[OT] Yet another martial arts help thread.....so, please help!!

[Darius101]

Another reason to train

I had forgotten the true reason why I started in Martial Arts...This thread has remminded me. I hope i can articulate it properly for you all....

I wanted inner peace. I liked the idea of the martial arts for the philosphy's of Zanshin and the idea of No Mind. I learnd to play golf from my Grandfather and a friend asked me a simple unassuming question:
What do you think about when you swing a golf club?
I thought about it and had no answer. I had never thought about it before. The next time I went golfing I paid attention and found I didn't think of anything..I just did it. This facinated me. I talked to friends and had a friend that was a martial artist and that got me started down a long road to learning Heijo Shin (peace of mind).

Martial kanji is formed with two characters Tomeru and Hoku these characters by themselves mean "prevent" "conflict". The term Martial Art, from an early time, has ment The Art of Conflict Prevention. The full name is actually Bujutsu in Japenese and is not a waste of time at all. It is an art designed through trial and errror like any other. It is the study of the Human Body in movement. It is also the study of the human mind from an Eastern point of view.
I can only illustrate the ideals of peace of mind through an easy to follow story told to me by my teacher:

Musashi was in the mountains perfecting his mind through meditation with a priest friend of his. They were seated by a small stream and there was a waterfall. As they sat there Musashi was alerted to a prescense nearby. Without disturbing his serenity he allowed his gaze to fall upon this prescense. It was a Viper and it was crawling towards his friend.
Knowing that any movement would cause the viper to attack, he carefully controlled his spirit, and just watched. The Viper crawled across his friends thigh, his friend merely smiled. Musashi was amazed at the snakes acceptance of his friend as a natual part of the surroundings.
After the snake slithered across the priest it continued towards Musashi. But, several feet away, the snake sensed Musashi's prescense and recoiled, ready to attack. Musashi still sat calmly and did not react at all. Even though he didn't move and remained still the snake still felt his power, skill. The snake scurried away into the brush as if frightened. Most men would have been proud to have this intimidating Aura, but Musashi only felt shame. He realized his own shortcommings.
What troubles you? his friend asked.
All my life I have trained to develop skills so that no man would ever dare attack me. and now that i have achieved that goal, all living things instinctivly fear me. You saw the snake flee from me.

"I saw it," the priest said, " since it did not dare attack you, you defeated it without striking a blow. And because of your great skill both you and the snake still live. Why does that sadden you?"

"Because I am so strong that no one can ever get close to me. I can never know true peace." Musashi pointed " Not like you. You did not fear the snake, nor the snake fear you. Your spirit is so calm, so natural that the snake treated you no different from it's surroundings. People can accept you that way too".
His priest friend only smiled because he knew how important a discovery this was for his friend. Musashi spent the rest of his life perfecting this Heijoshin.

Remember there is always room for more knowledge, greater compassion, stronger love, and a higher level of character development.
Among other things this seems to be a stumbling block for many westerners. People have been culterally accostomed to a 'quick-fix' approach to nearly everything. Not everything has a quick-fix as this post illustrates.
Heijoshin demands a lifestyle change: a life of disiplne, effort, sacrifice, and commitment. Such a commitment sets a martial artist apart from most people in a confused and unhappy society. Lannon has said Education is important, I hope I have adequatly illustrated what eduation means on a much deeper level. Perhaps this great quote from an old master says it all:

Talk is easy: action is difficult. But action is easy; true understanding is difficult.

Thank you guys for reminding me why I am who I am.
---Darius----
P.S. Lannon there is no need for you insult me or my art or even someones beliefs. You are still young and for that I understand. May you learn life's lessons in a mannor befitting your beliefs. Exercitatio Optimus est Magister.....

 

[Darius101]

From what I've seen of Aikido, it can indeed be effective against a grappler, but it has the same learning curve that the rest of Aikido training possesses. I've always thought of Aikido as a great second martial art, but I don't know that I'd steer a beginner in that direction. Mileage may vary, and prodigies or people with natural affinities could shoot right on up the curve, but in general, the average Aikido student seems to take awhile to be able to apply his studies practically.

Aikido is very effective against a grappler. I agree with Tacky on this one all the way. It takes about 18 months of study to be able to use effectively. It also depends on your teacher and your skill as a student.

Tai Chi when used as self defense is totally devastating. it takes a long to time for a teacher to teach you the self-defense applications of tai chi. At least in my experience the teacher taught the excersises and kata with no explanation of applicatoin for self defense until he was sure you were 100% ready. Tai chi is truely a needle wrapped in cotton.

