Related to the myth that Aikido cannot deal with boxers is the myth that since Aikidoka, supposedly, do not train with a resisting opponent that somehow we are practicing an ineffective art. Again this is a question of strategy.
Since the creation of Judo in the 19th Century it’s seemed obvious that if you train with a resisting opponent you become a better fighter. In the unique case of Judo and other sports I agree. Due to its competition rules Judo and create a situation where the traditional ikken hitatsu strategy discussed in my previous article cannot be applied. This means that the fighters must struggle to overcome one another, which takes practice in dealing with a resisting opponent.

BJJ showed this to be a totally stupid way to fight. I know what you’re going to say, “BJJ training is mostly sparring.” You’ll get no argument from me, but consider this: How useful is training in overcoming resistance in a fight against an opponent that doesn’t know how to resist? BJJ made its name by defeating scores of people that had never seen BJJ before, including Judoka and wrestlers who do resistive training. Didn’t help them, did it?
So what was it about BJJ defeated these people? The fact that they do resistive training doesn’t seem to be key so my money is on the ikken hitatsu strategy. BJJ enters in and puts their opponents in a position for which they have no training, that’s why it is so successful. The only way to resist BJJ is to learn BJJ, only then does resistive training decide anything. I submit that unless one BJJ practitioner attacks another BJJ practitioner or one Judoka attacks another Judoka then resistive training is not a significant factor in the outcome of the fight. Resistance after all is simply a product of familiarity with the techniques and strategies of an art.

So what about Aikido? Aikido does the same thing as BJJ; it puts the opponent in a position from which he cannot resist, before he can resist. If uke can fight back then tori has done the technique incorrectly and this happens in training, contrary to the myth that Aikidoka always fall over for each other. Of course uke does not hit tori, there is no need, the fact that uke is still on posture is enough to indicate that tori needs to try again. Modifying our training so that uke can always fight back as in Judo to me seems to be not an improvement, but a watering down.
In fact Aikido does incorporate resistive training, it’s a myth that it doesn’t. Non-resistive ukemi is in fact resistance. I know, it’s a paradox, but think about it. How do you resist an art that breaks your balance on contact? If you know which technique is coming then you can stiffen up accordingly but that’s not very realistic, tori could use any technique and tori can usually switch technique faster than uke can shift their resistance. So the only way to resist Aikido effectively is to go with it, tori has no reason to change and uke retains more control than he would have by resisting.
　
Alex Lawrence, Nikyu no Zanshin Kai.