Cross Training

[pmh1nic]

from the ground up

 

I think the issue is once you've learned and practice a particular stance and/or form of move and you've done it over hundreds or thousands of hours it is difficult or impossible to learn a new stance and form of movement that is contrary to or quite different from the form that has become "natural" to you after thousands of hours of practicing it.

 

I think if you're going to cross train you have to find another art that is fundamentally the same as and compliments the one you've gained some expertise in.

[theswarm]

When I started crosstraining I decided that there are some huge risks regarding cross training.

 

First of all my experience with crosstraining is 1 year of karate, then on to capoeira

 

If you get into a fight, you don't sit there and choose a block, your arm just moves and you counter - When I block I don't think oh wow i'm gonna do an outside hooking block now, I just move my arm to deflect giving me an opening to attack.

 

Karate to Capoeira to me is doing one straight line rigid, no frills style to a very dancey very visual rhthymic (i can't spell) art, that is more focused on evasion than 'blocking' per se.

 

The idea of dodging stuff I'm finding very useful.

 

I think Karate and Boxing would've worked well too with the ducking and weaving and whatnot.

[shimatta_billa]

I crosstrain. It works well with sparring and such, and certainly the extra training helps with your stamina/fitness.

 

Problem is, my TKD instructor now tells me that my basics look more like Shotokan (cos of the deeper/stronger stances) and that my forms look too much like Kung Fu (again cos my stances are now deeper - but I don't do Kung Fu anyway!). Also, having learnt of some new principles in Shotokan, I'm starting to doubt my TKD and wonder if I should apply these ideas or not (for instance, in Shotokan forms one turns their head to always look in the direction of the technique, but in TKD forms we've always trained where you keep the head still - which makes less sense to me).

 

I'm not sure whether this change in style is a good thing, but I think it's probably good not to try and confuse styles in class.