It is our goal, like most Aikido schools, is to edify uke as well as nage, so an injury on someone you are practicing with is like an injury upon yourself. But if you look hard enough, you could (as I have had the distinct displeasure of finding) probably find some one who calls their system Aikido and does not share this view. I am just trying to say that it depends upon the individual using the art, not the art itself.

If you are interested, I can see if I can find my copy of The Spiritual Foundations of Aikido. It’s pretty complicated stuff.

We’re fortunate, however, in that our Federation has several direct students of the Founder. You may not get the chance to discuss this with, say, Yamada or Sugano Sensei, but you can discuss this with their students, at a seminar or in New York.

I think you’d enjoy that conversation.

Before Aikido, in my background…if someone attacked me, they WERE going to get hurt, but by my choice, they either woke up the next morning sore…or not at all…

But another technique that tends to be foreshadowed by the inherent violence of striking arts is the technique of the minds will to not act upon impulse, to rationalize through problems, and create a solution that does not lead to violence.

It took me 3 years to get my blackbelt in tang soo do. I’ll admit it was fast, but it seemed to be my forte’. In that 3 years I had learned just about any and all kinds of strikes from any and all extremities. But it took me 7 years to train my mind to become, why my opinion is…of a warrior of peace. The only difference that makes me different from O’Sensei is that my martial art transcends my ideology, not my ideology transcending my martial art

if that isnt too bold to say… *prepares for some O’Sensei Lectures en masse*

I can see how the striking arts can lead a student to non-violence. With an awareness of the very real consequences of say, an open palm downward strike, a student can choose not to exercise that particular option in a physical confrontation. I agree that this is a legitimate form of non-violence.

However, I also see this as a very inward type of response. Yes, the attacker didn’t have his sternum crushed. But the violence which engendered the confrontation, the underlying problem, really has not been addressed.

This is where I think Aikido has something to offer. By executing the techniques themselves, O’Sensei believed that the attacker’s state of imbalance would be rectified (physically and otherwise).

In other words, a Karate practitioner chooses non-violence by not executing technique.

An Aikido practitioner chooses non-violence by executing technique.

My opinions only, of course.

Not to get off topic, but is Batman really the pinnacle of non-superpowered hand to hand combatants in the DCU?

What about Batgirl? She defeated Lady Shiva.

But once you understand what the techniques have the capacity of doing, you can learn how to change those techniques around so that they do not cause, at the very most, death. Take for example my Idol…Bruce Wayne travelled the world learning martial arts, in the DC Universe he is the greatest hand-to-hand combantant. Yet he does not kill.

I guess it depends how you look at it, going back to your question Jerry, when i execute a technique fully (for example, an open palmed downward strike splitting concrete in two) maybe realizing what that technique can do is in a way exercising non-violence.