MJS, you will have seen much of this before in our private conversation. I thought it appropriate to share with this thread.
I used to be a Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu practitioner, and may return to it in the future. I got involved with Budo through a friend who, after months of pestering, got me in the door and onto the training floor. There I found a system of martial exploration that thrilled me to the core.
The Bujinkan philosophy is that everything comes from training. Get better movement, get the level of fitness required for taijutsu, get the mental toughness to survive, get an understanding of the space through which we move, get all of that from serious practice. From time training.
And then my life stepped in and I placed obstacles in the way of my continued training. A divorce, a move to a new town, a job that demanded too much time, gave me too much stress and drained my will to seek enjoyment. My own lack of motivation to seek out partners . . . all kept me from spending time on the essential act of training.
Sure I could pratice my ukemi and the basic movements in Bujinkan san shin and kihon, or work on sword kata or throwing weapons alone, but I didn't feel confident that without regular correction I won't just deeply ingrain bad habits. Unwilling to go back to a sedentary existence, I had to find alternatives.
The RMAX philosophy is the opposite. You don't become certified in Scott Sonnen's fighting system until after you've already been certified as a circular strength coach. Scott has said that he'd rather people eat right than excercise, that a proper diet will lead you to be a healthier person than excercise alone. He'd rather you free up your movement and improve the health of your joints than spend time working on strength training. He'd rather that you work on building strength through all the ranges of motion and sophisticate that strength to reach your true athletic potential, than spend time training and potentially suffer injury. It's a complete ground-up, health-first system of movement, with a really solid support network.
Since I'd already been using a lot of RMAX fitness ideas to improve my taijutsu, and since I didn't feel like I was able to really commit myself to taijutsu, I devoted myself to the RMAX way of training. It seemed like the right thing to do, and a better use of my time.
I woke up this morning and spent an hour excercising. I did some joint mobility excercises to free up my movement, help my body send nutrition to undo the damage I did to myself spending five hours driving yesterday, shrug off the coils of sleep, and raise my core body temperature. Then I did a series of spinal rock squats to get my hips surging forward correctly and prime myself for the heavy work of the Prasara Yoga chain I'm currently working on.
I woke up feeling tired and dehydrated. After some movement, I feel better than ever before. Every day I shave off the tension caused by the previous work, and then explore new movement. I see dramatic progress in my movement, health, and life. And I'm having fun.
That's why I'm an RMAX enthusiast.
