[Balto]

Aikido is a weapon based art. That's why there is such an emphasis on footwork, range, etc. It's also why it looks quite a bit different than Judo.

It's also why it is not very applicable to MMA. Obviously MMA is not a weapon based rule set.

As far as the techniques of Aikido go, there are definitely some useful principles in there. It's unfortunate that these are mostly lost in the fact that so many Aikido practitioners are "spiritual" whackos who couldn't beat a middle school wrestler. But the value is still there if you are trained enough to find it.

The problem is, if you haven't done any grappling before, you probably aren't trained enough to find it. And you won't learn how to find it at the average Aikido club for the aforementioned reason. And the fact that even if you do find this stuff, it's not that applicable to MMA because Aikido is not about MMA in the first place.

So I would stick to striking at the moment.