Brokenmace

First off, there is no mystery or fantasy here. Aikido takes many years to become even marginally effective, and one must dedicate himself to the spiritual side also. This is what prepares the mind to accept and guard against sudden danger. It helps deal with survival stress, allowing the mind to operate on a steady field. This is not mysticism. It is psychology.

Second, your right that we sometimes learn too many techniques, and you are also right that we sometimes learn them without resistance. However, your CQC instructor should have known that a wristlock never works against a weary resisting apponent. That's why you hit or distract them first! If you've done your job, the wristlock goes critical before they have a chance to recover. Throw a drink in their eyes, eye jab them, stomp their feet, apply pressure in the opposite direction of the wristlock so that their resistance complies with the wristlock. Think.

My Sifu teaches defensive tactics to our local police department, and another of my instructors is a S.W.A.T. team member who has made many of his techniques work, wristlocks and all, while under threat of death. You have to use your mind. It is the real weapon.

Also, many techniques and drills aren't meant for direct application in combat. Take the Hubud Lubud of Kali. No one will strike at you like they do in that drill. It is simply meant to train a neurological response to an attack from a certain angle. Many of the knife disarms don't work if you have to think about them, and we are taught not to look for them unless we have no other option and are without a weapon of any kind. They happen because of the chaos of combat. If something I do causes my opponent to pause for a split second (say I jibber insanities at him whilst foaming at the mouth), I could pull off a disarm. Or if I cut him, and he is not prepared for it, his wrist goes limp, I could then disarm him. etc. etc. etc.

And by the way, I'll finish this tirade by saying that my brother's Aikido instructor did train for resistance. He trains his students for the street, and many of his techniques don't even require a clinched wrist to work. What you saw were simply demonstrations. You can't judge an art by a few minutes of video. You have to experience it with a teacher commited to the path you wish to follow. Aikido instructors are not robots.

P.S. NHB competition isn't the end-all-be-all of realistic combat. There are so many restrictions in any sane competition that believing you'll win in the street as a result of winning in an octagon is laughable. If you don't train to kill, you're going to get killed. Submissions don't work when the person your mounting crushes your balls or slits your wrist, or tears out your throat. No offense, but I doubt that supposition can be easily argued.

Respect.

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A broken mace is still a weapon.