# The long-winded first newbie post



## Mighty.Panda (Oct 1, 2014)

Hey everyone, 

So a little about myself. I'm a UK care worker that supports/cares for children/adults/elderly people with things like learning disabilities, paralysis and mental health difficulties. I'm soon to start working at a 'medium-secure' mental health hospital. Basically I'll be around some exceptionally dangerous characters many of which have been through the prison system. To be perfectly honest I'm very scared because staff get beaten to a pulp fairly frequently and stabbings *do happen* although they're not particularly frequent affairs. 

I've never really been in a 'fight' before and I'm physically a bit of stick... I'm 6''5 but very thin framed with low muscle mass.. I'm going to struggle in there I can see that already so I felt I needed to do something about it and so I had a look at the local martial arts clubs in my area. 

Plenty of krav maga, various karate and kickboxing styles but I'm hesitant to start learning any of these styles because for the most part they achieve incapacitation by dealing massive amounts of damage to a person. This isn't the kind of person I am and it would also be highly impractical for the environment I'm going to be working in. So I've basically made contact with an Aikido and Judo club.

I've always liked the principles of Aikido and have made my mind up that it's something I'm going to practice no matter what but I wonder is it worth my while supplementing it with something. Judo is another 'no striking' form and allows for incapacitation without dealing stupid amounts of unnecessary damage to a person but I just wonder given my ridiculously tall and thin frame if Judo is really for me or not. 

Are there any people here that study both?


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## Mephisto (Oct 1, 2014)

I'd recommend starting a weight lifting regimen to start with. Nothing helps control a person like mass. Think of bouncers and security guys, some are shorter but they also have mass for a guy of their size in most cases. I don't recall ever seeing a 5'4" string bean of a bouncer. If you've never lifted you'll probably make gains pretty quickly. 

As as for akidok or judo? Go with judo! In judo training you'll get plenty of experience controlling resisting opponents. Sounds like you'll be doing lots of this in your line of work. You need to have the experience of controlling a resisting opponent to implement your skill in reality. Aikido has May have value but the skills to apply to reality are a long term investment you may never develop. The majority of time in aikido involves compliant training with cooperative partners, you can still learn this way but it isn't very applicable to reality. Aikido sounds nice in theory but few can apply it to reality, it's more of a spiritual/philosophical art and is probably more beneficial for someone who already has a solid grappling base.

You may consider BJJ also, a lot of time is spent on the ground but you'll certsinly develop the skills to safely take someone down, and should you find yourself in a bad spot bjj will enable you to gain a dominant position. Bjj gets a bad rep from the MMA and meathead crowd that turns a lot of people off, these same people who are turned off have probably never set foot in a bjj gym, where everyone tends to be welcoming and sympathetic towards newbs, of course there will always be bad seeds. In my experience bad attitudes are more common in traditional schools where practitioners hold rank over your head and look down upon new guys. This is especially true in systems that am don't involve resistant training because they may have deep insecurities about their ability. In a school that uses resistance training (sparring, grappling) everyone knows who is the best and those lines don't always fall into rank. 

In short, lift weights, do judo!


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## tshadowchaser (Oct 1, 2014)

Welcome to the forum. 
Both Judo and Aikido are good choices with the Aikido taking a much longer time to realy learn


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## Transk53 (Oct 1, 2014)

Welcome along. You are looking at KB in the wrong light IMHO. Try some Muay Thai. You don't need to be hesitant, the end result is just the end result. You would choose to use an elbow, not the art


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## donald1 (Oct 1, 2014)

Karate yes,  the rest no.  Welcome to martialtalk nice to meet you


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## Mighty.Panda (Oct 1, 2014)

Transk53 said:


> Welcome along. You are looking at KB in the wrong light IMHO. *Try some Muay Thai.* You don't need to be hesitant, the end result is just the end result. You would choose to use an elbow, not the art



I actually have a little bit of kickboxing experience from when I was a teenager. I don't know if the belt system was official but I was a green-white-stripe which I think was something like 4/10 with 10 obviously being black. If it were under different circumstances I would like to practice kickboxing again because my weedy-tall frame would put me in good stead, used to be able to roundhouse 7 and half feet in the air! Ha which felt cool but obvious practically useless considering few people on earth have their head up there.... There is a kickboxing club close to me but the annoying thing is every single martial arts club within 20 miles only teaches on monday. I suspect it's a big group agreement so people can keep their members as it greatly hampers cross training. The Judo place was literally the only place I found that didn't gather on a monday so I thought okay well it'll make sense to do Aikido and Judo as I can attend both without schedule conflicts.


