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01-05-2007, 03:40 PM
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#51
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Location: North Carolina
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 2
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Re: "Cheating" to survive a real fight
for ne1 whos afraid to get hit in a fight i suggest starting ju-jitsu and some nice sparring will take care of that
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01-05-2007, 04:24 PM
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#52
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Dojo: Team Combat USA
Location: Olympia, Washington
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 4,376
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Re: "Cheating" to survive a real fight
Why? I study ju-jitsu and I am afraid of getting hit. It sucks.
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01-05-2007, 06:20 PM
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#53
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Dojo: Northampton Ki Aikido Club
Location: Northampton
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 134
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Re: "Cheating" to survive a real fight
Quote:
Kevin Leavitt wrote:
Why? I study ju-jitsu and I am afraid of getting hit. It sucks.
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Couldn't agree more. I read a previous comment saying that Aikidoka don't fear getting hit, and all I thought was, "maybe they've never been hit then?'
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01-05-2007, 06:55 PM
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#54
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Dojo: Zanshin Kai
Location: Birmingham
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 865
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Re: "Cheating" to survive a real fight
I've been hit a lot and not in a nice dojo with gloves and protective gear (although I've been hit a lot in sparring too) either , that's why I don't like being hit.
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01-05-2007, 07:51 PM
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#55
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Dojo: Aunkai, Tokyo
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 319
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Re: "Cheating" to survive a real fight
I don't like getting hit, not because of the pain of the hit, but because of the much greater pain when noses have to be rebroken for resetting (or the wads of paper pulled out rapidly, argggh!), teeth have to be rebuilt, and little injuries in the mouth make eating an unforgettable experience. I've found it much easier to deal with inner leg muscle tears, and various other bruises than with facial injuries. So: keep your guard up and let your body take the hits :-)
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01-07-2007, 08:01 PM
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#56
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Dojo: 合気研究会
Location: Jakarta Selatan
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 504
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Re: "Cheating" to survive a real fight
Why would I not be afraid of getting hit? Especially in the face. The real world is not a movie. Plus, medicals are quite expensive nowadays.
I like what Seiser-san wrote below:
Quote:
Lynn Seiser wrote:
IMHO, there is no "cheating" in a "real fight" because there are no real rules. If you "survived" then you did it right.
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If we go up on the ring/competition, there will always be rules. But, out there, there are "no rules" in the truest sense, therefore there is no such thing as "cheating".
I don't really see the need to be chivalrious during these moments. Kick them in the balls, hit them over the head with a bottle, use a gun, knife, or sword, it's all good.
Then again, if I am afraid of getting hit or get a few cuts, why would I be in a fight? I'd rather run away more than anything. Then again, even running away would need a good strategy, it won't be as simple as turning your back and run, I could get killed.
Quote:
Lynn Seiser wrote:
IMHO, attitude and intention means more in a "real fight" than in training.
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What Seiser-san said above, is what I also had in mind. If I take a fight in the real world in a competitive way, then I could end up lying in a pool of my own blood.
If I have a choice of not engaging in a fight, I'd rather not. But if there are only two choices left, either engage so that you would still have a chance to live or just let them kill you... well... that's not so much of a choice is there?
Then again the attitude also comes into play. Is the engagement out of fear and desperation?
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01-08-2007, 09:06 AM
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#57
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Location: Winchester
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,211
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Re: "Cheating" to survive a real fight
Quote:
George S. Ledyard wrote:
Where in anything the Founder wrote about Aikido does it say that you are discarding moral principles if you survive a an attack in a deadly force situation?
This is a very simplistic sense of what Aikido morality is about. O-sensei said that we should act from a spirit of loving protection for all things. That means that we are expected to act as "care takers" so to speak. Well, that care taking extends to ourselves and all those around us. It means that we must strive for the greatest good, not some rigid and unrealistic sense of what is moral.
If I die in an attack because I failed to protect myself adequately, what was protected? Did I protect the life of the attacker over my own? Where is the larger benefit in that? The person who was willing to kill you is still alive, quite capable of killing another innocent person, and you are dead, quite incapable of protecting anyone. I don't believe that O-Sensei would have viewed this as anything but a failure of your training. You have a duty to use your training to protect society and you have failed if you die.