I just thought of something...does ordered chaos ring a bell lol. ordered chaos is what the circle of death was in our Dojo. ahhh the memories.

Darius

 

[Dinkeldog]

For the uninformed (and willfully ignorant), two simple rules: 1) don't discuss religion on these boards, please. The ensuing flamefests are not what we're striving for here. That includes criticising others for their spiritual beliefs. 2) Don't call people "morons".

Thank you.

 

[DDK]

Re: Good restraint?

He threatened to kill a man because that man was asking questions. You consider this to be good restraint?

I hope that some others do not feel that this qualifies as "good restraint."

You have absolutely no idea about what it's like to be in such a situation. You think that by pulling apart a few sentences in a few paragraphs you can diagnose and analyze the situation I was attempting to describe. The fact that you think a few sentences can in anyway describe the fear and anxiety created by a person harrassing you day and night for no other reason than that you are there shows just how naive and inexperienced you are.

What is worse is that you judge me based on those few sentences. You were not there, you did not have to face him every single time you left your room for almost two weeks. I couldn't wash dishes, use the stove or oven or get water without him there, in my face, harrassing me every single time. You have no idea what people like him are like, you think that logic and reason apply to these situations and that everything can be neatly explained. Well pal, they can't. People do violent things for no reason. The fact that he constantly escalated the encounters of his own volition without any logical reason didn't even remotely occur to you but then that's because you wouldn't know jack about people like him. I do. I've grown up with people like him around me. I know how things work. It's reality. People like him don't do things for logical reasons but they certainly are predictible. He was escalating each encounter like a test of how much I could tolerate until he felt quite happy in getting up in my face, blowing smoke and flicking cigarette butts at me. And he would've continued until he dominated me.

You have no idea the amount of restraint I had to tolerate this and not beat the absolute crap out of him when I knew I was more than capable of it. It's that restraint for which I went to martial arts predominantly in the first place. Collectively I've done about two years of formal training and about six of informal training involving friends and my own efforts. I'm an inherently violent person who gets into a rage very easily. I get excessive amounts of adrenline and endorphins pumping through me, so much that I get 'combat shakes' afterwards to the point of physical sickness. I've learned to control that and walk away in most instances and a lot of that has been through disciplining myself in martial arts training. That's a key word, discipline. All martial arts are a discipline, something that makes you move in a certain way and takes time and effort to learn also makes you think and act in a different manner because it makes you fully aware of just what you are capable of. I assure you that if it wasn't for the fact that I've learned just how badass I can be in a fight, through the discipline of training and self-training, I would be just a violent thug who WOULD act out of nothing more than emotional responses.

For almost two weeks he harrassed me and I walked away. But I wasn't about to let him keep on escalating the encounters until I was more than just a victim of harrassment, but rather a victim of violence. In this instance, I lost control and you're right, I should've walked away. But I'm almost positive that if I had stuck with martial arts training, that I would've because that is part of what it teaches. If I had been able to restrain myself, it's possible that I could've just called the police and the matter would've been dealt with. That's not how it happened, though, and later he came after me for the express purpose of killing me and he even brought a mate to make sure of it.

I know this type of person and the frustrating thing was that calling the police would've done exactly the same thing as threatening him ended up doing. However at least threatening him and showing him what I was capable of made him doubt his own ability in the following encounters. Something which ended up being crucial, I feel, in my ability to get him out of my room when he came at me with a knife.

But I doubt all of the above explanation will stop you from tearing my argument apart and evaluating it like you know what you're talking about. Because you'll look at this and think you now know what it was like to be harrangued day and night. To live with the fear that he was going to be out there and was targeting you with all his misplaced rage and aggression for no logical reason. To know that he was mentally deficient enough to be sucking on aerosol cans day and night and that you were his current favourite toy. To know that he might just have gotten out of prison for a violent crime (which it ended up he had been) and thus you were his potential next victim.

But then I doubt you care.

Until you've been in such a situation you have no point of reference to speak from and so all your arguments are, quite frankly, invalid. Until you've experienced such a situation your views are held up by nothing but fantasy and delusion, hence you don't live in the real world but one constructed of hypotheticals and illusions.

You're a posuer, looking for a fight on the net and yet preaching about the ills of fighting. Yet still you don't see how lame and ironic that is.

But then, like I said, I think you're just a troll and don't really care a whit about what's really being discussed or talked about here. In some ways, you're worse than the person I described above. At least he was doing it face to face and not behind the comfort of a screen and a keyboard.

 

[PatMefford]

On the topic of Tai Chi and Aikido, do these have any practical value for self-defense?

