italian_guy

by the way, whats the style of your pa qua? how were you able to advance or should i say does it blend fine with your yang tai chi? The style is called Ba qua chan founded by Dong Hai Chuan. How it blends with Tai Chi I don't know (I'm not Black Belt I havn't started it).

Definitively not. I train 4 hours a week karate and 4 hours a week Tai chi chuan and I'm 43.

Congratulations . This is the best MA forum site on the net ( and the only one where I post)

Thanks delta1 I didn't mind the editing.

Not necessarely by you only. My tai chi school has a very long work on the basic (but I think this is common in Tai Chi Chuan) it takes at least 2 years and a half before you start practicing actual fighting applications. They show you some application before, but just to explain you the details of the form itself and also as a memorizing help. But Tai chi movements are not very easy to do and you must have a sufficient mastery of the movements before actually using them. This is different from karate or kickboxing where movements and application goes togheter (kickboxing) or almost togheter (karate).

In my schools we have no paper manuals but we have websites which contain lots of information for new students especially the karate school site has history info, list of katas with historical info about them, a pictures with the fundamental technique and their Japanease names, other necessary Japanese words for the etiquette. Unfortunately it is written only in italian .

For me Art (any art) is related to self-expression. For example a painter can paint an existing landscape and the resulting picture can be a faithful reproduction of it or not, but when you see the painting you should feel the personality of the person who made it. IMO Martial artist is somebody who search self-expression throu combat movements in actual fight or in forms. This implies some mastery of technique (you cannot be a good painter if you don't know how to hold a paint-brush in your hand) with the related hard work that's needed for this purpose.In my opinion is not strictly necessary to know several MA even if this broadens your field of view. When you have found your way (I do not say style which may be misleading here) to express yourself during fight or during form rapprentation than you can say you are a martial artist. My two eurocents....

Really impressive especially the ones in the site from the netherlands.

It also depends on what style of kung fu are you in. Tai chi chuan it takes a lot. Raughly I can say not less than 4-6 years but depends on a lot of things like the quality and the flavour of the teaching and your personal ability. If you take also shaolin it may take less time to be self defence effective but again depends on the factors I mentioned before.

Not exactly sport but I did 2 and a half years of weightlifting and aerobics (usual gym courses) before starting MA in March last year.

Welcome to KF

Yes, (I never practiced San shou but it is practiced in the kung fu school where I go) it looks like kickboxing but it has some throws. The throws that you can do wearing a boxing glove.

I think there are some expectation from a karate (or MA in general) school that are often frustrated. Basically some beginners have a 'learn to kick * in 10 easy lessons' mentality. I tell you this because every time I contact a MA instructor wanting to join his school (and I did it twice during this year) sooner or later he tells me that it is not like in the movies. So I think they have meet many people that have this mentality and leave soon, and the instructors do not want to waste their time any more with those people. Another aspect of this fact is the increasing popularity of kickboxing compared to TMA. Kickboxing is more oriented to fighting and has no traditional elements that people interested only in learning how to fight do not like. Since I'm not only interested in the actual fighting experience but also on the other aspects of a MA I did exactly the opposite (started with kickboxing now doing karate) but some people I meet when I was doing kickboxing that had previous karate experience they all told me that with kickboxing you learn how to fight faster.

My suggestion is that you should try. How many times a week do they train? Maybe they do different things in different days of the week so it is not actually a mixture but a set of parallel courses. Certainly if it is a mixture it is strange. Not too much karate and weapons (that is usual) or karate and ground fighting (less usual but not too strange) but karate kickboxing and (especially) muay thai it sounds strange. Anyhow the price doesn't look to be too high (but this depends also from the market place in your area and how many hours per week you train).

Kickboxing it was in a gym I was already a member of it but after the first lesson I decided to keep going. For Tai chi I had no testing period I just had reduced price for the first three weeks but only if you decide to join. For karate I'm still enjoing my two-months free offer but I already said to the main instructor that I will surely join.

Yes indeed in my Tai chi chuan school Ba Qua is part of the Black Belt Program.

I had a problem with my big toe few months ago. It completely healed in about 20 days but during these 20 days it was slowly but constantly improving. If you have the problem since 2.5 months and it does not show any sign of improvement I suggest you to see the doctor. Before going to the doctor it can be wothwhile to show it to some instructor or senior student at your dojo, surely they have some experience... but I think if it is that bad their advice will be the same as mine.

Welcome and good luck with your cross-training experience. I'm also cross training karate and tai chi chuan kung fu and is great.

Congratulations. Blue belt after 6-7 months looks strange, in our school you can advance 1 belt every 6 months (and you have to be good) so to get to blue belt takes at least 2 years. But other schools, other systems I don't know.

Nice to have you here Chunky Monkey. I started MAs last year when I was one year older then you. MAs are fun even if we decided to start at our age. Welcome to KF then.

There's me I practice karate since two weeks, before I practiced Kickboxing for a little more than one year. Since January I also practice Tai chi chuan. I'm glad I'm not the only Italian around any more.

So, good and bad (of what I know from small but direct experience): Goju ryu Karate, good for fitness,not bad as self defence, good for healthy living, quite good spiritual side. Tai chi chuan yang style: not bad for fitness, (at the beginning) not so good for self defence ( it becomes good but it takes 5 or more years of practice) very good for healthy living and for spiritual side. Kickboxing, very good for fitness, quite good for self defence, not bad for healthy living no spiritual side at all.

My Goju ryu school has not a weapon program. In my Tai chi chuan school we learn Staff, Sabre and sword (I actually started with the staff).

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