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Old 09-05-2012, 07:51 AM   #23
lbb
Location: Massachusetts
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 3,202
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Re: Training TKD/Karate while taking aikido?

Quote:
Christopher Li wrote: View Post
A lot of kids, and even adults play more than one sport at the same time - I don't think that I've ever heard coaches worry much about one sport confusing another.
No, but they do worry about the time involved. When a basketball coach sees a kid with potential, they don't want them playing football in the fall and running track in the spring -- they want them playing basketball year round.

Again, 24 hours in a day. That's what it comes down to.

Quote:
Christopher Li wrote: View Post
The interference argument one of those things that teachers often say (IMO, to convince people not to wander off to other styles that they might like better, more often than not), but for which there is very little real evidence, and a great many counter examples in modern sports.
But are you simply asserting when you say "there is very little real evidence", or do you have data? Physician, heal thyself!

Any argument can be distorted and misused; that doesn't mean it is invalid. I think there's something to the interference argument -- its only shortfall is that it doesn't apply all the time, in all cases. Particularly when you have someone who hasn't been very active and/or hasn't ever really thought about functional body movement, the truisms of different styles absolutely can contradict one another and certainly have the potential to confuse a newbie. Just think about the preferred stances used in different styles and the logic behind them. In the absence of the empirical data gained by time training, a newbie looks for rules: this is right, that is wrong, this is good, that is bad -- and will hear those statements even if what the instructor is actually saying is more nuanced. That changes with time, but as a beginner, sure, I can see confusion resulting.

But as you say, why go there? To me, the "do you really have the time to train six days a week on an ongoing (i.e., not just playing around with it for a couple of months) basis?" reality check is more than sufficient.
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