[NR] Driving, practices, etc...

[Carl Chipman]

I typically hate doing "me too" posts, so I'm going to add instead:

"What she said."

Kat's right.  I still travel around the region to push myself.  My local fighters push me (through their extensive knowledge of all my "jedi" moves) and the ones around the region in their variety and skill.

The more people, styles, and times you fight, and the more you listen to your instructors, the better you get.

JP


Carl Chipman
Nomadics, Inc.
cchipman at nomadics.com
http://www.nomadics.com


-----Original Message-----
From: northern-bounces+cchipman=nomadics.com at ansteorra.org [mailto:northern-bounces+cchipman=nomadics.com at ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Lori Campbell
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 1:11 PM
To: northern at ansteorra.org
Subject: [NR] Driving, practices, etc...

I think it is a very cool idea to promote an individual group's local 
practice once a month.  With 9 groups in the region that'll take the 
better part of a year to spotlight each group (if every group 
participates).  I'm not sure you'll see vast improvements in fighting 
skills (especially in those who don't travel to every single regional 
practice), but the groups themselves will benefit from the PR and from 
the new faces. 

I also thought it was a smart idea for the greater OKC metro groups to 
schedule shared practices - both because it means they don't conflict 
and because fighters from 3 different groups get the benefit of working 
with more - and more experienced - fighters on a regular basis. 

In either scenario everybody wins.

That said, I just wanted to say that driving is a fact of life for 
up-and-coming fighters who want to train with the best teachers and/or 
the most varied selection of fighters as possible.  I used to spend 
about 4 hours a week driving to 2 practices in addition to the one my 
local group sponsored.  To me, the drive wasn't something to complain 
about (though I'm sure I did a little of that).  It was just the price 
of improvement.  Granted, not every fighter needs that much practice, 
but I definitely did.  In my case it wasn't a variety of fighters that I 
needed in order to improve.  It was practice time with specific teachers 
who could push me to do better.

Anyway, the only point I was trying to make is that those who want to 
improve as fighters will always have to find practices where there are 
teachers they can learn from.  If the teachers come to them once in a 
while that is especially cool, but if they live in a more remote corner 
of the state that isn't always going to happen.  And even if it does 
happen, it will be an irregular thing (in my experience great strides in 
improvement only come with *regularly* being pushed to excel).   
Ironically, being in the center of the region doesn't guarantee that you 
will drive less.  I remember Barn driving from OKC to Lawton once a week 
to practice with his knight (about 3 hrs round trip).   There's no way 
to make personal improvement simple or convenient.  Sometimes you just 
have to go where the teachers are even if the drive is long and gas is 
expensive. 

Kat   >^.,.^<
Wiesenfeuer
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