I went to my local bookstore today and found the June issue of Black Belt magazine... talks about Aikido. Now ask me how I knew that! Go on... ask me! Okay, okay, I'll tell ya: John Riggs Sensei, my instructor... has an article published in there!
"Aikido: Striking and Pressure Points - Getting maximum efficiency from the gentle art."
For those not familiar with martial arts, there are nerve spots on the body generally called "pressure points." When pressure is applied, it can have good results or bad results, depending on who is doing the pushing and why. The usage of the points has many purposes and well worth knowing. In my three years of studying aikido, I've barely scratched the surface on the subject.
Many people steer clear of the idea of "martial arts" altogether because they immediately associate it with violence. Violence is the exact opposite goal when it comes to aikido. Aikido can be a way to achieve peace. Example:
Say you are a teacher or mother and two boys are fighting. If they are young enough, they may listen to you and stop when you tell them to. If they are older and afraid to back down, aikido could be the way to pull one off of the other. Through a proper grab of the opponents hand and squeezing on pressure points, the pain they feel will cause them to stop fighting and distract them enough to get them under control.
Or say you encounter a mugger that grabs your wrist; you don't have to shoot the guy or break his bones to get him off of you. Aikido teaches skills to throw that punk to the ground and give him reason to think twice about trying to come after you and your money.
Anyhow, my congratulations to Dr. Riggs and his publication of this article. Striking of pressure points is a controversial topic in the world of martial arts. People are either for it or against it and both make good cases. As for me, I'm a student and I WOULD like to learn for myself. Should I ever be place in a position of needing to know about these pressure points, it will become MY decision as whether or not to use them. And personally, I'd rather have a tool and not use it... than to never have a tool to use at all.
Domo arigato
3 comments:
What's Domo arigato?
I wonder just what kind of comments would cause a comment to get deleted?
I know John, respect him, and would be VERY surprised if HE made any post here that was so controversial that anyones reply was too offensive to post.
Just spoke to John. He didn't delete any comments. And he says, "Domo arigato" is "Thank you very much" in Japanese.
Have a nice day!
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