yodel 0 Posted April 30, 2003 Share Posted April 30, 2003 Anyone here taken up any martial arts since they came to Japan? I have recently started karate, and seem to be getting nowhere, but it's fun. Link to post Share on other sites
indosnm 0 Posted April 30, 2003 Share Posted April 30, 2003 Yes, I do Nihon Kenpo. It's like K1 with a bit of Judo mixed into 1! Very very physical but a great way to release stress! Link to post Share on other sites
white-void 0 Posted April 30, 2003 Share Posted April 30, 2003 I'm interested in taking up something. Which is best? Link to post Share on other sites
indosnm 0 Posted April 30, 2003 Share Posted April 30, 2003 Depends on what U are after! Some forms you will have to alot of KATA. And some you can jump in and start "fighting" within months. Some like Nihon Kenpo are more physical and you can take a hell of a lot of beatings! depends if you like that!? I love it! Link to post Share on other sites
snowboard_freak 0 Posted April 30, 2003 Share Posted April 30, 2003 I used to do Judo, but didn't find it very satifying. It's all throws and stuff. No kicking or punching or anything. A bit boring. But i was only 9 or 10 when i did it so i might find it a bit more interesting now. Link to post Share on other sites
badmigraine 0 Posted May 1, 2003 Share Posted May 1, 2003 Indosnm's right! It kind of depends on what you want to get out of it. If you want exercise and health, then maybe you should try low- or zero-impact kickboxing or Tai Bo or whatever that is. Note that the skills you learn may not help you much in a fight, but boxing is good practice to learn how to dodge, block and slip blows that ordinarily might smash into your face and body. If you are interested in Asian cultural history, you could study one of the traditional styles of Chinese, Korean or Japanese martial arts, with all that means...realize that the course may be very "traditional" in that some of the stuff/moves may be bad for your joints (they will tell you to "toughen up and do even MORE") and you have to swallow a lot of Confucian-type principles such as blind obedience to authority figures and old ways of doing things that you may have been brainwashed into thinking are Mystical or Magical or quintessentially Exotic. If you have a masochistic bent you can learn to love this meaningless abuse. Also, what you learn may not be "how to fight". Forms and practicing stances etc. are more like dance practice. The first time some big oaf punches you in the face, you will realize what a waste of time your forms were. If you are ever in a fight, chances are you won't have time to stretch beforehand and you won't be barefoot in pajamas. Some styles, like Tae Kwon Do/Tang Soo Do teach you high kicks and sometimes even to hold out and lock your arms/legs after a strike, so the judges can see the technique. Try that on a playground and you'll get kicked in the nuts, or grabbed and slammed. Or they teach you to hit face/head with fists, which will probably break your knuckles, or unrealistic trick defenses against knives and guns. In many ways these systems are like learning Kanji...you have to spend a huge amount of time mastering them before they are practically useful. Meanwhile there are other ways of just cutting to the chase and spending your time and effort on health, self-defense or whatever motivates your interest in martial arts. If you want to learn to fight, what kind of fighting do you want to learn? Gentlemanly boxing, bar brawling, defense against knives and guns? Against 1 huge person, against 3 drunk people? Wearing jeans and tennis shoes, on grass, on concrete, in a shop? Most fights quickly become mere wrestling on the ground with playground-style punches and elbows going at faces. Not much of your beautifully balanced Karate Kid punching/kicking is going to be useful there. In fact the first move of the Gracie Jiu Jitsu players who won all those Ultimate Fighting titles is to wade in, take a blow or two and grab ahold of the opponent, pulling him to the ground where they pick him apart with tricks like continued rabbit punches to sensitive areas like kidneys, then get a joint lock or chokehold. Do you think you could do this in a bar fight, or if there were 2 opponents? If you want to learn some self-defense, you should probably learn one of the grappling arts; take some boxing/kickboxing to learn about strikes and footwork and get used to seeing blows coming at you; learn how hockey players and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu players deal with attacks; learn how to poke eyes, break fingers, fight dirty so you can get away and escape; learn enough about guns and knives to know that if someone has one, you need to get the heck out of there; and realize that the best self-defense technique is just to Not Be There. In the average martial arts class, you can learn a few tricks and strikes, but really. There is always someone bigger or faster or with some other advantage that will get the better of you in a real fight. So after you learn a few basic things, you are probably all done except for the exercise or cultural rewards. There are some styles that acknowledge all this, like "Jeet Kun Do", the motto of which is "absorb what is useful". In their classes, you can study anything that seems practical, like shooting guns, stabbing hands with pencils, bone-breaking joint locks, how to box/kickbox, stick fighting, etc. I studied several martial arts for many years, and eventually gave up formal study because in the end I saw a common thread in all of them: they destroyed all the illusions about fighting that I had built up from TV, movies and books and youthful, testosterone-driven imaginings: and they helped me to see my own physical limitations beyond which I cannot go. As a final thought, a lot of the bad stuff that I saw in a Japanese company was very similar to what I saw in traditional martial arts dojos: blind obedience to a liver-spotted authority figure, no option to question or change history or orders from above, enforced group blindness to practical and physical realities in favor of Group and Authority, and failure to recognize handle or take advantage of individual difference and/or talents/failings... Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted May 1, 2003 Share Posted May 1, 2003 I learned tai-chi on the top floor of a department store in Osaka from a nice Japanese lady. It was totally non-fighting and for exercise only. I had excruciating pain in my hips after each session, but it was still quite fun. I think I became a better dancer thanks to the '3D movement' aspects of tai-chi. Also in a pub brawl, I'd probably get first kicks in to more faces. If I took up any martial arts again, I'd definitely explore the Brazilian capoeira. I'd much rather learn to dance/fight with a musical accompaniment surrounded by Brazilian cheerfulness, than in the sensei-dominated feudal atmosphere of a dojo. Link to post Share on other sites
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