The Last Chinese Art I’ll Ever Study…

… will be the long fist that I’m working on now. And I’m not really sure yet how far I’ll pursue long fist.

The reason I say this is that I’m almost 100% sure, at this point, that I’ll be going back to judo. And, oh boy, I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.

My background is largely in xingyi and bagua, and I plan to keep up the taiji. It’s good stuff. But I notice that my interest in traditional Chinese IMA is waning big time. I’m simply tired of too many things. And I admire too many of the things that Japanese arts like judo bring to the table.

One, I miss having clean dojos and clean uniforms. I can’t tell you how many CMA schools I’ve been in where the people don’t even sweep the floor. That would never happen in a serious dojo. Never. What a lack of respect.

Second, i miss the serious attitude towards training. I miss people taking what they do seriously. I lived in Japan for two years and I found Tokyo to be exhausting. The Japanese became experts in everything that they did. Their local band competitions would have put most professional rock and roll bands out of L.A. to shame. No one that I knew there taught JMA professionally, but it didn’t matter. They were very professional in attitude and that made all the difference. Any hobby in Japan was likely an obsession, and the dedication bore fruit. I like that.

Third, I miss competition. I’m tired of people that can’t be bothered to do push hands because they need to work on their form for the next five years first. Why not just say “never” and be done with it? I miss comparing my understanding of the art to others in competition. I miss the personal growth that came just from training for competitions. Winning or losing was never my top consideration. Just training at that level was very productive.

Fourth, I SO MISS ORGANIZATION. The CMA have none and I’m sick of it. You can walk into a judo school anywhere in the world and your belt will be recognized as legitimate. Your skills will be legit. All teachers are registered in Japan. You can check out any judo teacher on earth. The skills and curriculum are widely known. NO SECRETS! Imagine that! No worries that the teacher doesn’t really have the “good stuff” or is “holding back.” All judo teachers have instant credibility because they MUST compete. No more wondering if the teacher can really do what he claims. No competition, no black belt, no credibility. End of story. Isn’t that simple?

I plan to keep my CIMA practices and deepen them. But it’s time to add something completely different to the mix. I need to do non-cooperative practice very badly right now plus I want to add many of the things that I mention above to my training.

I have to say, I’m really excited about taking judo again! I took it back at university but I have pursued CMA ever since. It’s time to go back to prepare for the future.