Leg locks in Aikido?

First off, leg locks are not a good idea generally.  It can be an effective tactic, but arms are the primary tools to be concerned about.  You can damage a leg and that will prevent an attacker running after you, but I prefer control over pain compliance and I like the option to not damage.  Also, I can use tools while holding a nikyo or ikkyo pin and a number of leg locks would be difficult for me to do this. Maybe this just reflects my comfort level and amount of practice with these techniques.  The few times I had to do a leg lock in real life, I quickly learned legs are more muscular than arms generally, so I needed to use both arms on a stronger leg.  

 

Modern soldiers will have knives and guns.  Don't restrict the arm movement, get cut or shot.  A number of classical leg locks often leave your own leg within reach of your attacker, particularly if you apply it face on.  So, in the real life situations above, I was part of a team and the arms were controlled while I controlled the legs.  I might need to deal with the legs to get to the arms.  Or, someone else has taken the arms and the legs are thrashing and so I take the leg.  Leg locks are no substitute for our arm controls.

Legs do not have the same control or range of motion as arms - so, hips, knees and ankles cannot tolerate the same pressures and torque as shoulder, elbow and wrist.  Toes are not as flexible as fingers.  Ankles less flexible than wrists.  Hip joints less than shoulders.  As the hip and ankle don't move as freely as the wrist and shoulder, the knee can be traumatized more easily than the elbow.

UFC #1 was won by a toe lock.  For all that, most people today wear shoes and boots.  A toe lock on someone wearing steel toes is probably not a good idea.  A wrenched ankle is far more likely, and really even then I'd be using the ankle's range of motion to damage the knee.

 

All the increased risk of joint injury from less range of motion, and now couple that with your legs will be supporting your body weight.  Jamming an ankle or a knee means changing your hip and spinal alignment for the fall.  Landing directly in the knee cap, etc can leave you needing major surgery - from a practice!  Even people with good ukemi skills find these types of falls more difficult.

 

I take this to mean that joint locks to the leg need to be practiced more cooperatively and slowly.  I believe Judo has struck most leg locks from competition.

 

We do not have weight and height classes.  Sometimes, you take what body part you can reach.  You can't always effectively attack a target above the waist.  Sometimes legs are the more effective target.

 

For O Sensei in wartime, soldiers were fighting on uneven ground, on staircases and amid rubble; storming trenches and barracades, climbing ramparts, slipping and falling and responding from the ground.  Sometimes they were standing in mud or in the trench and couldn't move as freely as we do on smooth mats.  Sometimes pinning or giving aid to one person, and forced to respond to a new threat.  Crouching behind cover, deficating, sleeping, eating and now surprised and forced to act to save their lives.  All of this, and still needing to train for taller, stronger opponents with better mobility and reach.  Hanmi Handachi has a lot of interesting and applicable lessons to teach.

Kawahara Sensei still told us that for the kata katate-dori kaitenage hanmi handachi the actual attack was grab the wrist and kick the abdomen - so we were always reminded to not allow uke to walk up in front of us directly and grab the hand.  Uke needed to come from the side, but really Nage was supposed to control that in theory.

 

While hanmi handachi has roots in Daito Ryu and the old samurai arts, we kept this while not keeping flower arranging, the tea ceremony, or Daito Ryu umbrella retention techniques.  The old arts taught many things we didn't keep, and we treat this as important.

Somehow despite the role Hanmi Handachi can play and the lessons it teaches us, in Aikido we often only attack the pectoral girdle and the neck.  No matter how we are attacked, we seem to respond by attacking Uke above the nipple line.  Lots of classical techniques do this.

So do our leg attacks not exist?  

From Budo, published by Kodansha (the Noma dojo photo shoot).  Admittedly, seven pictures for the entire book does not make these movements common (though there are only four on Tanto Dori, and this did become a common practice).

The movements also still have Nage looking mobile, able to use tools, able to use atemi and aware of the larger environment.  One of these looks like a transition between a leg control and our more familiar arm controls.  The first one looks like an atemi to the ankle to sweep the leg away.  Some of the pins, O Sensei looks to be kneeling or stepping on his partner's spine or hip.  I like the Nikyo lock done while stepping on Uke's foot.

How close are we to the day that an Aikido instructor would say, "Who is this goofball and what is that crap he is doing?  That's not Aikido!"  Some would say closer than we should be.  O Sensei does not have to be the only way to do Aikido, but he should be studied and given his due.  As Stanley Pranin has said, "He was pretty good at what he did!"