30
NO!!!!!
Get out. Get out now. As in, do not train there even one more time.
There is always the chance of being injured in any martial art. That's true of any active sport, of course--but "combat sports" have an intention of everyone getting hit, kicked, etc. The requirement for safety is therefore paramount. You need to train safely if you are going to be ...
24
Wing chun doesn't have to be bad for this school to be bad for you. It sounds like you're not comfortable there. I think you should stop training with these people.
22
"Harden up", "come on", "toughen up", "get it together", "just do it", and "let's go" can all be slotted into the same purpose. One could even reach for "osu".
I find the gist of the phrase comes more from elements other than word choice, such as volume, sharpness of tone, or accompanying the phrase with a loud clap.
21
Nobody cares if a man likes the idea of women-only classes. They're not for you. They're for women.
With some historical perspective, poo-pooing the idea of women-only classes becomes even more ridiculous. In my lifetime, women were banned from many karate and judo dojo. To turn around so quickly and say that women must train with men, not on their own, ...
19
Self-defense Scope
Self-defense has many elements unrelated to hand-to-hand combat. Everyone interested in self-defense should wear a seatbelt, avoid smoking and addictive drugs, stay fit (in particular, capable of running very fast), and cultivate a basic knowledge of general self-defense strategies like being assertive, de-escalation, and situational ...
19
Sparring should emphatically not end in you being beaten bloody, no matter the sport. Sparring is a contact activity, and you should expect to take some knocks, but it is also an activity founded on control and trust. There's an important difference between toughening up and learning to take a hit and actually being harmed.
This is doubly important for ...
18
"Clinch happens."
Without training, people who fight very frequently end up in a clinch or on the ground. (This is common for people who train in non-sparring, non-grappling arts, too.**) It's just a natural outcome for a fight, unless you're proficient in grappling.
In most cases, one cannot stop grappling without...drum roll...grappling.
Probabilities
...
17
In my experience as a male trainer and trainee the key for a hard, educational or maybe painful training is trust between all parts of the training group.
Female fighters have told me that they were beaten up in training after they told their opponent to slow down. Afterwards they felt violently abused.
So in such a case the trainer has the responsibility ...
17
Yes, but... (and it's a big "but")
Two things stimulate bone density:
Damage
Generally our biological systems are set up so that if something is damaged, cells lay down more, tougher material since clearly what we had before wasn't quite tough enough. In other tissues, this forms as scar tissue which can reduce your mobility, however bone just gives ...
15
Reasons to Study Weapons
I - improved coordination
Training with weapons improves your coordination in ways that only controlling something that you don't have nerve endings in can.
II - weapons of opportunity
It's not just a stick. It's also, potentially, a sword, or a baseball bat, or a lead pipe. By training with a stick, you're also training with ...
15
First, men who know nothing about martial arts may see a woman leading the class and immediately think that they (the men) could beat up the female teacher. So they think there is no reason why the woman could teach them anything about fighting.
Second, some men might not want to train with women at all (students or teachers), because it would be awkward ...
14
If the students are going too hard on the beginners, the instructor either don't care or has lost control of the class. It's his or her responsibility to make sure everybody is safe. Most good schools ease their beginners into sparring. They start of with some light sparring, and then progress from there. Even pro fighters spar easy a lot of the time, as it'...
14
The first, and biggest, point is that if it hurts don't do it. Be careful with an injured shoulder, possibly focusing more on the opposite side or starting on your injured side significantly more slowly or at a lower height (get the dive roll perfect from the knees first). The other major thing is to make sure you are practicing on good mats. There's no ...
14
I am afraid you are looking for a unicorn and you do not even know what a unicorn is.
There's a world of difference between giving your daughter enough training to "survive" a date and her surviving walking back to base after crossing Mogadishu. No Nonsense Self-Defense is a good place to start looking at these issues but is by no mean exhaustive. As for ...
answered Nov 7 '13 at 8:47
Sardathrion - against SE abuse
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14
I have not been impressed with the stories I hear from people who have gone to these Asian martial arts retreats. These camps seem like a way to separate Westerners from their money while providing a bare minimum of services. Much like the explosion of "teacher training" yoga retreats, they provide an experience, not an education.
First-Person Accounts
...
13
Yes! Martial arts can help you with posture, improve you overall fitness and stamina, and give you the discipline to do things correctly.
