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Old 07-19-2012, 03:08 PM   #26
James Sawers
 
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Re: No defence?

Toby:

This is a good site, full of useful info: http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/

But the question was is there an aikido defense against the attack in the proposed scenario, not is there a legally defensible attack. Personally, I would rather be around to tell my side of the story than not be. Also, a defense does not have to be lethal or even that destructive, just enough to keep you safe.

Zazen emptiness
Sitting under the moon
Mosquitoes whine in glee
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Old 07-19-2012, 05:27 PM   #27
SeiserL
 
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Re: No defence?

Quote:
Toby Kasavan wrote: View Post
*and a very interesting self defense site (not "how to" techniques is http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/
And a really good guy.
Always worth a read and a ponder.
Highly recommend.

Lynn Seiser PhD
Yondan Aikido & FMA/JKD
We do not rise to the level of our expectations, but fall to the level of our training. Train well. KWATZ!
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Old 07-19-2012, 06:16 PM   #28
Hilary
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Re: No defence?

If you have to react to this then you are done. If you are already mentally connected to uke then you can control him. Looking him in the eye is a distraction, your mind is focused on his face (the brain spends a lot of time on faces, they are great distracters). You should be controlling him by slight moments and leading him to inconvenient postures before the attack. I assume the knife was not in the attacker's hand (if it was, why would anyone let him get that close) so he had to reach for it. That requires uke to move and that is when you enter or exit, and no, it is not easy or a sure thing. Obviously the kid was not trained and even if, not likely to have the presence of mind to not look at the face, keep hands in front , pick up on subtle cues of intent and lead uke through small movements etc. To defend against sudden unexpected attack requires skills at the no mind level and even then nothing is certain.
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Old 07-20-2012, 08:12 AM   #29
TokyoZeplin
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Re: Ma-ai

Quote:
Mark Harrington wrote: View Post
Philip,

I think ma-ai is the answer to an effective defense, because I think the attack had begun some time before the actual weapon was used. The attack did not begin when he slashed the victim, it began when he was talking, closing the distance, setting up his position, looking for a moment of inattention. To phrase the question, "what is the effective defense?", should allow that the defense can begin at the same time as the attack.
I completely understand what you're saying, but that's more down the line of avoiding the attack, or making sure it never gets to that (or gets to such an unfavourable situation). Of course, I could have missundestood the question, but as I read it, what I got was "once you're in that situation, is there a defence that could work effectively?" - just saying "avoid getting in the situation" isn't really answering that. Sure, it would be good to do, if you can, but not really an answer.

And that's assuming a lot of things about the attacker. From the description, it sounds to me like it was a person he knew, and someone that he had no clue would do such a thing. Everything that people so far has posted, is under the assumption that you can feel a bad vibe going, that can "see the attack coming", so to speak. While most of us are lucky enough not to know people crazy enough to do this, there are psychopaths insane enough to set up a kill on someone they closely know, and do so in a calm non-threatening manner.
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Old 07-20-2012, 08:51 AM   #30
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Re: No defence?

A big part of the problem for me is "when you gain or begin to percieve knowledge about what is happening". That is the crux of the whole issue or at least a large part of it that dictates success.

We all like to think that we have time to deal with it the fact of the mater is we may or may not....most likely if we are in a H2H situation, then we are already at a huge disadvantage...assuming we are in a defensive situation.

I read through the no nonsense website a little.

I have a small issue with the psychology that attempts to mitigate or reason with violence. That is...going through the stages to of violence. In theory I agree...but IMO if we are in a violent encounter..the irony is we did not recognize the first three stages.

The caution I have is developing the mindset that we can reason with things or prevent it. It is fine, however, IMO attacks come when we don't expect them, we are surprised by them, and we are usually on the losing end of things and that is when martial skill and the ability to mitgate or recover from it physically matters.

So, from my simple perspective...you are either winning or losing...it is that simple. If you are winning it means you did something to gain dominance on your opponent...if you are not...then you are losing and need to do something to regain.

