The MA world, it's 'grandmasters', instructors and practitioners can be filled with lots of BS, as this website has quite often shown to me in my many years of lurking. It's often nigh on impossible not to get fooled/screwed over at least once. So, post your martial arts regrets.
For me, my biggest regret is the Chun, specifically of the Wing variety. I did it for almost 6 years, starting out as a deluded 10 year old looking to break bricks with his head (boy, was I disappointed) and throwing out shit from a Kung Fu movie like the Fist of 10,000 Drunk Warlords. Grading took a fairly long time, classes were 1 and a half hours long, where we'd have a 15 minute warmup, 30-45 minutes doing a standard drill, adding bits and pieces, and then doing some forms/special grading defences. The club also offered Tai Chi, Lion and Dragon dance. All in all, I've made some happy memories, and while I don't regret taking it up as opposed to doing nothing, the two years after my initial 4... everything was going downhill. People began getting graded really fast, the classes stopped doing anything fun and intuitive, the drills didn't change... etc. A lot of old people and kiddies started joining, and I couldn't bear the thought of disappointing my old man/I had faith that things would turn out ok. One day I stopped. I never told anyone I was leaving, I just stopped attending. It just wasn't going to help me in a confrontation. At that point in my life (16 years going on 17) I had managed to avoid getting into most scraps, or in others I just avoided using WC altogether and came out on top because I was larger and less inebriated than the other guy. I just knew I wasn't psychologically prepared.
The man training us, an actual man from Hong Kong who had trained under Yip Man from a young age. He wasn't a bullshit artist... he also did Chou Gar (his family's style), and, by the looks of things, he was fit and could handle himself. At around 55 he could still do pushups with two finger tips. The fact of the matter is, he wasn't useless, and I'm sure he could defend himself really well in a bout of fisticuffs on the street. But the fact of the matter is, we were learning in a watered down way, and we NEVER sparred. Thus, my view on it is that is was just taught poorly because of the influx of geriatrics and kiddies... it was never up to the McDojo standards of some of the krotty and tkd crap here in Brisbane, but it was getting borderline.
After about 9 months of quitting, I began to diet and lost 17 kg from 101/102kg (222 lbs), leaving me at 85ish kg, and, if this were an AA meeting style thing, I could say, hi, my name is Vlad and I'm retarded. I've been clean of any WC training sessions for the last 1 year and 11 months. What's worse is that this year I really wanted to join a BJJ club/MMA gym at my University, but I could only find the Judo stall on the orientation week sign-ups. So now another year of my life has gone by with no GOOD style 'in my system'.
So... how about you all? Ever thought that your 2 year blackbelt at 15 years of age was slightly suss? It doesn't even have to be your story. Have a fat, white neckbeard of a cousin going to Ninja training camps and learning to throw Shruikens? Do tell.
Slightly on topic: Any bullies located in the western suburbs of Brisbane that could help me find a good place to train. I want to start training and sparring and don't want to waste another second living in regret.
For me, my biggest regret is the Chun, specifically of the Wing variety. I did it for almost 6 years, starting out as a deluded 10 year old looking to break bricks with his head (boy, was I disappointed) and throwing out shit from a Kung Fu movie like the Fist of 10,000 Drunk Warlords. Grading took a fairly long time, classes were 1 and a half hours long, where we'd have a 15 minute warmup, 30-45 minutes doing a standard drill, adding bits and pieces, and then doing some forms/special grading defences. The club also offered Tai Chi, Lion and Dragon dance. All in all, I've made some happy memories, and while I don't regret taking it up as opposed to doing nothing, the two years after my initial 4... everything was going downhill. People began getting graded really fast, the classes stopped doing anything fun and intuitive, the drills didn't change... etc. A lot of old people and kiddies started joining, and I couldn't bear the thought of disappointing my old man/I had faith that things would turn out ok. One day I stopped. I never told anyone I was leaving, I just stopped attending. It just wasn't going to help me in a confrontation. At that point in my life (16 years going on 17) I had managed to avoid getting into most scraps, or in others I just avoided using WC altogether and came out on top because I was larger and less inebriated than the other guy. I just knew I wasn't psychologically prepared.
The man training us, an actual man from Hong Kong who had trained under Yip Man from a young age. He wasn't a bullshit artist... he also did Chou Gar (his family's style), and, by the looks of things, he was fit and could handle himself. At around 55 he could still do pushups with two finger tips. The fact of the matter is, he wasn't useless, and I'm sure he could defend himself really well in a bout of fisticuffs on the street. But the fact of the matter is, we were learning in a watered down way, and we NEVER sparred. Thus, my view on it is that is was just taught poorly because of the influx of geriatrics and kiddies... it was never up to the McDojo standards of some of the krotty and tkd crap here in Brisbane, but it was getting borderline.
After about 9 months of quitting, I began to diet and lost 17 kg from 101/102kg (222 lbs), leaving me at 85ish kg, and, if this were an AA meeting style thing, I could say, hi, my name is Vlad and I'm retarded. I've been clean of any WC training sessions for the last 1 year and 11 months. What's worse is that this year I really wanted to join a BJJ club/MMA gym at my University, but I could only find the Judo stall on the orientation week sign-ups. So now another year of my life has gone by with no GOOD style 'in my system'.
So... how about you all? Ever thought that your 2 year blackbelt at 15 years of age was slightly suss? It doesn't even have to be your story. Have a fat, white neckbeard of a cousin going to Ninja training camps and learning to throw Shruikens? Do tell.
Slightly on topic: Any bullies located in the western suburbs of Brisbane that could help me find a good place to train. I want to start training and sparring and don't want to waste another second living in regret.
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