Modern

ANY contact with a blade can be lethal. Sometimes its very quick--sometime it takes you awhile to bleed to death.

How "well" contact is made would be tough under those circumstances.
Might be a case of he dies now, you die 5 minutes later.

Jed

Sure you teach yourself and learn from movies. Just no way for you to tell if what you made up in your garage is any good or not.

No decent frame of reference so to speak. How do you "know" what your doing is going to work?

Pretty sure your just jacking with us here.
But its a slow day so why not--helps pass the time.

I'm already to the point where I can make contact with my opponent without too much fuss.I'm working toward learning to read my opponents attack and stop it. I don't charge at them like a berserker,of course I may have learned that from just sparring. I may just be lucky to have a friend that practices during summer when he goes to Florida(Lucky guy, I'm stuck in Pennsylvania, in a hick town next to Oil City) [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/frown.gif[/IMG]

Noted though, thanks... [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif[/IMG]

[This message has been edited by ModernWanderer15 (edited 02-02-2005).]

I'm gonna run under the assumption that you are genuine in your request for tips, and not like so many other backyard samurai who are just looking for someone to validate their own brand of whacky-smack training.

Honestly if you are likely to find genuine instruction in a year, then the single best thing you can do to prep you for that traing is to stop what you're doing now.

Learning a sword art is all about training very specific patterns and methodologies of movement into muscle memory. You are without a doubt training your body to do things which you will have to unlearn later. In all liklihood, a new student starting at about the same time as you will progress faster because that new student will not have to unlearn all the habits that you built swinging sticks at your friends in your backyard.

[This message has been edited by Charles Mahan (edited 02-02-2005).]

I really do want to learn. If that's your advice, I will take it. Thank you for your time.

I never bought a video or book to learn the art. When I became seriously interested I began searching and was eventually able to find a dojo recently moved to my area.

Anyway, maybe we can get this back on topic now. [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif[/IMG]

Something else I would suggest to the aspiring swordsman would be to keep an eye out for a demonstration in your area. I know in Shinkendo these are often done at "Japan Day" type celebrations and other public events in our area.

This provides a great opportunity to see the curriculum and speak to someone knowledgable in person. I also think that watching an experienced practitioner in person can help you grasp the amount of learning and experience required to do this art.

Only thing to keep in mind - make sure what you're going to see is a serious sword art and not a show - I'm sure there are folks here that could help you determine this if you ask.

you can learn from books movies and videos i did. i wonce beat the **** outta tis one kid who that his **** dont stink cause he had a sword and he "trained" with it. so i bring an 8 foot hardened bamboo staff. in five moves he was on the ground crying.

my point is you CAN learn from BOOKS/MOVIES and such.it is not strenghth or style that matters it is PRACTICE. even if you fight with "crappy form" you can still win by practicing

[QUOTE]Originally posted by katanas rock:
you can learn from books movies and videos i did. i wonce beat the **** outta tis one kid who that his **** dont stink cause he had a sword and he "trained" with it. so i bring an 8 foot hardened bamboo staff. in five moves he was on the ground crying.

my point is you CAN learn from BOOKS/MOVIES and such.it is not strenghth or style that matters it is PRACTICE. even if you fight with "crappy form" you can still win by practicing[/QUOTE]

Complete nonsense.

Cut him some slack Laf. The kids 10 years old. He is wrong of course. Practice is only meaningful if you are practicing something. You have to have a style to practice or your practice is meaningless. Most importantly a book cannot show you what to practice and therein lies the problem.

[This message has been edited by Charles Mahan (edited 02-15-2005).]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Charles Mahan:
Cut him some slack Laf. The kids 10 years old. He is wrong of course. Practice is only meaningful if you are practicing something. You have to have a style to practice or your practice is meaningless. Most importantly a book cannot show you what to practice and therein lies the problem.

[This message has been edited by Charles Mahan (edited 02-15-2005).][/QUOTE]

Nothing in his post here gave his age. I didn't find out how old he was until after i responded and moved on to other threads.