So, that means from the start of the fight you either pre-empt....or you are allowing your opponent to pre-empt (or start)...if he starts...then he dictates terms and you are responding...which means you are losing..even if for seconds until you gain control.

Ironically, we study this very relationship in Aikido. However, I think it gets lost in translation through romantic notions that say we can reason with our opponent and buy time and try to resolve things peacefully, while allowing the opponent to dictate the terms of the relationship.

For me, if I am concerned with someone physically attacking me, then I am going to dictate the terms of the realtionship. I am sure if I read through the website more I'd see that he is advocating that...I hope.

Positioning is a big part of it, IMO...not giving your opponent an opening.

That said....I'd hesitate to get too far along trying to reason with someone while they were trying to "interview" me. Not saying that the website is advocating it...just that I think some might take this perspective.

Again, my position is, that in reality, I don't think you have much knowledge that this interview is happening prior to an attack...or you failed to recognize it. Yeah...maybe learning to recognize the signs and mitigate this "interviews" is important skills to have. Absolutely. Being in the nature of work that I am in...I can say that I am pretty good at this process and feel I have avoided much by percieving risk, identifying risk, and mitigating them through positioning.

However, martially...I think in our training we spend way too much time on parity or practicing from the standpoint that puts us in a position that says "yeah, I recognize what is happening and dealing with it".

I think we martially we need to either practice krav maga style that says violence of action rules and I am going to physically pre-empt...which can be a dangerous proposition asa far as self defense.

Or, we recognize that we are most likely in a situation of failure martially and practice things that allow us to recover and gain control.

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Old 07-20-2012, 09:52 AM   #31
Garth
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Re: No defence?

Quote:
Or, we recognize that we are most likely in a situation of failure martially and practice things that allow us to recover and gain control.
Agree as in try to regain or get ahead of the "OODA' loop again, ( I think) as Kevin has explained before.

Quick related matter as it happened to me yesterday.
I was driving my son to practice yesterday in a residential suburb yesterday, (Staten Island which is not exactly NYC if you dont know, totally opposite) and noticed what appeared to be a "homeless" type person standing on the corner of busy thorofare/intersection. Certainly by manner of dress(shabby/dirty ) and actions(rocking back and forth on his heels) , he looked out of place.
+1 for me because I noticed. Defcon 1 or yellow alert.
5 to 10 minutes later I am returning along the same thorofare and low behold he is still there (buses run like every 5 minutes here) , BUT now I am stopped right there at a red light. AKA sitting duck.
Window is down , person in question steps off curb and looks to be crossing street .( also hood is up on a hot summer day and he is looking at the floor) . As he crosses in front of my car( 2nd lane from him) he makes a bee line for my window. Oh forgot to mention Defcon 4 here as thoughts of what I should do are now pulsing thru my head at his first step towards me and boring holes thru him with laser stare. Cant blow the red light,cant run the guy down, I am not armed and am sitting in a car behind the wheel. ( I understand as the enviroment changes so should I here)
The only thing I could do is roll up the window and lock the doors, without looking like a total maniac.
4-5 feet from window he looks up and sees I am not "happy" stops and with a slightly off kilter voice asks for money without taking another step. Once I see his eyes and hear his voice, I can tell he is "off" a couple of cards.
Now, a couple of things. Street begging although rarer now since Mayor Giuliani cleaned up the place in the 90s can be very sucessful in New York especially by non native NYers who still believe in the goodness of people (IE recent transplants to NY have softer hearts and readily give)( an over generaliztion but witnessed non the less). Also, I realized immediately after my encounter that I could have just rolled the window up no matter how inhuman or unmanly that is deemed to be), but also realized that at the time I had locked my self into a confrontation or relationship with this person by sitting there with the window open. Had he had ill intentions, I would have been forced to deal with it from a seated position of a car in gear. Other options? not many unless you practice this sought of thing at least in your head. Throw the car in park quickly, maybe? Watch the light to change to green while I delayed him with BS and speed off?(some suburban traffic lights are notoriously long). Mace??
I am thankful for the awareness, but as we can see here and in Colorado last night, there are certain situations that lend itself to putting you behind the loop .. very fast.
Besides most people in aikido it seems to me, dont seem like confrontation initiators, so what to do?

