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Jon Reading wrote:
How does a combat art preserve its viability without actual combat? The general observation is that without the experience of fighting, combat training becomes a contrivance of simulated scenarios. After a period of times, the art loses the meaning for the contrived scenarios and we are left with choreography.
As this observation relates to striking, I believe those arts that have contact striking will hold advantage over those arts which choose to eliminate contact striking in the realm of "viable" fighting arts.
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The only quibble is that striking arts tend to
seek strikes to the exclusion of what opportunities are presented in actual advantages. Counting coups is just as easy a trap, too. Takemusu (whether of aiki or something else) is the ideal and aiki is a good road to that state. Anticipate nothing, exploit everything...
Quote:
Jon Reading wrote:
Aikido curriculum for most does not include matched fighting, contact striking, or even opposed resistance. As such, that puts aikido at a disadvantage in fighting scenarios where the focus of the engagement is not on "do" (the pursuit of self-improvement). The argument posed by many in aikido is sacrificial to the other arts, "we do not need to be actual fighters; aikido is about self-improvement."
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Which is, I think we agree, a position of BS on stilts.
When human beings ceased to be predatory animals then self-improvement will not involve making us better at doing violence -- until then it does. A woman writing in the journal
First Things made this point about the development of young men. --
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"The desire to commit violence is not the same thing as the desire to commit evil."
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We would all be better human beings to remember both sides of her point.
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The problem is not that the boy's hand itches for a sword. The problem lies in not telling him what they are for, that they are for something—the sword and the itch alike. If I had told my aggressive little son not, "Be gentle," but, rather, "Protect your sister," I might, I think, have had the right end of the stick.
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Quote:
Jon Reading wrote:
For aikido training, the role of atemi is fundamental to controlling the human condition during engagement. We should advocate [at minimum] competency in striking in our curriculum, regardless of what rules we enact for safety.
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I make it a point when folks come into our dojo to see to it that they hit me, competently -- hard enough that I am uncomfortable -- then 1) I know they can strike honestly and correctly, and 2) they know that even the
instructor is prepared to bear getting hit -- if things work out that way. I figure if my ego is so big it iust keeps getting hit all the time -- my body will understand the need to make it much smaller...
Quote:
Jon Reading wrote:
If I punch falsely and do not modify my partner's behavior, I am not in control.
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Amen and Hallelujah.