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Post by nahadoth on Mar 19, 2020 16:15:58 GMT -5
Hi all.
I’m wondering if anyone here has a martial arts practice. I know that some of you in this scene practice HEMA and other styles, which are more relevant to DS, but I’m hoping this will be a spot for everyone to talk a little bit about your practice if you have one.
I have recently tried Aikido for the first time in January, and I found that I really loved it. I had always wanted to do martial arts as a youth but was not supported in it by my parents. But there’s a great dojo in town that practices Aikido as well as the weapons practice (wooden staff and wooden sword among others) as well as Iaido, which is the Japanese sword-drawing art which is very intense and ceremonial.
Mostly I discovered that I like being thrown around, and the feeling of physics in motion while practicing the techniques. With the dojo being closed, I have been missing the practice, but I was able to purchase a wooden sword and staff, which has kept me a bit more sane during the last week.
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Post by crystallogic13 on Mar 20, 2020 1:27:12 GMT -5
Hey Nahadoth.. I think we've had relevant discussions over at hobbies, but a separate thread is even better I think.. So, before anything, my background is not that of an athlete, I've only done 1,5 years of Brazilian Ju-Jitsu (BJJ) and only 2 months of Kick-Boxing, along with some seminars for self defense I've had to take for a long past work.. So, I'm certainly nor a dedicated athlete/practitioner nor I "study" books with Eastern Martial Arts or stuff like that.. But, since childhood I was always watching fanatically most sports martial arts stuff that could be broadcast, from the good old days of K1 to Olympic Judo and I had the revelation of a lifetime when I discovered Mixed MArtial Arts existed around 2000-2002.. And still watch nowadays all UFC main and side events (After MMA you never can watch the same again all other sport Martial arts - they all seem too one-dimensional compared to MMA).. Before I get long, here is my two cents : If you want to get into Martial Arts philosophically, in a slow ride, traditional/Eastern Martial Arts are great and have a huge background to explore, I can't even imagine the countless serious books that have been written throughout the years for them.. If you really want to get quickly to a good level of self-protection but also have more intense training and enjoy a good(hard) sports game as a player, current sports Martial Arts are the way to go.. What I propose personally to anyone wanting to go sports (the way I believe): Start with either a grappling or striking technique to get a great base. For grappling, if you can take it Greco-Roman is everything best but is not for everybody, VERY intense on the body with its throws.. Judo/Olympic Judo is more or less like Greco-Roman in its play-rules(just with GI..) but very intense on the legs, also something you can only start I believe very young <20 or you risk a lot of injuries.. So I end up with the best choice for me, for everyone, your average Joe, Brazilian Ju-Jitsu : Technique here is of most importance and even a 45 year old dude (after appropriate normal health checks) can start to practice and slowly advance.. As a game (rules n stuff) I BJJ is the best I've ever played enjoyed(as much as soccer) but it is also one of the most boring to watch if you are not a high level belt since in advanced BJJ things are like indeed chess.. All in all I vote for everyone to give BJJ a shot if he's looking for something enjoyable to play as a game but also get strong training sessions and a nice fighting background.. For striking, I wouldn't select among Kick Boxing or Muay Thai or classic Boxing, there are endless discussions but imho I'd go for Kick Boxing(which I did for 2 months but seemed so 1-dimensional vs BJJ really) since the elbows of Muay Thai along with its mentality draws a lot of idiots in local Gyms that risk anyones health during sparring, and I'd also prefer K.B. over Boxing since I can't for the life of me understand why in a fight legs/kicks/etc are a no-go , which is btw one of my strengths.. And by the way if by any chance someone wants to get great kicks Tae Kwon Do is also proposed but I dunno here again about the age gate it has, I'd avoid TWD if I was over 25 (so I missed my chance ).. Anyway, if you are an athletic guy I strongly propose to choose your path and eventually get to MMA training (no matches, just training). In my GYM(which was not a GYM but BJJ Academy - by Draculino's Black Belts ) if BJJ training was hard for the rest of the athletes there (the level of people there was far over mine), the MMA training was a completely new level, like when Joe Rogan says as graphically as he can "He's a BEAST" , you get served that sort of training sessions in MMA, the ones you want to throw up out of being exhausted and then some.. It got kinda long but at least as a spectator I still watch for so many years the events and never get tired..
