Finally got off my ass and got back into Aikido! Returned to the dojo for Pentjak Silat and Aikido… structure’s a bit different, and I took a beginner’s class to polish my Ukemi and some other stuff. Found out there’s a dedicated weapons class on Mondays, so I may eschew a strict schedule for a two-days-a-week schedule and hit up the weapons class occasionally.
There’s one person in the weapons class though (a lot of the ones that called for it decided not to show up ever), so perhaps I can convince Sensei to teach a few other arts… it’s an Aikido class, but Sensei is also the Silat Guru and thus skilled with knives, bo, boken, jo, and escrima sticks. There’s also a Jujitsu class now. Personally I would like a “Weapons” class that basically wanders around Aikido boken/jo, Bojutsu, Jojutsu, and knife defense (I’m not worried about “knife fighting” … if you come at me with a knife I’ll take it away and/or break your arm and/or proceed to punch the f*@% out of you; I’m less concerned with using a knife than not getting killed with one).
My life is finally complete eh? Plus the gut goes away and turns into a brick wall, which I need; I got so freaking weak after I left, just carrying 5 bags of flour and a couple gallons of milk up three floors is almost impossible now, and I can’t even get an 80 pound box up the steps to my apartment… barely get it out of my car, the mental concentration needed to lift that much is impossible to sustain for more than a few seconds.
Anyone else into non-competitive martial arts? MMA isn’t my goal (an Aikidoka in MMA would be … interesting); mainly it’s meditative for me. The complex movements of Aikido give me a reenforcing focus on my body (which comes a little easier since I spend the 20 minutes before class in the back doing Kundalini meditation and Zazen… eh, everything I do reenforces everything else). Really for combat and defense I want to do some Jojutsu…
I train Ving Tsun kung fu in the Moy Yat lineage. I don’t care how strong I am, I don’t care how big I am, or how intimidating I look. I care about my training, training efficiently, training a martial art that IS efficient, and relying on forward energy and not strength. How big and strong you are doesn’t matter when someone smaller and weaker can move faster and more efficiently.
Wrestling in high school, boxing and tae-kwon do in my twenties and Tae Kwon Do alone up until about 2 or 3 years ago when I just couldn’t find the time anymore. I still train on my own some, mostly just stretching and kicking/punching the bag. I’d love to take a martial arts class somewhere but I have less time now than ever before (and less money!)
I bake my own bread. I go through a lot of flour. Freeze the stuff and I bake 2 loaves a week really.
Wrestling and Boxing are not my thing, but they’re great martial arts. Cool moves are cool and all, but if I’m up against a boxer I have to pull it off the first time or I’m gonna be too unconscious to try again. Most people cannot grapple with a wrestler, either.
Yeah, I make my own bread too, but 5 bags ???
The average bread recipe calls for between 3 to 5 cups flour - we’ll average it out to 4 cups. Google tells me 4 cups of flour is roughly 1 pound, so your 5 bags of flour is enough for 25 loaves of bread. At 2 loaves/week, you’ve got enough flour for 3 months worth of bread.
Maybe you just need to go grocery shopping a little more often :
Meh, whatever. I was a decent wrestler in highschool and I am proud of that. And I really don’t care if anyone has respect for that or not. I can tell you this, a lot of people make jokes about wrestlers “rolling around on the floor with other guys”, but I can assure you one thing - no one is thinking about sex when they are in the middle of a wrestling match. Mostly you are just thinking "damn this hurts!’ Now, if you are thinking about sex while watching two wrestlers that’s your bag, dude. ;)
A friend of mine in HS was involved in two things: Wrestling and Theater. Now, I like to think I’ve matured some since then, but at the time it definitely seemed a little dodgy.
