27/06/2006 In Polls by andy
well, it’s been a month or so since i posted the warm-up poll in the right sidebar of this site. unfortunately, there were not so many responses, but i’m guessing that this is because some people were not aware of the poll to begin with. at any rate, i’m going to try again with a brand spanking new poll and see i can make it a little more popular.
first, let’s look at what (little) the first poll may be able to tell us.
the first poll
the question was “how do you warm up?” - out of 12 responses,
- 5 warm up by light calisthenics and static stretching
- 4 warm up by dynamic stretching and joint mobility exercises
- 1 warms up by relaxation and breathing exercises
- 2 don’t warm up
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25/07/2006 In Polls by andy
well, i’ve given it a little time, just in case there was a surprise turnover, but things have panned out just as i expected - hengi is the number one favorite taido technique.
41 people cast their votes in my poll about favorite taido techniques, and the results are not even close - 16 votes for hengi over 9 votes for tengi in second place. my favorite movement, nengi, scored only 5 votes, even with sengi (5) and ungi (6).
so why is hengi so popular? i have a few ideas. actually, several people told me that they expected tengi to win (despite not voting for it themselves) because i had mentioned the movement that is the most fun to perform. that seemed valid. after all, tengi is a lot of fun and a lot of flash - nobody can deny that bakuchugeri is cool, but it’s damn-near unusable. i think the fun-factor of tengi accounts for second-place status, but most people are just not good enough at using tengi to call it their favorite.
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25/07/2006 In Polls by andy
i’m willing to bet that most of us have more than one reason for practicing taido. in fact, i personally have been doing taido so long that i have a really hard time imagining what life would be like without it - identifying my reasons to practice are like defending my decision to eat chicken or listing the benefits of drinking water everyday. however, let’s be simplistic here, and for the sake of trend-spotting, attempt to isolate our biggest current reasons for practicing taido.
this poll isn’t asking why you started taido or what benefits you think you may eventually achieve through continued practice. i’m interested in finding out why you are doing taido right now - what benefit do you receive that prevents you from skipping practices and watching tv? ideally, these should be immediate benefits (ie, not “because someday maybe i can kick ass like bruce”).
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02/09/2006 In Polls by andy
time for a new poll.
this time around, i’m interested in how many hours you practice taido in a typical week. don’t tell me how many practice sessions you attend - i know various dojo have sessions ranging from 45 minutes to 3 hours - just tell me the average time.
also, please include only the time you spend working on taido - general conditioning and other martial arts do not count. however, individual taido practice does count for those people who also practice outside the dojo.
thanks for your responses.
Permanent link to this post (92 words, estimated 22 seconds reading time)
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02/09/2006 In Polls by andy
out of 22 total responses:
- 1 practices to prepare for the eventuality of physical aggression,
- 14 practice because they enjoy the challenge of technical achievement,
- 7 practice for development or maintenance of improved physical condition/health, and
- 1 practices for interaction with friends.
61% of all respondents say they practice taido because they enjoy challenging themselves. 30% practice for physical health. those are both good goals, and i had assumed that they would receive the majority of the votes. both responses show that many students are practicing for some measure of self-improvement or personal development. in light of recent trends in the self-defense industry, i find that heartening.
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07/11/2006 In Polls by andy
ok, so this poll ran for quite a while since i was on a hiatus of sorts. we had 31 respondants, and i have to admit that i am surprised by the results.
- only three people practice less than three hours each week.
- thirteen people practice between three and five hours.
- twelve people practice between five and ten hours.
- three hardcore taidoka practice over ten hours each week.
so the vast majority of those responding to this poll practice somewhere between three and ten hours every week - that’s fantastic. i had expected most folks for practice less than that. though i had assumed that the three to five hour group would be the largest (and this turned out to be the case), i was very surprised to see that so many students are practicing in excess of five hours a week.
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08/11/2006 In Polls by andy
lately, i’ve been thinking a lot about what relative proportion of various training types and methods to use to create an optimal platform for skill development in the class at georgia tech. as usual, i have sixty-ish variables going around in my head about what to do when for what students. i’ve had the benefit of being exposed to a lot of different styles of practicing taido, and i’ve spent considerable time learning and developing a pretty large repertoire of training methods. sometimes, these things can be a great advantage to me as an instructor, but sometimes i feel as if i have too many options and not enough guides for choosing among them.
so, i thought i’d post a poll.
most martial arts train students using a variety of methods. in taido, the obvious two are hokei and jissen. i’m curious as to which kinds of practice people value the most in their own training.
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24/12/2006 In Check It Out by andy
What follows is a necessarily incomplete list of things you should read as a part of your martial arts training. Most of them are pretty fun, too. Just remember that there is an academic portion to any quality training system. It’s your job to decide how much to trust any sources you happen to consult. This includes your instructors.
As a side note, I want to mention that many of these are available for free at your local library. Yes, that’s the big building with all the books in it. You know those things you used to have to read in school? Yes, books. I know in this day and age you are all used to just ordering everything from amazon (and if you still want to do so, please use my links and get me paid…), but it doesn’t necessarily have to be so (most large libraries even have music and videos now). While you’re there, check the calendar of community events and find something to do instead of watching so much damned television.
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