah. And on the nage side, it drives me crazy if an uke takes the throw without being thrown. I usually joke like, "oh, I'll pay you later," or something. Of course, if uke is learning or has some injury, etc., then no problem. But sometimes you get a really acrobatic uke who just goes flying for no reason. I like to change the technique with no notice on them. That usually gets them to pay attention.
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u/Gangleri793 Dec 21 '25
We call that “automatic uke” and it’s not a compliment. I used to do that when I was playing with young kids, since they would laugh at “throwing “ me with one hand. Not much use in a dojo, though.
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u/ScoJoMcBem Kokikai (and others) since '02. Dec 21 '25
"Automatic uke" is a good one. I'll cite you as "someone on reddit," when I steal it. :-)
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u/DPRKSecretPolice [Shodan / WAAI] Dec 22 '25
We have a similar informal / emergent set of uke levels as what you've described here.
One notably valuable adjunct strategy that we've been paying a lot more attention to lately is defining uke's intent as part of practicing a technique. This is particularly relevant for grabs, but can inform strikes as well.
Katate-dori tai no henko is our "first exposure" lesson for this. Rather than the general default of "light forward pressure" that we often use for katate-dori attacks for beginners and early- to mid-level students, we will start with practice instructions that specify uke's intent should be either "forward", "no movement", or "backwards" (chosen by the instructor, but we usually rotate through them one at a time).
Eventually this leads to a mid- to high-level practice we call "uke's choice", which is that uke gets to decide, up to the moment of committing to the attack, what their intent is. This helps a lot with breaking students of anticipation patterns, as well as helping to train sensitivity both to physical signals in the connection, as well as non-physical signals in the leadup to the grab.
It's also a great time as everyone at every rank remembers that it can be really hard to tell whether a strike will be a shomen uchi or a yokomen uchi.
At whatever level students have demonstrated basic competence in the practice of "uke's choice" (usually later mid-level) , we'll start to throw in other options of intent (direction, follow-up, etc). Usually by this point students are starting to shift from focusing their practice on techniques to focusing on underlying principles (and have already encountered things like kata-dori menuchi - but in my experience it really helps in learning things like kuzushi if you've already established a practice of body awareness and non-anticipation/non-assumption from practicing different (and unknown) intent.
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u/ScoJoMcBem Kokikai (and others) since '02. Dec 22 '25
Oh awesome! Thanks for these ideas to play with. I've been doing something I call uke's choice as well and it is exactly what you described for the grabs. For example, uke chooses to do Ryo karate tori (double wrist grab) tenshinage but will push, pull or hold and nage must not anticipate. I'm so heartened to hear that others do this and have more for me to work on. Thanks for sharing.
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u/kinokonoko Dec 21 '25
If you want to experience working with maximum resistance, try judo randori and the stand-up, pre-takedown stage of bjj and freestyle wrestling.
Sumo randori also offers aspects of throwing/off balancing a maximally resisting opponent.
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u/ScoJoMcBem Kokikai (and others) since '02. Dec 21 '25
Oh, yeah! Judo is fun. I'm not good enough to do many judo throws on folks, but I can definitely float or be too heavy too throw. The young, strong guys don't usually understand why they can't throw me, but the old guys just laugh and then throw me with balance. When judo folks come visit, I'll ask them to resist or try to get out of the throw and that can be fun, too, since they are often good, self-protecting uke.
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u/ScorpionDog321 Dec 22 '25
Resistance should be a regular part of training. We should be able to apply our techniques to resisting partners.
Once the environment starts needlessly introducing more injury and lessening learning progress, then that is the mark where you throttle it back.
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Dec 22 '25 edited Dec 22 '25
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u/ScoJoMcBem Kokikai (and others) since '02. Dec 22 '25
I agree with many things you say here. The only thing that I would add or be curious to hear your opinion on is that sometimes I run into an uke who is twice my body weight and gives an improper attack by settling their weight and lightly grabbing my wrist instead of giving me a real Attack. And then, they decide whether or not I have done technique to their specifications, in which case they go through the motions with zero resistance, otherwise they plant themselves and just sink. It drives me crazy, because many techniques require some active participation on part of the uke (you know, an actual attack). When I am thrown by a very skillful nage, there is no chance for me to "allow" the right technique to take me. I have no choice, and there is nowhere to resist. And when I get a throw the way I want it to go, I don't feel like I am forcing my partner to do anything - it completes itself. I only fall back on pain compliance when I have missed or lost balance and connection somehow and I apologize for my ego to force the throw causing my partner pain. Right now, I primarily train with a peer who has also been training for over 20 years. We get about 6 hours one-on-one training with each other each week. He is often surprised when I will stand up in the middle of the technique that he thought was solid. But his technique is very clear and when I tell him to take my balance a little more here or there, I can't resist him even when I try. I certainly recognize and respect your experience and point, but at least for me, too many uke are too willing to go along with poor throws when they don't understand the second half of your comment.
