Martial Arts

Man,brazilian martial arts are awesome.Im talking about brazilian jiu jitsu and capoeira.Unfortunately in my city there is no capoeira school.
When i move to the capital i wanna try capoeira,ninjitsu and kung fu.

I used to do Kung Fu, quit, and now three months later I’m ten pounds heavier. :sad:

/me is a capoeirist :yes:

It is awesome. It’s not a martial art focused in hurting people—in fact, most styles of capoeira don’t even require the two opponents to ever touch each other during a game—it’s acrobatic and rhythmic. I like its story a lot, and the fact that it enables me to so many things. I mean, before the Frenchmen started bragging about their new sport, Le Parkour, capoeirist kids all around already did this kind of thing: running, climbing, reaching unreachable places etc.

I like how there’s a sense of brotherhood to a capoeira circle, even when you’re in a foreign house and don’t know anyone in the circle. I like how it draws people together: there’s no circle in Brazil without at least one gringo in it, and most of the time they don’t even know how to speak Portuguese, but they get along with the rest really well.

When I went to Bahia, somebody told me about a house in a small city about a half hour from Porto Seguro, which had a great master. When I arrived there, I found people talking in all languages. First person I met was a Scot. There were two women talking in French, I soon found out one of them was Brazilian, and the other, a Lebanese–descendant West Bank refugee. There were people from Africa and Europe and America, it was awesome.

I really love capoeira :cool_laugh:

Haha what u talked about Le Parkour is right!
I work as an interpreter, and there is a lot of americans that get here willing to see capoeira presentations, and wanting to know where they can get capoeira lessons in their country. The history of capoeira is amazing. I dont feel like writing, so en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capoeira :razz:

I tried capoeira when i was a kid, but the teacher was awfull. Its cool, waaaay better than BJJ, but Im not realy into it :happy:.

I always wondered if any distinct for of martial arts had an advantage over another. For example, say one person trained in Karate were to fight another who was trained in Jiu Jitsu, and were about the same level of proficiency in their respective arts (is it even comparable?), who would have the advantage?

If your talking about which is better in a purely combative context, in your example, the BJJ style tends to fair better, at least in my old dojo and most UFC battles (as most hand to hand combat tends to end on the ground). Between all the other styles out there it would be a matter of opinion :smile: As with most fights usually the more conditioned person will come out better in combat (not including weapon work though)

I’ve been doing Tae Kwon Doe for almost 8 years now, and it’s pretty good. (Although my endurance is still horrible - but I don’t think anything will change that).

BTW, no offense meant in this, but I don’t think people would want to learn from a fourth degree - I think you’d need to be around 6th or 7th degree to start your own school - the head instructor at my school is 7th degree (or 8th, IDK, I think he’s 8th in 1 Tae Kwon Doe - ish style and 7th in another one). You could be an instructor though at 4th, degree. Not saying tha tI’m an expert or anyhting - I’m only first degree, but I wouldn’t really enjoy taking lessons in a school where the head instructor is only 4th degree…

Yeah i am going to try to get into the capoiera classes in austin. i used to breakdance and there are alot of similarities so the adjustment shouldn’t be too hard.

Hi,

i like to play with Internal Style Martial Arts, mostly t’ai chi chuan. I’ve had lots of teachers and been to a few schools over the last 10 years, but never really got into one school. i’m just too darn independant!

the one internal styles teacher that i enjoyed learning with the most was a really amused chinese guy who just said to relax. his english wasn’t that great but he could really paint a picture with his body. it was all about moving energy with the mind, and relaxing the muscles and loosening tendons.

i tried some aikido for a few weeks, and got into it quickly, but again the school wasn’t for me. i’m not in agreement to the traditional teacher/student paradigm. i like the falling though!

when my knee heals i want to get into capoiera and ba gua chan.

-so fry yo

Indeed. :yes: Capoeira is both a martial art and a dance (and game, if you consider most fights don’t even take people touching each other, but then again most kung fu practise is dance done against thin air and people don’t call it a game). So if you’re into one of the three already, starting up might be easy. Just take care to learn the ginga well, and learn to control yourself and to bluff your movements well. I can’t emphasize how important it is to get the hang of the ginga. It has to flow as smooth as breathing.

heh yay bin waiting for a martial arts thread.

I started training in muay thai and brazilian jiu jitsu a few months ago, I also do karate, numerous kung fu, internal, and weapon styles, and I did TKD for 3 months when I was in the third grade.

I’m by no meens a master but I am no stranger to martial arts.

Do all masters tell you to be fair, to have mercy, to respect your opponent and goody-two-shoes stuff like that?

Those things annoy me so much you can’t imagine.

If they do, then I think I’ll have to teach myself or resort to handling dangerous objects in case of emergency.

Mine doesn’t, but I can’t guarantee all capoeira masters don’t.

Good, I didn’t mean Capoeira only though.

I practiced judo for quite some time. I think it was judo? For some reason my instructor would randomnly show me some nerve to hit or how to grab somebody’s hair without getting wailed on. Then later on some of the stuff she showed me was just creepy. Ugh, Hammerfist. It makes my tummy flip like an omlet to think about it.

I have this re-occuring dream where I’m a badass monk/martial artist/ninja and I’m dropping foes at incredible speeds with The Prodigy - Breathe playing in the background. I love martial arts so much! When convenient I will train hardcore and get a few black belts. :tongue:

Search Pankration. Its the martial arts of the Spartans, and being Greek myself, regard it with high importance. Its honestly the most effective and brutal Martial art ive ever seen. Pankration in greek means “All powers” or “All strenghts”. its a lot like MMA

yay finally found time to get back on. I’ve been busy with my training. I started karate a month ago and i’ve been training in jui jitsu for about 5 months now.

My good friend John started Capoeira last summer. He’s totally in love with it. It really is incredible, all of the ‘moves’ you all learn to do, I was truly impressed. Most of the people in the videos don’t necessarily look like they are able to easily to the things that they do, in terms of muscles, either. I mean, they look strong, definitely, but not overtly so.

Anyway, it seems like a lot of fun. I’d just like to play the instruments around the circle. How long have you been doing Capoeira, Bruno?

All right, I am going to be doing a long trip to Europe, leaving next October. This trip will entail initially with being in Scotland or England for the first six months, working, saving up some money, and then biking across Europe for the next six months, then going back to England or Scotland, and doing it all over again. Now, during the biking portion of the trip, me, my brother, and another guy will be tenting in fields, campgrounds, and any other place that we can. This tenting will involve being unprotected by any lock or door, with only a thin film of polyester to keep another person from getting to us. This makes me a little nervous, as any bastard could get into our tent, attack us, and steal all our stuff. And so, this leads me to think that a valuable asset would be some form of self-defense to protect me and my group from robbery and harm. This summer, I intend to take some self-defense classes, but I have no idea as to what to take. Any pointers?