New Directions - Krav Maga

Sorry about that

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I quit Kyokushin Karate, but I immediately began researching what other martial arts were available in my local area that also fitted my goals better.

I quickly discovered the world of Krav Maga, the Isreali self-defense system and thought this might be what I was after. I was fortunate to find a local school and tried the first three introductory classes, and I loved it.

We have a good physical work out at the start of class, I'm sweating and puffing, then we learn how to defend against different kinds of attacks and there's lots of repitition so that eventually the moves will be automatic.

I'm so glad I found Krav Maga. It fits into my life, I don't have to fit into someone else's sub-culture.

Not Quitting, Changing Course

Are the injuries worth it?

I finally decided to quit Kyokushin Karate.

The weekly debilitating injuries made me question the point of learning the art.

Why was I getting injured so frequently? It usually happened during sparring, not during the cardio workouts or self-defence parts of the class.

Is sparring something I want to learn? Well, sparring, or more accurately, sport-sparring, is not a sport that drew me to martial arts. It always came back to fitness and self-defence. While sport-sparring would certainly help toughen me up, it doesn't particularly help with self-defence, and the constant injuries were becoming a concern.

The final straw was observing the injuries of the more advanced students, which were worse than mine! That was my future, and I didn't like it.

My son wants to stay with Kyokushin Karate and I support him 100%. For kids, they learn through non-contact and I can see the benefits he's gained already. He's no longer physically intimidated by other kids. So Kyokushin is working well for him. It's like having a defacto big-brother to wrestle with.

I'm still keen to learn martial arts, but in a manner that better suits my goals.

I've found a possible replacement and I'll post the outcome of the introductory classes of a 'style' that I just learned about.

You know I do Karate - because of all that limping

A weapon of mass destruction

A number of students at the Kyokushin dojo I go to are preparing for an upcoming full-contact tournament, and I had the privilege of being their bare-knuckled punching bag.

One woman kept apologizing to me after giving me numerous punching combinations to my solar-plexus.

'Sorry' - Bam.

'Oh, sorry about this' - Bam Bam.

'Does it hurt?' BAM BAM BAM.

Our instructor asked me to keep my arms raised so that she could get used to punching somebody with force, and it would be good conditioning for me. I have the bruises across my rib-cage to prove the beating.

The funny thing is, the most painful injury I had while limping around at work the next day was my right foot. I couldn't bend my toes because of the bruising across the top of my foot.

Hmmm.

'Conditioning.'

Is that what they call it?

A Pain in the Neck

That's it, RIGHT THERE

While training at the Kyokushin dojo, I strained my neck at some point during the class, but not badly enough to stop.

I kept on the with the class and felt OK, but the next day, MY NECK! I could barely move it.

It was so bad that on the second day after I sustained the injury, I had to work from home because it was just too painful to move about.

I'm really starting to wonder if I can get fit through martial arts if I can't even move after a class.