Going for my 1st Kyu Karate tonight and I’m bricking it a bit, so I thought I’d take my mind off it by starting a thread… errr…

Anyway. 53 years old. Got a hernia. Getting over a knee ligament injury. Kumite opponents are all Dan Grade and 20 years younger than me. What could possibly go wrong?

Anyone else like getting slapped about for fun?

My hand are registered as lethal weapons. I could tell you which discipline but then I’d have to kill you….

The names Mitty, Walter Mitty…

Can I be the first to say strike first, strike hard, no mercy?

I’m considering going to the Kung Fu class at my local community hall.

I am a nunchucks mirror master!

yoga? I did a bit of Thai boxing, Lau Gar and a bit of freestyle karate kickboxing years ago but was never any good at them. Didn’t do anything else for about 15yrs then discovered yoga in 2010. Fell in love with it. I’ve been to various different classes, Vinyasa and Sivananda but my favourite is Satria which is Indonesian, the yoga form of Pencak Silat.

People will do anything to avoid a Monday Night Pub Ride nowadays

I’m a black belt in wacky-fucky

just remember….”be water my friend”

Can I be the first to say strike first, strike hard, no mercy?

You can, but we’ll all do that so the opening exchange can get a bit lively. Going to try and draw them in and catch them with a leading hand punch.

My son is grading too, the other week he split my lip in the first couple of seconds. The git.

Can I be the first to say strike first, strike hard, no mercy?

Got the T-shirt…

https://www.lastexittonowhere.com/catalogue/cobra-kai-full-chest-print_11010/

Another classic

https://www.lastexittonowhere.com/catalogue/hans-martial-arts-tournament-1973_8943/

I did Wado Ryu until my early 20s; got my first Dan. Also tried some some Lau Gar and Wing chun. Old with knackered joints I got quite into Tai Chi for a while which I ready enjoyed, but moved away from the instructor iiked.

We trained pretty old school when I did it. I loved it, but my body seems not to have 😂

Good luck with the grading.

12 years/sandan of Goju Ryu under an instructor who was a student of Morio Higaonna. I used to train maybe five or six times a week but that seems like a whole other life time ago now. The dojo was initially down the Walworth Road in Camberwell then moved to in and around what was the Heygate Estate (also off the Walworth Road).

I used to really enjoy the sparring but hate the press ups! Each dan grading is etched indellibly in my memory!

Did four years of TKD waaaaaay back in the dim and distant and enjoyed it (apart from the press-ups). I switched to ninjutsu when I moved back to Suffolk and realised that I preferred not having to actually kick and punch people; it’s much easier to let them do the work and use their energy againt them.

I keep thinking I should do something like that again, maybe ju-jitsu, but I live in the country and town is a log way to go for a chance to get covid.

but hate the press ups!

I really enjoyed the circuit training style warm up (shuttle runs / press ups etc) when I did Kick Boxing at Uni (> 30 years ago now).

Did karate as a teen, then Kung Fu at uni and into my mid 20s, then Tai Chi Chen in my late 20s. Then kids came along and I’ve not done any since. Now approaching 50 and I fancy a bit of Wing Chung, but living in rural Shropshire there’s no chance of that happening. Alas I will never be Ip Man.

53?

With a hernia?

With a dodgy knee?

…you sure about this! 🤪

My 13 year old nephew is a black belt in Kung Fu.

I did Taekwondo a few years ago in Edinburgh.

It was pretty full on, broken jaws when sparring etc.

Offered to fight some of those UFC’s frauds but they declined.

It was all good though, as most of us were earning £300k+.

What’s Glupton up to these days, him and his millionaire CEO mates were pretty handy weren’t they?

I used to do Karate as a kid. Same as every other youth in the 80’s after watching Karate Kid I guess.

Think I did a few belts before getting bored, orange maybe. Realised pretty soon that they were never gonna teach us how to do the flying kicks over buildings that we’d seen in the ninja films. So bought a Commodore 64 and Double Dragon instead.

So anyway, a few years ago was involved in an almost set-to drunken skirmish with some obnoxious drunktards walking through the city centre late at night, and my body automatically assumed the position. The stance! Whatever it’s called, you know, sideways on, leading leg bent at the knee, leading hand up and flat, other hand at the waist in a fist. It was so weird, I was like – where did that come from!?

Thought about taking up martial arts again as an adult, but really, I don’t want to pay to have some dude’s foot in my face. And I got talking to a guy recently who’s like tenth dan or something and his entire head looked like a cauliflower… I mean, if that happens when you’re awesome, what happens when you’re rubbish?

Can I be the first to say strike first, strike hard, no mercy?

Oh, I actually DID strike first didn’t I? 🙂

I have some knowledge of…Baritsu

Judo when at school, boxing up to about 20 and then Karate until my mid 20’s getting to brown. I changed more due to the set of friends i met rather than the actual sport. Loved them all.

53?

With a hernia?

With a dodgy knee?

…you sure about this!

No, it’s a f***ing stupid idea.

48 here, I went to a ju jitsu class in January – had headaches for ten days after, and my middle finger is still swollen. 🙁

I did 10 years ju jitsu.

Muay Thai.

