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Alberto Italiano wrote:
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Hi once again Alberto.
I like your honesty.
Thought I'd give you a few ideas you could work with. First a couple of short stories.
Over 20 years ago now whilst training with my friend (who I've mentioned before was a boxer) I witnessed a scene that made an impression. He had brought his old time boxing friend to Aikido as this guy was having a bit of a rough time in life and we had decided Aikido would help him through it. This guy, a few years before had won the 'aba' championships two years running and then turned professional under a trainer called Mickey Duff. He had six fights undefeated but then got a detatched retina and was medically thereafter 'banned' from boxing.
So there we are a few years later than that training. He boxed actually a bit in the style of Smoking Joe Frazier. Anyway, at the end of the lesson our teacher was talking to him and explaining how all sports have rules and if you understand that you can see which principle or action would defeat or bewilder the opponent.
This led to Dave (the boxer) disagreeing and thus led to a demonstration. The teacher said all he would do is apply MA-AI. After two minutes Dave hadn't connected once and stopped and said it was like it wasn't fair as he wasn't fighting back.
The point here is that firstly applying that one principle (and being very good at it) leads to a condition of no fight. It's outside the 'rules' and believe it or not the boxers comfort zone.
I found this fascinating at the time because then I could see how those boxers like Ali and Nasseem Mohammed (albeit much later) apply that ma-ai principle, with patience, whilst using it to manoever to a position of strength or getting the opponent to move to a position of weakness.
Soon after that experience I was kind of set up in a friends shaolin kung fu school and told to fight the guy who was the senior student. The guy came at me with kicks and punches and all I did was keep ma-ai and 'parry' with tegatana as I was very good at that. In the end the guy just stopped. He looked at his teacher and shrugged his shoulders as if to say 'What should I do?' The teacher smiled and told us to bow out.
I went away a bit confused and in two minds. One was I was happy I had stuck to what I knew of Aikido but the other was I realized I couldn't work out how to enter from such an opponent. Basically, I had more to learn.
As with all types of fighters or situations in life or even business propositions it's a matter of studying the opponent or scene and finding which principles ARE applicable to such rather than how to make the ones you know applicable.
Food for thought?
Regards.G.