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Old 07-18-2014, 02:06 PM   #51
Demetrio Cereijo
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Re: A question of style

Quote:
Katherine Derbyshire wrote: View Post
Olympic-level athletes in any sport train 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. That might be comparable to what O Sensei's uchi deshi did, but very very few modern aikidoka are training like that. It's really not reasonable to compare an Olympic-class judoka to a 3-hour/week recreational aikidoka.
Let's compare recreational judoka/bjj'er/boxer who trains 3h-week (there are thousands of them) with recreational aikidoka then.

And now you mention O Sensei's uchideshi.... does the name Yukawa Tsutomu sounds familiar to you?

Why aikido was dropped from Nakano school curriculum when they had to start to train operatives for real?

What about Mochizuki Minoru, who after touring France in the early 50's told O Sensei aikido didn't work as intended so he had to fall back into his judo and a bit of karate background to deal with french savateurs and wrestlers.

Why Shioda recruited mostly sumo wrestlers and judoka for pinko-commie beatings instead of aikidoka?

Have you seen the awesome display of skill of Tohei dealing with the fat untrained reporter?

Aikido, from a self defense - fighting perspectve, was born with serious flaws in strategy, tactics, doctirne, technique and training methodology. One can put some patches here and there, but it can never became a fully functional self defense - fighting system without changing so many things that would cease to be aikido anymore.
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Old 07-18-2014, 02:33 PM   #52
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Re: A question of style

Quote:
Demetrio Cereijo wrote: View Post
Aikido, from a self defense - fighting perspectve, was born with serious flaws in strategy, tactics, doctirne, technique and training methodology. One can put some patches here and there, but it can never became a fully functional self defense - fighting system without changing so many things that would cease to be aikido anymore.
Because O sensei intended aikido to be a tool for spiritual development, not self-defense system.

Nagababa

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Old 07-18-2014, 04:17 PM   #53
kewms
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Re: A question of style

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Demetrio Cereijo wrote: View Post
Let's compare recreational judoka/bjj'er/boxer who trains 3h-week (there are thousands of them) with recreational aikidoka then.
Ok, let's.

First, what situation do you have in mind?

Look. O Sensei was not primarily interested in self defense. I don't think there's any serious dispute over that.

But "not designed for self defense" is not the same as "not useful for self defense." After all, some pretty serious martial artists passed through in the old days. If O Sensei had not been extremely capable, no one would have cared what he had to say and history would remember him as just another crazy Japanese mystic.

You can decide whether aikido is "designed" for self defense by appealing to history, but to decide whether it's useful for self defense you really need to explain what kind of situation you have in mind.

Which no one, so far, has yet done.

Again, combat sports are not self defense. Strike-breaking is not self defense. Self defense has some overlap with fighting, but self defense and fighting are not the same thing.

Katherine
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Old 07-18-2014, 07:19 PM   #54
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Re: A question of style

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Szczepan Janczuk wrote: View Post
Because O sensei intended aikido to be a tool for spiritual development, not self-defense system.
Almost correct, a tool to develop aiki would be more accurate.
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Old 07-19-2014, 09:59 AM   #55
Demetrio Cereijo
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Re: A question of style

Quote:
Katherine Derbyshire wrote: View Post
Ok, let's.

First, what situation do you have in mind?
Every one you can imagine. A person used to deal with uncooperative resisting opponents trying to defeat him is better prepared to face uncooperative resisting attackers trying to do the same, especially compared with someone whose training partners are cooperative non resisting opponents trained to be defeated doesn't matter what tori does to them.

Quote:
Look. O Sensei was not primarily interested in self defense. I don't think there's any serious dispute over that.
Agree.

Quote:
But "not designed for self defense" is not the same as "not useful for self defense."
Sure, as a chair is not designed as a weapon but can be used as one. Tell the army to get rid of rifles and give chairs to the grunts.

Quote:
After all, some pretty serious martial artists passed through in the old days. If O Sensei had not been extremely capable, no one would have cared what he had to say and history would remember him as just another crazy Japanese mystic.
There are much marketing oriented narratives about how capable O Sensei really was.

Quote:
You can decide whether aikido is "designed" for self defense by appealing to history,
Appealing to history is appealing to data. Of course, if you feel data contradicts your hypothesis you can discard the data instead of the hypothesis. You are not going to be the first in doing that.

Quote:
but to decide whether it's useful for self defense you really need to explain what kind of situation you have in mind.
Which no one, so far, has yet done.
Well, I say aikido it is not useful for self defense so, what do you want? Possible scenarios where aikido fails?

