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Martial Arts Topics / Re: DBMA Knife and Anti Knife
« on: June 16, 2010, 02:39:07 AM »
Yes, the 4 scenarios are all essentially a more aggressive and proactive defensive set-up. One of the moral and ethical points we face in our life in more than just a knife situation is: Where does proactivity end and being an aggressive bully begin? It is a hard line to draw. It's something that countries debate as well as people. At the end of the day, the decision is going to come down to the person out on the sharp end of things and what he or she can determine at the time with less than ten seconds to determine the pattern of the rest of the life. And the rest of us will likely debate it and second guess it later. I know I have with most of the things I have done, both good and bad.
Outside of certain situations such as sentry-elimination, is there truly a reason to engage in an entirely offensive scenario other than for pure power purposes. Even there, we get into crazy circles. We don't eliminate a sentry because we want to. But because we don't want the sentry to kill us or our friends. It gets dangerous because most (not all) authoritarian view themselves as operating in a mindset of proactive defense. Whenever we start playing games like that, we tend to get into chicken and egg spirals.
Which brings me to the next question: Outside of a purely sporting situation, why teach offensive combatives at all? One can very easily apply the same ethical question about offensive knife as offensive fist, foot, stick or handgun. The knife merely brings the danger and ethics into, ahem, sharper focus, ahem. *grin* A twelve year old boy who gets his body weight behind a haymaker can shatter a jaw in a schoolyard fight without training. That's thousands of dollars and many weeks of recovery time plus pain and suffering inflicted upon someone.
Fingers, fists, knees and other empty handed blows can be every bit as lethal as the knife. We should never forget that, ethically, when we argue, fight or teach. One of the reasons for the foundation of arts such as Aikido is so that someone could defend themselves without mangling someone else for the rest of their life.
I have come to feel that, as a teacher, one of the responsibilities is to provide a practical example of living correctly. I do not mean espousing any particular dogma or belief. I mean simply living and showing daily certain basic ideas such as not inflicting needless harm with deeds or words (which can be the same thing) But I get way off topic and into other forum topics. Enough for now.
And I apologize if I ever go too far into classroom lecture mode. I do that almost by default.
By the way, a very interesting discussion, all.
Outside of certain situations such as sentry-elimination, is there truly a reason to engage in an entirely offensive scenario other than for pure power purposes. Even there, we get into crazy circles. We don't eliminate a sentry because we want to. But because we don't want the sentry to kill us or our friends. It gets dangerous because most (not all) authoritarian view themselves as operating in a mindset of proactive defense. Whenever we start playing games like that, we tend to get into chicken and egg spirals.
Which brings me to the next question: Outside of a purely sporting situation, why teach offensive combatives at all? One can very easily apply the same ethical question about offensive knife as offensive fist, foot, stick or handgun. The knife merely brings the danger and ethics into, ahem, sharper focus, ahem. *grin* A twelve year old boy who gets his body weight behind a haymaker can shatter a jaw in a schoolyard fight without training. That's thousands of dollars and many weeks of recovery time plus pain and suffering inflicted upon someone.
Fingers, fists, knees and other empty handed blows can be every bit as lethal as the knife. We should never forget that, ethically, when we argue, fight or teach. One of the reasons for the foundation of arts such as Aikido is so that someone could defend themselves without mangling someone else for the rest of their life.
I have come to feel that, as a teacher, one of the responsibilities is to provide a practical example of living correctly. I do not mean espousing any particular dogma or belief. I mean simply living and showing daily certain basic ideas such as not inflicting needless harm with deeds or words (which can be the same thing) But I get way off topic and into other forum topics. Enough for now.
And I apologize if I ever go too far into classroom lecture mode. I do that almost by default.
By the way, a very interesting discussion, all.