Martial Arts

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is anyone else here interested in Martial Arts?? witch arts are you interested in, or mma??
i was interested in mma, but then found i liked jiu jitsu specifically. i prefer gi grappling then no-gi submition wrestling, but still like them both. recently i found boxing wasn't so bad. so now i want to learn muay thai or "thai boxing". i have tried american kickboxing, but it sucks. i like the idea of knees/elbows in addition to everything else.
another thing that sucks is there is no muay thai place around here. does anyone know a good site w/ instructional video in english??
and if any1 interested in grappling or submition wrestling i have found a couple good sites
http://www.grapplearts.com/ has some good articles and techniques
http://www.submissions101.com/ has some good, short, to the point videos. but i noticed they dont seem to be mma safe. there is slight alternations to most jiu jitsu techniques in mma because they can hit you.

also, just curious, how does AS effect ur martial arts training?? i find the dojo i goto, every1 is cool and is going to train, not socialize. but every1 is generally nice and helpful. yet a tip to fellow aspies would be, dont work w/ the new guy. there was this pretty strong guy who came in one day, and i was telling him lil tips to fix his armbar, and let him try them on me. but apparently he didnt understand the 50% rule and to slowly apply pressure in a submition, and he broke my arm. i guess its partly my fault for not telling him, but i assumed it was common sense. also be careful of ankle locks. if ur pain tolerance is as high as mine, a heel hook will break ur leg before it hurts. oh and i almost forgot, tap out from neck cranks and spine locks, or you wont be able to turn your head for a week.

first off, thanks to the links. i have some interest in basic grappling skills and was invited to partake in a luta livre class (brazilian catch wrestling) during semester breaks but couldnt attend, due to me becoming ill. i will give those links a look.

with the history of things you are interested in, i have the idea that you would really enjoy muay thai.
as for sites, there always is stickgrappler for all things martial arts:
http://go.to/stickgrappler
youtube may yield the one or other interesting search result, too.
(there was one site with a bit information on moves, but i forgot its name. )
the forums at www.martialartsplanet.com have a goof mt subforum with an excellent sticky thread on muay thai roundhouse kick technique. member khung khao seems to be an incredible well of information...
yet, reading up on this stuff absolutely does not replace having a training partner. i learned basic boxing technique through reading stuff up and training on my heavy bag, and it certainly helped me when i started muay thai, but there still was a lot of stuff to improve.

muay thai itself involves the infamous thai clinch - which is a lot more than just getting ahold of each other and trying to get a knee in. we did one hour of neckwrestling last wednesday in training and my neck/shoulder muscles were sore till weekend. there is more grappling to muay thai than most people imagine, actually.

(side idea: doesnt that thread fit in our sports subforum?)

I went as far as a blue belt in tae kwon do, but had to quit because the spin kicking was making me too dizzy and disoriented. (That, and I ran out of money, lol) I'm seriously thinking of other martial art forms though, perhaps kung fu.

And would like to learn kendo or gumdo... though I'm obviously not going to be getting into any sword fights, my TKD master had a good philosophy; he said you're only going to be able to use TKD skills for so long... but when you're finally old and feeble, you'll probably have a cane you can use...

I would like to learn how to use dual katanas.

I hate martial arts. I remember when I was about in 2nd grade there was this bastard who knew them who always practiced on me during recess. The feeling of powerlessness that gave really sucked.

I tried to take some kung fu a couple of years ago. The sensei always picked on me because I was big and had a bad temper, some of those pressure points he used really hurt. One time he did a move on me that got me really mad, but I internalized my rage and faked that I was hurt. When he came to see if I was okay I sucker punched him so hard he was dizzy for a couple of days and needed stitches. I wasn't allowed to train there anymore, but it was so worth it.

The people I know who take them are so annoyingly self-righteous. They always talk about how "oh if anyone does anything to any of my friends I'll come down on them without mercy." They never even think that maybe their friend deserved what they had coming to them, and maybe it is none of their business.

That's just my experience though, and what I've seen of martial arts probably isn't what it's supposed to be.

goatonfire: your experiences are really unfortunate. i pretty much know the types of low-ego people who need martial arts as a tool to show the world (and themselves) how much they have control of people. its not about martial arts, though, its about violence. and, you're right - a lot of people become veeeeery self-righteous about it. an uncle of mine has a chairfarting job, the appropriate physique to it but trains jujutsu for quite some years (whateverth dan, even) - his self-righteousness on how he can wipe the floor with everyone and how superior he is is unbearable at times.
the people i train with are very friendly, though - as is the majority of people i encountered doing any kind of martial arts. but then, there are idiots everywhere, and at a quite stable percentage, too. that kung fu trainer certainly belongs to them.


matt, i noticed i didnt answer all your questions. (re: as vs training)
i initially wanted to open a new thread about this phenomenon, but it fits in here as well. the training has a really positive effect on social anxiety to me. people arent as unreadable at training (their agenda is pretty much focussed on training, so nothing as obscure as full-contact-socializing. also, it gets me used to having people in my comfort zone and coping with it. i think its fortunate for us that all the social things work on a very downgraded level, there. its not about who pretends this or that or whatever, its usually about how you are about your training. we can be as good at that as every other one. maybe some of us will be the hard-working, never-get-it-right type of guy, but that usually tends to have positive impact on respect.

the new guy rule works better with muay thai, though. with grappling, especially jiu-jitsu, you train techniques that deal lots of pain/damage with minimal force. new guys tend to have their measure of raw abundant force they are not hesitant to use - therefore, the risk of being injured is really high with grappling.
with punching, for example, you need to get taught a lot of details before your punches reach their potential. i remember doing padwork with a new guy who was about 20 kilograms heavier than me - and his punches got harder by the minute as i explained the basic technique to him - but he was absolutely stunned at the power of my punches when we changed roles. striking tends to hold a much lower risk for injuring a training partner, i guess, as raw force only gets you so far in striking.

I'm a black belt in my own style of martial arts, a green belt in Bush Judo, and a no belt in Kickboxing.
Seriously though, no-one's going to mess with me.