Any martial artists or fighters here? What books do you read that ties in with your martial arts?

>Jew invent martial art
>It's about fighting dirty

Pottery

I've been learning to box for a few years. I really don't get the spiritual aspect people love to write about.

The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin

if your boxing gym has any white people other than you, it's not true boxing

Are Cubans white

I actually want to start MMA later this year once I go to university. I have a brown belt in shotokan karate, but Im not really active at the moment. Im also pretty out of shape but Im hellbent on losing weight and getting fit now. my questions are if I will have many problems starting with training especially since we rarely sparred at all at my karate dojo. I would also like some advice whether its doable to do MMA and a different martial art at the same time or if you just drop one. Considering that I also want to have time for uni, reading, writing, playing vidya, friends and if all goes well a girlfriend is it even manageable without having a really tight schedule?

I would fucking wreck everyone in this thread and I've never read a book in my life

it's about being a man OP. you either got it or you don't

I suggest downloading Machida karate to make you adapt to MMA from Shotokan easier

You'd be an even better fighter if you read some books

Also a few books I've read:

Blood in the Cage, a biography of MMA pioneer Pat Miletich

The Fighter's Heart and the Fighter's Mind, Sam Sheridan's books on the psychology of fighters and his own personal journey through multiple disciplines

The Art of War

Whats the best book to get inspiration if you're a small fighter for your weight class(185 lbs)

Downloading? Maybe Im retarded but I dont know what you mean. The city where Im gonna study and live has a dojo that trains an offshoot of kyokoshin karate though, would that suffice? My original plan was to do both, this school of karate and MMA simultaneously. Would even if Im well aware that I would get my ass handed to me and Im willing to learn MMA as an university sport too much to handle?

Listen,don't bother learning Kyokushin,In my opinion,its better than Shotokan generally but you dont need to transition now,just save your money and learn MMA in a real gym so you can get used to fighting for real

Heres what I mean by Machida Karate

youtu.be/XraReNP_w0g

If you want to continue to represent Shotokan in MMA then watch that

I want to take up MMA or boxing or something similar, and this was inspired by my reading of Freud. It seems that I have an overactive death-drive, and combat sports seem a fine way to sublimate that into something healthy.

it seems you might just be a faggot. try hanging out at rest stops and taking it in the ass from strangers and see if that doesn't fulfill your "death drive" you fucking queer

Has Sigmund done something to upset you, lad?

Ill think about that. Thanks a lot my man.

One more thing

Fucking keep your hands up

death drive is speculative nonsense and compatible with neither the theory nor the practice of psychoanalysis. Freud admitted as much in his private letters.

I hope I dont bother you too much but is starting MMA even doable if you are a chubby fuck? Im not even that unfit, just overweight so people in my weight class will probably have a lot more muscle mass. Does this not matter for starting out since ill probably be paired with other beginners as well? Or should I dedicate the rest of the year to just getting into shape? Do you have any experiences with university MMA or university sport in general? I want to start doing MMA together with a friend and a proper gym is a bit pricy for him, I wouldnt mind doing the first year or so at university and going to a gym later even if its not the optimal route. Another concern I have is that I fear that ill lose my style as a karateka since all the MMA gyms in my area seem to put a lot of focus onto Muay Thai which of couse makes sense. Will my style stick to me even if I dont do Karate anymore? It may seem silly but I spend a lot of my youth doing karate even if I was never the greatest karateka and I want to keep that part of my identity if possible.

I see,alright first of all I have to ask if you're looking into MMA as a hobby or as a way to test your Karate(which I did).

I HIGHLY recommend you sort out 3 months to get fit first and then start MMA,prioritise fighting cardio ie shadow boxing so that when you take part in class that you can catch up with all the others and not put a burden on the instructor

I really dont recommend you put your time on the MMA program set out by the University,seek out a legit gym,see if they have a trial,go with your friend for said trial and see if its to your satisfaction THEN get a summer job with your friend to train in there later on.

As for preserving your style of Karate,I can understand the pride of being able to demonstrate Shotokan's ability to handle against other martial arts but please understand that every martial has its holes. You MUST cross train if you want to do well in MMA,I suggest you train the following

>Boxing to improve striking
>The Thai clinch from Muay Thai, you dont need to abandon your snap kicks from Karate because its good enough,I have fucked up Muay Thai guys with Karate kicks
>Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,this is a MUST for MMA
>Some Judo throws,I recommend getting Karo Parisyan's Judo for MMA

I highly recommend this channel,the man is a Karateka and he knows his stuff,his youtube channel is TheUmmahFightCamp, he knows his stuff

Please try and keep your friend as a training partner,training partners are very helpful in the long run plus its great way to spend time

I like that you want to want to fight in MMA as a Karateka,Karate is a great martial art,don't let anyone tell you otherwise

If you have any more questions,I'll be in this thread

hey I was thinking about doing mma but when i went to the gym i saw a lot of dudes rolling around in their underwear. I asked the instructor and he informed me this was common?

is there a non gay kind of mma I can do? one where I don't have to spoon my instructor?

Sorry but the probability of you being on your ass in MMA is very high,just learn Muay Thai or Boxing if thats too uncomfortable for you

I don't care, I've still found it a useful concept in my life. I don't pretend it to be some empirical reality, rather I treat it as akin to a potent metaphor in a work of fiction.

Thanks a lot dude, sometimes you do actually meet nice people on Veeky Forums. Ill try my best to get fit and see what I can do from there. What do you recommend as daily excercise especially since I dont have any idea on how much shadow boxing I should do. I have a sand sack though. My plan was to do some jogging everyday primarily because I dont ride my bike to school anymore since we only write the finals atm and maybe some weight training I can do at home and body weight training. How do I acquire the techniques from other martial arts would be my next question. Do you ask your MMA intructor? Surely he doesnt know every move and probably does not really care about me autisticly wanting to keep being a Karateka in MMA. Do you self teach or do you ask at the corresponding schools just to teach you a few moves. Im also a bit worried that I will lose my proviciency in Karate especially since Im out of training so maybe training both back to back would be an option? Money isnt really a problem, my parents are well enough off and willing to finance sport for me. Its just that my doesnt have all that much money but I want to keep him as a trainings partner not only because hes my friend but also in the same weight group roughly speaking, at least when I lose weight.

You dumb piece of shit.

MMA is every martial art combined. Hence MIXED MARTIAL ARTS.
Since the best martial arts are bjj and muay thai these are seen very often.

it's not fucking art.
it's like people saying cooking is art. sure there's AN ART to it but it's not fucking art.

i mean if you want to create your own definitions of art or have some romanticized aspect of ways to beat the shit out of someone then go ahead but keep your retarded definition to yourself.

this is bait my friends

I did Karate and Fencing in my childhood, and now I'm trying to get back into fighting. I'm practicing Kickbox with a friend, and want to enroll for Muay Thai and BJJ when I have the tima/money.

tkd is almost entirely about form and speed. the difficulty in becoming a black belt is that you have to get explicit approval from a master, which, for me, entailed writing an essay, board breaking, and reciting a really long form. so a black belt just has to be pretty fast, pretty accurate, and take it seriously. it doesn't mean you're physically powerful/can take on anyone/a "deadly weapon"

when you start getting into further and further degrees of black, people become more intimidating. you definitely don't care but i'm tired of people hearing that i'm a black belt and asking me if i could beat them up

also, don't say kung fu if you mean chinese martial arts. it's retarded

Cmon, after so many relativist movements every possible objective definition of "art" has already lost all its meaning. The only way to reach an agreement is to distill the meaning to its basics, like "art is communicating some internal message in some sort of language", and by doing that you can see that every fucking thing can be considered art simply if the purpose of it is to be art.

lol I would fuck you up using only 3 fingers

Good post.

not really you're just complicating shit.

That's the simplest definition, really.

Fucking troll, burn in hell for derail the thread. You did it on purpose.

Thats not how simple is

>Martial arts
>ARTS
>Are not art

>Painting
>Is art

????????????

DUMB FROGPOSTER

Not an argument.

>Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
yes, this.
nice to see i'm not the only one.

you're trying too hard.
cultivated ignorance is never a convincing rejection of anything.

Speaking of JW, learning chess helps with MMA, believe it or not.
Chess helps with a lot of things.

How? Im curious

Sorry for the late reply,a nap turned into a sleep kek

I wouldnt worry about what specific exercises you should do,just focus on these two

>Strength
Bodyweight Calisthenics,I usually do circuits, you can find plenty of routines around the web
>Cardio
Running after waking up in the mornig,I do it 5 times a week,I shadow box at night for 3 x 5 minute rounds,focus on basic combinations , you can look in youtube for any for example jab - reverse punch and then a mae geri

Dont make it too complicated,just remember this ; If you want to be better at fighting then do more fighting(sparring and shadow boxing)

As for acquiring techniques,usually in a MMA class, Basic boxing and Muay Thai would comprise of striking however a typical MMA gym would most of the time have classes where you focus on your Muay Thai,thats where you can improve the Thai Clinch or Plum, dont be afraid to ask around for help,a good coach would always spread his knowledge if you ask him to help you out.

