Martial Artists: What environments have you trained in?

(edited)

i haven't tried the boat one yet, i just haven't had the opportunity

i have done in dark rooms, stairwells, bleachers, on a ice, pools, in the ocean, an elevator, at night in a park, on hills. my latest one is on a balance beam. when i was younger we use to spar drunk, i dont recommend that one.

great question i was about to ask a similar one.

edit the kata gankaku is good for stairwells or uneven ground.

jw i had the same thought about the airplane. one of my first thoughts was to start slamming the guy into the seats, and hope the other person would move or it would be empty. but then i am still aloud to care a pen onto the plane. they havent take those away yet.

I've trained in a pools, parks and dark rooms before. I've also trained barefoot in gravel (wanna talk about fun...). Another thing we've done (as a class) was train in a narrow hallway that's no more than 5 feet wide.

Me and a friend of mine (who took Goju Ryu with me long ago) would train occasionally a little in the snow and even on an ice patches. We would also do all sorts of crazy things like walking through mud (deep, deep mud) in their old horse lots. We did just about anything you could think of training-wise on a farm to do.

By far, the strangest place I ever trained was on a small boat in a pond. My friend's family owns a bit of farm land and on one was a pond that they kept a small boat to fish in no larger than 7 feet by 3 feet. We sparred and flipped the boat several times, or just fell out. I guess the real training was cooperating with balance. We only did it once one day, but it was a lot of fun.

My very first dojang used to have a spring training seminar by busing everyone to upstate new york in the catskill mountains. There, in a motel we would rent rooms for the long weekend, and during the day we'd make a class formation on the hillside next to the motel building. We'd work out in the morning for a few hours, then break for lunch, then workout for the afternoon, then break for dinner, then have a party at night. Then we'd do it all over again the next day.

In my classes, weather permitting, I'll take them outside and work out in the grass in street clothes (including sneakers) so that they get a feel for what it's like using their skills dressed like that.

But these aren't unusual training conditions. They're fun... but not unusual.

A dojo down the block from me regularly has its members line up in single file, then jog around town in their gis.

We did the:

dark room, wet concrete floor, carpeted floors, sandy beach, parking lots (both day and night), woods with lots of trees, open field, surprises on hiking trails/alleys, lake, rocky ground (both large rocks and pebbled ground), hillsides (both slight and steep), small cluttered room, doorway/small halls, defense from seated position (chair/car), seated with open car window,

thing... it was pretty interesting, made the classes more fun, and better prepared us for real life self defense situations! Most of the outdoor stuff was done in the summer, and we took food for a picnic afterward to turn our training into a social event. I'm sure there are some I've forgotten... but you get the picture.

We like a bit of variety in our club. Most of the time we train in our humble dojang but we have also trained at the beach, in the sea, in a forest and in a river under a water fall. It's good to get back to nature every now and again.

on the mat. and also in the pool and on a football field. a dojo and a dojang.

people who run those dojangs with not a lot of comers are more knowledgeable than the big dojo in town. the only flaw is space.

I go to school in Eugene Oregon so it's fairly hilly but very lush, forest like terrain. Needless to say, other than the dojang, the most unique environment I have ever trained in was the forest.

Let me tell you, for those who you whom have never practiced in the forest...it's really something.

@OC - Ha! Nah, not to my knowledge. But you'd be surprised how many Beaver fans are around here. I swear I heard crying somewhere.

In the pool, outdoors, in the dark, blindfolded, small church basement, seated in a chair, kneeling.

Recently when I was traveling on a plane I thought about how would I be able to use my art on that plane? It is very small and cramped. If someone tried to hijack the plane or harm me or other passengers would I be equipped to handle the situation?

I've seen kokoro mention stairwells. I have considered that too since then.

One teacher used to meet us at the beach, and we would train in, and near the water. Gis and running shoes (barnacles and rocks cut feet and shoes all up). And on icy ground, but not in snow as such, though that would be novel. Could you workout hard enough to keep your feet from getting cold in snow? We wore shoes on ice too. Never a boat. And on plenty of uneven lawns etc. Trained on pavement and concrete too, but it is uncomfortable to fall on!

I agree with you that environment needs to be taken seriously into account. Sportsmen are somehow always surprised when some thug clocks them with a garbage can lid, so we also take such things into account.

"Kisshu fushin (Oni te hotoke kokoro) -- a demon's hand, a saint's heart." - Shoshin Nagamine If you want a longer answer, a good martial artist also requires dedication (techniques take decades to master), a positive attitude, and the ability/desire to teach others.