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Old 08-07-2000, 06:49 AM   #4
chillzATL
Location: ATL
Join Date: Jul 2000
Posts: 847
United_States
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In my opinion there is no such thing as "street realistic" randori in the dojo. In a dojo, no matter what speed you attack, you are still attacking with control. You are not trying or hoping to knock the other guy out or hurt him. You are coming in very fast and VERY hard, but you still have a mind of control that if, at the last second, you see nage isn't going to be able to handle the technique, you are going to let up a little and not knock his block off. That same level of control falls back to nage once he accepts your attack. Accepting a hard, near-street realistic attack doesn't mean you have to respond with that same level of force. That is why aikido is what it is. You use what is needed to protect yourself. IF someone on the street comes barreling at you and throws a hard round-house aiming to bust your face, and you cut the attack away and move into a shiho-nage, you don't have to rip the guys arm off when you take him down. You don't have to slam the back of the guys head into the concrete. That level of control and awareness of the situation is what seperates aikido, philisophically at least, from most other martial arts. That applies to all the techniques, even joint locks. A sankyo is going to work on the guy just as well, whether you snap the wrist or not, it hurts both ways. The situation dictates what needs to be done. If there are three or four guys coming at you on the street and you put a fast sankyo on the first guy you get. The situation may very well call for you pop his wrist and put him out of the fight. Because in a situation like that you don't want the guy to scream and you let him go, only to have him hit you from behind while you are trying to deal with his buddies. In the dojo, when your uke slaps out of that sankyo, you should know that if the situation called for it, you could have kept going with it and did real damage, regardless of the speed of his attack. But the dojo isn't the street, once uke slaps out and you toss him aside, he's going to circle back up and look for another attack. In the street, with several attackers, you can't afford to give someone a second chance at you so you have to be aware of the situation and know what is best for you given that situation.
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