Aikibudo
合気武道Alain Floquet's French offshoot of aiki-jujutsu, blending Yoseikan, Daitō-ryū and Katori Shintō-ryū swordsmanship, with no competition.
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What the style is built from
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About Aikibudo
Aikibudo is a French martial discipline created by Alain Floquet (born 18 December 1939). It grew out of the aikido of the Yoseikan school, as brought to France by a student of Minoru Mochizuki, and Floquet gradually added two further lines: the aiki-jujutsu of the Daitō-ryū school, which he reached through Tokimune Takeda, son of Sokaku Takeda, and the classical swordsmanship of Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū, which he studied under Yoshio Sugino. He founded his own study and research centre, CERA, in 1974. The name itself was coined in 1982 at a gathering held in honour of Minoru Mochizuki: Floquet was told that what he taught was no longer aikido, and after proposals such as aikidjujutsu or Yoseikan budō were raised and rejected, he himself suggested the compound ai-ki-bu-dō, which the masters present accepted. Technically, aikibudo stands closer to older jujutsu than to sport aikido: it works with joint locks, throws to the ground, strikes used to break balance, and defence against a knife or a stick. There is no competition; progress is instead tested through an examination of technique and of formal sequences. In France, aikibudo is governed by the FFAAA federation, internationally it comes under FIAB, and Floquet himself holds the ninth dan with the title of kyōshi. Its technical content is broad: basic displacements and turns, hand strikes (tsuki-uchi-waza), kicks (keri-waza), various forms of grips, and the falling technique ukemi. Floquet spread his taught form of aikibudo in France from the nineteen-eighties onward, and alongside it the parallel study of Katori Shintō-ryū, which remains a separate branch of weapon training within aikibudo.
Similar styles
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