Your biggest MA challenge

[disgruntled]

what is your biggest challenge when studying MA? it could be physical or mental.




mine is that i have crap endurance, am a bit of a chicken when it comes to agressively sparring, and have the hips of an 80 year old.

unfortunately, there is not much i can do about the last one

[Hatori]

Does this 80 Year old KNOW you have his hips? How does he walk? Heh Heh

One of my challenges is physical. After a car accident where I was told at 15 yrs old I would never walk again, I proved everyone wrong! This now means that although I am only 35, my knees feel like they belong to the 80 year old who's hips you pinched! I have arthritis in them and have had 2 lots of surgery too but I refuse to let this stop me training. If I end up in a wheelchair when I'm older, then I'll train in a wheelchair. I will NOT be a victim!

[DOCBROWN1705]

Congrats on an amazing recovery! Injury always seems to be a big challenge. Physically my biggest challenge is my knee, I was in a motorcycle accident a few years ago, and one of the pegs went through my knee cap. It severed the tendons, and I had to use a crutch for about a year. I have never been able to et full use back, but at least it still works lol.

Mentally I think its staying motivated to keep training. Life gets pretty busy, no matter who you are, and sometimes it is hard to stay on track.

[disgruntled]

yeah mental is very important! right now worrying about school and MA it is so tuff. it is so hard to balance your priorities!

Hatori, i liked your comment about the wheel chair. i totally agree. while i can still move i am going to enjoy it and worry about the wheel chair years when i get there. there is no point in being able to move if you are not using that ability to do something you love

[gman]

I'd say my biggest challenge is mental. I have been doing shotokan karate for about 3 months and picked up on my 1st kata (heian shodan) pretty quick. Now my problem tends to be that when my sensei puts a few moves in different variations as an exercise,e.g. punch,block,kick,block,punch.. I try to remember the 1st moves and then I lose the sequence as it is explained,like kind of losing focus,if you know what I mean?.I,m hoping this will change as I grasp the art better,hopefully more experience will help me out.

[sirdarksol]

My biggest challenges are similar to disgruntled's.

I have little muscular endurance (my arms end up burning really quickly from a series of strikes), though I have a decent stamina (I can jog/bike/whatever for quite awhile).

I also have messed up hips and knees. There's a tendon in my hip that locks up when I perform too many kicks in a row.

I also have trouble bringing myself to really swing at another person.

[disgruntled]

Originally Posted by gman

Now my problem tends to be that when my sensei puts a few moves in different variations as an exercise,e.g. punch,block,kick,block,punch.. I try to remember the 1st moves and then I lose the sequence as it is explained,like kind of losing focus,if you know what I mean?.I,m hoping this will change as I grasp the art better,hopefully more experience will help me out.

LOL i still have problems like that. we will be doing combos and adding strike after strike and i will get lost and forget it or do it in the wrong order.... but i am not the only one and either are you. one girl today kept accidently doing a the combo we just finished doing by accident. which was really funny because she was embaressed, but we have all been there.

Originally Posted by sirdarksol

I also have trouble bringing myself to really swing at another person.

me too, but is that something you want to change? i do, so that is why i am taking Muay Thai to learn to "fight". but i know you are really against violence and hurting others, so is that really a weekness/challenge? and if so, do you have a hard time ethically dealing with that?

[sirdarksol]

The biggest issue I have involves training. When learning a new move, it takes me a month or more to bring myself to put my full force into the swing. This takes away from my partner's ability to learn the defense against the move, as there is no real urgency to the defense if failure isn't going to hurt.

[DuleDragon]

right now, my biggest challenge seems to be choosing a good school LOL

[jackmcmanus21]

I have a lot of problems with my body stature. I'm a naturally big guy, but I'm only of short/average height. Right now, I'm 5'8 225, which makes weight classes difficult. I'm looking to drop a considerable amount of weight...no doubt I could be a really powerful 170 or 185lb fighter