View Single Post
Old 01-21-2012, 08:05 AM   #38
DH
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,394
United_States
Offline
Re: "The goal is not to throw"

Hi Greg
I agree, but the issue is only brought home when you have a real attacker. None of the bliss bunnies and have ever demonstrated their effectiveness a) outside their own dojo b) up against real trained resistance and will not accept requests to do so.

It is incredible that the people who continue to display these highly cooperative movements have never been challenged within their own communities to display a standard of credibility and show them with real attackers. Within Aikido, when the discussion is narrowed down to them having to defend against a boxer or jujutsu-ka, they all of sudden default to..."That isn't aikido. You don't understand aikido."
I am the first one to say that those who love the energy exchange (I call it catching air) should be left alone to enjoy themselves and not be criticized for it. There is no requirement that they have to be able to fight. The only time issues arise are when they become deluded into thinking any portion of that is real and will work under stress with trained people.

None of this is new or peculiar to Aikido. All martial arts have been plagued by bliss bunnies trying to equate their meager unearned efforts to truly capable men and women-without having to have suffered the same injuries and sweat to actually become capable yourself. It's a twice told tale, going on for ages. It's a cheap, weasely way to try and equate yourself without the cost. Worse when your own delusion now gets passed down and taught to others. Suffice to say, that in the era and culture where you had to put your body where your mouth was, we had endless stories of these people showing up and either getting killed, maimed or just put in their place.

It is to their benefit that modern budo-ka now think that challenges are rude, and testing of people's theories are an affront to the sensibilities of good people. Remove that modern governor of everyone is qual and everyone gets and "A" and you would be right back to people getting killed, maimed, and/or put in their place for some pretty whacky theories of what actually works. In fact today, trying to define traditional budo with a parameter of it working or not...is actually an insult to many people in budo.

To me that mindset, a modern invention in our generations hands, is responsible for the gutting and eventual death, of the traditional arts-and rightly so. And we... are the generation who is doing it.
Dan

Last edited by DH : 01-21-2012 at 08:18 AM.
  Reply With Quote