Quote:
Again, combat sports are not self defense. Strike-breaking is not self defense. Self defense has some overlap with fighting, but self defense and fighting are not the same thing.
At least there is some overlap between fighting and self defense. Aikido has no overlap at all with fighting nor with self defense, even if there are some aikido practising individuals, who cause of luck, natural preservation instincts, attacker incompetence et al. had managed to defend themselves.
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Old 07-19-2014, 06:00 PM   #56
lars beyer
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Re: A question of style

Hi Demitrio

I´ll start by apologising for the thread drift.
You said this:

"Appealing to history is appealing to data. Of course, if you feel data contradicts your hypothesis you can discard the data instead of the hypothesis. You are not going to be the first in doing that."

I find the discussion interresting, including your funny and striking observations, but in my view your statement above evades the subject since historical data is useless without a hypothesis and vice versa. Historians repeatedly collect data and it´s in the consistency of their discoveries within the collected data and the analysis of those discoveries that the hypothesis can emerge, in this respect there is no such thing as historical proof. History is flawed by inconsistencies in data collection and data interpretation as well as data representation.
History also inherently excludes wast amounts of data, that is data that is forbidden, abandoned, forgotten, unobserved, excluded, misinterpreted, rediscovered/reinvented in a new form and meaning or othervise lost in eternity.
I don´t think historians are generally concerned with absolute, specific proof of concept throughout their daily research even I might be wrong.
I think historians are or at least should, to some extent, be concerned with the general history of the human being and human behaviour.
So to sum up, in my view, history doesn´t prove anything apart from the obvious.

Regards
Lars

Last edited by lars beyer : 07-19-2014 at 06:06 PM. Reason: none
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Old 07-20-2014, 12:08 AM   #57
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Re: A question of style

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Demetrio Cereijo wrote: View Post
Every one you can imagine. A person used to deal with uncooperative resisting opponents trying to defeat him is better prepared to face uncooperative resisting attackers trying to do the same, especially compared with someone whose training partners are cooperative non resisting opponents trained to be defeated doesn't matter what tori does to them.
Sure. But there are many aikido dojos that recognize the issue and actively seek to address it. There are many aikido dojos which welcome students with experience in other arts. There are many aikido instructors with experience in other arts.

Quote:
Well, I say aikido it is not useful for self defense so, what do you want? Possible scenarios where aikido fails?
*Of course* there are scenarios where aikido fails. Just as there are scenarios where BJJ, judo, kali, krav maga, pepper spray, and firearms will fail. But there are also scenarios where all of those arts, including aikido, have succeeded.

Katherine
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Old 07-20-2014, 02:44 AM   #58
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Re: A question of style

I think we are all dancing on the head of a pin here.
Aikido (in whatever form) clearly works for some and not others and is a self-defence based system; no matter what twist and turns it has taken since.
Everyone's experience differs - lets just leave it at that.
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Old 07-20-2014, 04:47 AM   #59
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Re: A question of style

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Philip Smith wrote: View Post
I think we are all dancing on the head of a pin here.
Aikido (in whatever form) clearly works for some and not others and is a self-defence based system; no matter what twist and turns it has taken since.
Everyone's experience differs - lets just leave it at that.
Dear Phil,
Well said here. How are you /Mrs Smith keeping? Cheers, Joe.
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Old 07-20-2014, 02:28 PM   #60
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Re: A question of style

All good thanks
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Old 07-20-2014, 05:01 PM   #61
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Re: A question of style

Quote:
Philip Smith wrote: View Post
I think we are all dancing on the head of a pin here.
Aikido (in whatever form) clearly works for some and not others and is a self-defence based system; no matter what twist and turns it has taken since.
Everyone's experience differs - lets just leave it at that.
I'd very interested to see your experience aikido as a self defence - any video to back up your words?

Nagababa

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Old 07-20-2014, 09:41 PM   #62
ken king
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Re: A question of style

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Szczepan Janczuk wrote: View Post
I'd very interested to see your experience aikido as a self defence - any video to back up your words?
Why waste his time when you've already made up your mind on the matter?

There also seems to be some woefully uninformed opinions of o sensei in this thread, the ignorance is astounding.
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Old 07-20-2014, 11:08 PM   #63
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Re: A question of style

I'm a police officer, I've used my aikido training in a serious self defense situation and it worked for me. I don't have video as "proof" so you can take my word or not Nagababa, but I know it works, and I know it can work. Can it fail, absolutely, but no system is infallible.
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Old 07-21-2014, 01:25 AM   #64
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Re: A question of style

Let's not be hypocritical. A child can tell you what we do in a dojo. Regardless of the style - we practice self-defense in pairs. One person attacks and the other defends himself. Nothing else. No other physical activity shows self-defence better. Just like in a fairy tale by H.Ch. Andersen - 'The Emperor is naked'.

