With regard to Tai Chi, I would love to learn it. I love the philosophy behind it, I love the way it works, I love the movements, and, as a Taoist, it’s a natural choice for me. The only problem is that I need something that will also give me real exercise, a bill the Tai Chi just doesn’t fit. And I have neither the time nor money to do both.
You can get a real workout from Tai Chi, while it all looks nice and slow (and a lot of the time it can be) there are lots of movements if you want them, and once you start to get into it you will definitely feel like you’ve been round the block a few times without necessarily having to look like you’re flailing around like Jackie Chan on Speed.
If the Option to want to punch someone is there, then Kung Fu either in combination with Tai Chi or instead of might be worth looking at.
And another vote for stay clear of TKD, had a teacher who was very much into the “Hur Hur, this is how to kick someone HARD” school of teaching. It was only because I was flexible at the time that his attempt to humiliate/hurt me failed.
Tai Chi is a good self-defense art if you take the proper style. The Tai Chi that most of us think of (old people doing slow motion in the park at sunrise) is Yang style, but Wu and Chen style Tai Chi are far more, er, vigorous, shall we say.
It did dawn on me that with minor modification it could be considered a contact martial art, unfortunately our Tai Chi teacher disappeared after a couple of weeks, so other than watching a few practical demonstrations where he definitely worked up a sweat out of proportion to what he was doing, we never really got that far into doing it, let alone knowing which style we were doing.
Mu. Both are important, but a good teacher that is educating in someting flawed isn’t going to help. It’s like saying “This guy can teach me a wrong thing very well”. I’m not sure there’s much to be gained by that.
It took me right on about six years. That can vary from organization to organization, even from dojo ot dojo within an organization. There is a tendencey of many dojos/org. In the States that force students to make it years and years to get a black belt, and even longer to progress through the dan levels. The thing is…shodan (black belt) means all of dick really. Every other person in Japan has a shodan in something (karate/kendo/judo being the required form of PE in schools there). Black belt is not a big deal. Don’t put too much emphasis on it. It’s a belt. It’s black. If you really want one, you can buy one online for $10.
All Shodan means is that you are a serious student. You’ve put the time in to learn the basics of the art and can now begin to progress.
By the same token, I’m not looking for something necessarily over-physical either. I’m a big wuss, basically, and I’m afraid of getting my ass beaten. I have to admit that Aikido really does seem to be a great middle ground.
Aikido is a good middle ground for this. Again, depending on sytle and instructor. ASU schools (like the one you linked) tend to be of a softer orientation, so you should be okay. Then again, it depends on the teacher. Stay away from the Yoshikan and Shodokan styles though. Both are rough.
I know this is hard to answer, but what’s a good price range? I live in a suburb of Philadelphia, and I’m having a hard time finding comparison prices–is that $80/month fair? Anyone from this area know if that’s decent or not? Or just anyone from the suburbs of any large city?
I’m assuming that’s without a contract? I’ve seen everything from $120 a month, no contract. To $60 a month for a 1 year contract. It varies. I would STRONGLY advise signing any contract that is longer than 3 months. 3 months should give you ample to to evaluate some place and also not get strung along if you don’t like it. As a general rule though, contracts = bad.
A few months ago, I was in a car accident that left me with some back and neck pain. It’s mostly cleared up now with the help of physical therapy, but this occurred to me: would getting thrown down on an aikido mat be a bad idea? Would any martial art be a bad idea? Should I at least wait until my lawsuit is resolved?
IANAL, but the lawsuit could be an issue for sure. The other team sends a PI around to follow you for a bit, takes pics of you training in a martial art, they’re going to be all over you.
One thing an aikido dojo will do for you more than anywhere else probabaly is ease you into falling. Aikido makes an in depth study of ukem (breakfalls, falling). Probably moreso than any other art. So no worries into being thrust into something you aren’t ready for. It’ll be months before you do any really big falling probably.
