Ok so I am back into martial arts some 20 years after quitting karate when I was 13. Since I am older now I wanted something different and after researching it I liked shorinji kempo's spiritual side and the good thing there was a dojo very close to my house. So I signed up and started practicing there some 3 months ago. It is a small almost all japanese dojo each session is attended by 5 to 8 students. At first I was pleased by it but I am now having some mixed feelings. First in this dojo students do not do free sparring. Only a couple of black belts free spar every once in a while. All we do is kihon basic techniques and pre-arranged sparring which is very unrealistic and telegraphed most of the time. Also shorinji kempo has no ground game and that is a weakness.
How are we supposed to learn fighting skills if we never actually practice fighting? I understand some will say producing great fighters isn't the goal but would I be only interested in the spiritual thing I would just join a temple. The problem is that like every martial art it has combat pretensions that is doesn't fulfill as it just mimics fighting moves a bit like tai chi chuan. Don't get me wrong I'm not planning on training for cage fight and am all for spirituality but I feel like this is way too unrealistic to me. What do you think? Am I wasting my time?
How are we supposed to learn fighting skills if we never actually practice fighting? I understand some will say producing great fighters isn't the goal but would I be only interested in the spiritual thing I would just join a temple. The problem is that like every martial art it has combat pretensions that is doesn't fulfill as it just mimics fighting moves a bit like tai chi chuan. Don't get me wrong I'm not planning on training for cage fight and am all for spirituality but I feel like this is way too unrealistic to me. What do you think? Am I wasting my time?
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