Bushido Kai Friendly Tourney '09 Winter Edition

Yesterday was the Bushido Kai friendly tournament, winter edition.

I lost, again.

It bothers me. It's not I didn't "do better" then last time, it just seems that my better isn't quite enough. However, I enjoyed myself thoroughly and I guess that is the most important part. It's hardly consolation, but I take what I can get.

Aliveness, or Why I Keep Thinking About Guns

Aliveness, it's a strange term. It's even more difficult to explain in the context of Martial Arts. A art should be alive, it should be changing, evolving, and growing. However an art that grows, changes, and evolves may not subscribe to the principle of Aliveness.

matt Thornton of Straight Blast Gym (SBG/SBGi) is the godfather of this term, and has done much to bring it to the forefront. His own words can be found here.

So, what does this have to do with me? Simple. I began my martial training in earnest in Wing Chun. A system espousing deadly efficiency. As I spent more time in the club, and more time sparring I realized that when I fought (badly) I used very little of my training. So I began to look at what I was doing wrong. Around this time I was introduced to the concept of Aliveness. I was shown that in order to use something it had to be practiced and not just in forms. I was introduced to the three I's. Introduction, Isolate, Incorporate.

Take a subject dear to my heart, programming. I wish to learn a new language, I am Introduced to it. This introduction is most likely dead, as in there is no resistance. I read, I ponder but I do not do any coding.

Next I begin looking at same code, writing toy examples, playing around. I debug bits of code, deal with errors and push a little bit. I want to learn the control structures, so I work with just control structures. This is the Isolate stage. I'm writing code, I'm playing, but it's still on a toy scale.

Lastly is the Incorporate phase. In this phase I begin writing code. I begin internalizing the language, making comparisons with what I already know, making it "work" for me. At this point I know the language, or at least parts of it, and can build from there.

So, back to Martial Arts. Wing Chun was stuck in the Introduce and Isolate stages. A technique was shown, and drilled in a non-resisting fashion but it was never tested, it never because an intrinsic part of my game.

I then switched to BJJ, and in doing so found the way things "should" be done. A technique is shown, drilled with increasing resistance then I would attempt to use the technique in free sparring against a resisting opponent. I would fail, get feedback, adjust and try again. My current art, Judo, works the same way.

So, why guns?

Because in training Alive, in competing, and fighting it is eventually natural to realize that there are limits. There are situations that no matter how good I am, no matter how conditioned I am I simply will not be fast enough, strong enough, good enough. So, I look for tools to improve my chances. At first I looked at Kali, and thought that a blade would be the natural equalizer. However, even good Kali is mostly dead. There are few groups willing to train a weapon based art in an Alive manner simply because it hurts!

So why would I carry a blade if I'm not 100% sure that when I need it I will know how to use it? I wouldn't.

So I looked elsewhere. Time and time again I came back to IPSEC and firearms. IPSEC is a competition format where a shooter moves through a course with preset targets, both good targets, and "bad" targets. The shooter is scored based on speed and accuracy, with penalties for shooting the "bad" targets.

It is as close to an Alive weapon art that I have found and frankly, it just sounds like fun!

I don't plan on pursuing a pistol permit any time soon, but it keeps bouncing around the back of my mind and like an itch will one day have to be scratched.

So he Wants to Wrestle eh?

A good friend of mine IM'd me the other day with a few questions, the topic interestingly enough was wrestling. No, not the professional kind, the middle school sport kind and as I'm one of the few people in my group who practices any sort of martial art she thought I would be a good person to ask.

Evidently one of her sons had recently expressed an interest in joining the wrestling team. He's not terribly athletic but then again nobody in her family is. It's not that they are fat or out of shape they just don't really exercise. They are all thin, genetics god bless, and in fair physical condition but as I told her wrestling is a whole different animal. She had concerns about injury, about he sons ability to handle himself in a physical situation, concerns over his physical health, general normal concerned parent questions.

I told her that he most likely would get hurt, and it was natural. Wrestling as with Judo, Boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, or in fact any contact sport the chance of injury is high. Yet at the same time the risk of injury is known, and mitigated to a great deal. Rules exist in sport to mitigate the risk and a good coach, and a good team will look to train hard, practice hard and at the same time minimize risk. I also said something that made me pause. I said that the training takes care of that. By that I meant the pain, the inevitable injury, but I meant something more. Training in any physical discipline conditions your body. A football player hits day after day till one day he wakes up and realizes he's taking hits that would have floored him just a few months back. I take throws in Judo that when I started would have left me winded and on the verge of tears and now I stand up, fix my Gi, and go back to work. I'm able to do this because of the training, the conditioning.

Her son is small, lean, with little muscle mass. he is thin for his height, an advantage in wrestling and I wonder if with the proper training and conditioning and support if he could be a fantastic wrestler. Either way, good or bad I told her she should make sure he follows through, and I hope to offer whatever help I can.

Martial Decisions

I've tried writing this post a few times and it never seems to come out well. This is a sentiment, a topic, that has come to me based on a few bad decisions and years of being dissatisfied and not knowing why.

I always wanted to be a martial artist. I always knew I was not an athlete. I've always been heavy, I've always been a little slow on my feet, and I've had bad joints for as long as I can remember.