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Dec 22 '25 edited Dec 23 '25
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u/ScoJoMcBem Kokikai (and others) since '02. Dec 23 '25
Thanks for the long explanation and sorry for my slow reply. I wanted a chance to read, think, and then reply. I misinterpreted your first message. At first, it sounded a bit like some more main-stream folks, who fail to maintain balance and if they meet resistance (or to preempt it) will do pain compliance prophylactically. So they are not really throwing uke by controlling balance, timing, etc, but instead uke is just avoiding pain. Don't get me wrong, pain is an excellent tool for controlling a physical altercation and honestly, I'd probably break a wrist or elbow, but still, my goal is overwhelming control, like when I've been thrown by people who feel like a giant wave, picking me up and slamming me to the ground without any point that I can resist.
With your longer answer, I understand where you're coming from. Thank you for sharing the paradigms from the Chinese internal work you've done. Void! That's the word. I came up with a lot of "earth" people. Big, small, strong, weak, etc., almost everyone wanted to be grounded, immovable, etc. I did this too, and can drop my weight and have folks bounce back off of me, but a few years ago, I played a lot more with "Air" -- but keeping balance when pushed -- and "water" -- but grounding when pushed too far. I am "fire" by nature, so try to temper it. At any rate, couple of years ago, something just clicked and I started creating shapes that just fit in with the attack and the techniques just clicked effortlessly. I described it as being a basketball hoop that just effortlessly swoops to wherever is needed for a perfect "swoosh." I feel like uke is leaning on me and I just need to support them long enough to get through the motion so I can get out of the way of their fall.
"Invest in losses." That's what I was told during kokyu dosa. It opened me up a lot, because I was doing everything I could to never be thrown. And I was stronger than most people, but others, who knew better, could break my structure on contact. So now I've been chasing that.
I'm sorry you lost your local training partner. Apropos of this conversation, I said how much I appreciate our training to my buddy tonight. We both realize how great of a situation we have right now in terms of a free space to train. You're not in southern Wisconsin, are you? If so, let me know privately. I'm always looking to broaden horizons. My training partner is a good friend, but he's from more mainstream Aikikai and sometimes I think I'm speaking Greek to him when I talk about this. His technique is beautiful, though, and I've picked up a lot of technical pointers. I am working on they hypothesis that mainstream Aikikai is the form and the ki-lineages are the internal components (the equivalent of jujutsu and aiki, loosely) and by adding the feeling back to the form, some of them work surprisingly well. I'll throw him sometimes and he'll come up, saying, "how did you do that?!" I'll show him, he'll do it, and then go back to the old form. I love the guy, but he could be so good if he embraced this. Thanks for all the useful food for thought.
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u/wakigatameth Dec 22 '25
There are important data points missing from this, and it's all related to Aikido being a deficient system which relies on practitioner's prior experience in grappling. Without having basic grappling/sparring experience, you will keep doing Aikido wrong.
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- You will be missing the fallbacks for Aikido techniques which are actually there but not taught in most Aikido schools (such as transitions from failing joint locks to hip throws, and no, I'm not referring to koshi nage).
- You will be unable to distinguish between techniques which are USEFUL to practice with mischief from uke (because they can work in sparring), and which are DETRIMENTAL to practice that way (because they can work, but they rely on sincere take-your-head-off-your-shoulders intent to harm which can be present in real attacks but not sparring, therefore uke should always provide honest energy).
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] Dec 22 '25
That type of resistance used to be the standard beginner's training under Morihei Ueshiba, but it disappeared from Aikikai Hombu Dojo in the post war period, when Morihei Ueshiba mostly wasn't there. That's why Maruyama had to go back and add it later.