I was never Impressed with Aikido. I'm a sport grappler, and there is a Aikdo Dojo across the street. The senior students are a nich bunch of guys that come over to our place on Fridays nights to Roll with us. I've never seen any of them win a clinch or avoid the shoot. Thier teacher (sensei) was a former olmpyic Judo player, and I've only seen him use Judo moves in the clinch. I've never seen them actually use a wrist or small joint lock against an unwilling opponent, much less throw one. Maybe Aikido is geared more twards strikers?

I've seen people to Tai Chi before, looks more spiritual then anything esle. The 3 Tai Chi guys I saw fight in MMA events all did poorly, but I'm not sure they were real good represenatives of it.

 

[Darius101]

Thanks for the reminder Dinkledog.

Aikido is more of a controlling art than an aggressive hard art. They learn or try to learn how to control an opponent without hurting them. To reflect an attack continuously until your opponent get's tired and no longer wants to fight. It was not created or practiced to devastate and opponent like Karate, Tae Kwan Do or countless other arts. Hence the more spitiual 'do' as opposed to the 'jutsu' out of whence it came. This does not mean that it cannot be devastating or that there are absolutly no techniques that are devastating, it just means it may not have been taught that way to the practioners you worked with. I wasn't there to watch so I do not know.
It takes longer to learn how to reflect and attack than it does to learn how to devastate something. More from a proper understanding point than anything else.
Hope that helps,
Darius

 

[Kail]

Practicality of Aikido, depends on what form of practical your aiming for. Competition wise its not the best style, for defense it can be effective, wrenching joints and smacking people off the ground can be a good tactic. In Kentucky, the majority of the state police officers go through their criminal justice education at Eastern Kentucky University. In the courses offered there, Aikido is part of their restraining technique. I'm not really sure how heavily modified it is, but the instructor, whom I had the chance to train with for a too short semester, was genuine in his concern for those he taught the art to. None of the officiers coming out of those courses, even ones I knew enough to speak with later, felt as if they had been cheated in their training.

Takyris raised a good point, or turned a good phrase I plan to file away for later use in the martial arts. The "learning curve" of Aikido, and many other traditional arts can be quite steep when refering to application in a self-defense situation. Its all part of a discussion I've hard many times with many traditional, and several modern/eclectic martial artists. The subtleties of traditional arts take time to understand, dedicated training and time. These, in my belief, are failsafes ment to ensure that people of good character are not exposed to the truely dangerious abilities within an art. Someone looking for a quick way to kick tail, or even a person of questionable character that begins to train, will either quit because it isn't working toward their goal, or expose a dangerous aspect of their personality during the long time they would have to spend training. Its the system of secrecy that protected Asian arts from Westerners for years, and continues to in many cases, and keeps them from the hands of many who would abuse them. Its not a perfect situation, as some people bring away enough of an art to be danagerous, despite not having had the secrets of it fully revealed. And sometimes, when those secrets are revealed, the people who had spent those years feel cheated, and split away. From what little I have heard, this happened somewhat with American Kempo. Parker started revealing or revising parts of the stystem and some long timers felt cheated and split from him even before his death. Its really an old way of implimenting the "you get out what you put in" philosophy of things in life. And, though it makes me sounds like a close minded traditionalist, I think I like it that way.

Kail

 

[Darius101]

I like it that way too Kail.
Good thoughts up there and more things that I hadn't thought about in years.

We used to say we can teach you the right way to swing a sword, but it takes a lifetime to master it.

If it was easy to learn then everyone would do it. Because it is difficult to learn the appreciation of the art is easy. True understanding in a martial art is neither easy nor fast..and for that I am happy.

Darius

 

[PatMefford]

In my opinion...

It works or it doesn't. The rest is just excuse making.

 

[Darius101]

A technique can still work even though you have not yet mastered it.
Mastering a technique to me means you no longer need to think about the technique it just happens. Mastering a technique means that technique will always work when executed. A master can excecute their technique and it looks effortless regardless of their opponents physical size.
When you see two martial artists at this level it is an eye opening experience.

Saying that it either works or doesn't is too general a statement. I can clarify this by saying if I am trying a pressure point on a person in practice, and that pressure point doesn't work on my Uke then I just abandon it? No, I try it on another training partner and it works quite effectivly. What does this mean I would probably ask myself or my Sensei. It means that martial arts are only an exact science to a point and that unless it is adaptable to the situation it is no good.
In practice this means that if I try that technique and it doesn't work on you I better have another technique to use for those situations. This is essentially why you train. To adapt quickly to an unexpected situation.
Or in one sentence: Train to control the situation don't let the situation control you.
Later,
Darius