Hello boys and gals, just to introduce myself here. I am a grad student in the uk and I am coming back to martial arts after a somewhat long hyatus. I used to do shotokan karate and now I am starting on Judo and Tomiki Aikido as a way to get fit and being thrown around the tatami. My interests are martial arts and I want to take my time to learn these new martial arts I am picking. jJudo is the BJA type since there was no BJB where I am at. Cheeryo.
Hmmm.... Re-read my first post and realized I said martial arts a bit too much and my interest section got cut... (Still getting used to type on my phone) Well, thank you for the warm welcome and as a further note, my interests cover physics, history, antropology et al. Just going to my Aikido practice and eager to get my next Judo lesson. It is so much fun! Makes me want to try some bjj... Still, let us not get greedy. One at a time
Welcome ! How long did you do Shotokan ? As a longish term Shotokan guy who's now also learning Aikido I'd be interested to hear how you're finding it.
I did shotokan on and off for 7 years. Last time was a 4 year stint finishing in 2007 or so. After practice tonight I will tell you how I'm feeling.
Welcome to MAP! I don't think we have anyone on MAP who currently posts and practises Tomiki Aikido and my experience is with an off-shoot of Yoshinkan Aikido. I'd be extremely interested in picking your brains sometimes about your views on what you do, your practices, etc .
I will be glad to do so. I'm leaving for training in ten minutes beback in two hours or so. From what I've gathered so far there Re two kinds of training. One dealing with repetition ad eternum to interiorize the other with randori at the end more active and to actually test what we were doing. Attacks not limited to blade hand btw. My main problem is falling down (too heavy atm. Used to weigh 15kg less) but I still have a very good notion of distance and timing. More when I return.
Ok. Just had a very nice practice. The training was separated in two main stages plus warmup. I must say I enjoyed this school of aikido very much. First, we did some kata with form. Then we picked a thriw and had to make it work. For me since I am starting it was rather slow but managed to pull off a couple of throws. The black belts however were going full steam ahead. This was against the traditional cuts but also against straight punches andjabs. The idea was to offbalance the uke and then throw. Between black belts that usualy meant a punch to the face of the uke to stop him. We also did some timing exercises to learn when to launch an attack to disrupt the uke's attack. Afterwards the training consisted of free style in which any attack could be made and you had to make a throw. Tomorrow I will give more details, for now it is night time so I am going to sleep.
Right, a better analysis of the training yesterday. This dojo is very much concerned about the practical applications of aikido which is good. You don't see people flying around much and, unless the head teacher says so, we always practice with resistance. To be fair he only said not To resist when this small orange belt girl was playing tori to two black belt ukes. Interesting point, the sensei explicetly said that this particular exercise was not so much to train vs multiple opponents but to train movement and to keep us moving. From what I've seen, the only practicality missing from the training was against combos and kicks. I tried some well planted karate tsukis and they had no trouble kicking, punching or just pulling me off balance. Very good. Although not as tiring as Judo, today I have the feeling that someone entered my room during the night and beat the crap out of me with a stick while I was sleeping... My only problem is that I have this annoying light pain on my knee (when I press it)... On the place where I banged it some months ago from a bike fall. It doesn't always hurt and when it does, it doesn't hurt as much now as it did (I am doing squats on a regular basis to strengthen the knees) but it is there. I fear a torn meniscus... Need to see a gp to figure it out.
Just came back from my second Iaido practice. Pretty relaxing. It is an excellent end of work week mellow out activity. It just balances you. Looking forward for my second Judo training this tuesday. Sadly my local club only has Judo once a week as it is the martial art I feel I would benefit having more than once a week (still, it is a two and a half hour practice!). There is the option of going to southampton city club on sundays afternoons but I'm afraid my girlfriend would kill me... She doesn't do martial arts but she can be quite scary
Does anyone know of hapikido in southampton? I can't find anything except one person which the email provided doesn't even work.
