Advice here people!

[colonelpong2]

My old Goju sensei, whom I studied under for my first seven years or so on training has just had a hip replacement. He needs a walking stick to get around now and may always need one.
He has over 40 years training, starting with a decade or so Kyokushin and greco roman wrestling, then he went to Goju and side trained in JJJ.

He is in his late fifties. Real big guy, about 6 foot 4 inches and probably about a 100kg. He used to hit VERY hard and may still be able to.
But I worry about him after this.
He is very well known and respected in TMA circles in NZ and he is a great guy. It pains me to see his capacity limited like this, but age will do that to us all.
I am very worried though because he owns and runs his own shop in an extremely high crime area.

He's been looking at different types of training to work around the hip problem. As he always has his walking sticks, one of the guys I graded for my BB with waaayyy back in the day has suggested ascrima. No training in it round here though, so theyve got a bunch of videos.
They know full well the limitations of videos for training, but at least theres a group of them training it and they all have a great deal of MA background so will have little difficulty sifting out the BS and adapting the instruction into an alive training manner (we were one of few TMA groups who did train live. Most of our training was sparring, bags and pads. Kata was present was a minor part of our training, unlike most Goju).

Im jsut worried about the guy and would like any tips about types of training that could make him less vulnerable in his current condition.

[JJson]

Train with the walking stick. If he will always have the walking stick he might as well use it in his training. Learn different strikes with the stick and how to block with the stick.

[wanabeshinobi]

Train with the walking stick. If he will always have the walking stick he might as well use it in his training. Learn different strikes with the stick and how to block with the stick.

I have seen lots of cane techniques in Hapkido, but personally I don't think they are too realistic. Thing is, that people don't carry the walking stick for fun. They need to use it to be able to move and using it as a weapon on the side sounds pretty improper.

Sad thing the hip injury. I cannot come up with any (realistic) martial art where the hip wouldn't have important factor in techniques. What I've seen in escrima they use quite a lot wrist/hand movement, but they also use the upper body to dodge and close the gap.

[sempaiman]

How about carrying a gun and learning how to shoot.........

[illegalusername]

MOTHERFUCKING CANE SWORDS

[plasma]

How about carrying a gun and learning how to shoot.........

Sadly not all people live in a free country like the United States. I don't think private citzens in Nazi-Zealand can carry firearms.

[TKD Black Belt]

I second the gun....



Failing that, if the neighborhood is that dangerous than he was in danger before the injury what makes you think it will be worse now?

Tell him if he's really worried to go out and buy a solid walking stick. One or two cracks from that will be enough to deter most people.

TKD

[Snake Plissken]

Some hapkido schools do teach the rattan cane.
I've seen a little and while some of the things *looked* cool, they were more for show or demo and probably wouldn't be practical.....except against this form of attack:

[JustaFighter]

http://www.geocities.com/glendoyle/bata/

I'm surprised no one mentioned this yet.

[Permalost]

If there's no instruction in the area, I'd recommend Cold Steel's video Stun, Stagger and Stop:
http://www.coldsteel.com/vdsc.html
They also make some canes that double as excellent weapons. Canemasters also makes good canes, but I'm not so keen on their videos.

[thlayli]

Tabi socks, flip flops, knee pads, Speedo, ninja mask. Nobody'll even notice he's walking with a cane.

[colonelpong2]

How about carrying a gun and learning how to shoot.........

Generally a good idea, however not really applciable here in NZ. Our fire arms laws are rather restrictive.

As several of you have poinbed out, I cant think of an MA that doesnt need good hip movement and I havent found what ive seen of ascrima on the whole to be that realistic. Dagnabit.
As someone already alluded to, the fact he needs the stick to walk could limit its use as a weapon, not much use wackin someone with a stick if your going to fall over as well...

[Deadmeat]

If you find a reputable Savate school, that might be good. There is an ofshoot of Savate called "le Canne" which focuses ont he use of a walking stick specifically as a weapon. Being closely related to Savate itself, I assume it should be fairly transferable to someone with a Karate background.

http://www.bridgemansavate.com/H2association.html has some info.

Good luck, i hope that's of some use to you.

[JJson]

Generally a good idea, however not really applciable here in NZ. Our fire arms laws are rather restrictive.

As several of you have poinbed out, I cant think of an MA that doesnt need good hip movement and I havent found what ive seen of ascrima on the whole to be that realistic. Dagnabit.
As someone already alluded to, the fact he needs the stick to walk could limit its use as a weapon, not much use wackin someone with a stick if your going to fall over as well...

I know this is not the same thing, but there was a story about a blind guy who was robbed, and he was able to flip his attacker and hold him until the police came. I'm sure there were people who said "blind people can't do MA". Where there is a will, there is a way. A good teacher might find a way to change the curriculum to meet your friends needs. I read about a TKD brown belt who quit TKD because of back problems, and the guy found a Kempo teacher willing to train him to black belt. If nothing else, have him carry a cell phone and pepper spray.

[ysc87]

Buy him a cane shaped like a full human vertebre, complete with skull on top- life sized... I'm sure no one will want to touch him.

Secondary option along the same line of thinking is have him walk around with a strap-on harness with a blood-stained banana fitted in it over his pants at all times.