Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kail" data-source="post: 690827" data-attributes="member: 8851">Practicality of Aikido, depends on what form of practical your aiming for.  Competition wise its not the best style, for defense it can be effective, wrenching joints and smacking people off the ground can be a good tactic.  In Kentucky, the majority of the state police officers go through their criminal justice education at Eastern Kentucky University.  In the courses offered there, Aikido is part of their restraining technique.  I'm not really sure how heavily modified it is, but the instructor, whom I had the chance to train with for a too short semester, was genuine in his concern for those he taught the art to.  None of the officiers coming out of those courses, even ones I knew enough to speak with later, felt as if they had been cheated in their training.  Takyris raised a good point, or turned a good phrase I plan to file away for later use in the martial arts.  The "learning curve" of Aikido, and many other traditional arts can be quite steep when refering to application in a self-defense situation.  Its all part of a discussion I've hard many times with many traditional, and several modern/eclectic martial artists.  The subtleties of traditional arts take time to understand, dedicated training and time.  These, in my belief, are failsafes ment to ensure that people of good character are not exposed to the truely dangerious abilities within an art.  Someone looking for a quick way to kick tail, or even a person of questionable character that begins to train, will either quit because it isn't working toward their goal, or expose a dangerous aspect of their personality during the long time they would have to spend training.  Its the system of secrecy that protected Asian arts from Westerners for years, and continues to in many cases, and keeps them from the hands of many who would abuse them.  Its not a perfect situation, as some people bring away enough of an art to be danagerous, despite not having had the secrets of it fully revealed.  And sometimes, when those secrets are revealed, the people who had spent those years feel cheated, and split away.  From what little I have heard, this happened somewhat with American Kempo.  Parker started revealing or revising parts of the stystem and some long timers felt cheated and split from him even before his death.  Its really an old way of implimenting the "you get out what you put in" philosophy of things in life.  And, though it makes me sounds like a close minded traditionalist, I think I like it that way.Kail</blockquote>

Verification