"Will that work
on the street?"
"People don't
attack like that!"
A recurring thematic
question in any dojo is "will this work in real life?". Every martial art has some degree of
formality and a set of rules of engagement.
Boxing, for instance, is certainly applicable to a "real" life
fight, but training in boxing is fundamentally a contest. Its training goal does not end up being
self-defense, it is a contest of skill, strength, endurance, and heart. There's a ring that contains it. This just a reality of training is and is in
no way a slight. These constraints are necessary
to develop in that art. I only pick
boxing as an example as it is likely to be most familiar to the most
people. All forms of martial arts have
constraints and rules of engagement.
They are necessary and are not intrinsically bad.
Aikido is no
different and therefore it is natural for students and observers to question
our "formalized" attacks and set of techniques. Tsuki for example is not a common attack in
the wild. The problem is that out in the
wild, it's wild. There aren't standard
attacks. There are skilled and unskilled
people all over. Just look at security
videos on YouTube and you will see that there are no end to the wild punches,
half-assed kicks, and drunken tackles that no sensei would want representing
their art. But, what those attackers
lack in skill they often make up in fervor.
Techniques, whether
in Aikido or any martial art for that matter, are specific "what-if"
cases. It is impossible to imagine, let
alone practice, every "what-if" scenario. So we need to select a common set of
"what-if" cases that we can use to develop the principles of our
art. They need to be common so that they
can be knowable; so we can exchange ideas; and we can be able to evaluate
progress of the integration of the principles.
This concern is not
even unique to martial arts. How many
people do you know that got hired to do algebra or calculus or read words. Those jobs are pretty slim. But there are lots of people who use those
tools and concepts in their daily lives.
Those techniques we learned in school are not their own end, they are a
means to do greater things like build cars, launch rockets, stream movies, and
write music.
So, no, people won't
attack like "that" on the street, and no, that technique will not be
100% applicable to the street. But
techniques are not the end goal. They
are a tool for us to communicate and learn core principles. Get out of the way, relax progressively,
upset their mind progressively, maintain our posture, feel and steal their
posture, then lead them to fall, as hard or as softly as we need them to fall
in the situation.
What can be a valid
conversation is do we have the archetypes of attacks and responses covered by
our selected "what-ifs". Did
fashion shift and everyone is wearing batman gauntlets, well then we need new responses
for hand strikes. Did we revert to
1700's architecture and all buildings have like 6' ft ceilings, well maybe we
don't need the shomen (over-head strike) archetype anymore. These are silly examples but they illustrate
the thought, do our archetypes cover the bases of both attacks and how we
respond? So long as they do, then we can
continue to practice our core techniques to develop the principles of our
art. If they do not, then we
evolve.
When Sensei Maruyama
came to the United States, he had to evolve and change our cadre of techniques.
The principles of Aikido were sound, but they playground had changed. People in the US were more varied in size and
many are very big compared the Japanese population. Widely varying heights eliminated certain
techniques as being viable general case solutions, so they went away. Western cultures never sit seiza in real
life. So kneeling techniques went
away. The "what-ifs" of Aikido
Kokikai® therefore evolved because they needed to.
Any high ranking
martial artist eventually comes to the realization that there is no technique.