A few months back I saw a flyer for a Judo club near me, and as I was finding college stressful and I was still being unsuccessful with not being a fat bastard I decided to dive it a go. It was dead cheap, so I wasn't expecting much, a couple of quid a lesson.
The people there were a couple to four or five teens depending on the week, one lad who obviously had some problems, two aged chubby blokes, on middle aged, one starting to become 'venerable', all of these were yellow/red belts, one brown belt girl who was apparently under a vow of silence, which made attempting to find out whether I was killing her with my 300lbs arse difficult, she was also either abysmal or didn't even try, one brown belt bloke, 20's, who was short but stocky, a tiny ripped guy, maybe 5 foot or so with an all black gi and belt who warmed up by flipping about the place and another black belt who seemed to be an instructor somewhere else, possibly.
The sensei was also very short, and round, with a janky arm which didn't work, so with all this I wasn't expecting miracles, just a place to start doing MA again and not be a hambeast.
However after some Ukemi and basic stuff, we were started on some combination throws (cannae remember the name) and he said my choices, osoto then kouchi gari followed by a harai, used too much energy, which they quite possibly did, they were just the only throws apart from ogoshi, uranage and the single and double legs that I knew how to do, he then said something which gave me pause, that according to 'goshin jitsu' which was apparently the style I was doing, my Harai was wrong, and that I should do it a different way, which actually just involved me standing right foot forward, as apparently both of us being left forward meant my foot had too far to travel.
Then over the next couple of weeks we devoted a fair amount of time to various self defence maneuvers, some of which seemed legit if a bit superfluous at this point, and some downright bollocks, like the various 'open hand techniques which require no strength and can destroy the bones of unpleasant 20 stone men', which as an unpleasant 20 stone person I doubted, unless they had chronic osteoporosis.
I was also cautioned when the class was invited to shadowbox, though it was called something else, when everyone else started miming bits of what looked like kata or just eye gouging invisible people, I, not knowing what was wanted, started to, well, shadowbox, having actually boxed before. I was then informed that this 'took too much effort' and was unlikely to either blast holes in peoples' faces nor remove their entire head, this lack of lethality being a sticking point, as when faced with a mugger much bigger than oneself it is a good idea to shear off a section of his face with the edge of one's hand and sending it spinning off into the stratosphere.
I was also struck by the continued emphasis on 'too much effort', a commendable aim for the aged, but I, even in my present state of furry corpulence, can actually throw three, four or even five jabs before dying of a coronary, I am keenly aware, though, being big and fat but not actually possessing great physical strength, that it's important not to muscle stuff through, but a lot of it seemed, well, ridiculous, like the emphasis on the one way to harai, never mind that I'm happy to face leftys and rightys as a lefty or righty, which gives four possible foot positions at least.
I rambled a bitty there, so as a tl;dr, here is my 'thing'.
-What is goshin jitsu
-Is it bullshido
-If it isn't, is there any point in sticking around, I'd stay and just ignore the stupid SD bits, but it seems to have leaked into the Judo and now I wonder if the whole thing is tainted.
Halp. >.<
The people there were a couple to four or five teens depending on the week, one lad who obviously had some problems, two aged chubby blokes, on middle aged, one starting to become 'venerable', all of these were yellow/red belts, one brown belt girl who was apparently under a vow of silence, which made attempting to find out whether I was killing her with my 300lbs arse difficult, she was also either abysmal or didn't even try, one brown belt bloke, 20's, who was short but stocky, a tiny ripped guy, maybe 5 foot or so with an all black gi and belt who warmed up by flipping about the place and another black belt who seemed to be an instructor somewhere else, possibly.
The sensei was also very short, and round, with a janky arm which didn't work, so with all this I wasn't expecting miracles, just a place to start doing MA again and not be a hambeast.
However after some Ukemi and basic stuff, we were started on some combination throws (cannae remember the name) and he said my choices, osoto then kouchi gari followed by a harai, used too much energy, which they quite possibly did, they were just the only throws apart from ogoshi, uranage and the single and double legs that I knew how to do, he then said something which gave me pause, that according to 'goshin jitsu' which was apparently the style I was doing, my Harai was wrong, and that I should do it a different way, which actually just involved me standing right foot forward, as apparently both of us being left forward meant my foot had too far to travel.
Then over the next couple of weeks we devoted a fair amount of time to various self defence maneuvers, some of which seemed legit if a bit superfluous at this point, and some downright bollocks, like the various 'open hand techniques which require no strength and can destroy the bones of unpleasant 20 stone men', which as an unpleasant 20 stone person I doubted, unless they had chronic osteoporosis.
I was also cautioned when the class was invited to shadowbox, though it was called something else, when everyone else started miming bits of what looked like kata or just eye gouging invisible people, I, not knowing what was wanted, started to, well, shadowbox, having actually boxed before. I was then informed that this 'took too much effort' and was unlikely to either blast holes in peoples' faces nor remove their entire head, this lack of lethality being a sticking point, as when faced with a mugger much bigger than oneself it is a good idea to shear off a section of his face with the edge of one's hand and sending it spinning off into the stratosphere.
I was also struck by the continued emphasis on 'too much effort', a commendable aim for the aged, but I, even in my present state of furry corpulence, can actually throw three, four or even five jabs before dying of a coronary, I am keenly aware, though, being big and fat but not actually possessing great physical strength, that it's important not to muscle stuff through, but a lot of it seemed, well, ridiculous, like the emphasis on the one way to harai, never mind that I'm happy to face leftys and rightys as a lefty or righty, which gives four possible foot positions at least.
I rambled a bitty there, so as a tl;dr, here is my 'thing'.
-What is goshin jitsu
-Is it bullshido
-If it isn't, is there any point in sticking around, I'd stay and just ignore the stupid SD bits, but it seems to have leaked into the Judo and now I wonder if the whole thing is tainted.
Halp. >.<