So, long story long, but not as long as it could be, I'm a complete failure so far at following through with my goals, be they ever so small. I've tried a lot of various 'goal-setting' sorts of things, but I'm here to try something new. Why it never occurred to me to reach out to like-minded martial arts enthusiasts is beyond me:bang:. I mean, seriously. I don't even know you guys yet, but I love ya, and I look forward to sharing my progress with you. Just so you know, this is going to be my training journal as it relates to traditional kung fu practice. That means lots of horse stance and horse stance related activities (HA that sounded too much like Hank Hill), standing and sitting meditation, forms, and other various drills. I'll present little bits of myself, my past, my knowledge, and my goals, as we go along. One of my goals is to not present you, the reader, with an unconquerable wall of text in any single post. So before I wrap things up for today, I'll just let you in on one of my major martial arts goals. It's the most easily accessible, the most well-defined, and the allows for the most straight forward training regimen. Big Major Super Duper Kungfu Goal #1 To become a champion professional prize fighter in a major mixed martial arts venue. This goal is unique, because though there are plenty of prize fighters out there, I'm under the impression that traditional martial artists have not done so well in the sport. Speaking very broadly here, when I see a traditional martial artist actually go toe-to-toe with someone in the ring (or otherwise), he or she simply throws all that training out the window and ends up with the typical brawler/kickboxer/grappler style, swinging madly with one or two sloppy kicks and a shot thrown in for good measure. An MMAist would then call this the evolution of martial arts (just kidding). (... not really) But I refuse to believe that people are unable to handle themselves elegantly in combat. I'm not trying to be some sort of elitist here and get into an argument about which 'style' is better, mine or the other guy's, but I do believe that too many people are either ignorant of the traditional methods, or have thrown them out the window in favor of modern techniques. Modern martial arts lend themselves to expediency in the combat arena, I'll give them that; but whoever said that expediency leads to mastery? More thoughts on this later. Thanks for reading! Please, feel free to introduce yourself if you wish to be little martial arts pen pals, because I would a pen pal or two!
You want to do pro, what do you want to go pro in? Is it kickboxing, or MMA. And specifically what styles do you train in?
I checked you're profile you should take up BJJ. You have less than 0% chance of winning otherwise. Also, is your last name Machida?
3/21/13 Hi All! I'm going to start things out strong with a new journaling/pen pal/whatever rule: Until I've formed a habit of a particular training exercise for 21 days, I don't want to skip a day reporting on it. Do I actually believe that 21 is some sort of magic number that will ensure that the habit is forever more encoded in my genes? No. But three weeks seems like a pretty good assurance that I haven't just crapped out on it, and if I were to stop doing it after that, it would have to be for pretty good reasons. So for now, and probably for a while, I plan on writing in this journal every day. So, to follow up on yesterday, I have just a few things to say. First off, thanks for the warm welcomes, and just for taking the time to read this. Some time soon, I hope to really begin to start exploring this site some more; I'm really excited to learn the story of other people's journey's as well. The martial arts cover a vast field of training goals and methods, and though everyone's won't be like mine, I'm still a big fan of personal development in whatever form it takes. Flammingfar- no, my last names isn't Machida, it's Walton. I appreciate your response, and I'm happy that you really seem to have an appreciation for your art. I've got to disagree with you just a little bit, though. The reader's digest version of my history as a martial artist and athlete has me all over the place, learning all sorts of things, but the gist of it is my transition from the external styles and methods to the internal styles and methods. I do have experience training with BJJ and other grappling arts, and I've decided that they are not something I wish to pursue. No offense intended here- I actually got my butt handed to me one time by a BJJ guy, chock hold. I started out in TKD school, where there was also a hapkido instructor and a western boxing instructor who taught their own separate classes. In that school, we covered it all- kicking, hand striking, joint locks, grappling; traditional forms, modern sparring, 'self defense'; pads, heavy bags, breaking. Then in high school, I got really, really, really, (really) into weight lifting, running, and general badass training, like with sledgehammers and stuff. All forms of