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I like "playing". My wife studies the same art that I do and holds equal rank. Our training never really stops and around my house you never know when a bit of aiki kuma kata will break out. It really gives us both the chance to play with different aspects of our art.
Two places.
(i) my school uses a gigantic rec center as its training hall. I like to go there in off-peak times, when there's no one around and I've got thousands of square feet to myself, and work on hyungs and kata and various drills.
(ii) my driveway—long, sloping and uneven. It's as far from the completely level, completely smooth finished hardwood floor in (i) as possible (within reason), but that's why I like it—pivoting, holding a chamber, doing slow kicking, doing everything in good form is hell on a surface like that. I figure an hour-long technique workout there is more demanding, in terms of teaching adjustments for balance, than spending half a day working out on the perfectly manicured surface in our rec center.
(i) my school uses a gigantic rec center as its training hall. I like to go there in off-peak times, when there's no one around and I've got thousands of square feet to myself, and work on hyungs and kata and various drills.
(ii) my driveway—long, sloping and uneven. It's as far from the completely level, completely smooth finished hardwood floor in (i) as possible (within reason), but that's why I like it—pivoting, holding a chamber, doing slow kicking, doing everything in good form is hell on a surface like that. I figure an hour-long technique workout there is more demanding, in terms of teaching adjustments for balance, than spending half a day working out on the perfectly manicured surface in our rec center.
tellner
Senior Master
My wife and I are in one of those periods where training together could lead to what the late Francis Steen-Sensei called "The Bad Scobies". So we don't do it much except for fooling around.
Other than class or private lessons the best environment I've found is the living room. Clear it out, re-arrange the furniture. Provide snacks and drinks. Invite over some of my more dangerous friends like Mushtaq, Terry, Bobbe, Brandt, Steve Perry, etc. Talk story. Do show and tell with weapons. Sooner or later people will start talking martial arts. It goes from there.
Other than class or private lessons the best environment I've found is the living room. Clear it out, re-arrange the furniture. Provide snacks and drinks. Invite over some of my more dangerous friends like Mushtaq, Terry, Bobbe, Brandt, Steve Perry, etc. Talk story. Do show and tell with weapons. Sooner or later people will start talking martial arts. It goes from there.
meth18au
Blue Belt
Two places:
1. A group of my close friends get together at my local gym every 2nd Friday to have a 'hard' sparring session. Good fun. We're of different disciplines too, so it makes things challenging.
2. Local parks around my house. Sometimes me and a friend get down to a local park to do a spot of training. Back in my Kung Fu days I'd go to these same parks and practice my weapon forms. Fresh air, sun, birds. Beautiful
1. A group of my close friends get together at my local gym every 2nd Friday to have a 'hard' sparring session. Good fun. We're of different disciplines too, so it makes things challenging.
2. Local parks around my house. Sometimes me and a friend get down to a local park to do a spot of training. Back in my Kung Fu days I'd go to these same parks and practice my weapon forms. Fresh air, sun, birds. Beautiful
I don't get to make use of it very often but my favourite training environment is in a small, centuries abandoned, rock quarry in the top of a hill in some local woods. The space is very difficult to get too (especially since I stopped clearing the paths of brambles and bracken), is enclosed on three sides and dotted with trees. Other than the oddity of doing kata in hakama and walking boots it's perfect.
Just a note on Exiles comment about training on a slope. In a sword art the difference that makes is astounding, so much so that I would recommend it to every sword practitioner. It messes with your footwork and stroke balance so much that within a few cuts you've already learned more about centre and control than months on a flat wooden floor could show you :lol:.
