The dialogue goes like this;
Question: Who would win between a master in aikido and an MMA cage fighter?
Lenny: The two arts are not compatible.
Vicious Pete: Yeah, but who would win?
Lenny: Well. Ummm. MMA is a sport, right?
Vicious Pete: Yeah, but just about anything goes...other than poke out their opponents eyes!
Lenny: Yeah, pretty much, but there are rules. Aikido is not a sport.
Vicious Pete: So who would win then? You give me the best aikido dude in the world, if you think that shit works, and put him in with a mean angry motherfucker of a fighter who’s trained boxing, jujitsu, muay thai and does krav maga with a felafel in his hand.
Lenny: So, let me clarify - the aikido dude, practicing the art of peace, has to fight for his life to prove traditional aikido is affective against a trained vicious and brutal aggressor?
Vicious Pete: Yeah, thats fair isn’t it?
Lenny: No, it's just not gonna work.
Vicious Pete: So aikido doesn't work in the real world!
Lenny: It’s not that simple.
Vicious Pete: What about on the street?
Lenny: From a highly trained attacker?
Vicious Pete: Yes.
Lenny: OK....breath....Only modified aikido techniques would work in a street fight or MMA. For MMA brutality, aikido doesn't train enough with resistance because we protect our attacker by giving them an opening to escape and roll out of, so we can keep training. On the street, techniques like irimi-nage can kill, if someone doesn't know how to fall. If they hit their head on concrete, you go to jail!
Vicious Pete: So you train aikido knowing it doesn't work in the real world?
Lenny: I believe what I train can work in the real world, however I do see some shortcomings in some traditional aikido that is never pressure tested against a strong uke or varied, sustained strikes like boxing.
Lenny: (me squirming now) Most attacks in the real world are not from skilled fighters. They are from drunks or drugged, or the lowest of the low, predators. And I wouldn't want to fight them either!
Vicious Pete: Ok I think you've answered the question in a round-about way. So aikido would not work against MMA.
Lenny: Not with me in the ring, no.
There is a common misunderstanding by people who don't train aikido. And that is the many aikido people appear invincible in demonstrations - perpetuated by bad actors and occasionally egocentric practitioners.
Most of us (probably 95% and I made that up) don’t train to street fight. We train to keep fit, have fun and learn a very sophisticated self defence ‘art’ in the process. Traditional aikido is not generally practiced as a lethal art, but the underlying principles of combat are very close to the surface.
It's up to you and your instructor to decide if your technique is lacking in aikido, but just remember O'Sensei's son Kisshomaru, the 1st doshu, went to a great deal of trouble to take the killing techniques out.