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## Transk53 (Oct 1, 2014)

Mighty.Panda said:


> I actually have a little bit of kickboxing experience from when I was a teenager. I don't know if the belt system was official but I was a green-white-stripe which I think was something like 4/10 with 10 obviously being black. If it were under different circumstances I would like to practice kickboxing again because my weedy-tall frame would put me in good stead, used to be able to roundhouse 7 and half feet in the air! Ha which felt cool but obvious practically useless considering few people on earth have their head up there.... There is a kickboxing club close to me but the annoying thing is every single martial arts club within 20 miles only teaches on monday. I suspect it's a big group agreement so people can keep their members as it greatly hampers cross training. The Judo place was literally the only place I found that didn't gather on a monday so I thought okay well it'll make sense to do Aikido and Judo as I can attend both without schedule conflicts.



Yeah, the Aikido and Judo great. Now you have chosen the fundamentals, just try KB as you're conditioning to bulk up a little. You could just fit it in like going to the gym.


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## Brian R. VanCise (Oct 1, 2014)

Welcome to MartialTalk.  Give Aikido a try if that is your interest and enjoy!


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 1, 2014)

Mighty.Panda said:


> Plenty of krav maga, various karate and kickboxing styles but I'm hesitant to start learning any of these styles because for the most part they achieve incapacitation by dealing massive amounts of damage to a person. This isn't the kind of person I am and it would also be highly impractical for the environment I'm going to be working in. So I've basically made contact with an Aikido and Judo club.



For the environment you are in I would likely look at Aikido



Mighty.Panda said:


> I've always liked the principles of Aikido and have made my mind up that it's something I'm going to practice no matter what but I wonder is it worth my while supplementing it with something. Judo is another 'no striking' form and allows for incapacitation without dealing stupid amounts of unnecessary damage to a person but I just wonder given my ridiculously tall and thin frame if Judo is really for me or not.



Don't ANYBODY take this the wrong way but.... height aside, for the environment you are in I would go Aikido and here is why, Judo is still more likely to dealing stupid amounts of unnecessary damage to a person that Aikido is, not that Aikido can't, it most certainly can, but the philosophy behind it makes it less likely to do so.

Personally I think Judo is awesome and Aikido is incredibly cool and if my knees would allow I would have a hard time choosing between the two, but based on the environment you are working in i.e. I don't think hurting the patients is a good thing for them or you legally, then IMO Aikido


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## Mighty.Panda (Oct 1, 2014)

Xue Sheng said:


> For the environment you are in I would likely look at Aikido
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I agree that Judo has the potential to deal a bit more hurt generically. I would rather flip someone onto their *** than snap their head back with some fancy spinning kick but at the same time yes flipping someone is going to leave big bruises but if it's enough to deter them then it's good. I'm mainly thinking of Judo has a supplement as I said though plus it seem's to have a lot of ground-based techniques which I think could be useful if I have some crazed nutter on top of me. Finally yeahhh they are patients at the end of the day and I will be there to help them, I can't imagine defending myself will make me very popular with senior management lol sigh.


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## K-man (Oct 1, 2014)

Welcome to MT.

Aikido is a good martial art but *tshadowchaser* said, it does take time to become anywhere near proficient. I have said before, I reckon it was about 6 years before I felt I could use Aikido alone in a bad situation. I'm not sure that judo is a good partner for aikido whereas Aikido is a good partner for many other martial arts. If that sounds contradictory, what I mean is that Aikido gives a 'soft' element to many of the harder styles. For example, I teach Krav and last night spent almost the whole night teaching the guys techniques from Aikido. In an Aikido class we wouldn't teach things from anywhere else. Your physical size is your strong point. 6'5" means you have a much longer reach than most people. In your work environment that will be a great advantage as you can hold many smaller untrained people away from you until they quieten down or help arrives. I am assuming that in a 'medium secure' facility trained security guys are on hand.

So what alternatives are there to complement Aikido? How effective Aikido is depends on your instructor. *Mephisto* made the observation that Aikido uses compliant partners therefore isn't applicable in reality. While it is true we do use compliant partners in the learning stage, we do test the techniques against total resistance further down the track. You can ask any of my Krav guys whether Aikido works.  The principles you find in Aikido are valuable in any other form of training.

You say there is a Krav school nearby. I would check it out. Krav is full on, but all violence can be scaled back according to the need. Krav teaches basic techniques relatively quickly so that you are able to look after yourself in a short time. More complex techniques come later. You mentioned knives. We spend a lot of time in Krav working with weapons and knives are among the worst you might have to deal with. Problem in institutions is that if someone is going to use a knife, you may not even get to see it, so all the training in the world can amount to zero. If it's the case that someone is threatening with a knife then Krav is good training to have.

England is not the biggest place so there may be a couple of extra things I could suggest. There are a number of top guys over there who specialise in reality based training, Peter Considine, Geoff Thompson and Iain Abernathy among them. If any of those are anywhere near you I would recommend you check them out as well.

Good luck with whatever you decide. 
:asian:


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 1, 2014)

Mighty.Panda said:


> I agree that Judo has the potential to deal a bit more hurt generically. I would rather flip someone onto their *** than snap their head back with some fancy spinning kick but at the same time yes flipping someone is going to leave big bruises but if it's enough to deter them then it's good. I'm mainly thinking of Judo has a supplement as I said though plus it seem's to have a lot of ground-based techniques which I think could be useful if I have some crazed nutter on top of me. Finally yeahhh they are patients at the end of the day and I will be there to help them, I can't imagine defending myself will make me very popular with senior management lol sigh.



