Aikido vs Judo: Which Japanese Art Should You Learn?

Kanō Jigorō, the man who built judo, admired Ueshiba Morihei's art enough to send his own students across to learn it. Several of Ueshiba's senior students, in turn, arrived as judoka. Two founders who knew and respected each other, two arts from the same jujutsu root, the same white gi, the same bow, the same fifty years of Japanese history. And yet ask a judoka about aikido, or an aikidoka about judo, and you will hear some of the sharpest opinions in the martial arts.

The short answer: one decision separates them. Kanō made judo a sport, with free practice against a resisting partner from the first session. Ueshiba made aikido a practice without competition, in which the partner receives the technique rather than fighting it. Effectiveness, injuries, who trains each art and why – all of it follows from that one choice, and so does the verdict.

What aikido actually is

Ueshiba developed aikido between the 1920s and 1940s out of Daitō-ryū aikijujutsu, the joint-lock and projection system he learned from Takeda Sōkaku, and out of his religious life in the Ōmoto-kyō movement. The vocabulary is wrist and elbow locks – ikkyō, nikyō, sankyō, kote-gaeshi – and throws or projections that turn an attacker's momentum into a fall – irimi-nage, shihō-nage, kokyū-nage – practised from grabs and strikes and finished with pins. Training is paired. One partner attacks in a prescribed way, the other applies the technique, and the attacker, the uke, receives it with a practised fall. In most styles there is no sparring; the Tomiki or Shodokan school, with its competitive forms, is the exception. Ueshiba's declared purpose was an art of harmony and reconciliation rather than victory, and the training took the shape of that purpose. The full story is in The History of Aikido.

What aikido gives, it gives well: falling skills that are among the best anywhere, balance, an intelligent vocabulary of joint locks, an attention to movement and posture that people keep practising into their seventies, and a dojo culture of etiquette and calm. What it does not give, in most schools, is any evidence that the techniques work on someone who does not want them to.

What judo actually is

Kanō distilled judo from two jujutsu schools, Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū and Kitō-ryū, in 1882, and built it into a sport, a pedagogy and eventually an Olympic discipline, on the programme since 1964. A match is won by ippon – a clean throw, a twenty-second pin or a submission – and training is built around randori, free practice against a partner who is trying to throw you first. Every throw, pin and strangle in judo is tested against resistance every session, which is why they work: whatever fails in randori gets discarded. The price is physical, because judo is one of the more injury-prone Olympic sports, and structural, because competition rules have narrowed the art over time, banning leg grabs in 2010 and keeping the ground phase short. Our history of judo tells how the sport was built.

Judo gives what it promises: the ability to throw a resisting adult after a year or two, exceptional balance, a large club structure, one of the best children's sports there is, and an art that transfers directly to BJJ, sambo and MMA.

Resistance is the whole difference

Every martial art has techniques. The question is whether anyone has tested them. Judo tests its throws constantly, so a judoka's confidence in them is earned on the mat, against people who did not want to fall. Aikido, as usually trained, does not test them, and this is where its long argument with the rest of the martial arts world comes from: a technique that has only ever been applied to a partner who attacks in the agreed way and falls in the agreed way has never been shown to work on anyone else. Some aikido teachers train under pressure – resisting grabs, unscripted attacks, cross-training with judo or wrestling – and their students are noticeably different. Most do not. If self-defence is the reason you are walking into an aikido dojo, ask one question, how do you test this, and believe the answer you see rather than the one you hear. If what you see is a demonstration, you have your answer.

Injuries, age and purpose

Here Ueshiba's choice pays its dividend. Aikido is gentle on the body, teaches falling better than almost anything else, and is practised by people of every age; it is the Japanese art best suited to a beginner over forty who does not want to compete or be hit. Many aikido students start after forty. Few judoka do. Judo is harder on you – falls, shoulders, knees, fingers – and its culture is built around competition, which suits the young and the ambitious. If the purpose is a lifelong physical and mental discipline with etiquette and calm at its centre, aikido is a genuine answer. If the purpose is fighting ability, it is not.

Choose aikido if …

• You want a non-competitive practice of movement, balance, falling and etiquette.
• You are older, injured or simply do not want to be thrown hard or hit.
• The philosophical and cultural side of Japanese arts draws you.
• You already have a sparring art and want the joint-lock vocabulary as a study.

Choose judo if …

• You want to be able to throw someone who does not want to be thrown.
• You want a sport, a belt ladder, competition and a club near you.
• You are choosing for a child.
• BJJ, sambo or MMA are in your future.

Doing both

The combination is older than either art's reputation. Several of Ueshiba's senior students came from judo, and Kanō sent his own students to Ueshiba to learn. Judo's randori gives aikido's locks the resistance the dojo never asks of them; aikido's falls and wrist locks give a judoka tools the sport banned or never had. If you are undecided and want one art, take judo. If you want aikido, take it with open eyes, and add a sparring art for the parts it cannot give.

Where to go next

• The hubs: Aikido and Judo.
• The histories: The History of Aikido and Judo: Kanō Jigorō and the Gentle Way.
• Judo against its other relatives: BJJ vs Judo and Judo vs Wrestling.