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Eventually, I will write about our five days at the World Boardgaming Championships. But I don't have the energy tonight.
What we did tonight was spend several hours at Iron Circle Karate, near us in Frazer, PA. Iron Circle teaches Brazilian jiujitsu and "mixed martial arts" or MMA, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
esrblog and I are thinking of adding one of these martial arts to our collection, partly as a way of maintaining fitness between Sword Camps, and partly as a way of learning how to fight when we're already down on the ground (a frequent occurrence at Sword Camp, and with Aegis's fighting style in general).
On Tuesday nights, Iron Circle teaches a Brazilian jiujitsu class and an MMA class back to back, so we got to see both. MMA includes the Brazilian jiujitsu stuff, but includes strikes and kicks with which we were familiar from tae kwon do and wing chun kung fu. Naturally,esrblog took to that like a duck to water.
For myself, trying out the jiujitsu moves was surprisingly fun. Of course, as I said toesrblog later, "It involved squirming around, under and over tall, handsome, buff, and strong young men--where's the down side?" Despite the fact that I was vastly outclassed (and outweighed) by all of the other students, they were both courteous and helpful--another plus. Moreover, the class instructor, Sal, is short--only a few inches taller than me, and much shorter than all of the other students--so it's clear that size need not matter in these arts.
After the two classes were over, we talked price a bit. Yes, MMA requires equipment we don't have (about $200 a person worth) and the tuition is more than we've paid in the past (about twice as much). On the other hand, it's been at least 3-4 years since we've studied a martial art other than the sword, and costs have generally been going up everywhere, so I can't consider Iron Circle's prices outrageous or even terribly unreasonable.
Iron Circle also allows potential students to take classes for a month free of charge, before signing up for an annual contract. We decided we would do this, starting in September (to give my Achilles tendons, strained from both Sword Camp and WBC, a chance to recover).
I'm feeling a bit of trepidation, but it should be fun, and a good workout, and that's all I really want out of the martial arts. We'll see what develops.
What we did tonight was spend several hours at Iron Circle Karate, near us in Frazer, PA. Iron Circle teaches Brazilian jiujitsu and "mixed martial arts" or MMA, and
esrblog and I are thinking of adding one of these martial arts to our collection, partly as a way of maintaining fitness between Sword Camps, and partly as a way of learning how to fight when we're already down on the ground (a frequent occurrence at Sword Camp, and with Aegis's fighting style in general).On Tuesday nights, Iron Circle teaches a Brazilian jiujitsu class and an MMA class back to back, so we got to see both. MMA includes the Brazilian jiujitsu stuff, but includes strikes and kicks with which we were familiar from tae kwon do and wing chun kung fu. Naturally,
esrblog took to that like a duck to water.For myself, trying out the jiujitsu moves was surprisingly fun. Of course, as I said to
esrblog later, "It involved squirming around, under and over tall, handsome, buff, and strong young men--where's the down side?" Despite the fact that I was vastly outclassed (and outweighed) by all of the other students, they were both courteous and helpful--another plus. Moreover, the class instructor, Sal, is short--only a few inches taller than me, and much shorter than all of the other students--so it's clear that size need not matter in these arts.After the two classes were over, we talked price a bit. Yes, MMA requires equipment we don't have (about $200 a person worth) and the tuition is more than we've paid in the past (about twice as much). On the other hand, it's been at least 3-4 years since we've studied a martial art other than the sword, and costs have generally been going up everywhere, so I can't consider Iron Circle's prices outrageous or even terribly unreasonable.
Iron Circle also allows potential students to take classes for a month free of charge, before signing up for an annual contract. We decided we would do this, starting in September (to give my Achilles tendons, strained from both Sword Camp and WBC, a chance to recover).
I'm feeling a bit of trepidation, but it should be fun, and a good workout, and that's all I really want out of the martial arts. We'll see what develops.
tired