Since moving to Braintree, I drive down to Dan’s Self Defense Training Center on Wednesdays. I take the noon class and the double from 6 to 8 in the evening. He has wireless and a comfy office in the back where I hang out and work.
However, one cannot be an hour’s drive from the gym and expect to exercise on anything like a regular basis. To that end, I signed up for three months of lessons at the Martial Arts Center for Personal Development. I made an effort to start in with a beginners mind, but I can never turn off the BS filter completely. There were a number of odd things about this place, which all made sense once I realized that it’s basically a personality cult for the owner. Students are not allowed to ask questions during class, nor to work through the details of the techniques with each other. So, when something doesn’t make sense, the expectation is that the instructor will eventually notice that you’re doing it wrong and come correct you. Until then, you build muscle memory of doing it the wrong way. There is lots of loud shouting, many elaborate titles, fancy uniforms and so on. The final killer was the completely ridiculous “self defense” techniques that were stapled onto the end of the lessons. I can put up with a lot in support of good training. I also acknowledge that all martial arts are contrived in one way or another. Still, when the owner of the school dropped the quote below, I knew it was time to go:
You guys do self defense techniques, while I just do movements. I don’t have to worry about what my opponent is going to throw at me, because my movements are full and complete. It’s like having an invisible force field around me.
In my last lesson there, we learned a technique in which you grab hold of your opponent’s wrist, and then pass it from hand to hand behind your back. Yes indeedy, you turn your back on your opponent and put your hands together behind you. No, there was nothing there to make it cooler.
Then I found Phoenix Judo. They’re, not to put too much emphasis here, exactly what I needed.
The judo club meets in a health club about 5 minutes from my house. The health club used to be a factory of some sort, and they’ve got space to spare. They house several different clubs … there’s a boxing group with a full size ring, a Tae-Kwon Do school with nice hardwood floors, and the judo club with truly awesome mats.
There are lessons Saturday, Monday, and Thursday which go from two to three hours. Tuesday and Wednesday are dedicated to randori (free sparring), standing and on the ground respectively. Most of the training is dedicated to sport judo, in which there is no striking and it is explicitly intended to be a vigorous but generally safe sort of combat sport. There are a small group of people who do jujitsu, which adds in all sorts of nasty strikes intended to harm a person rather than to win a match.
The club is top-heavy with people who compete from the local to the international levels, and the classes are their training. There is a basic level of respectful formality, which is essential to do this sort of thing without getting hurt … but there are no ostentatious titles, and new people are encouraged to use the spare uniforms that the club owns until we decide to buy our own. Wrestling is an amazing workout, and I already have a desire to eat healthier and sleep more in order to be able to keep up.
The best part is this is almost exactly the opposite of the style that I’ve been learning for the past few years. Karate is mostly about fighting while standing up, striking with the hands or feet. While we touch on grappling and ground work, it’s an afterthought. Judo is the opposite.
So in short, I think that I’ve found a great place to work out, and I’m back at the steep end of the learning curve, where I get much better every single day!
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