I totally feel like I could end someone. Maybe I'm just naive.

I can effectively use Shotokan to defend myself and I have done it. I know my limitations and understand how my art works. Any martial art can be used in self defense, but none is a magic "I'm gonna send you to the hospital while you can't touch me" solution.

I know that in my art, I need to end the confrontation in 5 to 10 seconds, if I don't, I lose a lot of the advantages my training has brought me. I also know that if I go to the ground (No jujitsu training, yet) that I lose quite a bit of advantage. It just depends on the art, the artist, the consistency and the intensity of training. Anyone taking karate can learn the techniques, the forms and the drills, but without sparring you won't be conditioned to see that punch coming your way and deflect, block, parry, shift, and counterattack, no matter how many times you've performed Heian Godan or Bassai Dai.

I study mantis kung fu. I've done security work and have had to defend myself or subdue someone. It works.

But it's not just knowing a move intellectually. It has to be a natural, nearly automatic reaction. Whatever you do has to be delivered with speed, power and balance.

Plenty of people who have no formal training can whip my butt, and I know that. Plenty of folks with a lot more training than me couldn't last 5 seconds.

The techniques learned are only part of the equation, and really only about 1/3rd of it. The rest has to do with reacting properly to a threat and acting with purposed, controlled violence.

Those are where most people fall down. A timid strike loses. A slow reaction to the start of an attack loses.

All that said, something I was always taught, and which I now teach my students is this: in self-defense, if you have to use your training, you've already lost. Situational awareness prior to an attack being possible will almost always give you more than enough opportunity to avoid an attack.

Attackers in real life look for targets of opportunity. If you don't put yourself in a situation where you have made yourself a target, you won't get attacked.

Yes, I have, several times.
Aikido is a defensive art, that uses another persons strength against them. I would rate it 5/10 for self defense on the street. Why? Because it does not involve sparring, so your not going to be conditioned to take punches. Lets face it, thats what a mugger/attacker/drunk does - he hits, first and usually hard. If there was an option to study krav maga instead, or as well as, I would do that.

I've a friend who's trained in Wing Tsun for several years.
A while back he was attacked in the street, but it was instinct to use his MA as it was the only thing he knew to do.
He was walking his dog, when walking past two youths he was punched by one.
That's when it kicked off.
Was an uncalled for and cowardly attack.

Just like most martial art styles, if you're proficient enough in Aikido, a punch or strike will never land. Now if somebody sneaks up on you, there are ways of reacting immediately to his/her initial contact. That is, you may not see it coming, but are able to evade and neutralize the strike just as it initially makes contact before it has a chance for the strike to follow through all the way. Easier said that done, yes I know, but I have seen it done and have done it myself.

I love Aikido, especially when it comes to taking care of business when you have 2 or more attackers. I've been in some situations where I've had to fight 2 or more guys at once. Long story as to how it happened, but I got jumped walking out of a second job I had at one time that was in a bad neighborhood. I ended up using some Aikido moves and had one guy on the ground within seconds, and was able to get the other guy down on top of him almost immediately after where neither one of them could get up until I let them. Nobody was hurt which was the best thing about it.

To your point though, I think it's always good to train to learn to be able take a punch just in case. Krav Maga is a very effective art. I mean it's made popular by the Isreali Airforce, who are the toughest SOBs only second to the US Navy Seals.

Anyways, yes, being able to take a punch is importantr. It's like when some big ass dude throws and lands his hardest punch at you to the point where he knocks your teeth out, and you just look at him and smile. Then again, I'm the type of guy that if a person chops off my arm, I will pick it up with my other arm and beat the hell out of that person a bunch of times before I finally go down.

I'm both a lover and a fighter, but I'm much more of a lover than a fighter though, so I'm all about avoiding those situations as much as possible.

Jason Salamone