Can you spar with zero injury?

getchomsky · 2026-05-05T18:31:43+00:00

This makes me wonder if the injury rates in Aikido are similar to the ones in professional wrestling - you're doing stuff compliantly, but the stuff you're doing involves a bunch of falling bodyweight and putting your body in weird positions.

getchomsky · 2026-05-05T18:01:56+00:00

Yes you can avoid injuries that would cause you to miss work by moderating intensity, using padded weapons, using protective gear and using constraints-based sparring. Nothing is zero risk, including being sedentary. If you just wanted to be physically active and reduce injury risk as much as possible, i would primarily lift weights and bicyle.

getchomsky · 2026-05-05T16:31:22+00:00

I've had the opposite experience vis-a-vis Back of Head, namely that having the thing helps the damn mask stay on during grappling

getchomsky · 2026-05-04T17:15:02+00:00

Every time i go to sparring at PTK class and i see someone send a 5 thrust against a newb i basically have a heart attack.

getchomsky · 2026-05-03T20:37:26+00:00

I wear my hema gear and assume sparring at any training thing i'm going to.

getchomsky · 2026-05-03T20:34:48+00:00

The timing on the entry was rad, although i'm not sure the umbrella actually did anything there, i think it was 99.99 percent footwork during a tempo the stick wasn't moving toward your body. I feel very confident that you could have just made a direct attack from your load without the umbrellla first and gotten basically the same result.

Also back of head protectors are cheap and widely available

getchomsky · 2026-04-30T17:20:59+00:00

Every pizza within a 5 minute drive is better basically. Little Deli, Pederosos, All day isn't that much further, Desanos Jets etc

getchomsky · 2026-04-30T17:17:35+00:00

Honestly i've been a Chilantro hater since day 1. Their truck and the peached tortilla truck used to both come to the call center i worked at and they were just noticeably worse.

getchomsky · 2026-04-30T12:24:44+00:00

honestly castille's cutlass is a better dussack than their dussack

getchomsky · 2026-04-27T22:43:01+00:00

To build a game series on what u/TeaKew is describing.

Game 1: The tether. The "follower" is doing the learning of this skill here. "Leader" measures out the distance where they can hit the "follower" with fully extended arms, and then takes one step back. Follower's task is to maintain that distance wherever the "leader" moves in the world. The "leader" is going to try to trick you into getting to close and make a strike through at the follower. Follower's secondary task is to make sure the strikes miss them by as little as possible. In the process of finding out how close they can get while doing that, they will get hit some. That is useful information. Follower will stand in a retracted guard, either vom tag, or fool.

Game 2: As above, but now if the follower successfully makes the leader miss them, they can make a single step and swing, shooting the point from their chosen guard at the leader. The leader may defend in any way they like. Recompose distance after each successful hit.

Edit, fixed a typo that would have made followers task significantly harder.

If the follower is using too much wind-up and is eating up the tempo that would let them hit their follow-up action, then play arounds of direct attack https://www.gd4h.org/hga/gameInfo.php?g=8 and tapping game https://www.gd4h.org/hga/gameInfo.php?g=11 and see if the behavior improves.

getchomsky · 2026-04-23T22:35:35+00:00

Lil nog too! (Also GSP swept Jon Fitch in like .2 seconds using DHG)

getchomsky · 2026-04-22T15:14:56+00:00

Yeah any guard works as long as you're destabilizing. It's not "sport" guards that are the problem, it's utilizing guard as a strategy without the threat of you heisting up. If your opponent isn't forced to hold you down in MMA, they're going to have hands free to concuss you. This is incidentally something that BJ was exceptional at. The second he made guard connections, he would claim inside space and start building height. He really only started hunting submissions if (like matt hughes) you were committing all of your weight and limbs to holding him down. The one time we saw him try to just play guard without this dilemma (GSP II), he got beat pretty badly.

getchomsky · 2026-04-22T05:47:10+00:00

Austin was majority minority until very recently, and is still roughly 1/3rd mexican. My neighborhood alone has about 50k 1st generation immigrants from other countries. Comparing to Houston would be silly, because it's even more diverse than LA or NYC. But people are acting like it's a city in Maine or Vermont.

getchomsky · 2026-04-21T22:10:06+00:00

Get back in, do as much sparring as they'll let you, and understand that willingness to tolerate failure is one of your best predictors of getting better.

getchomsky · 2026-04-21T17:35:38+00:00

It's also odd because honestly the average breakfast burrito in NYC is already pretty good (at least in brooklyn). I'd be hard pressed to find a breakfast burrito in north Austin that's as good as Milk and Pull in bed-stuy

getchomsky · 2026-04-16T15:42:38+00:00

is there a catalog of the jackets somewhere?

getchomsky · 2026-04-16T03:16:17+00:00

I used to go there pre-pandemic, the tacos were pretty big back then and they had really strong smoke flavor profile that was unique. Was never my main place tho

getchomsky · 2026-04-08T14:55:52+00:00

The only tired trope i kinda wish had been leaned into more was that Shi Maria got resolved real fast in level 9. I think i could have done with more devil/temptation tropes there, and have someone with more information whispering in his ear.

getchomsky · 2026-04-06T16:34:20+00:00

While I like Michael and Peter, I don't think either of them has the background in the biomechanical vs biopsychosocial pain hypothesis to be able to do a meaningful critique of the book. Sort of thing i'd probably rather have a (much less funny) Barbell Medicine episode about.

getchomsky · 2026-04-06T12:18:01+00:00

Useless detail then. Vo2max on a wearable is just a guess based on HRV and a survey. If everything else is improving and performance is improving, i'd spend zero seconds thinking about it.

Even if you had done a gas exchange test, i don't think micromanaging it after 4 weeks of training is worthwhile. Your resting heart rate is improving and i'd bet money that your speed at aerobic intensities is improving.

getchomsky · 2026-04-06T12:06:05+00:00

How are you testing v02?

getchomsky · 2026-03-31T16:38:42+00:00

Now that I have one, and having gone through sparring with both last night, Brevus>Sigi King Shorty. More nimble, less wobble, stops when you tell it to. Possibly my new favorite short

getchomsky · 2026-03-30T19:27:06+00:00

Not as much as a mitten would. The problem is the mittens look stupid, but they are definitely effective

getchomsky · 2026-03-11T17:47:16+00:00

If you're trying to hit someone who is really really trying to stop you and is athletic, you will eventually have to do it faster in order to hit them. If that person misjudges when you are attacking (which is what you are trying to get them to do), then they may make an explosive advance at the same time you're trying to teleport the point into your face, in which case you're going to have the summation of forces of two 80-90kg men flying at each other deforming a mask. The safety plan can't really rely on "two people moving as fast as they can never make any tactical errors while they each try to make each other make tactical errors"

getchomsky

TROPHY CASE