I always believed that an athlete was not a martial artist, that there was somehow this divide between the two. I's seen it referred to as the Ring v. Street debate and in a large way that was the issue in my mind. I was unwilling to believe that what I was practicing, the martial art I was practicing, was less martial and more art, then I would like to believe. I refused to make the correlation between physical conditioning and hard sparring and martial applicability. I was stuck in a street mentality. I did not have to spar, did not have to compete because my art did not have rules, I refused to limit myself to what could be used in a ring and therefore my art was better, in spite of the lack of sparring and conditioning.

Then something shifted, I began to really think about what I was practicing, I began to really think about my training and most importantly I began to try and use my training and I kept coming back to one conclusion. What I was doing simply did not work. I wanted to be a fighter, and in order to be a fighter I had to stop thinking like a martial artists and start thinking like an athlete.

So the pendulum swung the other way. I enrolled first in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu then in Judo. I began to look to compete, I began to run and lift weights outside of class to improve my performance in class. I stopped thinking of myself as a martial artist and began to think of myself as an athlete.

However I have found out one interesting truth. It's a truth that should have been self evident and it was brought to light by a comment the Missus made. Her younger sister began to take Aikido, an art that I have little respect for for many reasons none of which are important at this time. She said that I "talked crap about any art I didn't practice" and this made me pause. She is partially right and it was something that I had partially realized years earlier but had not internalized. That truth is this: Not everyone is me. It seems crazy but it was really a tough pill to swallow. I look at Aikido, most Kung Fu, most Karate, most Tae Kwon Do and I see arts that are a waste. I see people training in styles that have no sparring, no conditioning and minimal applicability to a combative situation. When I first made the transition from a martial art to a combat sport I thought it was the most logical of transitions and wondered why everyone didn't have the same epiphany I had just had. Then once the Missus made her comment it clicked. Everyone isn't me. Most people don't want to sweat, want to fall, want to get hurt, want to get hit and thrown and bruised and come back for more. Most people don't wake up in the middle of the night thinking about competing. It's a sad truth, but it's the truth. So now when I hear about the Missus sister's Aikido I simply smile and remind myself that I have years to show her the error of her ways when she's just a little bit older.

Until then I'm going to keep competing and training and hoping that all the people I see streaming out of the Karate dojos never need to use what they feel they are learning.

Tough Question....

I have been thinking about applying for a concealed carry permit for months now. I've more or less decided to go ahead with it and am currently waiting for the funds. However I was talking to a friend of mine this past weekend and she asked me a tough, yet interesting, question.

Could I kill another human being?

If I decide to begin carrying, and I have a need for the weapon could I in fact kill someone. I knew my default reaction was to say "of course" yet I bit my tongue and actually thought about it.

I think I could. I understand that what I train in does enable me to do serious harm to another human being however I know that with my bare hands I can regulate the amount of force applied, do I want to pin, submit, choke? How long do I want to hold a choke? I can make these decisions and regulate the effects better in an unarmed situation.

I also know despite my training I'm not comfortable carrying a knife. I know I would be unable to stab someone if the need arose. So is a gun all that different?

I took a moment and reconsidered my desires for wanting to carry concealed. I want to be able to defend myself should the need arise, I distrust the police and do not wish to be wholly reliant on them for my protection. Lastly, I fear loosing the right without ever exercising it.

I feel I would be able to shoot if the need arose, yet the thought worries me. I plan on training, and hopefully competing to make sure I am as wholly comfortable with my chosen firearm. I plan on seeking out the advice of professionals in both what firearm I carry and how I carry, the holster, the position etc.

I hope all these measures will make me as comfortable and sure of myself as possible.

However, Until I have reached that level of comfort I think I would hesitate to carry concealed 24/7. Yet only time will tell.

So to answer the tough question, I think I could kill in self defense though I hope to never have to find out.

Back in the Saddle Again

On this past Monday night I returned to Bushido Kai Judo Club. It's not a big deal, I had only been out a week, maybe week and a half but it still felt good going back.

I enjoy Judo, and how I came to practice is an interesting story in and of itself.

I began my martial journey at a young age, strip mall Karate. Not a bad school, not great, but I lacked the understanding of what I was doing, add to that I did not enjoy Kata, preferring to spar. However, at this point it did not tip me off that maybe I should be looking elsewhere....

Some years later I had the good fortune of meeting up with a gentleman while attending Onondaga Community College, Tony introduced me to Kung-Fu. With that prompting and a renewed interest in the martial arts I began looking for a Kung-Fu school. In Syracuse that left me with two options. Syracuse Wing Chun, and Syracuse Kung-Fu. I chose Syracue Wing Chun almost arbitrarilly. Two and a half years later, my training having been sporadic, I came to the same conclusion that I had come to in Karate all those years previous. I hated forms, I needed to be sparring. I began looking elsewhere in Syracuse, eventually finding a Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu school in Liverpool. Shortly there after, I had a falling out with Syracuse Martial Arts and left for greener pastures.

I spent a few months with Ken Kronenburg at Tai Kai Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu. Finally I had found something that fit, the training was hard, I felt good about what I was learning and we sparred, alot. I would still be with him except I had to return to Rochester for school, and decided to stay in Rochester.

This brings me to Bushido Kai. There are several Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu schools is Rochester. However, Bushido Kai being a not for profit club the training is incredibly cheap. Given a strained budget and a desire to keep training in an alive manner Judo seemed the best option. With a year under my belt, I've never regretted the decision. Though, with a full time job on the horizon maybe I'll pay a visit to one of the local Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu schools.... only time will tell.