These types of decisions are very personal. If your choice is between Aikido and Karate, you have to ask yourself which type of fighting do you think you would prefer. Karate is all about fast, powerful strikes, both punches and kicks, in addition to elbows and knees. It is aggressive, and intended to inflict a great deal of physical damage in a very short period of time. That’s how you win a fight, and avoid injury to yourself. You have to be ok with that, because to me there is very little finesse in Karate. Aikido looks to redirect an attacker’s force, allowing in theory its practitioners to defend themselves while looking to avoid serious injury to their opponents.
Jean-Claude Van Damme:
JCVD He began martial arts at the age of ten, enrolled by his father in a Shōtōkan karate school. His styles consist of Shōtōkan Karate and Kickboxing. He eventually earned his black belt in karate at 18. He started lifting weights to improve his physique, which eventually led to a Mr. Belgium bodybuilding title. At the age of 16, he took up ballet, which he studied for five years. According to Van Damme, ballet “is an art, but it’s also one of the most difficult sports. If you can survive a ballet workout, you can survive a workout in any other sport.” Later he took up both Taekwondo and Muay Thai.RELATED:
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You defend yourself against an attack by using throws and locks, like jujutsu, from which Aikido evolved. I have never studied Aikido, but from my limited exposure to it I believe that the Aikido practitioner thinks of his or her art as purely defensive. By that I mean that they are going to react to an opponent’s aggression, but in a way that is not designed to seriously hurt them. However, from what I have observed of Aikido I think a good practitioner can indeed hurt someone with the appropriate technique.
Steven Seagal:
Seagal moved to Japan at some point between 1971 and 1973. By 1974, he had returned to California. That year he met Miyako Fujitani, a second-degree black belt and daughter of an Osaka aikido master who had come to Los Angeles to teach aikido. When Miyako returned to Osaka, Seagal went with her. In 1975 they married and had a son, Kentaro, and a daughter, Ayako. He taught at the school owned by Miyako’s family. As of 1990, Miyako and her brother still taught there, and her mother was the chairwoman. Seagal returned to Taos, New Mexico, with his student (and later film stuntman) Craig Dunn, where they opened a dojo, although Seagal spent much of his time pursuing other ventures. After another period in Japan, Seagal returned to the U.S. in 1983 with senior student Haruo Matsuoka.
However, if a person is truly proficient in Karate (or, in my case, Taekwondo, which is very similar), learning Aikido may be very helpful because it provides options in a confrontation. Sometimes you really don’t want to hurt someone who attacks you, because you know you are not in a life threatening situation. If you learn Aikido know, you can learn Karate when you are older, or vice versa. I think karate would be better, please understand that no martial art is fake or worse than another while aikido is a great karate that will let you get in shape and also teach you self defense.