by iamjonathan on Wed May 28, 2008 2:25 am
I missed this topic after I registered . . .
My name is Jonathan. I'm a teacher in China. 33 years old. I've been around Asia for the past 9 years. 3 in India, 4 in Thailand, 1 in Korea, and now South China.
I don't have a strong traditional martial arts c.v. . . . These days I'm just focused on trying to get back into shape. My GF's dad is the Judo and Shuai Jiao coach for this province, so I've just been trying to work out with him and his team every day for the last couple of months.
My main interest is in CMA and IMA, though. What I mean is that is the area towards which I want to try to dedicate my focus.
There's not alot else to say I think . . .
I'm covered in really bad tattoos (because I *KNEW* at 18 years old that all true bad asses had tattoo sleeves).
Martial arts background is basically YMCA karate when I was a little kid, IMA leaning training with ghetto park MA's as a teenager and in my early 20's(leaning towards IMA, but nothing formal), Muay Thai for about 4 years when I was in Thailand, and a bit of Takkhun and Gumdo.
Also, at the risk of being pretty cliche and par for the course on the internet - Alot of real fighting. Nothing impressive but was in a couple documentaries, including one by Anderson Cooper before he was famous, when he had just come back from some war in Africa.
Basically not enough of anything to pontificate on any of it.
So I don't lay any claim to IMA at all, but that's what I'm trying to focus on now.
I'm a practicing Taoist. I mean I try to do xinxing cultivation and hit the local temple up a couple times a week, but you know . . . I'm not getting layed with any Mantak Chia ebook super secrets or anything like that . . .
Anyway most of what I will be doing is trying to read in the forum.
Now that I've made a firm decision to train IMA, I want to read as much as possible in forums like this, because I'm worried that I won't be able to understand certain things in training because of language or cultural differnces. So, I will probably just lurk and try to pick up as much info as I can by osmosis.
J