Do you train both sides equally? I'm right dominate. By this I mean I'm right handed and my right side is stronger. It's easy to get in a habit of preference in what is more comfortable but I think it is important to be balanced.
I am also dominate on my right side. My TKD school only works on the right. But coming from TSD, where they worked both sides, that's what I do on my own.
I work both sides also. I am right handed but it was my right knee I broke which made training the left side (something I never did alot of) necessary. Now I just wish I had been working both from the beginning. Rob
We do train on both sides but I'm very much right dominant. Have been in everything that I've ever done.
Our training with throws ae mainly only done on the right side early on but everything else is taught and trained both sides and later training throws are done on both sides as well. I am very left handed but due to society being right handed in general I find I have had to learn to use my right more than right handed people use their left. I also start to learn a new technique right handed so that my conversion to left is easier and plus this is also bringing me closer to being ambidextrous. It would be a bad idea to only train in one side as this will lead you devloping bad habits which will only become apparent when you fight a left handed person. When we play circle of death and attacks are throw randomly I usually try to fire off a couple of left handed attacks. This usually throws the people with less experience off and they have to stop and think. I have also made my brother practise left handed throws so we don't leave them out and become comfortable with the motion because after training the other way so long the left handed throws feel really unco.
Your Circle of Death is my Monkey in the Middle. I've also noticed if I start out in a left foot forward stance while sparring and switch to right foot it seems to throw off my partner's coordination a little bit.
When we do the wheel of death it involves one person standing in the middle of a group of six or seven. He then has to be do a set of techniques, for example the atemi waza on everybody. He can choose to do it left or right handed but he has to do Shomen ate on everybody, and then Aigamae ate on everybody and so on. Idea is that you do it as fast as you can, as accurately as you can. Good way of working up a sweat!
In Wing Chun we always start on the left on the assumption you are right-dominant. I always try to make sure I practice all drills/ chi-sau etc. left and right sided too. There used to be a much bigger difference between my sides but it's reduced with doing weights equally and balanced training. On a slightly different note does anyone else find that they are faster or better at doing something new on their non-dominant side (presumably because you're not thinking about it as much) - it happens to me fairly often?
I beleive you should train your left side harder because 7 out of 10 people are right handed and the attack will most likely come to your left side. Since the right sides are stronger in striking the left should bestrong in blocking, at the basic to intermediate levels anyway.
Good point Thomas. I balance my training as much as is possible but I'm still right side dominant at the moment. A lot of the blocks in aikido lead straight into a technique as opposed to the block and then counter that I have seen in lots of other arts. I actually find that when I do my kata left sided it can sometimes be a bit crisper than right sided as I have to concentrate a lot more. Anybody else find this.
yeah my right footed kicks are usually better due me having more balance when standing on my left leg. I've got a bit of a mental block with my left side diving rolls because of my cricket background. When running at speed I just flow back in to ten years of cricket where when bowling I jumped off my right leg and then nearly impale myself on the bench. My right diving rolls are awesome but my left side is getting better.
My best flashback to my former life (before the MAs became central to it ) occurred during one of my gradings. My short but masterful Sensei, Tintin, had me defending myself against two attackers. I had just managed to dump protagonist A on his ar*e when protagonist B came charging in like something that charges very fast and straight. Without conscious thought I dropped my shoulder, caught him clean in the stomach with it, sweeped his legs from under him with my arms and dumped him on his back with a not inconsiderable amount of force. One of the best dump tackles in 18 years of playing rugby and I did it in the dojo I obviously apologised and then checked with Sensei whether this would count against me - he said it wouldn't as I was defending myself and he hadn't specified that I had to rely solely on my aikido!
Quote: "I obviously apologised and then checked with Sensei whether this would count against me - he said it wouldn't as I was defending myself and he hadn't specified that I had to rely solely on my aikido! I wasn't going to say anything but I am bleeding from biting my tongue! One of the issues I have with any martial art is the idea that this was a Aikido, Shotokan, Tang Soo Do, Tae Kwon Do technique. In Parker Kenpo training anything goes, if it works use it! It is do close to the idea og JKD it is scary! Not meant in any way to discredit your art, it is an issue to be sure that you graded properly and that you will not loose points for certain actions. Avenging angel you are cool and I really like your posts and your input so keep up the excellent input!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
