Why do you train?

i started in hapkido in the mid-90's and had to stop because i kept hurting my knee. i didn't realize at the time that i had a torn acl for about a decade--that's another story. post-acl reconstruction, i got back into hapkido in 2003 and gradually got myself into shape and worked hard to get 1st dan. i was drawn to hapkido initially because of the variety of techniques it offered and the "not sport" mentality.

years before getting my dan, i started having doubts about the training in the art and the school i was at. but i felt that i was getting close to the "black belt" and didn't want to be perceived, my own perception, as a quitter. so i worked harder and stuck with it. looking back, i should have hit the carlson gracie school in chicago (as it was the only bjj in chicago for awhile) post-haste.

literally months after getting my promotion, i was gone from the school i was at and for about a year and a half experimented with aikido. which was great actually. incredibly fun, i loved the training. and i'd even visit aikido dojos in every city my wife and i would travel to. but still...there was this gnawing feeling that something was missing, which led me to take baby steps with a local judo club.

finally took the plunge into bjj at the age of 40 and haven't looked back since. rarely, i dabble in boxing and eskrima. but since i've decided that i want to compete at bjj, i'm pretty much full-time gi/no-gi submission wrestling. the great thing about the gym i'm at is that boxing, muay thai, wrestling, judo and of course gi and no-gi bjj are all available--a veritable one-stop-shop.

i'm hoping this year or next, to start regularly competing in the world "masters'" tournament in long beach with lots of the other old guys.

 

I am a middle aged, so I've had a while to accumulate a few.

When I was 9 or 10 - I remember taking some parks and rec karate. I took one of these again when I was 14 or 15. Just a 6 week type deal.

I did wrestling in HS from 14-18. The reasons I started wrestling are pretty stupid, but it was great. I really think it did a lot for me as a person, because it was very hard.

From 18-19 or so I went to a fake local Kung Fu school. It was fake - enough said.

In college I took a few MA classes, including karate and some other stuff - pretty basic. College I went to had a "Karate College" program - and so had more classes than your standard school. Still what I did there was pretty basic.

From 22 - 24 or so I did Dan Zan Ryu Ju-jitsu - basically just in my instructors garage and backyard, and occasionally on mats at the community college.

Didn't do anything until I was 38 or 39, when the wife got tired of me talking about missing MA, and drove to the Tang Soo Do school near our house, talked to the instructor there and signed me up. I was there a few months, fell funny from a throw, and had to quit and do physical therapy for a while.

About 4-5 years ago, a pal of mine was excited about trying Krav Maga, so took me along. We did it for about a year, until he hurt his back, and the often 1 hr in traffic to get to the class made me give it up.

So the now part:

About 2 years ago, I started doing Kung Fu, kickboxing and Tai Chi - all at one Kung Fu school (not all at once). Now I'm pretty much just doing the kick boxing - but I am sure I will get back into the other stuff. Really - I just tried out a bunch of schools when I decided to get back into it, and this one seemed a good fit.

About 5 months ago, I started training Kali one day a week, with some of these sessions being JKD and other stuff mixed in. I just think Kali and FMA are really neat.

4 months ago I started doing Muay Thai - and it is pretty great, but very challenging from a fitness perspective. The school is really good for my needs and there is a lot of exercise here.

 

I had to learn to defeat the Dragon Punch somehow



I move a lot as a little kid and to address any bullying issues my parents put me in Wrestling for a while. I found I had a knack for it but we had to move after a year. eventually I tried boxing at one point before another move.
When I was a teenager we had stopped moving and I thought I was fairly competent at defending myself. Enjoyed watching martial arts movies and such. One day a friend of mine was being picked on a tried to intervene and got a roundhouse kick to the head for my efforts. I remember looking at the kick coming in a going ,"what do I do about this?" Not much power on it luckily but an internal wakeup call of sorts, so when a Martial Arts school opened in my hometown later on teaching TKD and Judo I went down and signed up. I found I really enjoyed both and have kept up with these since with a few work related breaks. I found the Judo vastly improved my ability to Pass Block as an offensive lineman which got me a college scholarship to play.

