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Old 02-07-2010, 04:54 PM   #14
lbb
Location: Massachusetts
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 3,202
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Re: Aikido in a street situation

Quote:
Ruairidh Percival wrote: View Post
i would usually try. but my opponent always gets to riled up and throws a punch. im just worried i wont be able to use aikido im only yellow belt but i got my orange belt grading in 3 months. and i want to be able to have the mind state to use it when the need arrives
A few thoughts:
  • If you're already thinking about "when" the need arrives, be assured that it will.
  • If people are routinely starting fights with you at school, that's a problem that needs to be remedied with more than aikido.
  • At your current level of training, if you were to use aikido in a fight, I'd say there's an excellent chance that the best outcome would be that you hurt your opponent, possibly seriously. Are you ready to face the consequences of that? Are you confident that you could justify your use of force -- that you could convince parents, school authorities and the police that you had had no option but to use force in the degree that you did?
In summary, my advice is to keep your aikido to yourself in all ways, except when you're on the mat. Don't talk it up with people outside the dojo -- too many non-martial artists take any mention of martial arts training as some kind of challenge or confrontational statement, and if you do get in a fight, talk about training may come back to hurt you. Just keep it among the people who will get it.
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