calisthenics, bodyweight stuff, free weights. I was inventing Crossfit types of workouts before Crossfit was even a thing that I knew about. My favorite type of training was the old-timey strong man stuff, like bending metal, ripping decks of cards, popping soda cans, etc. I would run marathons. I also wrestled for a couple years in high school, where I developed a strangely strong neck. All of that is just to say that, as far as external training methods and grappling and other styles, I've been there and done that. I didn't just settle for what was immediately available, but rather, took my time to really understand the different styles and techniques and diversify my education as I grew up. So when you say that I have a less than 0% chance of winning with learning BJJ, all I can really do is shrug my shoulders. I understand your doubt of my styles, I really do. The traditional, and especially the internal, martial arts community has done a downright awful job of living up to its potential. I cry a little bit when I think of some of the garbage out there posing as martial arts. But a big part of what I'm setting out to do is to really learn the full power of the arts that I've chosen now, and reintroduce them to the world for benefit of everyone. I love what I do, and I want to share it with people, but people aren't going to give it any attention nowadays if it can't prove itself in actual combat scenarios. And it would seem hypocritical if I were to say "Yeah, what I'm doing is great... so long as I have X, Y, and Z to supplement it." But I also know that most of the people reading this are going to say, "Hogwash!" and "That guy doesn't know what he's spoutin' off about." That's cool though, because I know that my talk means very little until it's backed up by words. Which is why I'm here! I won't just be documenting my day-to-day training; I'll also be sharing each and every test that comes along the way in the form of an actual match. Now, this won't be for some time, seeing as how I'm currently totally out of shape in every which way. I've got that weird big belly with skinny body thing going on. And after college and working and building a soon to be successful business to support my training financially, my mind feels like it's been through the ringer more than a few times. Also, my eyesight is blurry (-3.5 for each), and I have no social life to speak of. All in all, I'm in a bit of a loser mode right now, to be brutally honest. But if there's one thing that I'm not lacking, it's determination. So tomorrow will be the first of many days where I document my actual routine, training exercises, and progress. Thanks for reading!
3/22 Ah man! So I typed up this really thoughtful, somewhat longish post last night, only to find just now that it didn't stick. I think what happened was that it asked me to log in after I clicked 'submit reply,' and just wiped it clean. Oh well, if that's the worst of my woes right now, then my life must be pretty darn good. So here's pretty much the gist of it... Let me say 'thank you' for those who have taken the time to read and reply to my little introduction. I really appreciate the warm welcome, and I'm looking forward to getting acquainted with this site and community as time goes by. flammingfarr, no- my last name isn't Machida, it's Walton. At this point in my original draft that I tried to post yesterday, I went into this really long winded discussion of my personal history as a martial artist and athlete, listing off all the typical external styles and training methods that I used to be totally involved in, ranging from marathon running to oldtimey strong man stuff (like ripping decks of cards while wearing leopard print unitards and mustaches); from striking arts like TKD and western boxing to grappling arts Greco-Roman wrestling and juijitsu. External martial arts styles and their respective training methods used to be my entire life and point of living. So I really appreciate your advice about BJJ and where you're coming from, but I've transitioned over to the internal arts as part of a very conscious and very informed process. And besides, it would defeat the purpose of bringing the reputation of the internal arts back to its rightful place if the only way I could do it was by supplementing it with anything out of the standard MMA toolkit. That's like saying, "Hey, look! Taichi really is a combat art (but only if you also practice this slew of other things, too.)" See, it doesn't just stop with BJJ- the boxer would advice me to practice boxing, and the wrestler would advice me to practice wrestling, and so forth. Before long, there wouldn't be any traditional work left in the mix.
I'm going to become the best cyclist in the world by rowing crew! BJJ is sudden death man. If you don't at least know the submissions and how to defend against them, you wind up looking like a victim of UFC 1. But I mean, y'know, keep trying to hammer that square peg into a round hole. Edit: Whoa, who, what now, where'd that post come from.
