02/10/2024
SELF-DEFENSE
by Carlos Enguis Dojo-cho Härnö Aikido
It is said that when training BUDO, so you train your self-defence. But what is self-defence? Everyone has their own idea of what self-defence is. The sad thing is that some believe that self-defence is the same as hitting down the person who, for no apparent reason, jumps on us. But BUDO is an art derived from military techniques, and it is something that is trained to understand itself and not to knock down others.
There are some clubs that teach self-defence. The only thing the clubs teach is techniques to knock down others. Techniques of this nature must be trained for many years, far too many, to be able to master them and to be efficient in our movements. The techniques must come from an instinctive movement and without reflection. The result is that you learn mediocre techniques who only work in the club if your partner lets you and you get a false sense of security. We believe that we are so good at the techniques that we can imagine meeting anyone.
If the point of self-defence should be to knock down those who try to intimidate us, it would be cheaper and easier to have a baseball bat with us and the problem would be solved. But the problem is far from that simple, we must not only save our lives, but we must also get the offender to other thoughts, and we cannot do with a baseball bat.
When we are in a crowded situation, we must have a good knowledge of human nature in order to cope with the whole situation (the whole situation is the perpetrator, I and the surroundings). We need to determine what was causing the funny situation of being able to act wisely.
Good knowledge of human nature can be learned only by understanding ourselves. Are you afraid to meet you, you'll never be able to understand other people.
Before we learn to destroy the lives of others, we must learn to save the lives of others, to care for those who think the problem solves itself with his fist.
You want to learn cool techniques that could save your life, but have you considered that, maybe, it is you who is about to kill yourself? When have you thought about what you eat, why you smoke and drink? And being cheeky when someone asks a good question is not so healthy.
No, self-defence starts with taking care of ourselves. Because if you are for a healthy lifestyle, is humble and respectful of your surroundings when you have nothing to fear.
You may be thinking that your chances of survival increase if you exercise self-defense. But you cannot train your physique to beat anyone. There is always someone who can beat you. And if you are training to defend yourself, you might get an attitude that annoys others without you having an idea about it, so your chances of survival rather than decrease.
All training, in the so-called martial arts, is good for both body and soul, but only if you train yourself to become a better person and be able to take care of your fellow humans.
HÄRNÖ AIKIDO IN UPPSALA
