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Martial arts: theory and practice

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Alex C:
I was a stereotypical lazy geek for pretty much all of my upbringing, which in retrospect, is kinda too bad because it turns out that this Dick guy my dad knew who would be happy to teach me some stuff turned out to be this guy. I guess that's the problem when you live through two divorces by the age of 15; for a while I think my base assumption was just that my dad was full of shit about everything ever so I wasn't really paying attention when he talked about it. In fairness to myself, he did do a lot of coke so I wasn't entirely off base.

GarandMarine:
*returns Akima's bow with a Okinawan styled bow in return*

I have great respect for any practitioner of Taiji, it requires fairly extreme discipline to my knowledge, especially in younger individuals and I can respect that. I also like "full service" martial arts in a general sense.

I suppose I didn't really do a full background explanation.

I trained for about 15 years in a system mostly rooted in Okinawan Kempo that came out of Hawaii in that particular island's bad days. Back when Professor (now the master of a continent wide martial arts system with thousands of practitioners) was coming up, there was two parts to a martial arts class, training in the dojo, and then getting your street clothes on and going out with your fellow students to fight students of other schools to test the new things you learned in class, if it worked it was kept, what didn't work these particularly brutal martial artists discarded. As Professor became Professor he began to incorporate different styles he'd picked up into a solid philosophy of defense where each technique is simply an option. Throws, locks, grabs, and strikes are all taught and available. Weapons training with improvised "street fight" weapons is performed along with more traditional Okinawan weapons like kama. Most of the focus remains on practical self defense however. This is the school I turned down a black belt in.

I also did a couple years in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (you couldn't guess right?) which is jokingly referred to as "Semper Fu". Unfortunately I find MCMAP to be extremely lacking in actual hand to hand combat training like the old Lion system, while you can learn some fighting stuff here, it's mostly an excuse for hazing and extremely brutal PT, least in my area.

Weapons note: I've done a little rapier training in the Capoferro school of Italian rapier fencing, but not much, my knees can't really handle the extended postures required for it. I'm also pretty good with knives and bayonet fighting. I'm also a fair shot with a rifle or pistol, but I have a hard time counting them as martial arts for some reason.

As of this fall assuming I move to Denver (95% chance) I'll be starting to train in Iaido assuming Murphy doesn't step in, and I'll probably find an MMA gym to start working out at. I'm kinda at a point where from a hand to hand stand point, I just want to beat the crap out of things. It's a poor mental attitude on my part, but there's a place where as a martial artist, I feel like I can't advance without having the ever loving hell beaten out of me a few times.

Is it cold in here?:
One problem with unarmed self-defense is that multiple attackers are common. Remember from elementary school how the bullies had hangers-on? Eddie Izzard's comment on being bashed for cross-dressing was "Ever notice there's always five of them?".

For those in good enough shape to use it effectively, one of the best pieces of martial arts equipment for that situation is usually made in China, the running shoe.

Oh, health benefits of tai chi? This is anecdotal, but I saw one documentary which showed a long-time practitioner. I went "Wow, I hope I can move that well when I'm 70!". Punch line: he was 90.

GarandMarine:
Fact: If you are being engaged by multiple opponents you are in a lethal force situation. If you're unarmed caving a knee or two in to open an escape route up and legging it is your best possible option, but scientifically speaking you're in it deep at that point.

Lupercal:

--- Quote from: GarandMarine on 06 Jun 2013, 15:26 ---Kicks to the head are dangerous in an actual self defense situation, leaves you exposed and off balance for too long, knees and groins are much better targets.

--- End quote ---

Well, it wasn't for 'self defence' purposes (although learning to kick properly at the shin was). The only way to properly win sparring matches and to get to senior student level is to be able to kick at head height. Taekwondo literally means 'the way of the foot and hand'. Our teacher was very strict on not applying absolutely everything we learned at TKD to be used in a self-defence situation. Common sense > blue belt techniques.


--- Quote from: BeoPuppy on 06 Jun 2013, 23:36 ---Aikido has no immediate application as a self defence thing (largely, depends on style, aiki-budo, for instance, will take your head off)
but it's so much fun and surprisingly good for cardio. Lots and lots of rolling and throwing, though. Be prepared.

Excellent opportunity to show you an old time favourite:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG_tnefyOcc(Neither of these gentlemen is me, by the way.)

--- End quote ---

Yeah the local club is Aiki-Budo-Kai - is it a particularly hard-edged strain of the art? It sounds like a lot of fun anyways, I've never done a martial art that includes rolling and throwing before. I would have thought that grips/holds are possibly more useful than say, punching someone in the face (if we're talking about real life situations), but I would just like to get back into doing something so physical. My brother does Jujitsu and seems to absolutely love it, so I figure I should give this a shot. The same place also offers Karate once a week so may give that a chance if I'm feeling like I need to do more sparring. That video is great, it's that kind of flawless movement and gravitas that you strive towards when picking up a martial art.

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