Quote:
Matthew Story wrote:
What you're talking about is self-defense training, not a martial art. If the worst thing you can say about aikido is that an aikido class is not a self-defense class, then you have a weak argument indeed: we already knew that. It is no shock to anyone here that learning martial arts techniques and learning self-defense skills are not the same thing.
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Yes to me Aikido must be effective in a martial contest - that is, by that I mean (for, apparently, also meanings of
martial seem to vary) against sheer violence and
brutality.
I understand your point and I don't contend it: you're entitled to it, and it is respectable.
In my case, however, I am on the page where the
only purpose of aikido is that of performing as a self defense method, capable of meeting any challenge that
pure violence may pose. Whatever spiritual side practicing aikido may accrue or produce, in my world proves its consistency only when put at the test against
physical brutality.
I don't claim that my perspective is better: I am only saying that, in our specific case, we're on two different pages so it is unavoidable there cannot be an effective communications or, better, agreement between us.
In this context, however, I would like to add also that those who, like in this thread, say that aikido "does not work at all in a fight" are those who placed themseleves on my page: this is why I can "relate" with them and it comes, apparently, easier for me to understand the part of
truth that is contained in the box of their accusations.
That type of accusation, in fact, does not arrive from a "world" like yours, but from a "world" like mine.
In this world of mine, I do
not place myself among those who cast this accusation (perhaps you have misunderstood me like one?), but among those who understand the
milieu whence it originated (and I am not alone there, not implying this).
I hope this clarifies my (personal) perspective.