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Old 05-09-2008, 03:38 PM   #67
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Dojo: Team Combat USA
Location: Olympia, Washington
Join Date: Jul 2002
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Re: What is "combat"?

Quote:
Bill Danosky wrote: View Post
My original thought in posting this thread was to explore how Aikido might be suited to police and military work since you have a range of hard and soft techniques to choose from.

Now I'm even more convinced after reading what Ledyard Sensei wrote. Especially given that the police are occasionally captured on video using excessive force, which might be avoided with more training in correctly discerning the threat level and responding appropriately.

And Aikido teaches lots of counters to the specific attacks Kit mentioned in the ASLET and Calibre studies that would help professionals stay in control of those level II and III situations.
I can't speak from an LEO point of view as I am not one, but from the military, I can....

I think it depends on how it is taught and approached. Certainly there are aikido instructors that have much to offer us in this area. I'd like to think that there is much room for improvement in what we are taught in the military when it applies to spectrum of force. I find much in the aikido curriculum which we could learn from as a military.

That said, again, it depends on how it is approached. There is only so much time, and you have to prioritize about what you spend your time doing. You also have culture and demographics to contend with. So, if you only have so much time, and you only have so much interest that will be invested...what do you teach? What is most important?

Our Army Combatives program contains many of the principles of aikido while not necessarily focusing on any of them.

Is there room for growth in our program? Yes. However, I think you have to reach a certain level of skill development in areas that most aikido dojos don't spend time on like BJJ dojos do spend time on.

The principles are there and are definitely there and you are never told "no you can't do that."

Labels like "aikido" and "BJJ" serve to help us frame things so we can have conversations and group a certain collection of things, but really I hate to use them as the are so limiting when you think about it.

Anyway, my thoughts on the subject.

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