I'll try ...
Quote:
Mary Eastland wrote:
IBeing aware of my circumstances at all times helps keeps me safe.
Not sure what is wrong with that.  |
Really nothing wrong with that!!!
I just wonder: Do you really call "being aware" aikido?
This would be different from what I learned about aikido.
In my job I practice things like nonviolent communication and other methods of awareness and de-escalation (verbal and non-verbal). This helps to keep me (or the people I work with) safe. Yes!
This methods have names in their own rights. Like "NVC/Rosenberg" or "client-centered methods / Rogers" or some different things maybe not so well known. They work with their own assumptions, use their own proceedings and can be learned. And so on.
All this what can be done before a conflict becomes really physicall to me, in my textbook, is not aikido. Being "streetwise" does not mean to do aikido.
In my understandign aikido begins when all this doesn't work. When a conflict get's physical. Then aikido is a method to deal with an opponent or attacker in a certain way.
This means using aiki / the structure of ones body instead of pyhsical strentgh. And having a peacefull mind. Even if using strong waza.
This to me is aikido.
And that's why I'm confused to some extent: Being aware, dealing with a conflict before it becomes physical or being "non-aggressive" (whatever that means) is not, what "is called" aikido in my context.
(I also teach seminars of "self-defence 'light'". There some aikido is done.)