3/22- Giant wall of words, I apologize But now to my first official training log. I don't really feel like getting into the details of explaining every little aspect of any given exercise that I'm practicing, so I'll usually just be giving the exercises fairly general (and probably kind of vague) names. For instance, I have a whole set of standing meditation postures that I'll be practicing, each one being held for a particular length of time. But instead of spelling all that out, I'll just say 'Standing meditation- 2 hours.' Similarly, I have a whole set of qigong exercises that I do while moving about in a horse stance, some of them being single-movement repetitions, others being repetitions of short sequences. But to simplify the writing, I'll just write 'Qigong forms- 1 hour.' Simple, right? So, here goes. The Routine Up at 6:30- morning hygiene, light breakfast, very short walk Standing meditation- 2 hours Horse stance- 10 minutes Qigong forms (while still in the horse stance)- 1 hour Sitting meditation- 25 minutes Some time around 11:30 or so- Bathe, lunch, chores; nice, brisk walk in the sun for about 30 minutes Work and play on the computer for a couple hours (Gotta make money, right?) Some time around 3:00-ish- Forms practice for a couple of hours. Since the qigong forms cover drilling single repetitions of major movements and holding postures, I just practice these conventional forms whole and smooth, continuous and unbroken. I practice them at various speeds, from fairly slow, to fairly fast. I also practice some traditional weapons as a compliment to my empty hand work, which consist of staff, spear, broad sword, double-edged sword, and flute. Before going into weapons work, I also practice single repetitions of staff/spear movements to build power. There are many more weapons than these, but these are the ones that I know right now, and that's OK, because I already have my hands full. Just so you know, I practice tai chi, bagua, and praying mantis. I then eat dinner around 5:00 or so, go on another short walk or watch a cartoon, and then basically Repeat the entire morning routine of standing meditation, horse stance, and qigong forms Practice a short qigong form that I do continuous repetitions that involves holding a 6 lb shotput in each hand. This is the internal arts method of weight training. This form is simply called Bagua Ball. I do this for about 30 minutes. Practice 8 repetitions of the opening sequence of my first tai chi form (per side), as it contains many of the major, emblematic movements and energetic expressions of the style. Practice 20 slow front kicks directly to the front, and 20 slow front kicks turned out as far as I can to the side (per leg). Sitting meditation- 25 minutes Then I go to bed a little after 11:00. If, for whatever reason, I miss the evening routine, or leave a part out due to over training, then I'll throw in an additional 25 minute sitting meditation before going to bed. To allow some rest, I will allow myself three evenings after dinner off per week (like a Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday evening), and one afternoon as well (probably a Friday or Sunday). I won't skip any morning sessions though. Yup, that's pretty much it. I also have some lifestyle rules that I'm following to, but there's no need to really go into them too much, because if I'm really following the training regime, then there won't be a lot of space left over to do other stuff. For instance, I want to establish a really solid sleep schedule, but that's already a given if I am to be putting in the correct number of hours. I already eat a fairly clean diet, but just to really tighten up a bit, I'll only allow one dessert extravaganza per week; otherwise, no sugars or white flour. Mental diet is also important, so I'll restrict my non-work-related computer time to just a couple thirty minute shows a day; and even that will be awesome inspiration material, like the Last Airbender cartoons or something martial artsy. Last, but not least, I've been doing a damn good job allowing my nails to grow back from biting them for almost my entire life. So I'm going to keep that up as well; I'm hoping that they'll be completely healed within a couple more weeks. To instill the habit, I'll do this routine for at least 21 days before introducing any significant changes in structure or practice. The only change will be to expand the time held or repetitions performed on a couple of the exercises every Sunday, starting the Sunday of the 31st. Note- the rest of these posts from here on out will be much shorter. Dear god.
Aegis- thanks a ton! I'll try not to let that happen again, don't want to become a bother (or give any more surprises to philosoraptor)! Anyway, philosoraptor, I get what you're saying, but it's just not like that. Besides, I want my training to be primarily for combat, and only secondarily for sport. Now, MMA competitions are about the closest thing you can get to actual combat while still in a sport setting, but there are still so many differences. One of the biggest of these is simply the ease in which fights end up on the ground, due to only thinking about combat in a 1vs1 scenario. Yeah, even in the real world, tons of fights end up on the ground, but I want my training to prepare me to fight off a mob if I had to. Think about it- you're going to toe to toe with some guy in on the side walk at night. You're whippin' his ass, you shoot and bring him to the ground, you're totally dominating the fight. And then his friends walk up behind you and hit you with a pipe while you're all tangled up. Or, better yet, he has no friends, but he does have a little knife that he stabs you with while you're in the middle of choking him out. Ground fighting is great for sport and even most street fights, but it doesn't have the mobility that I personally desire. Now, of course you can say "Yeah, but you're changing the subject- you were talking about sport fighting 1v1 in an arena, and now you're talking about tussling with a group of thugs in a back alley somewhere. Those are two different things. Which is it?!" All I can say to that is that if I had to choose where to focus my energy, I would put it into preparing for real combat, to prepare myself for my opponent whether he is one or many, whether he is unarmed or has weapons, whether I'm on soft ground or on a sidewalk littered with broken glass. I want to be able to fight just as well whether I'm in an arena, an open field, or an elevator. A really good fighter can adapt himself to any situation, and it's just been my experience that grappling can all to often be slow and grinding, being tangled up with one opponent while any other number of things can be happening. In short, I want to be such a good fighter that to transition to the sport only means limiting what techniques in my arsenal I'm allowed to do, rather than adding in new ones that I would only use in sport conditions. In other words, since I would want to avoid getting tangled up with somebody in a real combat situation, I do not feel that it is time well spent to practice those techniques only for sport. Does that make sense?
