Hello everybody!
I just registered here, and I'm looking forward to (hopefully) many interesting and usefull discussions in the time ahead.
A little about me:
I live just outside Oslo, Norway, and I'm working as a psychometric assessment consultant within the field of aviation psychology, which essentialy for the most part means administering and analysing a wide range of psychometric tests(ability tests, personality tests, etc.) on helicopter pilots applying for jobs in one of Norways many helicopter companies providing services for the offshore oil industry. Previously, I worked several years as a milieu therapist within the public psychiatric healthcare system, including on emergency and security wards. I am 36 years old, and am married to my beautifull wife Jana, which is a high school teacher and is also translating pulp fiction books from english to norwegian.
Training wise, I have done a little bit of a lot, but not a whole lot of anything. I started doing Kukki style TKD(also known as WTF or Olympic style, allthough that is technically not correct as the WTF is just a subdivision of the Kukkiwon, focusing on sportive competition) in 1992, and kept going untill 1996. Since then I have only trained TKD somewhat on and off, and have never graded past 1st. degree black belt. In 1999, I started Aikikai Aikido, and kept training that style somewhat seriously for a few years.
In 2004, I started Wako style kickboxing, and kept this up until about 2006, when I moved and started training amateur boxing and kodokan judo in parallel in the same sportsclub instead, competing a bit, but mostly training just to keep in shape and developing myself as a martial artist. I kept this up until about 2010, with a small one year break in the middle testing out training in a MMA club, and competing a bit in submission wrestling just to get a feeling of no gi grappling competition.
In 2010, I started focusing strictly on grappling with the gi, joining a small grappling group mostly basing our training on learning from DVDs, attending various seminars with people like Renato Tavares, Roy Harris, Rener Gracie, Jeff miller, etc., and competing in local BJJ competitions. As we did not have regular access to a black belt, we decided to get a blue belt trough Gracie University, and went trough their curriculum - which provided us with some self-defense relevant technical input to complement the more competition focused style of grappling we had up to that point. I also did half a year of Wado Ryu karate in the middle of this, but decided it was not for me after grading to 7th kyu/orange belt
(Just a small digression: I know some people tend to look down on the Gracie University training and grading process because of a lack of obligatory sparring before reaching blue belt, as well as the option of video grading(which is no longer possible, however), but as we did a whole lot of sparring and competing before even starting the gracie university blue belt course, and kept doing this troughout the program, we have had no trouble hanging with blue belts and even some purple belts from more typical bjj clubs when rolling. Just shows that training is what you make out of it.)
Also in paralell with the BJJ-training, I met a 6th degree Hapkido Black belt under Kim Jong Soo 9th dan(Yon Bi Kwan), which I also started training regulary under. He let me grade somewhat faster than usual because of my previous experience in similar arts, which made learning the hapkido curriculum easier and mostly a case of adapting techniques and principles I already knew to fit into a Hapkido perspective. In either case, I graded to 1st. dan black belt in Hapkido in september this year, and I'm currently experimenting with wristlocks in BJJ sparring, which with a few exeptions turns out to be a lot harder to pull off in practice than you should think, even from dominant positions.
In addition to the above, I have also attended a few, scattered seminars over the years in arts such as some FMA, modern defendo and urban combatives(Lee Morrison).
So that is me. I love martial arts but feel I have only dipped my toe in what's out there, and look forward to continue training and learning untill I either die or are too old to move in a meeningfull way. I'm also a martial arts history geek, btw.
I just registered here, and I'm looking forward to (hopefully) many interesting and usefull discussions in the time ahead.
A little about me:
I live just outside Oslo, Norway, and I'm working as a psychometric assessment consultant within the field of aviation psychology, which essentialy for the most part means administering and analysing a wide range of psychometric tests(ability tests, personality tests, etc.) on helicopter pilots applying for jobs in one of Norways many helicopter companies providing services for the offshore oil industry. Previously, I worked several years as a milieu therapist within the public psychiatric healthcare system, including on emergency and security wards. I am 36 years old, and am married to my beautifull wife Jana, which is a high school teacher and is also translating pulp fiction books from english to norwegian.
Training wise, I have done a little bit of a lot, but not a whole lot of anything. I started doing Kukki style TKD(also known as WTF or Olympic style, allthough that is technically not correct as the WTF is just a subdivision of the Kukkiwon, focusing on sportive competition) in 1992, and kept going untill 1996. Since then I have only trained TKD somewhat on and off, and have never graded past 1st. degree black belt. In 1999, I started Aikikai Aikido, and kept training that style somewhat seriously for a few years.
In 2004, I started Wako style kickboxing, and kept this up until about 2006, when I moved and started training amateur boxing and kodokan judo in parallel in the same sportsclub instead, competing a bit, but mostly training just to keep in shape and developing myself as a martial artist. I kept this up until about 2010, with a small one year break in the middle testing out training in a MMA club, and competing a bit in submission wrestling just to get a feeling of no gi grappling competition.
In 2010, I started focusing strictly on grappling with the gi, joining a small grappling group mostly basing our training on learning from DVDs, attending various seminars with people like Renato Tavares, Roy Harris, Rener Gracie, Jeff miller, etc., and competing in local BJJ competitions. As we did not have regular access to a black belt, we decided to get a blue belt trough Gracie University, and went trough their curriculum - which provided us with some self-defense relevant technical input to complement the more competition focused style of grappling we had up to that point. I also did half a year of Wado Ryu karate in the middle of this, but decided it was not for me after grading to 7th kyu/orange belt
(Just a small digression: I know some people tend to look down on the Gracie University training and grading process because of a lack of obligatory sparring before reaching blue belt, as well as the option of video grading(which is no longer possible, however), but as we did a whole lot of sparring and competing before even starting the gracie university blue belt course, and kept doing this troughout the program, we have had no trouble hanging with blue belts and even some purple belts from more typical bjj clubs when rolling. Just shows that training is what you make out of it.)
Also in paralell with the BJJ-training, I met a 6th degree Hapkido Black belt under Kim Jong Soo 9th dan(Yon Bi Kwan), which I also started training regulary under. He let me grade somewhat faster than usual because of my previous experience in similar arts, which made learning the hapkido curriculum easier and mostly a case of adapting techniques and principles I already knew to fit into a Hapkido perspective. In either case, I graded to 1st. dan black belt in Hapkido in september this year, and I'm currently experimenting with wristlocks in BJJ sparring, which with a few exeptions turns out to be a lot harder to pull off in practice than you should think, even from dominant positions.
In addition to the above, I have also attended a few, scattered seminars over the years in arts such as some FMA, modern defendo and urban combatives(Lee Morrison).
So that is me. I love martial arts but feel I have only dipped my toe in what's out there, and look forward to continue training and learning untill I either die or are too old to move in a meeningfull way. I'm also a martial arts history geek, btw.
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