I'm converting

[bruce]

I would argue Rickson over Rorion.

you're probably right. i can't remember which brother it was. the one who had that video where he was doing yoga on the beach and talking about how he basically uses BJJ to explore himself as a person, to test himself and grow...

do you remember that clip?

Rickson Gracie demonstrates pliability and yogic meditational breathing and meditation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH31NDIlFIM

[CaliG]

I just found some videos of Rickson Versus Hayward the other day.

[ashe]

rob, what do you in japan to make a living?

what about you dan, did you pass the bar? are you going to be an attorney then?

I would argue Rickson over Rorion.

you're probably right. i can't remember which brother it was. the one who had that video where he was doing yoga on the beach and talking about how he basically uses BJJ to explore himself as a person, to test himself and grow...

do you remember that clip?

Rickson Gracie demonstrates pliability and yogic meditational breathing and meditation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH31NDIlFIM

that's the one.

[Upyu]

Right now I'm working in the wonderful world of translation, and get to swindle large corporate consulting agencies for ridiculous sums of money, while working at home 1/3d of the time.

It beats the last place I was working at, which was Square-enix. Though the four hour lunch breaks were nice, and conducive to training on a regular basis

[Interloper]

I think in many ways the last is most important, because most MA teachers have no clue about how different students learn, so focus on the ones who seem to "get it" without understanding that other students could get it just as easily, if it were explained differently. Educational theory is not really high on the MA teacher's priority list after all.

I hear you, having experienced tbe same thing myself with a number of teachers.I think that many know only one way to teach, and those who don't have the strength of ego to accept their limitations and admit them, and try to grow and become real teachers, can be openly defensive if some of their students fail to learn, or have great difficulty. Transference -- they blame the student rather than looking into their own methods. I've had some instructors who even stated that if the student failed to learn, tough cahoones... go somewhere else. I took that to mean "Hey, it's all I know, but I can't let myself look flawed, so I'm going to turn it around onto you and make you look ungrateful and incompetent."

When I was in high school, I was a failure at mathematics. Couldn't do algebra or geometry for the life of me, and forget about calculus. I was no dummy, but in retrospect I understand that the methods being used to teach back then were ones geared toward a very specific kind of learning process, one which was not among my own. After I got out of university, one day on a whim I picked up an algebra book and taught myself the basics in a week, and understood it. The author of the book had chosen a different approach for conveying the information, and it clicked with me. End of problem. Now I'm looking for similar books on geometry and calculus.

The thing is, the teacher has to actually care about the students, and about the art and craft of teaching. Not everyone is cut out for it. For some, the MA and their own skills come first, the student comes after (not that that's a bad thing in itself, but some guys do "teach" just to have a ready supply of fresh meat for their own training). Sometimes teaching is an ego trip (met a couple of guys in that department) and not a calling. And, many MA teachers I've met love MAs and try to teach them as best they can, but always in the way that is most familiar to them (usually the way their own teacher taught them) but are too rigid to consider changing themselves to become better teachers, or to find ways to help students who don't understand the particular approach. Instead, they try to change and mold their students to fit the teaching model already extant. It's the trying-to-shove-a-square-peg-into-a-round-hole syndrome.

That said, I still think Aunkai would be an eye-opener for you, though I do understand your comfort level being in the formal MA style setting. It's a comfortable model for pretty much everyone who came up in a system with a curriculum, a history and a culture connected to it. There is a comforting order to it. I was part of that myself for many years, for the same reasons. My reason for recommending the less style-oriented nature of Aunkai is because the internal skills being taught are ultimately of greater value in fighting, IMO, than a technique-based style itself, unless you find a style that simply uses technique as a vehicle in which to teach internal skills. When you have the actual martial body that Akuzawa talks about, it is one that generates "style" or which can be used and expressed in any style you choose, and particularly for martial applications.

You might consider studying that as a supplement to any training you take in a formal style. You may be pleasantly surprised, and even amazed, at what it will do for you power-wise and more.

