Essex Wado Ryu Karate
Monday, 12 March 2007
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About Me
- Alistair Thomson
- Alistair has been training in the martial arts for the last 21 years. He has trained with many different instructors and practiced many forms of martial art, however the majority of his training has been in the style of Wado Ryu Karate He has trained with Yoshi Shinorarah, Shingo Ohgami, and Simon Kidd and has achieved much in his martial arts. Alistair is the first to admit that he still has a long way to go in his personal karate career. "The martial arts are full of 'masters' who have spent a lifetime learning their skills. The sign of a true master is to acknowledge that no matter how much you know there is still a lot more to learn. I hope that I never stop learning, because when I do then there will be no point in continuing my karate. "I enjoy most aspects of karate. I don't have any favourite techniques as such - I enjoy them all! I enjoy the weapons training aspect of karate, especially use of the Nunchuku." Alistair intends to continue his lifetime pursuit of excellence in karate, and would welcome some company on the way.
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3 comments:
age limits in martial arts? in my opinion wado ryu karate has something for someone of most ages, right from basic punching or kicking techniques for a three/four year old with a limited concentration span right through to a 65 year old person who may find there slower than they used to be but still enjoy a kata. I think the question is more as we grow older does our bodies limit martial arts? to this my answer would have to be yes; in my opinion its only a natural human process that our body changes with age and this will have some impact on the way we are able to do things. Its just a change process that guides us through life sometimes good somestimes bad.
In conclusion my answer to "should there be age limits in martial arts " as long as the person has the ability to understand and follow instruction to the task there performing i believe there should not be an age limit in martial arts.
Age limits in martial arts? If you look back through history at all of the grand masters in martial arts, it becomes apparent that the main similarity between them all is the number of years that they each spent training. For many of them they were introduced to martial arts at around 5 or 6 years of age and then continued to train into their 80's. The success of these individuals and the knowledge and experience that they have brought to martial arts, demonstrates first hand that the more years a person dedicates to training the more they will develop, not only themselves but eventually give back to martial arts by developing the traditional techniques and passing on their experience to new students.
With this in mind I think that as long as a child wants to train and is of an age to understand what is being asked of them, they should be encouraged to train at a level that is appropriate to their ability. At the other end of the scale, we can learn so much from our elders not only in martial arts but with life experience in general, so why should we prevent them from training when they reach a particular age. If a person feels that they are able to physically train without it having a detrimental effect to their health and they are willing to follow instruction, we should not put age as an obstacle in their way.
Should there be age limits in martial arts?
This is a very open ended question. I have been training in martial arts for many years and started when I was very young. I feel that my karate training has changed as I have developed in age and maturity. If I think back when I first started training it was all about having something to do on a Monday and Thursday nights (mum and dad had peace for the night). As the years went by I got more serious and I had acquired the taste for fighting. Everything had to be fighting. Everything had to be physical and teaching others was a complete no. I wanted to develop my own ways of fighting. My instructor at the time kept pushing me to enter more competitions and I was becoming very successful by winning many competitions. This made me fly threw the grades. When I was 17 I was fighting in adult competition and winning. I thought nothing was going stop me but guess what something did. I will put this very simply. I was at a party as teenagers do and there was an incident. A group of lads which had been sniffing glue started to cause trouble at the party by picking on one of my friends. This then develop into a full scale fight and guess what all my so call friends scampered and left me to deal with them. The group of lads were armed with knifes and base ball bats. Lets say I held my ground and got rid of the knifes but when there is six onto one this is more or less an impossible task to defend. I ended up in hospital for three days with amnesia. I had taken a serious blow to the back of my head. I was very lucky to come out of there without being stabbed. The hospital was amazed how I was not knocked out by being hit on the back of the head. I was conscious but I was not. My eyes were open but I had limited awareness, did not know what day of the week was etc but I could find my way home which was a five mile walk. When I got home my dad took one look at me and said you are off to hospital. At this point in time I did not know what had happened to me. My short term memory was not working.
After this incident my confidents in martial arts went completely. A lot of people who knew me started to question my ability. The worse person to question this was me. I really loved martial arts and by this happening to me tore me to bits. I felt I was to blame for the fight happening. It was a very dark time for me. I could not remember all the facts from the fight. My memory took about 18 months to recover and remember what happen that evening. I eventually processed it in my head that I did everything I could have done that evening. At the end of the day I came out alive. All this completely changed the way I trained. From this point onwards I was not so interested in just the fighting. I wanted to know and discover everything about the way of the empty hand. I wanted it to become a way of life for me. I can now say that I have never been involved in another fight like that. Not that I have not prepared myself for it in my mind and training. I took this incident and turned it into a positive.
You now might be asking what this got to do with age limits in martial arts. Well each individual person has their own path to follow whether it is long or short. Circumstances will change the way they train and this is constantly changing in life. Circumstances might influence what we train in and specialize in martial arts. Circumstances might stop us training or start training.
As our bodies get older our techniques get slower but then we tend to be wiser. A young body might be quicker but then not so wise.
It would be interesting to see how other circumstances has influenced have effected peoples training?
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