I started training in Shotokan when I was 10 going on 11. And I had to quit after six months because my family was moving. I found another Shotokan teacher in my new home a couple of months after we arrived. His dojo was a small backyard/garage/basement dojo and I spent two years learning karate from him. Then he moved. I went through a dry MA period where I practiced what I learned from Shotokan and worked out with different kids who had practiced other arts. I remember really being interested in a Kung Fu school, as I was working out with some of their students, but my parents couldn't afford it.
When I was about 15, I met a judoka who kicked my karate practicing butt in a "relaxed" rules sparring match. I asked him where he trained and found out that his teacher was teaching out of the Community Education building where my mother worked. I talked to my mother and she was able to get a pretty good deal on tuition and I could go as long as I earned enough from mowing lawns, shoveling driveways, collecting cans etc. So, I ended up doing Judo for about two years.
During this period, I was also playing baseball and at the end of my freshman year of high school, I had a pretty bad experience with the coach and ended up quiting. So, I started shopping around for another sport. I tried golf and was okay, but my heart wasn't into it and that summer I got into a pretty horrible car accident and injured my knee pretty badly. I spent half of my sophomore year recovering from that and then went back to judo.
At the beginning of my junior year in high school, on a whim, I tried out for wrestling. Our school was huge, so the competition at tryouts was pretty amazing and hardly anyone ever got on the team unless they had been doing it for years. The good news is that my judo teacher had use do randori with and without our gis, so I wasn't totally unprepared. Anyway, during the tryout, I had a couple of full Ippon throws, including a completely lucky harai goshi on the state champion (who then proceeded to own me on the mat...but he owned everyone...which is why he was the champ).
Somehow, I was able to get on the team and I was actually the talk of the school for a while, because like I said, everyone viewed "try-outs" as a formality no one EVER got on the team unless they had come up through the system. Anyway, for that season, I wrestled. My coach said that I wouldn't get to compete much that year and that I would spend alot of time correcting bad judo habits and that, if I worked really hard, I could make first string my senior year. And I did work very hard, all throughout the season. I still went to some judo classes everyonce in a while just to maintain some relationships with friends though.
Near the end of the wrestling season, we had some pretty horrible injuries to a couple of starters, so my coach gave me the green light to compete. This is where I learned about the wonders (horrors) of cutting weight...ie the starving oneself, induced vomiting, diuretics, sauna suits, etc. I was unfortunately cursed with a body that had an optimum cruising weight at around 165. So, when I went into the weight class above me and everyone was between 185 and 188, I was getting smoked. However, I did have a chance at 160. My coach dug up some bylaws that allowed me to recert at a lower class and I went through some hell to get there.
For a couple of weeks, I was sick, I had low energy, and I couldn't concentrate on much other then wrestling. I competed well, but in the end, I decided it wasn't worth the price. When my coach said that I would be wrestling at that weight class from now on, I told him that I was quitting the squad. (I had other reason's too. I had a job that I had to work because my family didn't have alot of money and I had also met a girl and had fallen totally and completely in love with her.)
After that, I felt pretty worn out by MA. Wrestling was overall a pretty positive experience, looking back, but the negative experience at the end shaded my POV for a while. I still did some judo and my teacher was very impressed with my skill level. When he asked me to do more tournaments (competitions were required for rank btw), I quit judo. The smaller tournaments that we were going to had "small" "medium" and "heavy" weight classes, but the larger tournaments that my teacher wanted to do had many more divisions and I was, again, stuck right between the 160 and 178 weight classes.
Fortunately, my school had an after school boxing club. So, I decided to give that a go because it was cheap and the time commitment wasn't huge. I did that for a year until I graduated high school. During that year, I mostly got to spar as I learned the fundamentals. I also did lots of running in order to get my stamina up for competition. During my freshman year in college I joined a gym that was teaching boxing, submission grappling, and kickboxing.
This was in 1995 and Royce Gracie was making MMA super popular and the first small amatuer events started popping up. The gym that I was at was on the cutting edge of promoting this stuff. I was 19 and decided to give those a try, figuring that my MA experience up to that point would be more then enough. In my first tournament, I got completely owned and I had to work very hard to even be allowed to compete in another. The second one I tried, I did much better. In my third tournament, in my first match, I ended up getting thrown with a tomoenage and my arms were pinned. I landed right on my head and woke up in the ambulance. It was the most terrifying experience of my life because I thought I had been paralyzed. I couldn't feel anything.
As it turns out, the swelling in my neck was causing the paralysis and feeling began to return after a few days. My neck was not broken, but neither was it in very good shape. It took me six months to recover from that injury and during that time, I was unable to practice any MA. I did alot of fishing instead. When I felt good enough to start doing something, I gave archery a shot. I was pretty gun-shy from MA and I was also pretty embarrassed because all of the time on my back had atrophied my coordination and strength. I tried a couple of different things, but my heart wasn't into it, so I quit. I did manage to meet a pretty cool chick though...(My wife)
Anyway, through archery, I met a student of my current teacher and he introduced me to Tang Soo Do. I decided to give it a go with my gf at the time and found that I had discovered a diamond in the rough. My teacher was high quality and he really knew alot about TSD and MA in general. He had also practiced many other Martial Arts, so we learned those alongside TSD.
It's been 10 years now and I've been practicing TSD ever since. I consider it my base and although I've tried some other stuff, its always been a supplement. I just turned 30 on sunday and I realized that I had been practicing MA for 20 years. Overall, I'd have to say, its been pretty fun.
To get back to the original questions, so what made you change? Lots of stuff.
upnorthkyosa
ps - wow that was alot longer then I had thought it would be...