When I worked in Security at a hospital with a mental health and detox unit I use to use a lot of my taijiquan, but I had been doing Taiji for about 8 years by that point and all I can say about using Taiji, aikido, of any MA in those situation is what God said to Bender in Futurama



> _When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all._


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## Mighty.Panda (Oct 1, 2014)

K-man said:


> Welcome to MT.
> 
> Aikido is a good martial art but *tshadowchaser* said, it does take time to become anywhere near proficient. I have said before, I reckon it was about 6 years before I felt I could use Aikido alone in a bad situation. I'm not sure that judo is a good partner for aikido whereas Aikido is a good partner for many other martial arts. If that sounds contradictory, what I mean is that Aikido gives a 'soft' element to many of the harder styles. For example, I teach Krav and last night spent almost the whole night teaching the guys techniques from Aikido. In an Aikido class we wouldn't teach things from anywhere else. Your physical size is your strong point. 6'5" means you have a much longer reach than most people. In your work environment that will be a great advantage as you can hold many smaller untrained people away from you until they quieten down or help arrives.* I am assuming that in a 'medium secure' facility trained security guys are on hand.
> *
> ...



Sadly not... All staff go on a 2-day PMVA course (prevention management violence and aggression) it's basically locks and holds that are sanctioned within certain hospitals and can be applied legally etc when certain criteria are met. Now this course was pretty useful but ultimately it was 2 days and now it's off into a medium-secure ward... 3 staff to 13 bodybuilder'esque dudes with long histories of violence. I know lots of people will say size isn't everything etc but when you're an untrained flimsy nerd that is relatively unaccustomed to violence it's all pretty scary!


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 1, 2014)

Mighty.Panda said:


> I know lots of people will say size isn't everything etc but when you're an untrained flimsy nerd that is relatively unaccustomed to violence it's all pretty scary!



It was scary to me, and I was 6'1" and 220 at the time, and I had been in MA for over 20 years. Violence is always scary one way or another


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## Mighty.Panda (Oct 1, 2014)

Xue Sheng said:


> It was scary to me, and I was 6'1" and 220 at the time, and I had been in MA for over 20 years. Violence is always scary one way or another



The worst part is I'm "agency" care so I'm basically the guy they call in when someone is off sick or they need to make up numbers etc. So I'm incredibly easy to get rid of... If I get KO'd on my first day it'll be all "well he was a bit pants, get someone else for next shift".


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## K-man (Oct 1, 2014)

Mighty.Panda said:


> Sadly not... All staff go on a 2-day PMVA course (prevention management violence and aggression) it's basically locks and holds that are sanctioned within certain hospitals and can be applied legally etc when certain criteria are met. Now this course was pretty useful but ultimately it was 2 days and now it's off into a medium-secure ward... 3 staff to 13 bodybuilder'esque dudes with long histories of violence. I know lots of people will say size isn't everything etc but when you're an untrained flimsy nerd that is relatively unaccustomed to violence it's all pretty scary!


I just looked up what they say they will teach you in one of those courses. Good luck with learning that in two days against a non-compliant person, or I might just be a slow learner.  What I might suggest is have a chat to the Aikido instructor. Tell him what you are wanting to achieve and see what he says. He might even do some private lessons. To be honest, across all martial arts there are good instructors and poor instructors. Aikido is no different. Make sure that you not only talk to the instructor but check out some of his senior students. Can they make techniques work? 

You have done the course and you know what you are allowed to use against a violent patient to restrain. I watched a guy in a psych ward manage a guy who was right out of his tree. He was screaming abuse, kicking chairs all over the room and to be honest with years of training, I still wouldn't have voluntarily gone near him. The security guy talked him down without even touching him. So maybe de-escalation skills are at least as important as the physical ones.

So another thought about a supplementary course. When someone is in your face screaming at you it is very confronting. Krav has scenario training which gives you a taste of that. Again you might check out what the Krav class can offer, even again a few private classes maybe. You will get more physical contact in the Krav than in Aikido and probably more realistic contact than in Judo.

Once you start any of those things your physical shape and fitness will improve regardless so I wouldn't get to involved in body building.
:asian:


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## Tez3 (Oct 1, 2014)

Hiya, if you really have to take this job, contact this organisation to find someone to train with. The instructors know what they are talking about, Geoff Thompson is one of the best guys around for 'looking after yourself' training, the legal way. He also writes very good books about his time on the doors among other thing. If you let me know what area you are in I can recommend the best of the instructors. (If you look on the North East bit you will see UFC fighter Ian Freeman, used to do the doors in Newcastle)
The British Combat Association | Home of Mixed & Practical Martial Arts


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