Reuben,

I like your attitude.

And anyone who reposts the infamous Herman vs. Tohei video gets major respect from me. The attempts to excuse Tohei's blatant lack of skills in that video always make me chuckle. To Tohei's credit I will acknowledge that he was working against a significant weight advantage.

I will second what Demetrio said earlier. You cannot put a square peg into a round hole... At least not with great difficulty and damage to the pieces involved.

You have to look at the context from which these techniques came. Then you will start to see the problems for which they were devised to solve.

A boxer's 1-2 combo is not of much concern to a man armed with a sword. In fact, I would say that unless you knock him out with one punch, it was an insane way to attack.

Even against a knife a boxer is over matched and will likely lose a battle of attrition.

These techniques came from a time when the men who used them always carried weapons and wanted to use those weapons as their primary tools of attack and defense.

Squaring up to throw punches or grapple with such an opponent just doesn't fit into the equation.

What types of scenarios would likely be of great concern to a swordsman? Fighting other armed opponents? Fighting multiple opponents? Fighting someone who is unarmed but is attempting to impede your use of your weapon?

The answer is right there.

Look at the evasions or blends in aikido. As demonstrated in your video they do not make much sense against a boxer. Their risk is much greater than their reward. As far as Joe's advice goes, it's simply unrealistic... It will only happen by chance. And there are many more higher percentage and more appropriate techniques available for that situation.

Now, picture an attack with a weapon. Do the blends suddenly become easier? No! But do they make infinitely more sense? Yes. And you will find that the risk versus reward is now more balanced. If you approach weapons defense with a boxers mentality and use the defenses taught in boxing, you are sure to be a dead man. If you use the blends seen in aikido you may have a chance to survive.

To be effective there is still much work to do, but if you are not able to understand the context of your martial art there will be no end to the confusion and frustration.