Our endless debates about the lack of effectiveness of aikido in self-defense have a simple explanation. No one so far, except Morihei Ueshiba, accomplished the first of the conditions of existence of his art - becoming untouchable.

Looking back in history, in 1919, two people met by chance. One of them was Morihei Ueshiba, a dreamer without work, with a family to support and facing the loss of his dying father, the provider in the family. The other person was Onisaburo Deguchi, son in law of the founder of a religious sect Omoto-kyo, whose life was influenced by an accident in which he was beaten by thugs and left to fend for himself in the field.

Their encounter resulted in Ueshiba being hired by the sect for a specific reason. The purpose of this was to realize his own idea to bring ​​pacifism to the level of an individual. This sounded particularly interesting to Onisaburo Deguchi. Here is why.

This young Omoto religion stood out and quickly found supporters because it offered followers a happy life now, not after death. Therefore through certain transformations, people would live without fear, in a spiritual world and in harmony with nature, where violence would be eliminated completely.

Omoto identified three sources of violence and recommended appropriate solutions. The first source is the multiplicity of religions and the wars caused by it. This can be avoided by treating all religions equally, where "many gods may exist but all are essentially the same and come from one source; therefore it doesn't matter under which name or ritual God is worshipped. All gods, religions, prophets and messengers throughout time came from the same source -- the Supreme God of the Universe". The second source of violence is the lack of mutual understanding, mainly through a multitude of languages​​. The solution is to communicate in only one language. The choice fell on Esperanto, modern, culturally neutral language, created by Dr. L.L.Zamenhof. Finally, the third source of violence exists in ourselves, allowing us to use violence in certain situations. In accordance with the idea of ​​pacifism, it is necessary to eliminate such thoughts and become guardians of peace in our own environment.

It is important to understand that the idea of ​​pacifism is a rather general message and skips an important personal aspect. However, a person can not be considered a pacifist, if they are not able to make a choice between using violence or not. If possible, a pacifist always chooses a peaceful solution to a conflict and despite his ability to completely destroy the opponent he makes a choice not to do it. Morihei Ueshiba had an idea how to implement it as an Omoto religion requirement which was the main purpose of his employment in the sect. It turned out to be a blessing in this difficult period of his life.

This job lasted six years and culminated with an event in 1925, and was recorded in history as an 'enlightment', or the birth of Aikido. This annoucement was made almost immediately after an unusual confrontation in the Ueshiba's dojo. That day he was visited by an anonymous naval officer, a recognized master of kendo. We can asume that there was a difference of opinions in terms of their skills. After being challenged, Ueshiba faced an oponnent carring a wooden sword, with his bare hands.

At the express request of Ueshiba the duel began, however not once was he touched by a wooden sword. The enemy, discouraged by his ineffective attacks, finally surrendered. As a result Ueshiba became convinced that remaining untouchable is possible, and fully justified the existance of the new martial art.

This historical reference explains my argument why aikido today is inefective in self-defense. Aikido, without mastering skills to become untouchable, loses its meaning as a martial art.

Aikido techniques however, are a completely different issue. Today their executions do not guarantee total destruction of the attacker.
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Old 07-21-2014, 01:58 AM   #65
Demetrio Cereijo
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Re: A question of style

Quote:
Katherine Derbyshire wrote: View Post
Sure. But there are many aikido dojos that recognize the issue and actively seek to address it. There are many aikido dojos which welcome students with experience in other arts. There are many aikido instructors with experience in other arts.
The patching I mentioned before.

Quote:
*Of course* there are scenarios where aikido fails. Just as there are scenarios where BJJ, judo, kali, krav maga, pepper spray, and firearms will fail.
Well, none of them are self defense methods. BJJ is a sport, judo is physical and moral education, kali is a warrior art, Krav is military combatives, OC and firearms are tools which require self defense training to be used properly in self defense situations.

