xuzen

I hate to take Atemi for real... it will hamper future practice (unnecessary injury and pain). I will not advocate it as standard practice during mat time. Boxing and other competitive striking arts allows their players to take punches but under very strict rules and regulation, which again is arguably is very "unrealistic" compared to a street situation.

Playing two much tennis or golf and you get tennis/gold elbow. Sport medicine termed this as repetitive stress injury (RSI). I wonder by allowing another person to repetitively hit your head as in boxing will lead to what sort of RSI?

Given a choice between training to harden one's body to take hits vis-a-vis learning to move the body swiftly and quickly in a stable manner away from the trajectory of an incoming punch/kick, I'd choose the latter, i.e., moving away. But if one wishes to take real atemi to see how it feels like, by all means go ahead, but i do not advocate it as standard aikido practice.

How, then does one practice to deal with real intention atemi if we do not hit real? Substitute punches with bokken or jo. Nothing better forces your body to move than a oncoming bokken or jo. Wrt to taking real atemi.. how is getting a bokken knocked on your head without a headgear, or a getting a jo hit your thumb while parrying it with your bokken. Are these atemi real enough?

My view is such that aikido as an art do not advocate you getting punched or kicked as form of training to be a good martial artist. We have other method of training to cover that aspect.

Boon.