ThisMoment

The answer is to be happy and at peace isnt it ?

Tom Yum

Its a great chance to get some excercise while learning self-defense. The benefits are proportional to the amount of work you put into it.

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Love it, leave it or fix it.

Tom Yum

....or you can take a jog with sensei saki.

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Love it, leave it or fix it.

darrianation

Freak!!!

What are fifteen and taking some kind of internal art that makes you feel warm and gushy all over? Stop smoking that Chi!

If that's why you take it then there's nothing wrong with that, I guess, but grow up.

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A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. -G. Gordon Liddy

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw

NOBAMA!

darrianation

My wife does those Taebo tapes. I like to crack open a beer and sit on the couch and try to get her to do it naked. (she has yet to do Taebo naked though)

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A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. -G. Gordon Liddy

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw

NOBAMA!

Toudiyama[NL]

well continueing the tradition, my dad was a Judoteacher
And because they are FUN, FUN, FUN ( to do, not always to watch)

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darrianation

Okay I'll tell you.

I have studied Martial arts since 1977 in one form or another. Unfortunately most of that time has been spent in traditional MAs. My journey through the martial arts has had a lot of ups and downs and changes.

My goals in Martial arts when I first started were to impress my friends and to stop kids from bullying me in school. My goals rapidly changed when I discovered tournaments, and from there they changed again to ring fighting, then to gaining culture experiences, now my goals have changed again towards reality based self-defense.

I still have fun sparring and it also keeps me in shape but my true intrest is in street combat and finding the truth about what strategies, tactics and techniques work and which don't!

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A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. -G. Gordon Liddy

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw

NOBAMA!

Mulan

Well, to me Martial Arts is best summarized by its 3 stages... for sake of quoting, the stages of swordmanship:
1) Sword in Hand: the stage of physical training that taps the potential of your body and teaches you techniques.
2) Sword in Heart: the stage of mental training that taps the potential of your mind and fighting spirit.
3) Sword in niether Hand nor Heart: the stage of spiritual actualization where you are in harmony with the world around you and are filled with inner peace/happiness.

Martial Arts is such a huge subject with so many options, that you can ask ten people why they take it and they'll give you 25 different answers. Some train to be in good shape, to fight in tournaments, to defend themselves in the street, to protect their loved ones... but what do warriors do in times of peace? Sure, the primary goal of a martial art is effectiveness in combat, but a true art is so much more than just that. The most renowned ancient warriors of China were also poets, writers, artists, healers, philosophers, and monks - complete human beings! They sought the link between mind and body, enlightenment through self-mastery, and the direct experience of their spirituality through the application of their techniques. They learned to fight so that they wouldn't have to kill (if at all possible).

That is why Martial Arts to me is not something that you learn for a year to kick the local bully's ass, but a long-term commitment, the benefits of which find their way into each and every aspect of your life. Those arts that are quick to learn and simple to apply might be great for short-term goals, but odds are they will not bestow the full range of benefits that the arts with the slower learning curve have to offer in the long run. Because those arts don't only train to fight, they also train to become better people. Self-defense in that case is more of a by-product of all that that comes after many years of dedicated training and meditation.

Of course, I fully realize that is a luxury few can afford. I also realize that a large fraction of this board disagrees with what I said. That's too bad... to each their own *shrug*

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The greatest real advantage is an apparent disadvantage.
"The hard and strong will fall. The soft and weak will overcome." ~Tao Te Ching~
"You mean you'll put down your rock, and I'll put down my sword and we'll try and kill each other like civilized people?" ~Princess Bride~

darrianation

Dude I think I gonna' shed a tear, thats just so touching.

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A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. -G. Gordon Liddy

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw

NOBAMA!

Sanitarium

Keeps me fit, makes me stronger, more confident (and also more realistic to counterbalance that). I like to know I have at least some experience in an MA for if I ever have to defend myself or my friends.

sikal

For me, it's nothing more than the simple enjoyment of training and, for the past several years, of teaching, too. I guess that brings me happiness and peace but that's really just an extension of my enjoyment of training/teaching. If I didn't enjoy it, it wouldn't bring me happiness and peace. Flip sides of the same coin, really. Yin-Yang

Mike

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Louisville Martial Arts Academy - Louisville, KY

Asian Fighting Arts - Dayton, OH

Lansdale's Self-Defense - Nacogdoches, TX

Starrr

LMAO ok LOSER. I think it is about learning new techniques, improving discipline, and keeping in shape. ( just to name a few)