Hope it works out for you. And if you get in shape and more confident then you can tranfer over to jiu-jitsu! :twisted:
I, too, hereby plug Aikido. I really enjoy it, and it’s done a lot for me strength-wise. I’m still about as chubby as when I started, but I wound up with a lot of core strength, and I think it’s mostly due to Aikido.
The big thing you learn in Aikido that may help you in the real world is the falling, it’s an extremely well-developed set of techniques. I actually don’t buy into the idea that Aikido is about not hurting your attacker. Aikido techniques won’t hurt the attacker as long as he cooperates with you, but he may not know what to do, and that’s more or less his problem unless you are really good and can adjust to his bad ukemi without endangering yourself.
I think that Aikido training is very much about not hurting the people you train with, but it’s different if you get in a real fight with a non-Aikidoka. If you do shiho-nage really hard to a black belt in a dojo he will do a nice breakfall and get up and smile. If you do it on concrete to someone who doesn’t know breakfalls he will probably need surgery on his shoulder/neck. So a large part of the training of Aikido is learning how to have these things done to you without you getting hurt, and if you never get in a fight (and let’s face it, you probably never will) then this is what you take home with you.
You will get much more confident in your balance and your ability not to get hurt if you lose your balance. My first sensei tells a story about a car pulling in front of her while she was on her bike, and her slamming into the car, doing a roll across the hood and a slap-out onto the concrete, then getting up and telling off the driver.
Well, OK, that won’t happen to you, either. How about this: After a year or so training in Aikido I started being able to catch tipping shampoo bottles in the shower before they fall. Now THAT is an everyday skill.
Rote memorization of moves without understanding the underlying philosophy will ultimately lead to disappointment. It would be far better to find an art that meshes with your own philosophy, whatever that may be. Might I recommend isshin-ryu?
Rote memorization of moves without understanding the underlying philosophy will ultimately lead to disappointment. It would be far better to find an art that meshes with your own philosophy, whatever that may be. Might I recommend isshin-ryu?[/quote]
Um, right.
Yes, depending on what you mean. There are certainly teachers who don’t talk about “Ki” as though it’s more than a mental construct, and who don’t push the universal harmony as hard as O Sensei did, but there aren’t any schools that I’ve seen (granted, I’ve only seen like 5) that dispense with the ceremony, the ritual and the state-of-mind work. Which is good, that stuff is very important, it can really change your stress level through your whole life and it’s important to learning to view conflict in a less confrontational way.
Yes, depending on what you mean. There are certainly teachers who don’t talk about “Ki” as though it’s more than a mental construct, and who don’t push the universal harmony as hard as O Sensei did, but there aren’t any schools that I’ve seen (granted, I’ve only seen like 5) that dispense with the ceremony, the ritual and the state-of-mind work. Which is good, that stuff is very important, it can really change your stress level through your whole life and it’s important to learning to view conflict in a less confrontational way.[/quote]
This is exactly what I’m looking for–I don’t mind referring to “ki” as a sort of mental construct that’s used to focus concentration while learning/practicing. I also don’t necessarily mind ceremony and ritual. Where you’re going to lose me is treating all of it as actual, real-live “life energy-force” hoo-ha.
So, laughably idiotic people scare you, I take it?[/quote]
Nah, the way more than one were crazy, along with charges of GBH and a nasty rumour of male rape were the scary bits, it’s just that they dont make for an amusing anecdote.
I recommend Cuong Nhu. It combines elements of a number of traditional styles, both soft and hard. Classes are often free, or often just charge enough to cover costs. The trick is to find a dojo in your area. The founder was Vietnamese, hence the name. He learned Judo from the US Marine champion who he met in the 60s in Vietnam, and eventually was awarded an honorary 10-dan, going on to master various other styles before combining seven to form CN.
Rote memorization of moves without understanding the underlying philosophy will ultimately lead to disappointment. It would be far better to find an art that meshes with your own philosophy, whatever that may be. Might I recommend isshin-ryu?[/quote]
Um, right.[/quote]
Well seriously, what’s wrong with that answer? There are hundreds upon hundreds of martial arts in the world. Why not just find one that doesn’t include philosophy you don’t like?