Today I train because its fun and I enjoy passing on what I've learned to others and learning more everyday.

 

I started when I was six or seven at the local dojo, trained a couple years then left because I was 10 and rebellious. I cam back as a freshman in high school where I started properly learning shorin ryu shidokan karate. I really loved it, although toward the end of my time there the program shrunk and I ended up being the only guy my size.

Now I train kajukenbo and mma. I have no particular interest or aversion to perusing rank, one black belt is enough for me. There's some bigger guys there and we don't mind some bumps and bruises so I feel right at home!

 

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one actually. My wife has recommended more than a few times that I give up MA for my health. I suffer with chronic fatigue that also comes with occasional bouts of chronic pain and I tend to pick up minor injuries much quicker than most people.

But when I think about what my time with MA has done for me, how far I've come and how much healthier physically and mentally I am because of it, plus how it makes me feel, I can't walk away from it like that. If I leave it more than a couple of days I start to get ridiculously anxious and frustrated to the point I end up having to do something.

Yeah, sparring can definitely be a lot of fun. I could live without frequent sparring if there's plenty of pressure testing, but so far I've not been at a club or dojo where pressure testing really exists, just sparring. Just the odd bit once in a blue moon.

Yeah, I found that with previous karate clubs actually. I used to have to hold back horribly (even though I'm not that great as it is) so that I could comply with everyone else and if I looked to up the tempo on someone, I either ended up dominating them too much (I'm fairly big, very heavy, like to wrestle) or getting told off even if I didn't hurt anyone.

:dunno:

[EDIT]: Re-read my comment. I wouldn't dominate in a good club because I'm good, just that when I play hard I can be more aggressive than a lot of people who do karate.

Your comment about your karate reminding you of your TKD days was interesting. At the risk of sounding too dry, sounding like a muppet and reading into it wrong, is it the mindset and the way it makes you feel that reminds you of your TKD days? That you enjoy the sense of "security" even if you're not keen to compete in the same format?

 

i dont think i would know how to give up martial arts. what would i do with myself?

 

Back in the early 90s a friend of mine persuaded me to try TKD with them, I didn't really know what to expect or anything about it but I liked the thought of being able to fight. As someone who hadn't taken any physical exercise in yrs it was a complete shock to my system but I loved it and became addicted. However after approx 3yrs I grew a bit bored, maybe read too much about SD and other arts & felt MA don't really teach SD and gave it up. Sad really as it was the fittest I've been in my life and staying at it would have kept me in shape.

I always felt something was missing after that but it took me until fatherhood and knowing I needed to get back to exercising to be fit enough to be a good dad (for play, hopefully longevity & as a role model). I thought about TKD but certain personal opinions of it made me feel it best to try something different, so I ended up spending the last 7 yrs or so in Aikido. Again I've loved it but certain nagging doubts crept in and were amplified by tinterweb "pressure" discussions. Not that I train for SD but if I'm training I'd like to know I could "perform" under pressure, otherwise it defeats the point to a degree.

So a year ago I also started BJJ and that has been the biggest shock to my system ever and I love it, wish I had found it back in the 90s! I have practically stopped Aikido though which I have mixed feelings about, I do enjoy it but feel there's not enough time to do both & the BJJ really has tought me more about myself in a shorter time and injuries aside, will get my fitness back up (as it inspires me outside class to do more to get there as well)

 

You have chronic fatigue from martial arts?

 

Nope, I have to deal with the fatigue anyway, the MA just helps me cope a lot better with it. True I can't manage consistent 3 hour sessions like I used to and I've had to scale back my training a little and much of my training is now broken up into smaller fragments (sledge hammer and bag work here, kata later on, that type of thing), but it's worth it to keep doing something.

