martial arts = riding a bike??

[uki]

curiosity is killing me once again, although i have a good idea where most of you seem to be standing. :p

[uki]

the missing "k" is also Killing me here...

[David Jamieson]

no.

you only keep your hand in by maintaining your practice.

[Brule]

I voted no because i feel that in order to keep your kung fu skill, it needs to be nurtured and maintained every day.

[PlumDragon]

Riding a bike is a feedback system. You start pedaling and as the bike leans and turns, you react to produce a constant balance to make sure the bike stays up (of course, as the bike speeds up, less effort is required). Riding a bike (keeping it from falling down atleast) isnt as much about "technique" as it is about reacting.

The poll asked is martial arts like riding a bike. If you are training forms and patterns or working on "techniques" and such, then no, it is NOT like riding a bike; it requires constant work or your skills go downhill and you forget what to do.

However, in systems that are reaction-based, we do not focus on "techniques". Once you have installed a particular reaction, its pretty much there forever; its yours. It might get slightly rusty if you take years off, but because reactions are non-cognitive subconscious movements, they are engrained in your brain and subject to recall by simply providing the necessary stimulus. I know people who have taken years off and come back and still had the same ability. So in the case of reactoin training, yes, martial arts IS like riding a bike. You may forget some basic things like how to pedal smoothly or how to hold your hands, but the reaction required to keep the bike up is always there...

[sanjuro_ronin]

The answer is Yes and No.
While once you know you never forget, HOW WELL you do it depends on how much you do of it and how well you do what you are doing.
MA is like riding a bike because you never forget the FEEL of it, but unlike riding a bike, it won't win you the tour de france.
:D

[SPJ]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbark/3884406096/

bike was and still is a scout or re con vehicle

imagine firing MG 42 at chasing speed of a bike ride

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_SUcFv-JG4

--

so yes riding a bike = military arts hence martial arts of ww2 and at present time

so the answer is yes, the other way around

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:cool:

[Scott R. Brown]

It takes longer to learn than riding a bike, but once one has put in enough time, it is easy to keep up and learn more.

It is like spinning a basketball on your finger; it takes practice, and a greater amount of energy to get the ball spinning, but once it is spinning well enough, it only takes a little push once in a while to keep it going!

But it also depends upon the person.

It takes intelligence and basic fitness too.

[SPJ]

I meant since antiquity

man and his ride

horse

bike

car

tank

airplane

some how we turn them into fighting, too

fighting skills with rides, more mobility and more difficulties

so definately yes.

:)

[SanHeChuan]

I say yes. If you take some time off and come back to martial arts not everything you learned will be gone. You'll be rusty and you won’t be able to do everything you could before, but it'll take much less time to remember than it did to learn. As with a bike you can pick it up and ride it, but that doesn't mean you can still do wheelies or other complicated maneuvers.

I've taken time off an come back several times. It never entirely goes away, assuming you made a significant investment of time to begin with. ;)

[mooyingmantis]

I think it is more like the wheels on a bus go round and round! :D

[YouKnowWho]

Bike will follow your order, you opponent won't.

[MartialDev]

It is like riding a bike. You never forget how to ride the STP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_to_Portland_Bicycle_Classic), but knowing how to do it doesn't mean that you actually can.

[David Jamieson]

Ok, well there's one way to prove it to yourself I guess. Stop practicing for a year or so then return to it. How much do you remember. Now test it, how did you do against the opponent?

If you let your fitness and condition fall behind, youwill lose the greater portion of your martial arts.

Not remember sets is no big deal, although, that is generally your library of your particular line of study, so if you lose all yoru reference manuals, so to speak, what do your refer to?

Structure requires fitness and condition to maintain and use with optimum efficacy. If you capitulate with this, then you will not return as if nothing was missing.

ergo, it is not like riding a bike at all where all you need to understand is how to get on, how to balance for a moment, how to get the wheels going, how to brake and how to get off of the bicycle.

This hardly maps out as the same amount of significant requirements it takes to be an adept at martial arts.

[Scott R. Brown]

Ok, well there's one way to prove it to yourself I guess. Stop practicing for a year or so then return to it. How much do you remember. Now test it, how did you do against the opponent.........

I have already done this....more than once, each time due to injuries. Right now I have one of the more serious injuries that I have ever had. I have not been able to train properly for almost a year and a half.

It is the conditioning that you lose most from not training properly. Although I have had many serious injuries I always try to maintain some level of conditioning. This new injury is the worst because I have always maintained my flexibility my entire life (since 15 years old) but now my leg flexibility is diminishing and I am unable to practice kicks due to my injury. I have had others injuries in the past that limited my kicking training. The worst was at age 20 or 21 (over 30 years ago) and I couldn't train for 18 months then too. I got it all back easily in less than a year.

The coordination does lag a bit, but it is the first thing to come back fully. If you can keep your conditioning up, the rest is easy.

[SPJ]

if you are into bike riding

always wear safeguards and be careful

--

it is very accident prone

I have more injuries from street bike, dirt bike riding than MA sparring


--

oh, I used to race in the open country road and some wild country terrain

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I meant it also takes a lot of skill to ride

MA applicable or not is another issue

--

[GeneChing]

Heck, I practice daily and am struggling to maintain my skills. It seems now that my main discoveries now are what I have lost. :o

I didn't ride a bike for around 20 years until my family gave me one as a present recently. I hopped right back on and am just about as proficient as I ever was.

[SPJ]

once a biker always a biker

no matter how many times we may fall

we will get right back on it

--

:cool:

[David Jamieson]

once a biker always a biker

no matter how many times we may fall

we will get right back on it

--

:cool:

There is a difference between "biker" and "cyclist".

Bikers ride motorcycles, cyclists ride bicycles.
Cyclists who call themselves bikers need to chill out. :cool:

:D

[SPJ]

in the 1980s

I had a machine shop and worked on motorbikes

honda, yamaha, kawasaki--

there was ban or limit on the engines that we may order in Taiwan at the time

250 cc was the ceiling

--

but there was a lot of power for me already

talking about the little engine that could

--

when I came to the states and rode on 1200 cc engine

I was like WOW

and then v-4

WOW

--

:cool: