When I was practicing a (relatively new - think 1970s) form of karate, I discovered that there was a near-religious fervor surrounding the art. While I did see a lot of competent martial artists at the higher levels, they continuously insisted on the infallibility of the kata, slow-speeds sparring, and "situationals" that made up the bulk of their practice. I was repeatedly informed that the art was self-defense oriented, but was rarely subjected to any realistic practice. They claimed that they removed a lot of their sparring early on because...
Hello! My name is Mackenzie, or Mack. Brought here by HPMoR, I have been reading through the sequences off and on for the past year, a little at a time. I can't say I've committed it all to memory, but I feel like I have a good context for the language this community uses. I am a mechanical engineering major in my sophomore [?] year. If I was a humanities major, I could be a senior by now, but two years ago I became fed up with the self-masturbatory nature of that field.
I've always been interested in the objective, rational approach to life. I wa...
I don't have any experience with judo. But this particular branch of karate (kokondo) advertised itself as strictly defense-oriented.