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Old 01-29-2012, 11:44 AM   #295
Marc Abrams
Dojo: Aikido Arts of Shin Budo Kai/ Bedford Hills, New York
Location: New York
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 1,302
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Re: "The goal is not to throw"

Quote:
Ron Ragusa wrote: View Post
No offence Marc, but with regard to Mary's ability to defend herself, you are totally clueless. She researched, studied and taught self defense, apart from her Aikido training, for 15 years. I would not like to be on the opposite side of her in a confrontation.

You, and others, continually equate cooperative practice with weakness. This is incorrect. You, and others, equate cooperative practice with the absence of resistance.This is incorrect. The fact is that by continuing to assert these beliefs you, and others, punctuate your misunderstanding of the nature of cooperative practice.

As incorrect as I think your views are of what cooperative practice entails, I welcome your posts here on AikiWeb. Reading and studying the views of people with whom I disagree allows me to reassess my own ideas and training methods on a continual basis. This can, in the long run (though at 64, perhaps long sprint might be more appropriate ), only be of benefit to me.

Keep training and enjoy,

Ron
Ron:

Thank for letting me know I am totally clueless Wow, 15 years....... Those credentials certainly guarantee success..... I have seen enough people who fit that bill simply fall apart when reality strikes in very ugly ways. I recognize that a lot more is necessary in order to best insure that a person remains safe. Unless that training encompasses real attack scenarios to cause the conditions that result in adrenalin dumps, then all of cooperative training, research and teaching in the world will not help the person when their bodies begin to shut down from that dump. Even then, until you are really in a situation, you will not know how you will react. Most encounters that I have witnessed between martial artists and street fighter had the street fighters coming out ahead. Most street fighters and even predators have been in situations when they had to continue the assault/attack after having been struck and hurt. That is not the typical situation with martial artists. One of the great benefits of my many years of wrestling was having to persevere under the worst of circumstances (winning or losing was totally immaterial). The ability to not have your body shut down by adrenalin; the ability to keep on attacking when you are seriously hurt and/or are bleeding; the mental toughness to never, ever give up until they are pulling the person off of you (because you have lost) or you are being pulled off that person (because you have won). These are just some of the larger things that are necessary to survive violent encounters that you have not been able to preempt, or end immediately. My experiences, along with the experiences of a friend of mine (federal victims crime specialist) amount to over 60 years of experience. One of the major things we get across right at the beginning of our women's safety workshops is my saying "if you have to defend yourself, it is probably too late."

Please point out to me where I equated cooperative practice with weakness or lack of resistance. In absence of being able to do so, then you will have to get in line behind Mary to put forth an apology for intentionally or unintentionally distorting what I really said. If you re-read what I said, you will notice that I did say that cooperative practice is an important component in the overall training process. I even have blogs that talk about that quite extensively. I think that you would be in agreement with my blogs about the nature of training and the necessity of cooperative practice with our overall training paradigms.

I think that where you and I may disagree is in my belief that if you are only training in a cooperative paradigm, then you will only remain functionally effective within that paradigm. I have witnessed and have been in the middle of enough real-life, violent encounters to last more than my life time. I consider myself very fortunate to still be in one piece today. Those experiences have also pointed to the greater realization that unless you can employ your skills in the worst case scenarios (that includes some trainings where you are put to the test), then you can only guess and hope what you believe an outcome will be. That nature of training has allowed me to use my Aikido training in several violent and almost violent encounters with success. I have yet to see or experience that your paradigm of only cooperative training leads to a greater propensity of success in real-life violent encounters, than the one I endorse. Then again, it is mostly immaterial considering the odd of most of us being caught up in a real-life, violent encounter. I am very clear with my students about talking about how Aikido training is a bad choice for learning to defend yourself in a short period of time. It can be very valuable in conjunction with a number of other training components. Mixed in with good luck (which is almost always necessary in violent encounters), those training experiences help to place the odds more on you than on the attacker. Even then, feces happens.

Regards,

Marc Abrams
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