ian

PS. I'm not convinced 'staged' attacks are any better than what is done in aikido. What we need to do is to train a body movement when someone else moves suddenly or aggressively towards us. In a simulated attack, more than in a dojo, we are still expecting an attack and are running through our brain what response we make make.

When we do weapon work, when we do attacks - everything in aikido; we are training to move simultaneously with the attacker. Unlike many other martial arts we do not (usually) step through the techniques one by one, and neither do we 'compete' (which is very artifificial). One sudden attack, an immediate response.

A funny episode about a year ago was with an ex-student at a stag party. His brother went to grab him, saying simultaneously 'what would you do if...' but the body movement alone was enough to elicit a response where he moved and raised his hand to his brothers face (actually striking him moderately hard).

Sorry for long posts... this is a pet rant of mine. Aikido is a self-defence training method - not a set of techniques!