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Old 07-04-2011, 03:27 PM   #1
Dave de Vos
 
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Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

Currently I train three dojo evenings a week, two evenings aikido and one evening kyokushin. I'm a beginner at both (5 kyu aikido and 10 kyu kyokushin)

But it is becoming clear that three evenings is a bit too much to fit in with my job and family. I have to reduce it to two evenings. And this is my dilemma:

Should I drop my one evening of kyokushin or should I drop one of my two evenings of aikido?

I like aikido much more than kyokushin and I don't want to be a fighter. I'm not even particulaly interested in effectiveness for self defense. But I feel I get something out of kyokushin too. It feels like quitting now is too soon. I don't want to enter in competition, but I feel it has something to offer for me.

Let me explain a bit more:

What I like about kyokushin is that is builds a different kind of awareness and it also toughens my mind and body against being hit. The training can be extremely exhausting and some evenings the sparring is quite intense, reaching a point where I can barely take it anymore. Sometimes I even fear this training in advance, but afterwards I always feel exhilarated. The students are a different type that aikido students (average age is a lot lower too), but they are very nice and friendly people too.

What I like less about kyokushin is that you always get bruised (and getting injured sometimes is also more or less unavoidable) and the military discipline during classes. And ofcours I hate to give up one of my weekly aikido classes for it (even though it would only be for a year or so until I feel I got enough out of kyokushin).

You may wonder why I ask this question on an aikido forum (I more or less expect that most will say I should drop kyokushin), but the thing is that I value your opinions highly and I know that many of you have cross trained.

I give myself the summer break to think about it.

So please share your opinion and arguments if you will.
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Old 07-04-2011, 06:57 PM   #2
Janet Rosen
 
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

I understand the difficulty, being a person with many interests and limited time and money.
So I will pose a question back at you: in terms of priorities and values, are you more interested in breadth of training (exposure to a variety of things) or depth of training (becoming more proficient in one thing)?
It is possible to get aikido wired into muscle memory on twice a week (the first ouple ofyrs I trained at a dojo that was only open that often so I know this from experience; it is slow but it will get you something worthwhile) but I honestly don't think going to an aikido dojo once a week is often enough for your brain/ body to have a good learn/do/simmer and synthesize/learn/do/simmer and synthesize.
So if you want to really get something lasting out of the aikido, not just a fun workout, but learning it well enough to have a deeper understanding of it and not just go through whatever motions are being put in front of you class to class, I would stay with it twice a week.
If you feel the two things are similar enough to build on each other and you are basically doing each of them for an enjoyable workout (and no criticism is implied in my post - I'm just trying to help clarify what I think are core issues that speak to each person's decisions) then by all means do one night a week of each.
I have had to do this kind of thinking and prioritizing many times over the years.
Hope this helps.

Janet Rosen
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"peace will enter when hate is gone"--percy mayfield
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Old 07-04-2011, 09:02 PM   #3
phitruong
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

dave, our opinions matter little. only your opinion is important. i have trained in many martial arts over the years. i have the width, but not the depth. my point of view is getting rooted first, then branch out later. deep rooted tree can handle many large branches, not so for shallow one.
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Old 07-04-2011, 10:31 PM   #4
dps
 
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

I would pick one art. One art to lay a foundation of understanding to be used as a reference for other martial arts.

dps

Go ahead, tread on me.
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Old 07-05-2011, 01:01 AM   #5
Carsten Möllering
 
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

My experience over the years:

Practicing aikido every day clearly helps to move on.
Practicing three times a week, may allow to move forward.
Practicing two times may help to hold ones place.
Practicing once a week euquals not practicin at all.
I experienced even high graded aikidoka who only practiced once in a week loosing their skills.

But this is my experience. Not a law of nature.

Most often our feeling/emotion/sensation gives us very good and clear advise. While our head is still thinking ...
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Old 07-05-2011, 05:44 AM   #6
Howard Popkin
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

Hey Phi,

You been watching Karate Kid again ???????????

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Old 07-05-2011, 06:29 AM   #7
Demetrio Cereijo
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

Drop Aikido until you became proficient in Kyokushin.
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Old 07-05-2011, 06:35 AM   #8
Marc Abrams
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

You are learning two martial arts with very, very different operating principles. I would recommend that you find arts that can more easily compliment one another.

I do not agree with the idea of Kyokushin first and later Aikido. I do agree with the idea of learning good striking skills and learning how to receive and deal with severe attacks. Kyokushin will "hard-wire" in bad habits which will genuinely interfere with your ability to get to the depths of Aikido (I know- I am a true knucklehead in that respect). I would look to compliment your Aikido with Systema or a Kaji Kempo, or some other striking arts with similar "operating systems."

Good luck,

Marc Abrams
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Old 07-05-2011, 06:42 AM   #9
phitruong
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

Quote:
Howard Popkin wrote: View Post
Hey Phi,

You been watching Karate Kid again ???????????

no...no...no i waxed my car already, no need to watch Karate Kid again. i am going through the old Zatoichi, more entertaining. i need to work on my reverse draw of the blade. you have no idea how hard it is to make chop salad that way.
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Old 07-05-2011, 07:08 AM   #10
chillzATL
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

I know a handful of people who studied aikido and kyokushin together and they had no problems doing both. If you have to pick one, for a time at least, I'd probably stick with the kyokushin for now and then work aikido back in when it fits your situation.
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Old 07-05-2011, 03:38 PM   #11
Dave de Vos
 
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

Thank you for your helpful responses so far.

