You make me laugh and learn, all at once.
I can’t say more than that without ruining my reaction to your post here. Thanks so much for even reading this, Big Brother!

Kim, can you please point me to a copy of the “the Natural Laws of The Universe” so that I can read them…

Ooh, you can’t.

Referring to a non-existent text is hardly a scientific method of rebuking Autrelle’s actions here.

Having said that, in Australia we have a law here for security officers, on the use of force…”Reasonable use of Force”. I’m not sure how the laws are in the US, but I imagine they would be pretty similar.

Autrelle’s actions in both incidents here WOULD be seen in court as “excessive use of force”, and Kim, yes, I think you would be vindicated in your thinking about Autrelle’s actions, as I believe you tried to offer in your reply.

Autrelle man, they may have been dicks, but yeah…that was excessive use of force. It wasn’t really Aikido either mate.

What it was however, was you trying to do your job as well as you could, given your level of development at the time these events happened. And yes, they are some good lessons there.

I read the point of Autrelle’s text here to be a sort of a confession…and a sort of seeking of redemption.

Aikido seeks to help one transcend the base nature of the actions Autrelle exhibited in the text…if he has learned and progressed from that, then the text has served its purpose.

Twisty…good story mate. But I don’t believe a word of it.

Sucks!
I’m a lucky one, for sure!
Honestly, you sound like the kind of person I would enjoy training with. If you’re ever in Jacksonville Florida, please look me up! This is a friendly invite, for sure. Best wishes to you.

I agree with Ms. MacGregor about needing to improve our skills to the point of our being able to reduce the violence in our technique. Until we get there though, I’d rather students be able to defend themselves rather than being so opposed to violence that they’re defensless until some time in the future when they might acheive a super skill level.

Thank you for a great post.

Craig

We must remember that youth does cause people to act irrationally, and we will be jerks at times. Although, in reflection ten or twenty years later, we might think that faced with the same situation we would not handle the exact same situation the same way. We would, in fact, not be as violent, and handle it with more maturity, right?

The dance, some dojos do is a piece of training that actually is valuable for training mind and body, but …. then there are pain submissions, there are pressure point applications, there is strategy of fighter choosing his response to the openings presented from an attack, and …. you don’t have time to think strategy! So you had better train to be ready and let that automatic defense/ offense instinct kick into high gear at the blink of an eye!

Aikido is a very effective martial art and if one practices in conjunction with other studies your learned skills will retain validity for situations where you use those skills to keep yourself and other’s from harms way. I am not saying you won’t need to train in a different environment/ different styles. actually do a rougher tumble resistant type of training to realize the full value of what is hidden in the practice of Aikido, you probably will to realize the value of Aikido.

You will absolutely positively have to spend time grappling, striking, and learn to insert distractions to provide openings that may be verbal or body language that are a distraction you would never normally use in the polite practice of Aikido.

All is fair in love and war, just as all is fair out on them streets.

Rules? There are few rules for those who think they are the privileged few and you are not, so keep that in mind for those particular situations. They will come up now and again.

One is not a jerk if they can end a situation quickly with the least amount of violence. Jerk is applied when one seeks violence to teach a lesson, or doesn’t have the knowledge to end the situation and must resort to violence again and again. I guess that is my only real valuable comment. Either end a situation quickly or use tactics that control the situation.

You don’t want to end up in jail, or with the blame, so act accordingly and it won’t be you in jail or in trouble.

I believe you shouldn´t blame yourself to much for what you did: the sheepdogs job is to keep predators from the sheep if necessary by all means.
Looks to me like that´s exactly what you did, nothing more nothing less…

Good dog

Greetings from Germany

Sven

I could not agree with you more.

The only goal I had in mind when I started telling these stories on my blog was to dispel notions of Aikido being ineffective in actual fighting. I hear it so often, even from people that teach Aikido, and it makes me sad. Aikido, is Budo, period. I didn’t know much about Budo at the time that these things were happening in my life. I just knew I was earning a pay check by choking people. I don’t have much of a saving grace to offer anyone that reads this save for that was a long time ago, and I was not the same person that I am today. The only positive thing I can offer is that these are stories of a person with average ability training in a very orthodox manner of traditional Aikido, and I hope that anyone that doubts the severity of what they are being taught will let that go, and just train.

Thank you so much for your words. If you have more to say, on any subject, I would welcome it, warmly.