Just a note on Exiles comment about training on a slope. In a sword art the difference that makes is astounding, so much so that I would recommend it to every sword practitioner. It messes with your footwork and stroke balance so much that within a few cuts you've already learned more about centre and control than months on a flat wooden floor could show you :lol:.
wade
Black Belt
By myself. No one to talk to, no distractions, no obligations to be friendly or to explain something. No one to impress but myself and to be honest, that's not all that important either. After all these years I am still my own worst critique. I really don't think I will ever measure up to what I expect me to be and now I think I am running out of time. DAMN!
tellner
Senior Master
Unless you practice a very specialized martial art which is only to be used under very specific conditions you need to train outside in a variety of terrain. Train on slopes. Train in crowded workshops. Spar on muddy ground. Work out around dusk and let your eyes adjust to the reduced light. Get used to uneven treacherous footing and different sounds and smells. If you can do that your martial arts will become part of your everyday life. If you don't they will most likely stay in the dojo.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Lemme guess...Cause there are TREES there????
Big Don
Sr. Grandmaster
My favorite learning environment outside of class?
LUNCH. I've made it a practice to have breakfast or lunch at least once a month with two or three of my instructors. One on one learning, baby! I can ask any question, request clarification, etc and get it, for the price of a meal. The added bonus is that my instructors are all fun people to be around. Although, I do find it strange that, for some of my friends, I'll NEVER call them anything but Sifu, or Sir...
LUNCH. I've made it a practice to have breakfast or lunch at least once a month with two or three of my instructors. One on one learning, baby! I can ask any question, request clarification, etc and get it, for the price of a meal. The added bonus is that my instructors are all fun people to be around. Although, I do find it strange that, for some of my friends, I'll NEVER call them anything but Sifu, or Sir...
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
I used to enjoy training in a nearby national battlefield park, but a few years ago they closed the particular picnic area I liked. I enjoy using nearby parks for outdoor training and to hold clinics -- but I've also trained in my teacher's driveway, on tennis courts, and lots of other places.
I've been known to go into a park, wander down a trail for a bit, hang a left that nobody else can see, and wander until I'm out of sight, then train there. (No, Xue, not solely to abuse the trees...)
I've been known to go into a park, wander down a trail for a bit, hang a left that nobody else can see, and wander until I'm out of sight, then train there. (No, Xue, not solely to abuse the trees...)
I want to echo a bit what wade is saying. So far as solitude is concerned... well, I love my family dearly, but I am by nature someone who's probably more at home being alone, on my own, than amongst most other people, and this is very much the case with training. I enjoy my classes, but I really feel most comfortable working things out on my own, cracking a technical problem and then training what I've learned without anyone but my own ultracritical self looking over my shoulder.
As for the part I bolded... well, I've said what I had to say about that all-too-familiar way of viewing myself in Lisa's thread about competition. Let's just say: I know exactly, to a T, what you're talking about here, W. And I'm older than you, if you can believe it...
Wade I can agree with your statement. My GM once said to me Everyday we train to be perfect. But everyday we know we can never be perfect. So why train if perfection is out of reach and then he said because we will never know for sure until we try.
Much that rings bells of familiarity in the above posts.
I'm also noticing a pattern for solitude and self-criticism amongst people here that I feel have a grasp on what lies behind the physical side of the martial arts.
It's a sentiment I share and altho' my missus has worked wonders in my accepting that being alone, whilst calming, has it's downsides, the statement above about striving for perfection that you may never reach is inalienably true.
My first sword instructor, now sadly passed on, used to refer to it as "polishing the mirror". One of the things he meant by that is that we practise and train and strive in our art knowing that somewhere within the effort there is something that reflects a facet of who we are. We may never get to see it but if you polish the mirror enough you might just get a glimpse of what it is. Even if you don't, the very act of trying is revealing in and of itself.
I'm also noticing a pattern for solitude and self-criticism amongst people here that I feel have a grasp on what lies behind the physical side of the martial arts.
It's a sentiment I share and altho' my missus has worked wonders in my accepting that being alone, whilst calming, has it's downsides, the statement above about striving for perfection that you may never reach is inalienably true.
My first sword instructor, now sadly passed on, used to refer to it as "polishing the mirror". One of the things he meant by that is that we practise and train and strive in our art knowing that somewhere within the effort there is something that reflects a facet of who we are. We may never get to see it but if you polish the mirror enough you might just get a glimpse of what it is. Even if you don't, the very act of trying is revealing in and of itself.
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