I haven't decided yet, but I'm leaning towards dropping kyokushin.
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Old 07-05-2011, 04:12 PM   #12
grondahl
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

Quote:
Dave de Vos wrote: View Post
I like aikido much more than kyokushin and I don't want to be a fighter. I'm not even particulaly interested in effectiveness for self defense.
Quit Kyokushin and focus on the martial art you enjoy the most. You can always change your mind. I also think it will be very hard to progress in any art with only two sessions per week (but especially hard with Kyokushin).

And if you want to do more stand-up fighting, many kickboxing/muay thai gyms offer the possibility to train single classes or buy a 10-class discount card (or similar). Similar sparring to kyokushin but less of the military discipline.
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Old 07-05-2011, 04:43 PM   #13
Janet Rosen
 
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

Quote:
Phi Truong wrote: View Post
no...no...no i waxed my car already, no need to watch Karate Kid again. i am going through the old Zatoichi, more entertaining. i need to work on my reverse draw of the blade. you have no idea how hard it is to make chop salad that way.
Ah, next up on our Netflix is Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo because we have gone through all the Lone Wolf and Cub and most of the Zatoichi ..... dunno about salad but it makes deadheading the roses awfully entertaining

Janet Rosen
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"peace will enter when hate is gone"--percy mayfield
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Old 07-06-2011, 05:54 PM   #14
Activeghost
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

3-5 hours of classes per week is not enough practice to master an art in 30 years (generally speaking). Given that, my primary goal would be in choosing one that fits physically and that I really enjoyed both socially and aesthetically. Of coure, if you are serious about mastery then the teacher makes a huge impact and I would recommend choosing the most skilled teacher you can find who has high level students regardless of the art.

I would also incorporate a robust solo practice (like Aiki-Taiso along with standing and staff practices if doing Aikido, or adopt the basics of the Chinese IMA systems). If you have a daily personal practice (of an hour or three a day) you can go once or twice a week for new material/corrections and make alot of progress. Find a few people nearby that you can do meetups with to train/spar/etc. and you can augment that once or twice a week without alot of travel or impact to your family.
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Old 07-06-2011, 06:38 PM   #15
graham christian
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

Hi Dave,
How about doing Aikishin and kokyudo?

Ha, ha, just joking. As usual I'm not with the generally accepted latest ideas. I would say stick with one, don't mix practices. Especially early on.

In fact I'm so old school that I don't like mixed martial arts because to me there's no such thing. There's just a new thing employing new rules.

What I used to travel to watch when I was in my teens were martial arts contests very much like the amateur boxing circuit. Here you had guys from different arts competing way before sky t.v. etc. But even then I wondered why the praying mantis guy didn't stick to praying mantis and the judo guy was doing some kind of striking art.

I call it lack of discipline.

Regards.G.
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Old 07-07-2011, 03:02 PM   #16
Dave de Vos
 
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

Quote:
Christopher Lester wrote: View Post
3-5 hours of classes per week is not enough practice to master an art in 30 years (generally speaking). Given that, my primary goal would be in choosing one that fits physically and that I really enjoyed both socially and aesthetically. Of coure, if you are serious about mastery then the teacher makes a huge impact and I would recommend choosing the most skilled teacher you can find who has high level students regardless of the art.
I like my aikido teachers. I didn't go out to look at different dojos when I started, but I think they are good teachers. I wouldn't know if it is possible to verify this by any objective standards.

I think the kyokushin dojo is good by kyokushin standards. One of the sempai (a 2 dan) usually ends up in the semi finals of the heavyweight class of the Dutch national championships and one 16 year old girl was selected to enter in the world youth championships coming up soon. But I don't think I will ever be very good by those standards, because I don't intend to participate in competition.

I think aikido fits me better physically, because my body is not like a tank (like the bodies of my sempais in the kyokushin dojo)

Quote:
I would also incorporate a robust solo practice (like Aiki-Taiso along with standing and staff practices if doing Aikido, or adopt the basics of the Chinese IMA systems). If you have a daily personal practice (of an hour or three a day) you can go once or twice a week for new material/corrections and make alot of progress. Find a few people nearby that you can do meetups with to train/spar/etc. and you can augment that once or twice a week without alot of travel or impact to your family.
I have been doing aiki taiso every day for half a year and I started doing some internal excersises a few months ago, after participating in Dan Harden's seminar in the Netherlands.
I do it half an hour each day and about once in six weeks I meet up with an internal training sempai (we both have busy schedules).

I know, I train everything a lot less than you and others recommend. But when I have an extra evening at home, I intend to do more solo training. And in this week's classes I found out that I really need to practise with the jo in my spare time, because I really suck with the jo.

Thank you for all your good advice.
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Old 07-07-2011, 03:06 PM   #17
Dave de Vos
 
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Re: Dilemma: drop kyokushin or not?

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
What I used to travel to watch when I was in my teens were martial arts contests very much like the amateur boxing circuit. Here you had guys from different arts competing way before sky t.v. etc. But even then I wondered why the praying mantis guy didn't stick to praying mantis and the judo guy was doing some kind of striking art.
This made me think how I view myself. I consider myself an aikido guy, not a karate guy. But I am interested in looking outside too.
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