Is Aikido a Martial Art?

I too am going to be blunt and not beat around the bush. It is simply reality and that way you will not have any bad surprises down the road should you decide to take up a martial art. First off the bat you can not wear jewelry (bracelets) in martial arts.

Second I do Aiki and there is no way no one will not notice your scars/cuts if they are on the wrist. Noone in their right mind is going to grab your arm with the sleeve over it during randori or partner drills. You can't get a good grip that way and you will be denied the chance to train dealing with being grabbed for real.

If they were scars it wouldn't be a big deal at all but if they are fresh, even crusted over to expect your partner to work with you on wrist grabs would be asked too much. More than likely your sores will come open while working out and even covered with band aids, they will not stay on. If you can not work getting out of grabs and you can not do randori you already can not work at least half of the techniques taught in Aiki.

And you need to work those to learn principles, balance and leverage. You can not just skip half the curriculum and expect the martial art to work for you. What are you going to do during the times everybody works the things you don't want to work on?

There are no solo forms in Aiki which would mean that one other person would have to skip working on those techniques as well just to work with you. I wouldn't blame a student to feel resentful as they too pay tuition to learn the full curriculum. So this makes hardly sense to take up an art that relies mainly on close physical contact.

Even Karate and other striking arts have close contact techniques such as wrist grabs if you learn them the traditional way and not just for sports. They do not focus as much on getting out of those until you get into the higher ranks. So maybe a what everybody calls a 'striking' sports martial art to begin with might be a good idea until you can get everything under control and then you can switch later.

You can still learn how to kick and punch and in a bad situation that would still be effective and basically be the same a beginner student would use anyway. The sports aspect may help more with your self esteem and out of that hopefully comes self respect and confidence. Seek counseling too if you haven't already.

Jas made a really good point when he said martial arts is for protection and in your case even protection from oneself. That too is part of being a martial artist.

Wear wrist bands. But let's get to the point, you need to stop cutting yourself. This is done because of a lack of self esteem or feeling of loss of control in your life.

Maybe you're being bullied, maybe something else. Get a counselor and talk about what is going on. Cutting yourself does not give you control over yourself.

Only self confidence will do that.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.