No! There are much better ways to get a good posture and behaviour while working at a desk than joining a martial art class. You can see a physiotherapist, get a new chair, have a work station safety analysis done, take ...
answered Mar 1 '13 at 8:55
Sardathrion - against SE abuse
14.4k2 gold badges42 silver badges116 bronze badges
13
Yes, it's possible, but if you focus on that you're likely to be disappointed.
Most people who start (any martial art, or anything else difficult for that matter) tend to drop out after a short time, or simply not have the time or natural talent to rise to elite competitive levels. And that's ok.
It seems a little early to be caring about national level ...
13
Application of force. A weapon is a force multiplier. It lets you do
more damage to your opponent, with less effort and exertion, in a shorter
period of time, while exposing you to less danger of damage yourself. Having
trained with weapons can help you in a self defense situation. This is
particularly true if you have trained in weapons that can be ...
13
Generally, no
This is generally not true - there are many defensive arts where you improve your fighting skills right away and reach a basic proficiency within a matter of a few weeks or months at most (skill wise, at least, fitness can take longer to produce).
Many weapon based arts that are close to their original use also have this same thing - if you ...
12
I had this exact problem, at the same point in my progress at judo.
Things that didn't work for me
I tried doing uchikomi slowly and deliberately. This usually ended up with me hunched over in a full squat, unbalanced, unable to stand back up with the throw, without any kuzushi applied to my uke.
I tried uchikomi for speed, whipping into each rep. Doing ...
12
It seems a number of females share your problems. I read a number of female BJJ bloggers, and they have expressed similar feelings. My suggestion is to read what they have to say and maybe reach out to them:
A tiny, shy woman who is mad keen on jiujitsu and gives a brutally
honest account of her journey.
A post a little while ago where she talks about ...
12
There are many valid reasons (fitness, self defence, enhance self worth, socialise, whatever...) why one goes to train but politics is not one of them. So, just smile and walk away. Avoid conversations dealing with it. If asked, say you do not care. If that means leaving the dojo/style, do so. It is just not worth your time.
Whether you are "rank and file" ...
answered Sep 1 '15 at 12:00
Sardathrion - against SE abuse
14.4k2 gold badges42 silver badges116 bronze badges
12
Just as a women that trained in both women-only and mixed-classes:
Body issues - I feel more confident when I'm surrounded by women. In my gender-mixed training I always make sure I wear long pants.
Strength - I can't do push ups, which is totally accepted in women-only class but less accepted in classes where there are mostly men. This is of course even ...
11
Okay well if you do wing chun that is great, so do i! Yes it is definitely worth practicing alone. Here are some of the things i do:
Get a 3 section wall bag and a wet towel (with somewhere to hang it). Assuming you have correct form on your sun fist punch, you should practice punching the center of a wet towel with out any water flicking back onto you. And ...
11
Practice on your own is pretty much an unavoidable element of the martial way past a certain point.
Other than developing your body through conditioning exercise (Bruce Lee's plyometrics are a good starting point), you can develop your body through breathing exercises (the Systema DVDs about breathing are pretty interesting and insightful).
It is important ...
11
It all comes back to the question: What are you trying to do? If you're training in sword fighting, then use a sword. Just repeat the same sword cut over and over again. Try to go as fast as you can without losing accuracy. Repeat.
In some amount of time, your forearms will tire. When they tire so much that either you're starting to slow down or you're ...
11
I do BJJ/grappling and stand up jujitsu, and I've discovered the following works best for long hair:
Pull your hair into a tight, low ponytail on the side of your head, not straight back, else when you grapple it will get trapped under your head on the ground.
Quickly braid the hair and secure with a second band!
It's nowhere near the work of the full ...
11
Yes, I've been to China to train at the Shaolin temple at Songshan mountain in Dengfeng, Henan, China.
I did this only for a couple of weeks, mostly just for fun. My wife (then girlfriend) was training at a school in Houston where the head instructor was an actual Shaolin monk who had moved to the U.S. to start up a school. So the monk offered to arrange ...
11
I would surmise that most of the fitbit type trackers will not work accurately enough for your purposes.
Most of these models rely either on accelerometers (devices that register the change in motion), or on GPS tracking/movement. I know from personal experience that even GPS watches that purport to sense treadmills based on hand movement are spotty at best,...
11
Accidents happen. However, when you have an accident with people you are not really trying to hurt - you make extra effort to make sure the accident doesn't happen again - otherwise it is not an accident.
If someone's ego at losing in sparring causes them to attempt to really injure someone, that is not a safe person to work with. Consider what you are ...
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