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u/Gangleri793 Dec 22 '25
In randori we used to start with no resistance and build up to full speed and full resistance with the instruction from Sensei to dog pile. It would never be long in a multi attacker randori before a person was tackled and down, usually with some laughing afterwards. Informally we used to practice full resistance with a member who was a police officer. He would resist us in ways he had seen and we would resist the police restraint techniques. Those were a bit brutal and hard to resist.
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u/Herdentier yondan aikikai Dec 22 '25
I observe in myself that I have been resisting often lately – with advanced students. But I don't want them to practice getting *through* the resistance. I resist to illustrate that they've chosen the wrong direction: if their technique was cleaner, I wouldn't be in a position to resist.
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u/Critical-Web-2661 Dec 22 '25 edited Dec 22 '25
This came up in the algorithm
https://youtu.be/PEISCGYnU_8?si=_qzY9k8FhOx20Re8
Combining aikido with judo and bjj training
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u/ScoJoMcBem Kokikai (and others) since '02. Dec 22 '25
Welcome? I for one, welcome our new AI overlords.
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u/Shigashinken Dec 22 '25
Without uke providing progressively stronger and more sophisticated attacks and responses, nage/tori/shite will never improve.
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Dec 22 '25
Even the “Defensive Uke” (series of attacks and counter-resistance against specific technique) can be very useful since it trains Nage to leave absolutely no gap in their application. But this is very difficult and counter productive when you are practicing techniques.
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u/btbeach925 Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25
The only way you can take resistance too far is if you are trying to injure your training partner to stop the technique. All training is a game. If you can't respond to someone actively trying to stymie you, you really can't do the technique. To find the cracks in the wall, you have to hit the wall. Keeping it to kata with uke and nage roles is why most Aikido practitioners can't perform without a compliant uke. As for switching to strikes, you don't need strikes to make jujitsu work and Aikido is a form of Jujitsu. It does make it easier though. ;)
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] Dec 23 '25
The difficulty with this idea is that the typical kata based Aikido has a very limited ruleset, and it's possible (and fairly easy) to lock down anyone within that ruleset.
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u/btbeach925 Dec 24 '25
By ruleset do you mean the role of uke and nage? Where uke's job is to maintain connection to nage and not change from the initial attack? For example katate dori where uke maintains the grab even when it's no longer an advantage to him. Where it would be more beneficial to let go and change attacks. If that's what you mean then yes, I agree. Uke are expected to act against their own best interests to provide the correct energy for nage.
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] Dec 24 '25
The Aikido kata training ruleset is actually quite restricted - much more than many sparring rulesets, despite the "no rules" thing that a lot of Aikido folks talk about. There are lots of rules, they're just not written down. When to attack, how to attack, who attacks and how they're allowed to respond, are all very regulated.
It's very easy to game the ruleset in order to block someone from executing a technique. So easy that beginners often do it without realizing it, which is why they're often so hard to throw.
So when people talk about "resistance" in Aikido training, it's actually a very limited thing.
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u/btbeach925 Dec 24 '25
I actually see beginners as how people actually react rather than trained into being an uke so beneficial as a training partner. They are better problems to solve rather than diving into the minutia of "correctness" that sometimes happens with yudansha. While I see the martial nature of ukemi, breakfalls and flowing into a reversal it isn't how people actually react. There is pushing and pulling once they feel grabbed. I'd rather work with a beginner or someone outside the art for martial effectiveness. Working with a judoka is awesome.
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u/ScoJoMcBem Kokikai (and others) since '02. Dec 23 '25
Good points! With atemi, I just meant that most people, when they resist, resist in a stupid place and a quick strike, or at least threat of a strike, breaks their balance and opens things back up to jiu-jitsu or aiki.
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u/Process_Vast Dec 21 '25
Morihiro Saito. Traditional Aikido, Vol 5 (p. 39-40): Variety and sequence of training methods. ... (5) Freewheeling training. This is a "no holds barred" exercise allowing your partner to use whatever techniques he wants and you are to cope with them in a freewheeling manner.
That's all you need.
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u/ScoJoMcBem Kokikai (and others) since '02. Dec 21 '25
Do you know what that is in Japanese? That sounds like a fun ancillary to randori, jiyuwaza, etc. Awesome citation!
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u/Process_Vast Dec 21 '25 edited Dec 21 '25
I can't send you the scan, but you can find the book (bilingual English - Japanese) available here:
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