From: stark@dwovax.enet.dec.com (Todd I. Stark)
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
Subject: Specific conditioning per art (was Re: Judo and Tai Chi?)
Date: 31 Jul 92 18:01:08 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


jhc@iris.uucp (James H. Coombs) writes...
> 
>Do you mean that you plan to take both at once?  I wouldn't expect
>conflict, although I have never studied Judo.  I do know that Shotokan
>Karate and Aikido do not mix.  Judo always sounded reasonably soft to
>me: if you tighten up, then you will be thrown.

That's the theory, and sometimes applies.  Its not the whole story, though.
You can get away with stiff arm tactics in the beginning and
be very successful at defending against judo attack, or at least making
the opponent's throws extremely awkward.  ANd you can use pure strength
to block throws.  THe same is true in Aikido.  This approach very definitely 
stunts your further development however, so at intermediate and advanced
levels of practice, most people learn to be 'softer,' not just to avoid
being thrown (stiffness means you can't respond to changes in the attack 
and are more likely to be caught by combination) but so they can
leave and see better openings for counter-attack.  

> 
>>I mean I'm looking at Tai Chi for it's overall health benefits and Judo
>>as a more immediate means for conditioning and self defense (by
>>immediate I mean years as opposed to Tai Chi - the 20 year exercise)
>>plus I'm very interested in Tai Chi and it's something I can do when
>>I'm 80.

For my way of dealing with this sort of decision , I'd want to pin things
down a bit more.

IMO, _conditioning_ is too generic in this sense.  Adaptation to any kind of
repetitive stress could be called conditioning.   If you want to excel
in a given area, you have to form specific training goals and do the
right conditioning to reach those goals.  A powerlifter can't neccessarily
learn to kick fast for 12 rounds any sooner than an an unconditioned person,
and a triathelete can't neccesarily punch continuously for several minutes,
although both athletes may have extremely high levels of conditioning.
The *intuitive* idea we have that a given highly conditioned person 'should'
be better at a specific seemingly related task is sometimes way off the
mark, in my experience.  

As a simple example, early in my training I was surprised to find experienced 
marathon runners gasping for breath after one easy round of sparring, 
successful weightlifters unable to land more than a powderpuff on the bag,
and unable to resist a simple wristlock.  I thought at first that it was just 
SKILL, but it wasn't, it was also activity specific conditioning.  Those same
people were sometimes actually significantly *handicapped* in certain
tasks by their high level of specific conditioning in other areas.

This has been borne out for  me in what I've read in the sports ressearch
so far.

Tai Chi, Aikido, Judo, etc., all have fairly characteristic conditioning
goals and requirements, and are significantly different from each other
in most cases.  If the idea is that anything that promotes
general fitness (mixture of mild aerobic, anaerobic, dynamic strength,
static strength, flexibility, 'general coordination') is useful conditioning,
then any martial art I've ever seen is useful to this end.
If you're overweight, poor condition, etc., then even simple walking
and easy calisthenics are of significant value.   But if your goals 
become more *specific*, then *specific* activities provide *specific*
results.  

Not that everyone should take that approach, just that I find it works for
me.

						kind regards,

						todd