Quote Originally Posted by t_niehoff View Post
I think it has to do with "what we are used to."

To explain -- in my mind what is interesting is how poorly the trained kendo guys did. I would expect that they should be able to easily handle poorly trained, unskilled guys with shinai. But they had all sorts of trouble. And that isn't because the judo guys might have played some kendo but because the kendo guys were facing an intensity (something judo instills) that they were not used to. And what happens when we face an intensity we are not used to is that our technique, our game, etc. crumbles. In a sense, skill is intensity-dependent.

IMO the lesson is we can only get good at doing what we are used to doing, what is famailiar. And what I mean by that is both situationally (are you used to getting out of headlocks? or dealing with genuinely resisiting opponents?) and in terms of violent intensity (are you used to dealing with someone going all out?).
So the object lesson is that if you pad up a bunch of guys and take away the cutting edge consequences from their training, then judo guys can whack the cr@p out of them until they get close enough to throw them?

um, okay....

You know they rent out these inflatable sumo suits too that are really fun at corporate parties. You can really go after someone with live intensity.

So the object lesson there is that fatter people are more dangerous in a fight unless they gas out first.