rob_liberti

I guess another point is that the people I know that I think are martially effective have been training a good 20, 25+ years in their hard style arts too. Are we talking about the same level of "effective"?! (Compared to what I think is "effective", I'd say my aikido skill is "sad".) If someone with 2 years of training just about any martial art can come whoop me in a fight, I think they could have probably whooped me regardless of their 2 years of training! I just went to Jason Delucia sensei's dojo and did about an hour of randori practice and I was able to hold my own with the people who only had a _short_ time in and I never practice that way - big deal. (By the way, I have nothing but respect for that kind of practice. I also think there are important things that *can* be learned in the cooperative model that you would have a hell of a time working on in a purely competitive model. I can't judge them on this yet, because I only saw one class.)

Rob