Quote:
But there are also scenarios where all of those arts, including aikido, have succeeded.
People have succeeded, not the arts, and be sure you are not falling in a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

So please do tell me, where in the aikido curriculum are verbal deescalation, body language recognition, awareness of environment, self defense law, weapons (both use and defense against) even improvised ones, scenario training, evasion and running, first aid, etc, etc, etc? You know, the things that make self defense systems different from sports like MMA or technologies of the self like Aikido.
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Old 07-21-2014, 02:02 AM   #66
Demetrio Cereijo
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Re: A question of style

Quote:
Lars Beyer wrote: View Post
Hi Demitrio

I´ll start by apologising for the thread drift.
You said this:

"Appealing to history is appealing to data. Of course, if you feel data contradicts your hypothesis you can discard the data instead of the hypothesis. You are not going to be the first in doing that."

I find the discussion interresting, including your funny and striking observations, but in my view your statement above evades the subject since historical data is useless without a hypothesis and vice versa.
...
Hi Lars

Of course you are mostly correct an I would totally agree with you if this were an academical debate. But this is a different environment so different rules apply.
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Old 07-21-2014, 02:06 AM   #67
Demetrio Cereijo
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Re: A question of style

Quote:
Brandon Needham wrote: View Post
I'm a police officer, I've used my aikido training in a serious self defense situation and it worked for me.
Glad to hear that but that doesn't make aikido a self defense sysem itself.

Last edited by Demetrio Cereijo : 07-21-2014 at 02:09 AM.
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Old 07-21-2014, 02:09 AM   #68
Demetrio Cereijo
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Re: A question of style

Quote:
Maciej Jesmanowicz wrote: View Post
Let's not be hypocritical. A child can tell you what we do in a dojo. Regardless of the style - we practice self-defense in pairs. One person attacks and the other defends himself. Nothing else. No other physical activity shows self-defence better. Just like in a fairy tale by H.Ch. Andersen - 'The Emperor is naked'.
You serious?

Quote:
Our endless debates about the lack of effectiveness of aikido in self-defense have a simple explanation. No one so far, except Morihei Ueshiba, accomplished the first of the conditions of existence of his art - becoming untouchable.

Looking back in history, in 1919, two people met by chance. One of them was Morihei Ueshiba, a dreamer without work, with a family to support and facing the loss of his dying father, the provider in the family. The other person was Onisaburo Deguchi, son in law of the founder of a religious sect Omoto-kyo, whose life was influenced by an accident in which he was beaten by thugs and left to fend for himself in the field.

Their encounter resulted in Ueshiba being hired by the sect for a specific reason. The purpose of this was to realize his own idea to bring ​​pacifism to the level of an individual. This sounded particularly interesting to Onisaburo Deguchi. Here is why.

This young Omoto religion stood out and quickly found supporters because it offered followers a happy life now, not after death. Therefore through certain transformations, people would live without fear, in a spiritual world and in harmony with nature, where violence would be eliminated completely.

Omoto identified three sources of violence and recommended appropriate solutions. The first source is the multiplicity of religions and the wars caused by it. This can be avoided by treating all religions equally, where "many gods may exist but all are essentially the same and come from one source; therefore it doesn't matter under which name or ritual God is worshipped. All gods, religions, prophets and messengers throughout time came from the same source -- the Supreme God of the Universe". The second source of violence is the lack of mutual understanding, mainly through a multitude of languages​​. The solution is to communicate in only one language. The choice fell on Esperanto, modern, culturally neutral language, created by Dr. L.L.Zamenhof. Finally, the third source of violence exists in ourselves, allowing us to use violence in certain situations. In accordance with the idea of ​​pacifism, it is necessary to eliminate such thoughts and become guardians of peace in our own environment.

It is important to understand that the idea of ​​pacifism is a rather general message and skips an important personal aspect. However, a person can not be considered a pacifist, if they are not able to make a choice between using violence or not. If possible, a pacifist always chooses a peaceful solution to a conflict and despite his ability to completely destroy the opponent he makes a choice not to do it. Morihei Ueshiba had an idea how to implement it as an Omoto religion requirement which was the main purpose of his employment in the sect. It turned out to be a blessing in this difficult period of his life.

This job lasted six years and culminated with an event in 1925, and was recorded in history as an 'enlightment', or the birth of Aikido. This annoucement was made almost immediately after an unusual confrontation in the Ueshiba's dojo. That day he was visited by an anonymous naval officer, a recognized master of kendo. We can asume that there was a difference of opinions in terms of their skills. After being challenged, Ueshiba faced an oponnent carring a wooden sword, with his bare hands.

At the express request of Ueshiba the duel began, however not once was he touched by a wooden sword. The enemy, discouraged by his ineffective attacks, finally surrendered. As a result Ueshiba became convinced that remaining untouchable is possible, and fully justified the existance of the new martial art.

