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Martial Arts


Clinton

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Anyone here a martial arts junkie??

I have taken kung-fu, karate and tae kwon do, even aikido a little bit but not extensive - just enough to know how to handle my distance and not get my block knocked off by guys that are trained. 

I got nutty with Jujitsu for years because I wanted something focussed on 1v1 unarmed combat - it was exactly that.  I spent a few years learning from Pierre Lautischer in Edmonton, Alberta.  He was an Edmonton city police officer at the time and ran a popular and effective club - it was called Ketto Ryu - you can see online if you google several of his former students opened off-shoot clubs since - nothing but good memories there, he is now (apparently ;-)   ) in the martial arts 'hall of fame'.  Trust me he was the best.  He knew boxing, he knew ground work.  He was also humble and didn't speak loud - just an amazing guy and friend.

One of the best students opened Inukshuk Bushido-Kai jujitsu http://www.jujitsuedmonton.com/  Rod almost made the big leagues in baseball and was slick with upper-body aikido action and footwork - but he just loved the whole concept of martial arts and became a master of groundwork and even striking - just an awesome guy.  I also went to Inukshuk for a couple years.

Edited by Clinton
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I did some wrestling in high school,  and a little judo training later,  all many years ago;  and I've watched a lot of MMA fights, lol,  especially in the early years.  Not recently.   

I have, though, stuck with various forms of non-martial qigong (chi kung) and pranayama training, more internally focused for health and longevity,  power of concentration etc.

On that topic,  I posted this reply to Mccoy back in 2017:

 
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 mccoy: I find a weight I'm confortable with, I make 10-20 repetitions with perfect form with it, I repeat until I total 200-300 repetitions. It takes a long time and I usually carry out chores in between sets. But it seems to work, since muscles do get sore, at the same time minimizing nagging joints and connective tissues problems. 

 

Last time I did 300 reps of front squats with only 15 kg loading but perfect form, deep down, deliberate. The effect was intense and lasted 5 days (sore muscles). Maybe I went a little overboard but muscle soreness usually entails mTOR activation and MPS.

 

 

 

That brought to mind the notion of “San Gong”:

 

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Wai Dan Muscle/ Tendon tension and relaxation practice focuses on training the Qi in the limbs. The main purpose of increasing the Qi in the limbs is to energize the muscles to their highest efficiency. The specific postures also train the coordination of the muscles in the torso with those in the limbs. If you understand that one of the major purposes of Da Mo’s Wai Dan exercises is to increase martial power, then you will see why the limbs are emphasized in the training. After Da Mo, many sets were created from the same theory, mostly by martial artists.Naturally, these exercises will also improve health. However, many martial artists who trained the Da Mo Wai Dan exercises heavily for a long time found that they over-developed their muscles the way weight-lifters often do.
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Although they were healthy as long as they were able to practice, once they got old their muscles degenerated much faster than normal. This is calledSan Gong” (energy dispersion). Because of this, Da Mo created a set of Nei Dan exercises which is also included in the Muscle/ Tendon Changing Classic. This set builds up and circulates the Qi internally, preventing the Qi channels from plugging up when the practitioner gets older.

 

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Since the 6th century, many martial styles have been created which were based on Qigong theory. They can be roughly divided into external and internal styles. The external styles emphasize building Qi in the limbs to coordinate with the physical martial techniques. They follow the theory of Wai Dan (external elixir, ) Qigong. In Wai Dan Qigong, Qi is usually generated in the limbs through special exercises. The concentrated mind is used during the exercises to energize the Qi. This increases muscular strength significantly, and therefore increases the effectiveness of the martial techniques. Qigong can also be used to train the body to resist punches and kicks. In this training, Qi is led to energize the skin and the muscles, enabling them to resist a blow without injury. This training is commonly called “Iron Shirt” (Tie Bu Shan) or “Golden Bell Cover” (Jin Zhong Zhao). The martial styles which use Wai Dan Qigong training are normally called external styles (Wai Gong) or hard styles (Ying Gong). Shaolin Gongfu is a typical example of a style which uses Wai Dan martial Qigong.

 

Although Wai Dan Qigong can help the martial artist increase his power, there is a disadvantage. Because Wai Dan Qigong emphasizes training the external muscles, it can cause overdevelopment. This can cause a problem called “energy dispersion” (San Gong) when the practitioner gets older. In order to remedy this, when an external martial artist reaches a high level of external Qigong training he will start training internal Qigong, which specializes in curing the energy dispersion problem. That is why it is said “Shaolin Gongfu from external to internal.”