As for conserving your Shotokan roots, the only way to lose proficiency in Karate is to not use it, you dont have to worry if you're going to apply it in MMA all the time,look at Lyoto Machida for example,he trained Muay Thai in Thailand and learned Brazilian Jiu Jitsu but at the heart of it all,hes still a Karateka.

If you want to continue MMA but worried that your Karate wouldnt improve then I say you look up Karate katas in youtube and do it when you're free.

to you maybe.
you're probably autistic so i don't blame you for coming to that conclusion

to be simple, it gets you used to thinking a few steps (at least) ahead, and forces you to re-examine the possible consequences of your actions.
The thinking you use during chess bleeds over into how you think in everyday life.
In terms of MMA, it's great for establishing sequential thinking with, obviously, victory as the final outcome.

>Jocko Willink
This guy got me out of a rut

...

>I don't blame you
Oh thank you very much. You wouldve hurt my feelings badly if you did

You are so fucking based. Ill try my best.

You are both wrong, if art implies meaning, meaning already exist.
Humanity started using the word black to refer to things that are black.
An artist make something to refer to something else.
Without the process of "referring" it is impossible to "make art" if art requires "meaning".

Using negation to -refer- to -nothing- will simply imply that you are -referring to those things- -and to the concept of being not-, concept that already exist in reality.

You cannot think of something that is referring to nothing, i am sorry our lives are being region locked to reality.

You're overcomplicating it.
Dancing is art --> martial arts are art
Why? They create beauty through non-effectivity-based movement. Thats why MMA in general is 'not art', because its about winning, not about creating beauty. But martial arts are art, presicely because a LOT of moves that they contain are not efficient from a merely combat-based standpoint...that is, from a merely LET'S-WIN-THIS-SHIT theleology.
Its about means and ends and about the final product and the capacity of a performer (fighter in this case) to do something beautiful, specially when it is not the most efficient way to do things...

((Correction))
>From a mere LET'S-WIN-THIS-SHIT theleology
Fixed.
Also, sorry if my English is not perfect

No mention of the thinking man's martial art, catch as catch can? Read Billy Robinson's book. There's a reason catch dominated globally for so long back in the day. Catch wrestlers even dominated judokas.

>You cannot think of something that is referring to nothing, i am sorry our lives are being region locked to reality.

try to think of undetermined being

>You cannot think of something that is referring to nothing
But you can think of "nothing," hence "something" (another linguistic placeholder) could refer to "nothing," it would just be a different name for it

This, Tricking is a good example of this even though it wasn't intended for combat.

youtube.com/watch?v=0qgvsKbVWXw

Book?

You forget that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I could easily make the argument that there is also beauty in two skilled fighters sparring with their eye set on winning and winning only. There is beauty in efficiency, there is beauty in brutality and there is beauty winning. What about is inherently more "beautiful" than people using actual useable techniques?

I started doing judo and was super enthusiastic about it for a few weeks and had some of the most fun I've ever had, but now I've missed a week due to weather and totally lost all excitement I had for it. I do this with everything in life and it pisses me off. I don't stay passionate about anything for longer than a few months. Not sure if I should go tonight or if it would just be a waste of time since I'd be forcing myself and probably wouldn't learn too well. At least with writing and music and such I can take a month off and come back to it reinvigorated without having lost much skill, but that isn't the case with a martial art, and it isn't something you can become proficient at absentmindedly like weightlifting that just becomes part of your routine. It probably doesn't help that I have to walk an hour to the gym, and an hour back. I was hoping to meet some people through it as well but they're all much older. The BJJ gym is only ten minutes away from my apartment and runs 5 days a week instead of two, so I'd probably be better off doing that, and would be more motivated, but its much more expensive. I work manual labor so the exercise aspect isn't too important to me.

How far would you reasonably travel for training, and do any of you have motivational issues as well?

If you stuck around for the whole blog post please like and subscribe.