This historical reference explains my argument why aikido today is inefective in self-defense. Aikido, without mastering skills to become untouchable, loses its meaning as a martial art.

Aikido techniques however, are a completely different issue. Today their executions do not guarantee total destruction of the attacker.
Again, you serious?
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Old 07-21-2014, 02:09 AM   #69
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Re: A question of style

Quote:
Maciej Jesmanowicz wrote: View Post
This job lasted six years and culminated with an event in 1925, and was recorded in history as an 'enlightment', or the birth of Aikido. This annoucement was made almost immediately after an unusual confrontation in the Ueshiba's dojo. That day he was visited by an anonymous naval officer, a recognized master of kendo. We can asume that there was a difference of opinions in terms of their skills. After being challenged, Ueshiba faced an oponnent carring a wooden sword, with his bare hands.

At the express request of Ueshiba the duel began, however not once was he touched by a wooden sword. The enemy, discouraged by his ineffective attacks, finally surrendered. As a result Ueshiba became convinced that remaining untouchable is possible, and fully justified the existance of the new martial art.

This historical reference explains my argument why aikido today is inefective in self-defense. Aikido, without mastering skills to become untouchable, loses its meaning as a martial art.

Aikido techniques however, are a completely different issue. Today their executions do not guarantee total destruction of the attacker.
Kisshomaru actually states that the person was a "young Naval Kendo instructor", which is slightly different from a "recognized master of kendo". Also, Ueshiba was hardly untouchable when Hideo Ohba gave him a hard time fifteen years later in Manchuria (although Ueshiba appears to have come out of that one alright).

As for the new martial art in 1925, he was teaching Daito-ryu at the time and for a number of years afterwards - as late as fifteen years later Ueshiba was still handing out Daito-ryu certificates.

Best,

Chris

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Old 07-21-2014, 02:17 AM   #70
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Re: A question of style

Of course his "job" in Ayabe was to prepare Omoto-kyo believers to defend themselves against the government (army).

Peter Rehse Shodokan Aikido
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Old 07-21-2014, 02:19 AM   #71
Demetrio Cereijo
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Re: A question of style

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Peter Rehse wrote: View Post
Of course his "job" in Ayabe was to prepare Omoto-kyo believers to defend themselves against the government (army).
He did a good job
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Old 07-21-2014, 02:38 AM   #72
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Re: A question of style

Quote:
Maciej Jesmanowicz wrote: View Post
Let's not be hypocritical. A child can tell you what we do in a dojo. Regardless of the style - we practice self-defense in pairs.
Um, when a new student sows up I tell him, that we don't practice self-defense in my classes. Self-defense is clearly not what my practice, and my teaching, is about.

Last edited by Carsten Möllering : 07-21-2014 at 02:41 AM.
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Old 07-21-2014, 02:50 AM   #73
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Re: A question of style

Just a historical Question:
Quote:
Maciej Jesmanowicz wrote: View Post
Their encounter resulted in Ueshiba being hired by the sect for a specific reason. The purpose of this was to realize his own idea to bring ​​pacifism to the level of an individual.
I never thought of Ueshiba as a pacifist, at least not before WWII.
Can you give me some hints about that?
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Old 07-21-2014, 09:23 AM   #74
lars beyer
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Re: A question of style

Quote:
Demetrio Cereijo wrote: View Post
Hi Lars

Of course you are mostly correct an I would totally agree with you if this were an academical debate. But this is a different environment so different rules apply.
Yes indeed you are right, and a fluid one too, I´ll just lean back and enjoy :-)
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Old 07-21-2014, 09:55 AM   #75
kewms
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Re: A question of style

Quote:
Demetrio Cereijo wrote: View Post
Well, none of them are self defense methods. BJJ is a sport, judo is physical and moral education, kali is a warrior art, Krav is military combatives, OC and firearms are tools which require self defense training to be used properly in self defense situations.
Yet those are what people have in mind when they are looking for "better" self-defense than aikido.

Quote:
So please do tell me, where in the aikido curriculum are verbal deescalation, body language recognition, awareness of environment, self defense law, weapons (both use and defense against) even improvised ones, scenario training, evasion and running, first aid, etc, etc, etc? You know, the things that make self defense systems different from sports like MMA or technologies of the self like Aikido.
Well, I spent the entire weekend at a jo seminar, so there's that... Body language and environmental awareness are part of any martial art, and are particularly emphasized in our multi-attacker practice.

I'm not claiming that aikido is a complete self-defense system, remember? Simply that its supposed lack of usefulness is overstated, most often by proponents of arts that have glaring flaws of their own.

Katherine
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