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Old 12-29-2008, 10:13 PM   #34
Buck
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 950
United_States
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Re: How truly refreshing - Tohei K. on conflict resolution

Stories not prefaced are dangerously misleading. It by default romanizes ugly situations or situations of poor judgement into unjust moments of heroism. A heroism misunderstood my the naive who model it, and because the situation isn't identical to the one they romanize the naive find themselves faced with a situation they can't survive. Gee, you know as strong as it sounds, the word irresponsible or reckless may apply to the story.

It is a thing of mine, that the more responsible action comes from those in higher places, you know higher ranks, the admired, etc. and they shouldn't have gone off to assault and batter the other guy, a crime in itself. More reasonable action would have had been cooler and smarter/wiser heads prevailing.

Myself, being a victim of bullies, I think I used the word bully-bait once to refer to myself, when your are out muscled or in a bad situation like someone throwing a beer bottle at you, they only thing you have is your wit from getting you rear-end kicked. You will be surprised how well witt and smart thinking works, over reactive force. Oh yea this is even more true if the bully (or another choice word) is bigger and stronger. Isn't there professional de-escalation and conflict resolution techniques that don't involve choking someone? Wouldn't point the guy out to the police be more effective, and the guy did run-off unpunished. Scared sure, but not punished.

If we are to admire people or model after those of higher rank and stature, we should do so for the right reasons, because they did the right thing as uneventful as it is. The right reasons are for doing the more difficult thing right. And not for shooting from the hip or for knee jerk reactions that make good stories, but instead could lead to a more dangerous situation. Because that shooting from the hip with such anger models to others a behavior that is seen as acceptable, that really isn't acceptable. I use this as an example of the unrealistic views of those of "hard" Aikido that are equal to the unrealistic views of those that are considered "soft" Aikido.

I don't think criticism and cynicism is a useful tool, I think education is the tool. The education has to come from the outside of Aikido, because it was from within Aikido that created the soft and the hard Aikidoka. Change comes from the top and admired. Insight comes from the rest of us.

Last edited by Buck : 12-29-2008 at 10:26 PM.
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