If you want to avoid grappling and defend yourself against grappling techniques, you've got to, at the very least, know what they are and practice defending against them with a skilled grappler. The best place to do this is... drumroll please... grappling class. It's not necessarily your choice whether you go to the ground or not, especially against an accomplished wrestler/BJJer/judoka/huggy bear. Fighters who stay on their feet still invest an awful lot of their practice grappling so that they know what to expect and how to defend against it. Jumping into a cage and saying that you're not going to practice grappling because you don't want to grapple is like jumping into a triathalon and saying "Well, best not bother with that swimming bit, I'd rather win during the running phase." Also, I'd encourage you to work some actual, yknow, fighting into your routine. It's all well and good practicing forms for hours, but if you're never applying those forms against a resistant opponent, well... Lemme know how it goes, and do take video. Do you have a teacher of any sort that has experience getting people ready for the cage?
I couldn't agree more. If you want to get good at something you need to practice doing it. If all you do is practice forms and horse stance you're going to get beaten up by anyone that spars often.
This pretty much sums it up. If you want to become a professional fighter then you are going to have to actually practice fighting. You will have to get used to tasting your own blood, and your ears will quite likely end up permanently disfigured. Every aspect of health and fitness will have to be micro-managed: diet, weight, cardio training, strength training. You will probably have to learn how to cut weight. If you aren't training at a fight gym then you will have to find your own cornerman and cutman. You will find fighting will take over your life, but even if you are a prodigy it will take you years to start making real money from it, fighting B-class, then A-class, then taking pro fights in a small organisation, gradually working your way through the ranks. Your social life will revolve around the gym. Injuries will mean you will have to take time off work. If you don't really love fighting to the point where it is an all-consuming passion then don't bother. If fighting isn't an absolute obsession you will never make it to the top, at best you might be a good amateur. Fighting is a hard way to earn a living, every time you step into that cage you are putting your health on the line. I plan on taking a fight or two, but I know I don't have the drive to bother attempting making a living from it, and I don't think it would be fair to my family to expect them to put up with what becoming a pro fighter would entail.