 

Well, my answer is probably a little more boring than you might want.

It was doing the katas that reminded me of doing the taegeuks in my TKD days. From there the feeling just kind of grew.

It just felt really familiar. Wearing a Gi, standing on the mats, the sharpness of the moves and other people in Gi's watching your every move.

 

Hmm... started with wrestling from 8th grade through high school. Taught myself some basic poor kickboxing in high school as well. Started TKD (I think it was ITF) for a year in college alongside dabbling with different approaches to military combative systems.

Then moved to a school that did a mix of Tang Soo Do, Hapkido, and Kobudo which was a quasi-McDojo. It ran out of money and closed just before I graduated, and then I took a break for a couple of years.

Eventually started TKD and Hapkido classes again for a few months, then moved to London soon after. Got here and started at a WTF TKD school, while learning how to teach simple and basic self-defence. Then started a mix of MMA and Krav Maga on the side. Now I've replaced the MMA/KM with JKD/Kali, which, I just started.

There's been other random dabblings with BJJ, JJJ, Aikido, and probably a couple others, but nothing that stuck.

 

Btw the mindset between the TKD class and Karate class is worlds apart.

TKD wasn't as formal as Karate. Not as perfectionist either.

 

double post

 

Its hard to plough through fatigue. Especially when you remember times when you are so light on your feet that you can't help but jump up and grab the nearest branch of a tree you're under to do pull ups, or catch yourself doing squat splits as you walk around talking on the phone.

With fatigue, things that used to be fun become nearly unbearable - not because they are difficult - even bending over to tie one's shoe becomes likewise unbearable.

Fatigue. I hate it.

I think about my 82 year old mum who wants to do nothing except die - not because of pain but fatigue. That god-awful, restless but paradoxically bone-tired feeling.

Fatigue - the worse of all maladies. That, not pain, nor brittleness is what robs us of our youth.

I've experienced it before and I despise it. Knowing that something as criminally evil as fatigue exists makes me get out of bed at 5am for Crossfit, or to hit the bags in the evening instead of turning on the teley.

I hope there are days for you where it lets you alone.

 

started with boxing, but never could find a coach or place to train that was close enough to me. So... I got a heavy bag from a friend, bought a speed bag, and then later a double end bag. I worked with each one most days and would shadow box about 20 minutes a night. This was all for fitness reasons more than to compete as when I was younger, I found myself reluctant to get hit. I now could care less about getting hit, but it's more about finding ways not to... so I make it a little challenge to myself.

My neighbor at the time had several dojo's that taught TKD, but I wasn't interested in that. I talked to him one day about maybe working on some kickboxing with him since I knew he used to do it. He had pointed out that there was nothing wrong with it, but to keep in mind weight differences and told me to check out his CHKD classes free for a month to see if I liked it. I was always fascinated by joint locks and such. Now, I still like it, but I have someone who has good credentials and will train me 1 on 1 twice a week in muay thai/kickboxing. He knows I have no desire to compete being 35 my reason for learning is for fun, sparring (also fun), fitness and SD. It's not a belt thing or rank type thing which I like because I don't feel that pressure. He just keeps on me and says "watch your feet" or "bring those hands up higher"... it's all about keeping the little things that matter the most in check so I don't make those mistakes when they might really matter the most lol.

 

oh... and also because I want to beat little children and the elderly.

 

I love the sweet sweet smell of Justice.

 

Well, as long as you're keeping it in perspective dude

 

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!!!!

 

Wow, that's pretty much spot on actually. I normally just tell people to imagine trying to do their day to day activities with a case of the flu because it is easier for people to understand something like that, but that post was pretty much spot on.

Yeah, I have some days where I don't feel or notice it which are a blessing, but I'm still having to learn that just because I feel good that day, doesn't mean I can push as hard as I want. The fatigue has been a massive factor in my leaving my last karate dojo though :cry:

My sympathies about your mum.