Last edited by akiy : 07-20-2012 at 10:14 AM. Reason: Fixed quote tag

A day will dawn when you will yourself laugh at your effort. That which is on the day of laughter is also now.
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Old 07-20-2012, 12:05 PM   #32
Basia Halliop
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Re: No defence?

"Everything that people so far has posted, is under the assumption that you can feel a bad vibe going, that can "see the attack coming", so to speak."

Maybe it's just the words that were chosen in the original description -- describing the group as a 'gang' and talking about how one ordered the others around and they obeyed unquestioningly.

To me, those DID seem like massive warning signs in this particular case that even if the victim might not have expected the guy to do anything quite that bad, or may not have thought he himself would be a victim, that it was at very least clearly not a healthy situation or 'friendship' to be in.

Of course it's hard to write something like that in an unbiased way once you've seen how it ended, so maybe it wouldn't have seemed so creepy in real life.

But to me the description sounded creepy long long before he got to the stabbing part.

Of course it's theoretically possible to literally be a victim 'out of the blue' but it's about a million times more likely to happen to you if you go hanging around in stupid situations.
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Old 07-21-2012, 12:33 AM   #33
SteliosPapadakis
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Re: No defence?

Quote:
Basia Halliop wrote: View Post
But to me the description sounded creepy long long before he got to the stabbing part.
And it was, believe me on that.
I am an ex marine, have seen a couple of things in my life and been in another couple of constipated situations myself. But this was out of every description (or maybe i am getting old or more cautious since i fathered children) i have encountered so far. Children, bright daylight, very crowded open public place, absence of shouting or gesturing, blind obedience... Creepy indeed! I have been scared once or twice in my life but right there i was gasping for guts! So intense it was that i assumed camae (although i was more that 10-15 metres away from the stabbing) and soon as the son's lesson in the water ended i rushed, covered him in the huge towel and rushed for the car without any delay.
Indeed, proper maae would (might, could) have been the only solution so as to avoid the attack but once it commenced i see no way out of it...
Thank you all for your posts, great inspiration and food for thought.
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Old 07-23-2012, 01:30 PM   #34
Sasha Mrkailo
Dojo: Aikido Sombor
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Re: No defence?

For what its worth, I had a situation a couple of nights ago. A drunk person was kind of intimidating toward my group of friends. When I asked him to move away he did so, but some buddy of this guy was acting as his backup muscle and closed up to my face. I felt a wave of aggression coming from him, not from his words of or anything, yet his approach instantly fired a red alarm in my head. No way I could know if he had weapons or was preparing a sneak attack. Without any conscious thought about it I pushed him instantly away from me, at full power. He was a strong guy and didn't fall down, but he was pushed for a couple of meters away from me. He reconsidered his approach, and withdraw immediately.

The point of this story? If there is aggression in the air, and he is in your space he is already attacking you. It's a dangerous place to be in.

Honestly, I am glad I didn't hurt him. Yet I think, in retrospection, I've could managed to completely avoid this confrontation. I guess this would be the real aikido.

Aikido as a martial art did not fail me. In mu view, aikido is a martial art in the first place, and this is how I approach my training. Yes, it strives to transcend violence, but it's hard, if not impossible to learn inner meaning of aikido if the martial element of it is not understood or if it cant be applied in thorny situations. If it is just about mumbo jumbo, peace harmonizing bunnies, you loose both the martial element and the deeper meaning of aikido.

Chop wood, carry water before enlightenment. Chop wood carry water after the enlightenment.
Practice martial art before enlightenment, practice martial art after the enlightenment.
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