Quote:
Chris Evans wrote:
I was thinking Aikido might help my Karate practice, but doing more Jujitsu would better prepare me for MMA-style sparring. Doing Aikido twice a week means I'd drop a Jujitsu/Judo day: Once a week Aikido hardly seem worth it.
Improving my relaxation and flow would benefit my Karate, that I've been doing for years. Aikido classes would not conflict with Karate classes.
I'm fit enough for semi-contact Karate sparring to keep my people "interested," but not fit enough for the full contact MMA: after a minute I run out of "gas" and get vulnerable to take-downs. I'm nearly clueless on the ground.
|
I may just be too far into my "get off my lawn" years, but whenever I see someone who starts aikido because they think it will help them with some other thing over there -- whether the other thing is another martial art, or a problem in your head, or a perceived physical deficiency, or whatever -- I am pretty sure it's not going to last. And you know what? The same is true of karate, or of any other martial art. A martial art resists being put to use in that way, like it was some kind of inert tool, a roll of duct tape or a screwdriver. A martial art is almost like a sentient being: it has history, it has a kind of self-awareness, and a reason for being that is sufficient unto itself. If you try to cherrypick the things you want from a martial art ("reduce my stress", "tone my abs", whatever), it will resist you subtly and sometimes not so subtly. People who come to aikido with the cherrypicking approach generally leave, and those who stay, do so only if they've managed to discard this approach and move into an open-minded, "take it as it is" attitude. But this requires a lot of patience. You can't really have goals in the same way -- you have to accept the turnings of the path as you come to them, and they may not be going in the way that you really wanted to be going right that moment. It's a helluva nice stroll, but you have to get your agenda out of the way in order to take it.