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Charles Hill wrote:
Yes, exactly. Aikido is no longer a real combat art. A real combat art would necessarily be firearm based, Aikido is not. In the days of challenges, to train in an art that was not martially effective meant that someone could be killed, thus the challenges. I imagine that those who nowadays teach police, for example, get challenged by the officers. Of course, what they are learning is not combat, however.
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"Get a gun"? Well, that presupposes that you live in a place where you can carry firearms - more than half my adult life was spent in a place where you couldn't. It also presupposes that you would be willing and able to carry a firearm on a regular basis, which is not an option for most people. It also assumes that firearms are appropriate for all situations, which they are not. For similar reasons, empty hand arts survived in Japan for hundreds of years even though almost all battlefield combat was performed with weapons. And there were plenty of challenges.
Best,
Chris