[edededed]

Right now I'm working in the wonderful world of translation, and get to swindle large corporate consulting agencies for ridiculous sums of money, while working at home 1/3d of the time.

It beats the last place I was working at, which was Square-enix. Though the four hour lunch breaks were nice, and conducive to training on a regular basis

4 hours?! Wow - what kind of lunch did they give you there? (I applied as a translator once at Square (before it became Square-Enix) - but I made a boo-boo at the interview )

[Eric]

Upyu,

You get well paid translation work? I left Japan in 2004 to develop new skills because I did not see translation as a viable career. Translators I knew struggled to get work and had to charge very low rates to stay competitive.

[edededed]

Yeah - I have a friend doing translation work now as well - if you've any advice on that, would be nice!

[Upyu]

It's not bad at all, but generally I don't do just translation either.
I have a couple of friends in the translation industry, and all of them are doing fine.
The best area to be in is finance or medical. If you get in an investment bank, say like Citibank, Goldman, Lehman or the like, you can make loads after you get a bit of experience.
I'm in IT/consulting based translation myself, and it pays pretty well, not as much as Finance, which is the next boat I'm looking to jump to ^^;

Sorry for the thread thrift guys

[Muad'dib]

If you are in a major city in the US, you can get paid 40-60 an hour working document review for japanese cases. You will take second or third priority after people with Bar membership and then JD's, but the demand is generally there. And you don't even have to translate, generally, just review the doc and pin it if it is important or not.

[Andy_S]

SNIP
as as far as mean spirited, kid yamamoto has already been mentioned, and here's another example; marc coleman. my grappling coach used to work with him in the early days of his career when we was moving away from wrestling and into pro-fighting and the way he tells it, coleman is the downright meanest most aggressive s.o.b. on earth.
SNIP

Hmmm. Perhaps that is why he was such a good fighter?

[mixjourneyman]

Hi guys!

Just reading this thread and thought I would chime in regarding CMA and combat sports training.
I've been training a lot of bjj and basic kickboxing techs recently (basically the stuff that my bjj teacher shows me. I guess he does Vale Tudo, but I haven't really asked him about that) and I think its really great. It has a whole dimension that CMA doesn't.
Two things to keep in mind:
1: BJJ/MMA etc... is not just about raw strength like some people say. Actually, I've found that when I'm practicing, my teacher always tells me to relax more and do it with my body, as opposed to forcing techniques. Especially for grappling and throwing punches and kicks. Actually, its surprising how much relaxation these guys cultivate (without ever doing pre arranged forms!! OMG LOL!).
2: if your going to do combat sports, you will have to be ready to completely change your physical dynamics. The execution of techniques and postures is very much not the same as IMA. IMA is built to be really solid and then fast is the second priority, Combat sports are built to be really mobile and powerful at the same time. I think you can easily get as much power in your right cross as you can in your beng quan, the difference is that you are going to be able to move out of the way much faster if you are light on your feet.

I still practice IMA every day and I still fight with it, but I also spend an equal amount of time on bjj/kb skills. I think that stuff is really valuable to making your more well rounded.
Shawn is right though, combat sports don't have the same somatic skills as IMA, but if you want those, IMA isn't the only place to find them.

Zhong: I say check out Sakuraba's gym and keep practicing your taijiquan. That way you will be able to get out and hit and get hit, while also making your recovery time much faster.

[Bodywork]

On the one hand I comepletetly agree with your assesment of grappling and have said much the same thing most of my adult life. THis new "realization" about grapplers is only new to those new to grappling. We have been arguing against the "meathead" profile foisted on to us for decades-mostly by MAers who we took apart with relative ease. Most grapplers I knew back in the 70's were thinkers and we would work our way through our game like physical chess. Greco Roman is a great example of whole body movement and varous chained muscle relaxations using the body. But it is not internal or even the same dynamic way of using the body. It is relaxed external movement.
That said, grapplers, and I think Rickson is an example- can adapt quite well after a re-wiring phase, then on to years of power building with internal training.

