# Moving to Arizona



## MetalBoar (Sep 26, 2020)

Hey there everyone, I haven't posted much in a while as things have been a little crazy here. 

When I first joined the forum a couple of years ago I was thinking about moving to Phoenix but my business here picked up and I decided to stay put. Well... strangely, one pandemic later and all that has changed. My small gym is basically defunct and the house I've been renting is being re-developed into townhouses. Since I have to find a new job *and* move somewhere else anyway I've decided I'm going to go someplace a lot cheaper with a better climate.

At least before the pandemic it looked like there were some exciting places to train down there. I don't know which ones will/have survived the current crisis but I'm looking forward to checking things out as it becomes appropriate. So, maybe I could buy @geezer a beer (or other beverage of his choice) at some point and he could fill me in on the scene! I'd also love to hear from anyone else down in Arizona about where they've been training and how things look.

Cheers!


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## granfire (Sep 26, 2020)

a lot of things are in flux right now. 
I hope you land on your feet!


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## geezer (Sep 26, 2020)

MetalBoar said:


> Hey there everyone, I haven't posted much in a while as things have been a little crazy here.
> 
> When I first joined the forum a couple of years ago I was thinking about moving to Phoenix but my business here picked up and I decided to stay put. Well... strangely, one pandemic later and all that has changed. ...I'd also love to hear from anyone else down in Arizona about where they've been training and how things look.
> Cheers!



Yeah! Let me know when you get in town. 

As for myself... I've avoided Covid ..so far. I'm a teacher and the students are coming back to school in person on Monday. Other than that, I'm a physical wreck. Don't know if it's just age or that and the quarantine ..but the latest thing to go is my left shoulder. Can't even do Chi-sau or double handed stick work like sinawallis without hurting it. Oh, and there's that thing with my heart. But I'm walking and breathing and I can still hit with my right. That's something.


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## JowGaWolf (Sep 26, 2020)

geezer said:


> Oh, and there's that thing with my heart.


Make sure you take care of that heart. Have they started talking about changing school plans yet?

Florida has opened everything up 100% now with no restriction nor mask requirements. I'm expecting some of that fallout to land in Georgia.  But any way stay as healthy as you can, don't get slack on your exercise.


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## MetalBoar (Sep 26, 2020)

geezer said:


> Yeah! Let me know when you get in town.
> 
> As for myself... I've avoided Covid ..so far. I'm a teacher and the students are coming back to school in person on Monday. Other than that, I'm a physical wreck. Don't know if it's just age or that and the quarantine ..but the latest thing to go is my left shoulder. Can't even do Chi-sau or double handed stick work like sinawallis without hurting it. Oh, and there's that thing with my heart. But I'm walking and breathing and I can still hit with my right. That's something.


Good luck with with the in person instruction. One of my closest friends here in Seattle is a special ed teacher. His school district is fully online for the duration. He doesn't have to worry about the Covid exposure so much but it sounds like there are a lot of pitfalls in the process of transitioning to online instruction, especially for very young kids with special needs.

Sorry to hear about the shoulder. The quarantine is rough on the body and getting older isn't much fun either! I own my own strength training facility so I've been lifting weights (SOMEBODY ought to be using them...). That's keeping me held together pretty well but I expect I'll be sucking wind when I start up whatever my new martial art turns out to be.


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## Chrisinmd (Dec 12, 2020)

So did you end up making the move to AZ?  How is it going?


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## MetalBoar (Dec 13, 2020)

Chrisinmd said:


> So did you end up making the move to AZ?  How is it going?


I did, I've been here for about a month now. Things are going well, the weather is perfect this time of year and I feel much healthier in the dry climate. Thanks for asking!

I'll be moving into a house in Mesa (just southeast of Phoenix) in January. With the upswing in 'rona infections I'm only checking out the local schools online at this point but I'm still welcoming recommendations from anyone who knows the local scene. Who knows which ones will still be in business when the pandemic is under control but there are some pretty cool looking options that still have websites up anyway.

BJJ was about 4th or 5th on my list of things I'd like to study but it's moving up towards the top of what I'm interested in based on the apparent quality and ease of access for schools in my future neighborhood. These guys will be short walking distance from where I'll be living: https://www.10thplanetphx.com/ and there are several other BJJ schools that look really good within a 5-15 minute drive and it looks like "Megaton" Dias has a school just a little farther than that. There are also several judo schools within the same distance, so I may end up doing some sort of grappling.

I've had a strong interest in Chinese martial arts lately. I was doing Tai Chi in Seattle before the pandemic shut things down but based on past experience I don't expect to find anyone teaching the martial aspects of Tai Chi around here, though I'd be happy to be proven wrong. Wing Chun is an art I've wanted to try for a long time and another one where it's challenging to find a good school but there are about a million of them to choose from in the Phoenix area so I have some hope. I'll probably check out Ashe Higgs for I Liq Chuan. I also saw a Sanda school not too far away that I'd like to check out. That seems to be almost it for CMA in this part of Arizona (again recommendations welcome). 

Filipino and Indonesian arts are also high on my list. There are a few kali/escrima schools and meet up groups in the area that I want to investigate and I get the impression there may be a bigger informal kind of garage and park scene for these arts that I'm just not finding online. We'll see where that goes. In the vein of weapon arts there's also a couple of WMA places that I might look into as well.

Outside of that there are a couple of Muay Thai and MMA schools that look good and a small handful of traditional Karate and TKD schools that might be fun.

That's probably more than anyone wanted to read but then again maybe the pandemic restrictions have many of you just as bored as I am!


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## Dirty Dog (Jan 18, 2022)

dorelgin said:


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He posted that he's already moved....


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## FranciscoNegron (Oct 28, 2022)

MetalBoar said:


> I did, I've been here for about a month now. Things are going well, the weather is perfect this time of year and I feel much healthier in the dry climate. Thanks for asking!
> 
> I'll be moving into a house in Mesa (just southeast of Phoenix) in January. With the upswing in 'rona infections I'm only checking out the local schools online at this point but I'm still welcoming recommendations from anyone who knows the local scene. Who knows which ones will still be in business when the pandemic is under control but there are some pretty cool looking options that still have websites up anyway.
> 
> ...


One of these days I’ll have to check a class out, but there’s a Kenpo school taught by Vernon Kam. There’s also Kenpo 5.0 in Gilbert and I found out there’s also a Tat May Wong school in Chandler. Chandler also has a school run by Bonnie Fu (a former TVB star).


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