I’m a 26 year old guy, 6’2 for 175lbs, and am about to start practicing martial arts again. I did one year of Quan Ki Do 10 years ago… long ago. I need some advice on which martial art would be better (Tae Kwon Do or Kung Fu), given my goals.
My goals are:
1 - improving my physical condition (I’m a mountain biker and have strong legs and cardio vascular system yet I feel weak abdos / arms)
2 - being able to use my martial arts skills in a street fight or any human attack. The one thing I like about Tae Kwon Do is the fact that they use feet a lot, which can be helpful against an attacker with a knife. Yet, Tae Kwon Do seems to focus on more on “pre-arranged” fights vs. reality.
3 - improving spiritual condition, ie working on Chi and energy.
What do you guys recommend? I need advice!
Thanks in advance,
Nick
self-defense has little to do with what art you study 5 hours a week. If you want to learn about adrenaline, goto a self-defense seminar, probably cost you a couple bills and a couple hours. If you want to learn about knifes, find a kali instructor and pay him a couple bills to tell you that you will probably be cut, and most likely die were you to engage a knife-wielding attacker, regardless of your skill or his skill. Funny you mention legs vs knifes, if you get cut on your inside thigh, you die.
you will probably get inferior spiritual teaching if you goto a large class - commercialized school. If you really want results you must find a teacher you ‘click’ with and hang out alot. Alternatively, smoke pot and take up hippie tai chi.
Looking for a (social) martial art? Shop around and find the school/teacher that feels the best. Style is of little importance, find a place you will be enthusiastic about, and go there.
For upper body building, I suggest not just regular pushups, but also close hand pushups, and buy a pushup bar. Lifting weights is also very good for muscle endurance, as long as you do large sets with lower weights. Pullups and dips also work great.
As for abs, it may seem hokey, but the Abflex actually works. Also buy a situp bar, as they make situps a whole heck of a lot easier than lodging your feet under the couch. Also, supine bicycles, crunches, and obliques work very well.
after my first week of 8 step, I choked out a tkd blackbelt that came to challenge the school.
Since then, its just been getting easier.
I have respect for tkd people in general…they are nice. High level people have excellent continuous kicking, but for the most part, its not the best MA.
If you understand counter kicking, its no problem…once you understand trapping, you know more than your average tkd blackbelt.
if you know a little shuai chiao..no contest. Their throws and joint locks are second rate.
there are good tkd guys in Korea, but for the most part its not practical…flexebility is the first thing to go, tight pants or slippery shoes…or being on the subway makes kicking a no no. Kicking has its place, but if thats all you can do…
They have no concept of power generation beyond leaning and moving the hips. I’ve used kung fu kicking to outkick them. I’ve used tai chi to absorb the extention and walk forward and they fall down. Maybe its the way most people practice.
sounds like alot of money and equipment for some simple bodyweight exercises… if you need these things to exercise, then you dont need to exercise, you need to balance your checkbook.
Pushup bars… $8… Situp bar… $8… Abflex…$30.
All the pushups bars are is two metal bars with foam where you place your hands… helps you break the plane when you go down. Situps bars are similar, only they clamp onto a door, and are angled so that your feet don’t go everywhere. The Abflex is optional, but it works very well, and quite worth the $30.
$46 total… I’d hardly call that a tremendous sum of money, especially for the benefits.
Pushup bars, for one, increased my physical fitness test score by nearly 20 points in the pushup event.
My situp bar is wonderful, since I can now do situps without having to constantly reposition myself. That is, unless you have someone who will hold your feet on command every time you feel like knocking out a set.
And the Abflex, or any other direct resistance device, works wonders for abs. It’s the equivilant of medicine ball training.
I would say TKD has little to zero Qi development, and very little self-defense applicability in my experience with various TKD instructors and black belts. It is however a good sport…
For a workout that is up to the school, not really the art, but qi development and muscular development should not be done at the same time as internal work, as tension impedes Qi flow and cultivation.
Therefore as many have suggested, get a good work out plan, and do a martial art. Stance work in the KF may take the place of some leg work. Or if you have a series of explosive movements after being in KF for awhile you may get somewhat of an aerobic workout as well.
Those benefits probably have more to do with your new-found-willingnesss to do the exercise, then in actually doing the excercise.
Of course, Im sure there is some actual minor benefit. Im not even sure what an abflex is. In general, Machines and gizmos offer very little actual physical performance based benefit, other then increased enthusiasm.
Skip kung fu and TKD. In regards to items 1 and 2 take up boxing, kickboxing, JKD or San Shou. They’ll give you a better all around workout than most traditional kung fu schools and be more practical than the majority of TKD schools. You’ll also have better street skills in a shorter period of time.
In regards to 3, take up yoga or find a tai chi school that caters to that.
The one thing I like about Tae Kwon Do is the fact that they use feet a lot, which can be helpful against an attacker with a knife.
The best use of legs in a knife fight is to run your a$$ off.
Newfound? Ok… since I have landed in Presumptuous Central here, first let me clarify that I have been in the Army for nearly 4 years now, and conduct physical training nearly daily. I was in excellent shape before I joined, and in even better shape now.
“Gizmos” and the like are people’s attempts at making things easier for you to get the most out of a particular exercise.
It is flat out wrong to say something doesn’t work simply because it seems unusual or contrary to your method. Pushup bars, by simple logic, are excellent tools, unless you’d rather skip using this “gizmo” and dig yourself a crevice around where you’d like to do the pushups to give you more clearance on your way down.
A situps bar, another simple “gizmo” can easily be rid of, I suppose, by super-glueing your feet to the floor in order to ensure that they stay put.
And I also imagine that rather than using that crazy Abflex thing, you could always just put medicine balls (which are comparably priced) on a ramp… run down to the end of the ramp, lay down, and let them fall on your abdomen. Repeat roughly 40-50 times.
Running is one of those things I am against using any sort of gadgetry with. Treadmills aren’t nearly as efficient as hitting the hardball and running a few miles.
Next time, before you haul off and assume I am some couch potato that recently found exercise through the use of machina and gimmicks, at least make an effort to know something about the person you are criticizing.
I totally agree that you don’t NEED gizmos to get into shape, but to say they aren’t helpful is downright silly. If you read my post thoroughly, you’d see that I gave many examples of “non-gizmo” exercises as well.
It’s just my opinion that $46 isn’t much money, and the items are helpful, will speed progression and enhance form.
I never said Gizmo’s were silly?
I have some neat ones,
A bench and wieght set
Wrist and Ankle weights,
An asortment of rocks, and bricks I found in a parking lot and Creek bed.
Some Eveian water bottles,
A canvas bag of Mung Beans,
A concrete foundational test cylinder I found laying around at a construction site.
An assortment of Kung fu weapon’s.
A tree
A tree that fell down that crosses over the creek I found some of my rocks in.
An obstical course in the local forest preserve.
Some more rocks, but I haven’t used them for anything yet. they are actually my favorite tools as they are 300 million years old and very heavy, about 30-80 pounds each, and are full of fossiles. I mined them myself out of a road cut I found in uttica Ill.
When I’m strong enough, I plan to hugh them wile I do one arm pushups
Thanks all for the initial replies. What are JKD and San Shou? Also, I remember hearing about a new “martial combat” a few years ago, called… ultimate fighting? Is that what it’s called? It is essentially a no-rule competition where participants from all disciplines face each other in a tournament. I am wondering which specialty won that…