As for IMA and Grappling being different so that you have to *convert* and do one or the other? That's not been my experience or my guys. I don't know what art you did to make you feel you couldn't be light and powerful at the same time, but that is not my experience at all. I have played successfully with total stangers-many times on their turf in Taiji, Jujutsu, wrestlers, judo, BJJers using the same thing I use in my everyday training. As I learned internal power I learned to use it within an MMA format day one-as i hade to go back and try to use it in a Judo MMA environment with people who wanted nothgin to do with it.
So I wuld suggest that it is not the arts that fail- us - we fail to understand -them. The dilema of teaching and students is certainly a problem. MA are not mathmatics or engineering, they are a phycical skill set requiring talent. You don't go to Juliards to learn "talent", you learn theory and history of music. Which as many musicians who've played with these people know some of the worst "play by numbers musicians" are graduates of juliard and berckely who were sadly searching for talent that they will never find. So it is with gymnasts and MAers. It isn't movement by the numbers or "I siudied with so and so." There are no guarrantys or promises. The percentage of the greats has and always will be small. Why were they considered greats? What's great? Whats the measure?
Because they stood out from among the thousands who made up the "budo wallpaper" in our dojo's aroud the world.
Now, in our culture everyone wants to be equal. "Make me the same as you!!!" (stamping foot) No one wants to realize that the vast majority of us...are...the wallpaper.
So the ide of converting is just simply weird to me. I do internal training as a way of doing jujutsu and have done so for decades. I guess "I converted" from grappling to internal grappling and see no issues.
Maybe some people are confusing their internsal skills with a fixed format. "Do I do brush knee against a single leg takedown?" wthout ever having understood what in thee hell their internal training was all about in the first place. If it is formless and ...they...(meaning the greats) weren't full of shit-then maybe we're the ones who are lacking.
Maybe some guys are just now learning how to fight in the first place. I think most will find that in the end internal training is universal.

[kreese]

IMA melds aspects of meditation with fighting. Fighting != meditation if you are familiar with programming notation. Not equal. Once upon a time, people fought to save their lives, protect their countries, and to kill or seriously injure those that would try to take it. Then they had to deal with that reality, having taken a life or having had someone try to take theirs. Although the bulk of a fighting art is geared towards its primary goal of fighting, fighting does not exist in a vacuum. There are serious physical, emotional, and psychological repercussions when dealing with violence. Hitting the bag does not help you to deal with this. Perhaps it can increase your overall resistance to stress, as exercise has been shown to do, but in order to root out the "deeper" aspects of how violence affects a human being, people turned to various methods often sourced from spiritual practices. Nowadays, people are attracted to various IMAs because of the way certain training methods allow one to simultaneously investigate the mind, emotions, and more subtle physiological phenomena while training to fight. These methods are by definition different, not a variation on a theme. They may not be superior for fighting, but they may be superior for helping someone to truly know themselves and that in and of itself is key to success and efficacy at any endeavor.

Elliot acts like he doesn't know much about IMA, but is qualified to speak about the effects of training IMA. He must not be telling us something.

Shawn,
Very informative post. I see that walking the circle in Bagua is much more than just walking in circles. The practice sounds like excellent training for whatever attributes the style requires. On the other hand, if you ever get a chance to train in a fight school, you may be surprised to find the attributes gained from similar, long, repetitive training although different from those developed with specific CMA forms, are no less "deep."

utilizing the fluid dynamics of the body and tendonous strength over brute muscular force

Spoken like a good boxing coach.

[MartialDoctor]

Zhong,

I hear you on the frustration that you are probably feeling with your current training. Since I moved to Beijing, I have been training with a teacher who is very knowledgeable and skilled martially but who has students who don't train well. There used to be a couple of Americans here who trained hard and were good but one returned to the US and the other seems to have stopped coming. For whatever reason, the teacher seems to attract the former type of students. And he's a nice guy so no one seems to be turned away by him. It's hard to motivate to go train there when I am disappointed with the class (1 1/2 hours away by subway).

Hope you find what you're looking for. I don't know about those other places but, if Sukuraba teaches anywhere near as well as he fights, I'm sure you'd learn a lot there.