Grew up doing karate. Did some boxing. Tried bjj but hated it. kick boxing in UK and a bit here in Oz but switched to muay thai in Oz with a chap who also teaches cqb and stuff, ex aus sas and still teaches ADF personnel around Oz. Although I’ve not been for a few months and my conditioning is shocking atm but covid has but the kybosh on classes. Will be back at it when I’m back from my hol. Bloody love it. The drills, the combos and the “I’m going to vomit” kick drills. (100 left, switch 100 right) He does strength and conditioning twice a week after the sessions but I’m utterly rooted after that (type 1 diabetic). Pad work and bear full contact sparring. My left side is my strong point for kicks and knees, my right side for punches. Either side for elbows and being tall and a bit bony, I love getting in close for a good cross elbow. I actually prefer elbows to a good cross or uppercut. Being tall too a nice jumping knee is pretty devastating. Left leg liver kicks and my lanky teep kicks. Got a heavy big bag in the garage. I’d have a blast now but it’s midnight here and it’s piss the missus off this late!

That karate stance was beaten out of me doing thai which is more square on than angled vent knee. Keep your rear hand down and you’ll get a head kick so quick. I also hated the way karate was taught… “Thry do thid, you do this”

I’ve met Geoff Thompson a few times and the fence is a superb technique. Also, he said learn to hit first time f00kin hard. He’s also a bloody nice bloke.

I’m 46

My boys 10 and just got his yellow in karate.

Fencing.

I started age 9 and went to 15. I placed in the Scottish competitions.

Started again at Uni, won the Glasgow open ( none of the really decent people turned up that year. I got a right thumping and didn’t make it to lat 8 the next year).

I got. Blue for it from the uni, we made it to the last 8  of the British uni teams. If we had won that fight we would have got expenses to fight the next round in England. Very exciting!

After that I made it to the last 4 of the west  Australian open and moved to England

The competions is much harder down here as there is a much higher population density.

Great points.

You can have a proper full tempo fights all weekend and might get a bruise. I cannot imagine the state of you if you tried that at kungfu or anything that doesn’t involve bendy swords.

Minus points

Super niche. While there are competions and you can fight others there is a lot of traveling involved. If you don’t like someone, you still bump into them 20 years on! Most folk are nice,

A few years Bujinkan a lifetime ago.

It taught me a lot about avoiding the kind of people who take it all a bit too seriously.

Fun though.

I train Wing Chun and Kali pretty much every day; have done for the past 6.5 years.

At some point I’ll no longer be a novice.

I was a TKD obsessive ~30 years ago, loved various aspects of it, but there’s absolutely no way I’d try to go back to it now at 48 having not done any training/stretching of that nature for ~25 years!

Kickboxing (billed as modern karate) – did it for years until a brain injury in the ring as I was training for my 2nd Dan forced me to stop. I really miss the feeling it gave me.

Hai Karate…

I’m rubbish but smell amazing 😉

1st Kyu 2nd Class.

I’ll take that.

Lost a bit of skin on my knuckles and feet and my shins are covered in bruises.

Pads, stances and kumite were good. Kata was horrible. Got dumped on my arse 3 times, knock someone else over twice.

Absolutely beat, but never felt more alive!

Son got a 2nd, daughter got a 3rd. Proud of the pair of them.

@tall_martin

I’ve always been interested in Fencing. It seems like a high-energy contact sport without the injuries like you say. Is it something that one could start as a complete beginner mid 40’s? There happens to be a club local to me and been thinking about getting in touch, but no point if I’d be completely out of my depth. Another thing I’ve often thought about Fencing; it doesn’t seem to me like it should be good for you being so, one-sided. Not sure I’m making much sense… I mean, aren’t you just exercising one half of your body? Or do you swap round? Also, is all the lunging hard on the knees? I’ve avoided squash for this reason.

Congratulations! I’ll never forget the feeling of passing my black belt. Celebrated in A&E with a broken bone in my hand after the breaking wood bit went wrong…

I ended up doing 4 black belts (in TKD) but I’ve recently stopped training and miss it often.

Something that stayed with me was this quote: getting a black belt is like learning an alphabet. Now you’re ready to start learning the language.

Just Thai nowadays along with normal boxing. Did karate for 10+ years in my younger days, a few years of MMA and jits.

Ju-jitsu for a few years. My training partner and I were the only beginners so we stuck together for years. Problem was, he was 6’4″ and had spent the previous 10 years bodybuilding. I was 5’10” and had spent the previous 10 years cycling. I used to get thrown all over the place… I was permanently injured! Still, it helped my technique and bottle. Over 20 years ago now but I still remember some of it.
It came in useful when one of my patients assaulted me and got me in an arm lock… I was out in seconds and briefly had them in a devastating lock. Remembered where I was and let him go pdq!

Did Wado-ryu for two or three years, quite a long time ago, Steve the Sensai was amazingly good, but I stopped after a while, I could never put enough into it to really develop. Did Tai-chi for a while as well, and I really enjoyed that, but the classes stopped for reasons to do with the sports centre in town, and there’s no class available in the evening anywhere local, classes are always in the day, which is useless.

Shame, I’d like to do it again – we did a sword form, with really nicely made wooden Chinese-style straight swords, I’ve still got mine.