3/23 Thanks for the replies, everybody! I'm happy to find some support for my goals, even if it's not exactly supportive of the way I plan to get there. First off, on an unrelated issue- sorry about the mix up of my posts. I've never participated in forums before, so I'm still getting the hang of it; a few of my posts showed up a little out of the order that I intended them to, but that's totally my fault and I'll get the hang of it soon enough. Ok, so... Everybody. I totally get what you're saying, and from the common sense point of view, it makes absolutely perfect sense. But please take in to account that I have the unique experience (that you may or may not have) of training both ways- the modern and the traditional. I mean, I started out modern-ish at my TKD school. For the majority of my martial arts life, I was nothing but weight lifting, running, stretching, and yes- fighting. I have fought many times, mostly in bare knuckle fights in high school. It's not like I grew up in a rough town or anything, far from it! It's just that I had a lot of athletic and/or martial arts enthusiast friends, who also had friends, and we had a fight club. For a couple years straight, we'd meet up a couple times a week in the middle of the night somewhere and have mixed martial arts fighting. Our rules were basically UFC rules but with no straight face shots (what would our mothers say?!), no padding, no gloves: just one guy fighting another guy on the open ground. Sometimes it was a parking lots, sometimes it was on the beach, most of the time we'd just meet in a back yard or a park. And yes, we really fought, and we really hurt each other. Most of us had boxing or kick boxing experience, a few TKD; almost everybody, including myself, had experience in Greco-Roman wrestling and juijitsu. Then college rolled around, I read more and mellowed out. One thing led to another and I eventually all but gave up the external training methods that I had spent so many thousands of hours drilling and sweating over. I did this because I intentionally wanted to transition over the internal arts. Unfortunately, when I gave up the training that I was doing, I didn't really replace it with much of anything because I was so busy with school and whatnot. But now I've graduated and have plenty of free time. But all I can say is that I've experience both worlds. When I left TKD/boxing for kungfu, I got the same reaction from my TKD community- "But that stuff's just good for movies, like that Crouching Tiger sh*t. You don't think you could actually use that in a real fight, do you?" And I don't blame, or you guys, for holding that notion, given how awful most traditional martial artists are at actually applying their techniques to combat. It's pathetic, and it makes me cry a little bit. But just because the traditional martial arts community is poorly represented, that doesn't mean that we're all that bad. Anyway, training journal... I've pretty much completed my training as scheduled so far today. I'll eat dinner in an hour or so, and then get back to it. Being Saturday, it's a bit lax, plus I'm not going to be a perfectionist about it until Monday. So Monday is my first official day trying my best to follow the routine that I put forward the other day. It may have some minor changes here and there as time goes by, but I stand behind it, and I'm very happy with it. Especially my focus on standing meditation. All of the greats of Chinese martial arts have practiced the hell out of standing meditation/horse stance, so I'm making it the focus of my practice and development. Just so you know- it's very hard. In fact, if I had to compare intensive meditation and horse stance drills to my experience in the more strenuous methods of lifting, running, sparring, etc., I'd say that meditation is harder (and more conducive to fighting). That's all for now, thanks for reading!
3/24 Whew! Almost forgot to write here today, as I've been so busy. Today was awesome, training wise; it was also awesome, rejuvenating Sunday wise. I really enjoyed my practice today, and I'm looking forward to having my first official day tomorrow. The only difference is that I'm going to be really strict about meeting my requirements, and try really hard to do a solid 21 days in a row. Well, that's enough italicized words for the evening, so adieu. Thanks for reading!
So today is my first official awesome training day! I have to say, I'm pretty happy with resolve, and I feel like I did when I was younger. I've been working up to this for a little over a month now, getting my life in order, clearing away the clutter, etc. So today, I have pretty much followed the training routine as I laid it out in the post from the 22nd. The only changes are that I start my day with some silk reeling qigong to warm up, and I've taken it easy on the horse stance and forms work, considering how much other stance training that I'm doing. I'll bring that up to par before too long, but I don't want to overdo the workload on the bottoms of my feet. The bottoms of the feet may seem like a pretty unusual place to be concerned about, considering that usually people just complain about sore muscles. But seriously though, I'm on them a lot, so I need to be nice to them.
Your ENTIRE routine is wrong if you are looking to be a Pro Fighter. STOP in training yourself and GO find a qualified instructor-trainer and gym STOP NOW Before Old Habits become hard to break IMHO
3/26 47MartialMan- I don't know dude. I really like my routine, and I'm already reaping some pretty sweet benefits. I mean, I don't know how else I can say it- I've been on both sides of the fence, and so I understand where the doubt comes from, and I appreciate you're plea for my benefit. But it's just that I have found zhan zhuang, or standing meditation, to be really powerful. For instance, I used to lift weights and do gymnastic-style bodyweight training (way more than is considered normal); qigong and meditation have led to increased strength without any weight training. What's more, it's functional, rather than mechanical, strength. I used to run a lot as well; qigong and meditation have led to cardiovascular health and lightness as well, that is once again different (and I think better) than that of orthodox cardio exercise. I can say the same about flexibility, and balance, and quickness. I know that I'll be able to say the same thing about receiving strikes and giving them as well, in time. I don't think that martial qigong and meditation really have any limits, to tell the truth. Anyways, today. Today was a flop. Had a really crappy night's sleep, a really scattered day, and very little training. My bad. But I learned from it, had some time to get my mind right, and I'm going to go at it again tomorrow, fresh as the morning air! Thanks for reading!
