So for an example, I did Shodokan Aikido for a while at uni. Aikido in general has two features - it doesn't have a competitive element because philosophically it's all about peace and harmony, and it's mostly comprised of fiddly arm and wrist locks and balance-based throws that are really hard to get to work on a non-compliant opponent. And in practice that means that you never know that your beautiful armlock technique would actually work, even on a mechanical level, on someone who really cared about stopping it. Shodokan, in constrast, says that well, maybe a certain amount of competition can actually help you to learn more about peace and harmony or something, so let's do a slightly artificial but fully competitive sparring thing involving a foam knife. And now you still aren't learning street-lethal brawling because arm and wrist locks are still basically impractical and the opponent still isn't allowed to just nut you or whatever, but you have at least had to genuinely test the mechanics of what you're doing against both the gym-bunny newbie who just pushes back with brute force and the experienced person who knows how to twist out if you don't put it on accurately enough, and that feels somehow more honest in a way that I care about.