Caveat Emptor:  Let the Buyer Beware
2004 by Owen E. Richason IV, 5th Kyu, to be published in the July/August issue of Aikido Today magazine.

 
Aikido, being a relatively unfamiliar martial art, has become a favorite of martial arts opportunists.  Because of aikido's obscurity, skilled and unskilled martial arts instructors are baiting uninformed students with the promise of teaching them the contemporary grappling art.

I first became aware of this fact roughly ten years before I even stepped foot into an aikido dojo when a friend asked me if I would like to be his guest at the martial arts school he attended.  I agreed, and with my younger brother accompanying me, we obliged and attended a class.

When we met the instructor, he told us to that his style of martial arts was a compilation of several martial arts, including such styles as Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido, and Aikido.  He told us that this amalgamation of these different styles dated back to ancient China over two-thousand years ago, where the emperor's guards used this system to defend their ruler.

What I found most curious in that moment was prompted by my cursory knowledge of the martial arts - as far as I knew, aikido didn't exist in ancient China; of course, I was right.

Ten years later, a just over a year in practicing aikido, I've found that not much has changed.
Last year, while on our first year anniversary in New England, my wife and I came across a martial arts school while sightseeing.

As we were peeking inside the school, the instructor approached, with to-go lunch in hand.  He introduced himself as the school's Sifu, and I began to chat with him.  I told him that I was a new student of aikido and he said that they taught aikido at his school, gave me a brochure, and invited me to attend a class.

When we returned home, I sat down in front of my PC and logged onto his website - but there wasn't any mention of aikido on the homepage.  So I clicked on his bio link, figuring that it would detail his training in aikido - no luck.  What I did find is that he was trained in Kung Fu and like percussive arts and it wasn't until I viewed the schedule page, that I found there was a once a week, one hour aikido class taught by another instructor.

I cross-checked this "aikido" instructor's name with various aikido affiliations, and discovered that he wasn't associated with any of them.  And when I came finally found his school listed on an aikido website (Aikiweb.com), it identified the school's aikido organizational affiliation as "independent".  Researching further, I couldn't find a single link between this instructor and his training and/or association within the international aikido community.

Disturbed by this, I began to do some more research and after weeks of study, found that this is all too common.  Which takes us back to the beginning - new students interested in learning aikido are being misled by schools which promise to teach aikido.

What my research has brought to light is this practice is most often found in schools that feature percussive martial arts; and more prevalent in schools that teach multiple styles of martial arts.

Unfortunately, there isn't recourse to take to prevent or stop these schools from advertising and representing themselves as aikido dojos.

The lone recourse available to individuals interested in learning aikido have is to do their homework.  They should visit their perspective dojo(s), speak with the instructors and students; observe a class or two and lastly, verify the instructor's credentials by consulting the organization to which they belong. Otherwise, caveat emptor.