Quote:
Daniel Wilson wrote:
My view is that a person studying aikido needs to be able to get the physical/technical side of aikido to work for them in realistic self-defence situations. If that can't be done, then all the "higher" philosophical and spiritual attributes of aikido loose their value. If the physical/technical side of aikido is not working in a realistic situation, then the training methods need to be reviewed and revised. I accept that when a woman is attacked she is often grabbed and techniques for this need to be practised. However, when a man is attacked, the attacker often attacks with a barrage of punches...and I think aikido needs to correctly address this scenario more than it does.
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I have to respectfully disagree with this argument. I don't think you can legitimately make a pragmatist argument without getting down to specifics yourself. You can't generalize "self-defense" - not even "self-defense for women" vs. "self-defense for men" -- and call it a "realistic self-defense situation", there's nothing realistic about that at all. Who's the attacker, what's their skill level, why are they attacking you, what other resources do you have to defend yourself? If you can't be specific about the self-defense situation, it's not reasonable to complain about lack of a specific practical response.