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Post by stormcrow on Mar 20, 2020 2:48:59 GMT -5
Hi all. I’m wondering if anyone here has a martial arts practice. I know that some of you in this scene practice HEMA and other styles, which are more relevant to DS, but I’m hoping this will be a spot for everyone to talk a little bit about your practice if you have one. I have recently tried Aikido for the first time in January, and I found that I really loved it. I had always wanted to do martial arts as a youth but was not supported in it by my parents. But there’s a great dojo in town that practices Aikido as well as the weapons practice (wooden staff and wooden sword among others) as well as Iaido, which is the Japanese sword-drawing art which is very intense and ceremonial. Mostly I discovered that I like being thrown around, and the feeling of physics in motion while practicing the techniques. With the dojo being closed, I have been missing the practice, but I was able to purchase a wooden sword and staff, which has kept me a bit more sane during the last week. I practiced karate for a few years in my teen age. Now, I am into K1 / muay thai since many years, but I wouldn't label it as a Martial Art to be honest.... I consider it much more as a combat sport.
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Post by thekeeper on Mar 20, 2020 19:16:45 GMT -5
nahadoth, you already know what I'm into, but for everyone else, I've practiced different shaolin arts including liang style ba gua zhang, yang tai chi, and some kung fu for a while now, mainly focusing on ba gua. It's a deceptive and interesting style that really takes a lot of dedication for your training to actually come out organically and naturally when you need it to (I suppose that's true of everything, but ba gua is definitely a real slow build). Ba gua focuses on circular movements, constant approach, and openness to exploit your opponents. The meme explanation is that you just walk around a tree until you're a master. On the surface, it seems like a flashy yet slow impractical style, though under the showcase forms it quickly turns to whiplash-mode combatively. It's one of the three shaolin internal arts, the other two being tai chi and xing yi. Much of the early training is kind of like the most brutal tai chi you can bare, haha. Your legs become concrete. If anyone has seen Avatar the Last Airbender, air-bending is modeled around ba gua, if that helps at all. It's a style that's kind of difficult to pick up since it's not readily available to learn in many places. Nearly all practices are very traditional with a smaller set of students. My current teacher is a student of Tom Bisio from the NY School of Internal Arts, who has studied under a number of Chinese masters. I've met one ba gua master named George Xu who is pretty much a living senior super saiyan (seriously surreal borderline supernatural experiences with him, had a grueling 30 hours weekend with him once). I'm always at a loss trying to show videos of some good ba gua to people since there's kind of a shortage of them on youtube that show the style in combat (usually just forms in competitions or something like that), or the good ones are titled all in Chinese characters so I can't search for them easily. If anyone has seen The Grandmaster, that actually has some accurate ba gua going on albeit supplmented by some various theatrical moves. Part of me likes that it's still quite a handed-down knowledge type of style that's somewhat esoteric, but the downside is that so few people know what it is or just think it's some kind of qi gong thing. Our practice space has recently closed amidst the current plague, but I've kind of been out of the loop since fairly late last year since I just have too much going on to spend the hours away each week. I would like to go back soon once my funds are back up and I have some more time. There are a lot of things I'd like to try out. I really want to do xing yi sometime. There's lots of overlap with ba gua, but it's much more linear and a bit more assertive (at least it looks that way). Maybe one day I'll go on a quest to learn the dim mak. I do believe it's real though quite hidden away!
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Painter
Squire
Let me paint your album covers.
Posts: 97
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Post by Painter on Jun 17, 2022 7:36:40 GMT -5
I'm making like Hajime no Ippo and getting into boxing.
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Post by talvisynth on Dec 9, 2022 5:14:04 GMT -5
I started with judo at the age of 7 and did that for almost 17 years. I performed well in my own weight series and was even offered a spot in the olympic training team during my teen age years. But as I'm not competitive by nature afterall, my head simply couldn't take the pressure there. I would have wanted to take the teaching route instead of tournaments, but for some reason, I was basically abandoned after my announcement about stepping down from competitions. In my early 20's I still tried to struggle my way through, but with none of my old friends left + the total lack of support from the club, I finally decided to call it quits. I did try muay thai for around a year or so, but got KO'd to the floor in sparring a few times quite hard + getting a repetitive strain injury to my left leg, so I couldn't really find my place in all that rumble.
Years went by, yet the interest for martial arts remained. 7 years ago I discovered a wing chun school (or wing tsung as we write it here), and along that I finally found my martial art home. Furthermore, I've also been one the instructors for our small group for some years now, so things are going nicely for that part as well. Those interested in details or finding out more about teacher lineages, I recommend checking out YouTube videos from Victor Gutierrez, Emin Boztepe and Salih Avci. Gutierrez and Boztepe are the Sifus of my Sifu, and Avci is part of that family too, so those 3 names I mentioned represent closest to the style I'm practicing. I'm aware that wing chun has a bit bad or at least mixed reputation around the globe, but what I've noticed and come to understand is that our style and this particular lineage is one of those more aggressive ones, we do sparring, we take proper contact and give decent pressure, we even mix in other styles and techniques (most notably latosa escrima), and generally our style is a sort of a "street version" and thus quite different from more "classic" styles. Naturally, I've had some injuries here too, but I've recovered and will keep going with this wonderful art for as long as I'm able to.
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