Yes, followin my means-to-an-end argument.
And "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is not true. There's universal beauty. Look up Nietzsche's and Heidegger's concept of beauty. The value judgements 'beautiful' and 'ugly' are partially relative, depending on individual's psychology, and partially universal (because of biology, or 'human nature' if you want to call it that).
If we can't agree that Beethoven is superior to Rihanna, universally more beautiful, then you and I have a problem.

You idiot, initial excitement always wanes. What you do after is a question of discipline, not passion.

I do Muay Thai and don't read books, k?

I wouldnt say that Beethoven is universally superior, but I would agree, while having no clue about music theory, that I myself like it more and that he is in all likelyhood a lot more skilled at his craft. Of course there are certain sounds, sights, tastes and smells that the human mind will prefer over others if their past experience didnt lead them to feel otherwise. If we argue from your concept of what art is I can understand why you dont think of MMA as art. Does this mean however that MMA is inferior to martial arts which focus on the art aspect? You cant deny that you need a lot of effort and skill to succeed at MMA and even the most tradional martial arts originally had the intent to fight and kill and not to create beautiful flowing forms. Calling MMA a drunken brawl does not really do it justice I would say, even if from what I have seen some fighters would benefit from a bit of the spiritual and philosophical guidance that tradional martial arts have to offer.

but mma is gay bro

Would I say that martial arts are superior to MMA from an artistic standpoint?
Yes, as I said before.
Would I say they are superior...? In relation to which quality or from which point of view? I dont think the question makes sense

I just wanted to point out that in my opinion MMA has its own merits even if one might argue that the artistic value is lacking. Viewing everything only through the lense of it being (high quality) art or not is extremly limiting and, like I said, does not do justice to the effort and talent required for crafts and skills even if those might not be aesthetically pleasing to you personally.

hahah. I'm focusing on art and you keep talking about MMA.
I agree.
And I didn't disagree with this claim at any point in my posts. You've been interpreting my thoughts about art as if I was somehow discrediting MMA or something, it seems. I'm not. I have a lot of respect for MMA.

There's no real reason to think of martial arts as any more or less spiritual than most things in life. Anything that people make a passion out of pretty much gets made into an elaborate philosophy, especially inheriting the Chinese traditions. What /didn't/ they have a mysticism for?

If you want to have a martial arts books thread or a "martial arts philosophy" thread, thats fine but don't delude yourself into thinking martial arts are any more spiritual than you make them. At the end of the day you're punching and kicking. If you extrapolate that into a philosophy or art, thats great, but just because Bok Nam Park writes some esoteric shit about Bagua doesnt mean that practicing circle walking is inherently "spiritual".

My bad then, I based your opinion more or less on the guy at the beginning of the thread who claimed that MMA was "burger shit" or however he put it.

I would agree with you saying that anything can be made into something spiritual. I think that martial arts have this image in the west is because many more people have contact in some way to martial arts, even if its only in media, and get in touch with eastern philosophy and myticism through martial arts rather than learning to tend to bonsai. If you pair this with people romanticizing not only eastern warriors but also eastern mysticism rather than getting in touch with western philosophy it leads to people giving martial arts a lot more credit in the spiritual department than other activities simply because they are only willing to think of martial arts as something inherently spiritual.

Started wing chun about a month ago at age 22. An hour-long class three times each week and sometimes I stay after class ends for another hour or so getting advice from the instructors and practicing my form. My question to any martial arts fags in this thread is...how long before I'm at least semi-competent? There are some people in the class who have been training for five years that are still considered beginners by the sifu. Last class they we worked on a kick that was extremely difficult for me to wrap my head around. Not even speed or power, just the basic movements of the kick were so hard for me to grasp. The instructors always say it takes a lot of practice outside of class but I honestly feel like I just don't have that much time to dedicate to it after work, reading, writing, and basic exercise (sit-ups, push-ups, etc.). Did I just start training too late? I don't want to wait until I'm 30 to be a decent martial artist.

Basically. Its got a touch of the "mystic Orient" and we can't get away from this idea that somehow everything imported is more spiritually valuable.

It's like, you say "meditation", and immediately the thought is lotus position and Raja Yoga as if India/China invented contemplation.

Ah, I see. That wasnt me, the guy was probably fishing for replies or just being silly

Just go with the flow. If you find time to practice at home go for it. If you dont just try to go to practice with your intructor whenever possible. Just stick with it and see where it takes you.

Martial Arts is something you do for life. That being said,dont just depend on the instructor to dictate how fast you learn the art, youtube is a great tool for learning techniques and how to apply them,I suggest you find a buddy to practice it on