Ha, I think our reply crossed; my further reflection came to the same conclusion as your analysis
WRT to the following remark: I have actually done this test “in real life” … I’m not a belligerent guy but I’ve been subject to two knife attacks in my longish life; one was a drunk, too drunk to run and I wasn’t, the other was a jealous guy. The latter was unskilled, attacking like the guy in Psycho, and I was able to block it but as you say, got a cut on my sternum from the first blow.
Aside: you can test this easily with a friend: one of you puts on a tight white t-shirt, the other has a big permanent magic marker. The person with the marker is the attacker, and their goal is to make a mark on your t-shirt (i.e. stab you), and the other’s goal is to take the marker away without getting any marker on himself. It’s practically impossible.<<
They typically use these videos as training within their program, not so much as marketing.
Yes, they are marketers, but I don’t actually have an issue with teaching effective self defense to people. There are plenty of bogus self defense ‘teachers’ out there - the Gracies aren’t in that group.
The important thing isn’t that she used particular techniques to protect herself against the attacker, but that she acted promptly. Most people don’t have any training or experience in dealing with sudden threats or violence and freeze up. It’s not about following a particular martial art’s training so much as doing anything that will disrupt the attacker’s script and to energize you to fight back, and fight hard. Make the attacker afraid to continue trying to victimize you.
I’m over thirty years in to training, as far as cost benefit, I didn’t really enjoy a practical physical exercise before I got to karate. I don’t train to kick guns out of potential muggers hands, I do it to fight off the real killers: arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus type 2, dyslipidemia, obesity, coronary heart disease, chronic heart failure. I do plan on dying, at some point, it’s possible exercise might stave it off a few years, and it’s possible that the intervening years, I’ll have less disability if I continue regular exercise. So, for me, it’s certainly been a good cost/benefit analysis. And if I do get into a knife fight, at least I’ll leave a better looking corpse than if I’d never exercised. I agree that falling well is cool (aikido and jiu jitsu were helpful for me for that), as is judo, which I have not done. Not falling is another good skill, for which I’d recommend tai chi.
it was appropriation in real time."those guys! they are great! and they can come here for free lessons, because we are great! they can be great(er) with us!" also, the guy needs to do slightly less caffeine/cocaine/CrossFit™, and/or play his videos at 75% speed.
A garrote is still an effective weapon for wet work (or other situations where you need it to be quiet), but using a shoelace? Come on, that’s amateur hour stuff. /s
That’s totally a Chekhov’s gun. If you were in a work of fiction, the villain of the piece would meet his demise when he tried to shoot you. You nod at the precise moment at the critical angle, and his bullet would inexorably ricochet off your plate and through his heart.
Exactly. The chances are very low that I will ever directly use the Aikido techniques I have learned in a self-defense scenario. But at it’s core, Aikido training (or any other martial art) involves practicing over and over again to respond deliberately to an “attack” instead of panicking or freezing. And this is can be of real value if you find yourself in any number of emergency situations.
I’d say your chances of being able to successfully use aikido in any combat self-defense situation are pretty slim. If you don’t regularly practice with full resistance, it’s not going to work when you suddenly have full resistance from a real attacker. Maybe Tomiki aikido would be a little better since they have sparring with a bit more resistance, but it’s still nothing like you’d encounter in a typical judo, sambo, or BJJ competition.
I practiced karate most of my younger life and took Aikido for fun for a little while, it’s a great complementary martial art to increase body awareness for yourself and how your opponent’s bodies move as well. I think its doable to use Aikido in an aggressive way but as you mentioned it requires for a person to have experience with proper sparring/fighting and not the pretend fighting that is done for the martial art.