 

Internal Martial Qigong is based on the theory of Nei Dan (internal elixir, ). In this method, Qi is generated in the body instead of the limbs, and this Qi is then led to the limbs to increase power. In order to lead Qi to the limbs, the techniques must be soft and muscle usage must be kept to a minimum.

 

Yang, Jwing-Ming. The Root of Chinese Qigong    Second Edition.

 

 

 

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Thanks Sibiriak,

tbh Judo and randori was my absolute favorite aspect of jujitsu - I always liked randori and knowing when to slide in or out, or pivot ... being 'in the moment'.   That is the essence of martial arts from what I experienced; you have to relax and react ... and only spend that expensive energy required to strike if it can't be returned.

Edited by Clinton
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I have a casual interest in MMA - exclusively as a fan, nothing else - I'm not a fanatic or anything, but I think it's an interesting discipline.

I was struck by your description of all the training you've done, the rigor, the top mentors and so on. 

But I've also heard something else - repeatedly - something that has application, I think in real life, a pretty profound thing.

Namely, the concept of doing actual fights - not training, not practice, not demonstration - actual combat. It is - and this is the profound part - a completely 100% different experience. There is no way to prepare for it, no way to train for it, other than DO it. You must do practice fights - real fights. And it's like a different world. 

Emphasis different world. In boxing, there is the well-known Gym-Killer phenomenon. The guy who in training is a master, absolute master of everyone - he beats ANYONE at the gym. In an actual fight - in the gym. But put him in the ring, not the gym ring, and make it a fight for results, money, prize, whatever - and all of a sudden he can't compete. Meanwhile, the guy at the gym whom the Gym-Killer beat regularly like a drum in the gym, suddenly manages to fight and win in the ring, including over the Gym-Killer. There is something about a real fight, that you cannot duplicate and you cannot "train" - you must fight. A fighter FIGHTS IN THE RING (cage, whatnot). Many a great fighter is merely OK in the gym - but he has something the Gym-Killer doesn't, and it isn't technique and it isn't skill - it's something else, the ability to perform under pressure.

And all that training and all that planning - as Mike Tyson said "everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth". There is no preparation for that. You can train until you are blue in the face, you can even be a Gym-Killer who destroys everyone in a gym ring or cage. But then you go into that ring - and a different world opens up.

There is a whole bunch of videos on youtube about Chinese Martial Artists, various gurus and Masters and so on - who never fought in real life, for real - and then they get pitted against just a run of the mill MMA fighter, nobody special, and the guy proceeds to absolutely PULVERISE the Masters. Completely destroys them. Because he has one thing they don't - real fights under his belt.

No matter how much you train and with whom - being a fighter is a different animal, like a different dimension. Sure, it's fun to train and all those things you mention. But it means nothing, when you step into the ring.

That is a pretty big insight into life in general. So many things we prepare for, study for, practice and so on. We are perhaps stars in some ways. But then, when it comes to actual performance - wow, it's a different world. You see it everywhere. The guy who knows everything about some artform, knows the wisdom of a thousand books. But cannot perform on the level of even a mediocre artist (where the saying comes from - 'those who "can't do", teach'). The professor of economics who would be a dismal failure in business. Meawhile the artist, the businessman, the performer, may not have all that theoretical knowledge, or even explain how they do what they do - but they can perform, they have results.

The critic may know infinitely more than the artist, but cannot do what the artist does.

That's what I thought when I read about your extensive experience of training in martial arts - I'm sure it was fun, it was physically and mentally health-building, educational, and very valuable. It wasn't fighting though - that, is a different world, not to be confused with the one about which you spoke. YMMV.

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I agree 100% Tom, and I can also tell you that after a punch right in the nose, a person can immediately forget years of training- lol.

Martial Arts is not combat in the street- I  can’t agree more; however the guy in that situation who goes in with no previous training ONLY has a ‘punchers chance’; even if it is a primal and powerful last resort.

That is one of my personal pet peeves about Kung Fu - it becomes a dance and can give a person confidence when it is just fluff.

Take the average ‘soccer mom’ with years of Kung-Fu, and then have some ‘average’ drugged-up criminal attack her.  He will win 99 times out of 100.

I still think that, generally speaking, ‘jujitsu’ is decent for self-defence.  Much of this gets down to: who was this   person BEFORE taking martial arts - the guys that I’ve seen that were scary with martial arts were scary before they took martial arts.

Edited by Clinton
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