I run into this all the time when I do women's self defense training. We talk about jamming ones fingers in to the attacker's eyes and some woman will say, "Oh, I couldn't do that." I point out that this person is going to rape her and possibly kill her.. but no, she still can't see herself doing that. So I ask her to visualize an attacker that is going after one of her children and wham! you've got a tigress ready to do what it takes. How did her upbringing so pervert her sense of self worth that she wouldn't do for herself what she would do for another?
Aikido is all about the nature of the universe and natural energy. Well, nature isn't the benign force that a lot of well meaning but naive people make it out to be. In each instant the universe is a process of creation and destruction. Things are coming into being and they are passing out of existence (at least in the form in which they previously existed). O-Sensei's genius was to bring balance to Budo. No longer was Budo focused on the destruction of others but rather on bringing oneself into accord with the will of the Kami. But if you read what O-sensei says about the violent person who is not in sync with the will of the Kami, he doesn't say that that person walks away just fine because we were able to use techniques to restrain him. He pretty clearly states that to be out of sync with the natural harmony of the universe leads to destruction.
In Aikido there is a natural "conservation of the quality of energy". Whatever the intent of the attacker, that tends to be what he gets back. This is why O-Sensei said that there should be no more challenge matches. It wasn't possible to do them without serious injury because the aggressor got back the kind of energy he put in. O-Sensei seriously injured a number of people in these matches... that's why he stopped.
In Aikido we find a certain type of person who thinks that conflict resolution is this nice Terry Dobson-like story in which if people were just nice to each other things would be great. People completely misunderstand why that subway story was so impressive. It's not because the old man was loving to the drunk and therefore the drunk responded by dropping his violent demeanor. It's because there was absolutely no guarantee that he would have done so that the old man's behavior was so amazing. He placed himself at risk. That drunk could just as easily punched him out. That was very brave. But it was a response that fit the situation.
There are predatory psychopathic people out there who are completely unaffected by that type of benevolence. If one of those people came after you, conflict resolution would be killing him. Messing about thinking that there was some "moralistic" low level force technique like nikkyo which would allow you to restrain this would be murderer is simply stupid and would only get you killed.
What about your wife, kids, family and friends? What about all the good you could have done in your life had you lived? How did this misguided understanding of the Spirit of Loving Protection protect anyone but the one person least deserving of that protection, the would be murderer? As the one with training (less than 1% of the population has studied any martial arts) you owe it to society to prevail over this threat to the general welfare. As far as I am concerned failure to do so would be immoral not removing him as a threat to the innocent folks around me.
One of my friends and a former student is a cop. He was presented with a man armed with a knife who was coming towards him. He acted according to the guidelines of his profession, stayed completely cool but was forced to draw the line on the floor at which he was going to shoot this guy if he didn't drop the knife and submit. Just as he shifted his "intention" and was getting ready to shoot, the subject sensed this shift and stopped, dropped the knife, and submitted. Happy ending right? My friend acted impeccably. The poor mentally ill guy lived and was placed in the mental health system where he received the help he needed to become a productive member of society, right? Well. no. As it turned out a number of months later, this fellow was the neo-nazi who went into the Jewish community center in LA and shot those children. I hope you can see how complicated these moral issues get. It's not this sweetness and light BS that so many folks put out.
As my teacher Saotome Sensei has pointed out, "Sometimes conflict resolution means that attacker is dead. Then there's no conflict." Does that mean that it isn't great that Aikido has all sorts of techniques which can allow you to use appropriate force when dealing with violent situations? No. There are all sorts of times when that type of response is wonderful. Not all violence is clear in its intent or is very threatening due to the complete lack of ability on the part of the aggressor. But as Funaksohi said, "If it's not important enough for one or the other of you to die for, you shouldn't be fighting." Aikido folks like to think that they can fight because they have these cool techniques which aren't going to seriously harm an attacker. If the low level force control techniques that we use to practice, work for you in a violent situation, that's great but I would say that you weren't in a REAL fight where the intention was to kill you and the attacker knew something about what he was doing.
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Thank you Mr Ledyard!
In other words you do what you have to do! Just do it with all that your worth and no less or die in the attempt!
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01-09-2007, 02:19 PM
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#58
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Dojo: MMA Academy,VT and Budokai M.A, MASS
Location: Vermont
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 50
Offline
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Re: "Cheating" to survive a real fight
Quote:
Bronson Diffin wrote:
Next you'll be telling everyone it's ok to wash their obi...sheesh, where will this heresy end
Bronson
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He already did and made a big deal about it to
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