New to forums, interested in systematic theology, christian living n keeping in shape.

Biblically, I would suggest that we incur both a "spiritual discernment" and a "practical experience gain" from Practical Theology which would also track back into the feedback loop.

I would also put philosophical presuppositions in the form of epistemologies prior to the opening of the text.


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Never thought of modifying the diagram to give it more descriptive power. Excellent idea Maxwel.

At one point I was tempted to take a basic certificate in Systematic theology, but boy most of the programs offered have a lot of red tape to get in, even if taking it online.

So far I am going with some of the Mobile ed courses offered by Logos Bible software. Not perfect, but better than nothing. I have also noticed that interacting with knowledgeable persons in forums, expands my conceptual framework to see important angles that may have been missing.

Thanks for your kind input.

To me ontology is very, very important and is where a lot of traditions seem to stumble.

To me, God's reality is ultimate reality. And in His reality all is perfect. We are the ones living in a fallen region of His created order.
So when He allows His presence to visit us (as Holy Spirit or even Jesus), supernatural things are bound to happen, because He is naturally supernatural, and He can make miracles happen because of the love to His adopted children.

Any tradition starting on an anti-supernatural description of God's reality as per the Bible is starting with the wrong foot.

I’ve always been active but got in great shape around 40. I thought about being a trainer but found that most people don’t really care about their health. I love the science of the body and the mind. I find the more I learn about how God created us, the more I admire Him.

I thought about doing martial arts but don’t want to kill anyone.

I sincerely welcome you and value your presence. It will be beneficial to have another member with an analytical approach to Christianity. Many here I fear embrace a false theology, following untested dogma and an invented Christ. I eagerly wait to read your conclusions, comparing them to my own.

Maybe you can start a group in your community. There are persons who gather in a park and do bootcamp like activities: step up and down in seats, do zig zag plyometric mini jumps, do lunges forward and back, use a tire to train, etc.


Eventually the group grows, and all decide to start something more formal, and look for a place to do more stuff.


There is a misperception that martial arts is for killing. In reality is for defense of precious life.

Martial arts help you train your body and your mind, condition you to be able to deal with situations that may come up in life and that may be unwanted and unexpected.

I am not as advanced as some of the practitioners in the videos above, but to many, for my age, I do have good agility and power.

I am trying to improve areas, we are blessed with a wonderful physical machine (body), and christian stewardship calls for taking care of it.

Give it a try, start a group, and you will eventually be even able to influence their spiritual life for the better.

Because of my type of work, I do not have much time to do more involvement in varied effective training, but I would love to have a place to train as the one depicted in the second video above.

There you could mix and match: some basic parkour, indoor obstacle training, American ninja warrior type elements, some crossfit, functional training, some martial arts, plus modified indoor hexathlon (combining nordic c normal 3athlon): row, spin (bike), run, reebok slide (like skating), elliptical, and backpack incline walking on treadmill.

Maybe 5 minutes each but one after the other to prevent overuse injuries.

Coronary disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, high blood pressure, and the like can be kept in check by following a varied well thought out periodization in routines.

Kind regards.

I’m aware that martial arts aren’t intended for killing, but I’ve always been overly competitive. Why learn skills that you don’t intend to practice? My carnal mind and flesh desire to dominate the opposition. I had to take a break from my training because the testosterone surges caused me to be too “Alpha”. As a husband and father of teens, I was too adversarial. This is when I deduced testosterone is supposed to decrease when you age so you don’t damage your offspring. What line of work are you in?

I understand. Supposedly cardio helps keep testosterone down.

I found out that in many dojos (training places), there were always some very eager to compete, and be aggressive, and the like. Thanks to my Christian background, I have a different approach. The enemy is not your training partner. He or she is there to help you get better at techniques.

The real enemy is out there... extremists, criminals, unsaved bullies, addicts, even occultist, etc.

I read an article long time ago, it was in Black Belt magazine. The article was about the chief of police in Tokyo or some other city. Allegedly he had been trained as a ninja. He disclosed the info because he was going to retire. It just happens that in his watch he was able to catch the 10 most wanted criminals in his city, without a person dying. Remarkable. True martial artists are low profile, humble, looking for non lethal ways to solve problems.

I am an old timer and when way younger, we used to watch Kung fu, with David Carradine. LOL, great days, we all wanted to be like him, a champion of justice, with wisdom and prowess to confront and defeat evil. I know, is just a fiction series, but it probably had an impact on young minds. My search into the martial arts was triggered by such programs.

God had a plan and I did not know it.

I do "random rotating shift" according to a work specialist after studying our schedules. It just turns out that is not even a shift, as every time called the time and type of work varies. Maritime work has very crazy hours of operations. If one does night work, the next day cannot do any power training.

It seems that a substance is released in the cerebrospinal fluid that makes you more prone to back injuries due to not sleeping at normal sleep hours.

I wonder if cultural patterns also affect our reaction to situations. If you have seen American ninja warrior competition sometimes the whole family train together for it, they encourage each other, and try to promote high performance.

My daughter was surprised when I could do some neat tricks in gymnastics, given my age, she was surprised that I knew stuff and training tips that her instructors were using too.

Does she try to beat me? almost always, do I always let her? not necessarily, sometimes I train her to gain an edge for her competitions be it tae kwon do, swimming, etc.

Sometimes it is easier to redirect efforts in an overzealous persons, that try to foster some in one that does not have passion.

I have many coworkers that excel at many different athletic areas. But overall I see kind of the same weaknesses:

1 Lack of flexibility and mobility= high probability for injury. Easy way to fix it: pool work. E.g. to do better splits, swimming 20 laps using a kick board just doing breast stroke kicks (controlled manner) will work wonders to stretch and strengthen.

2 lack of bilateral development: in martial arts you are forced to work both sides up to a good level. Imbalances in such area create problems as far as injuries, lack of endurance (weak side giving up), and neutralization when strong side out of service (due to fall, banging it agains hard surface / object, etc).

3 lack of bone conditioning: this includes break falls. martial arts (at least stand up styles) have drills and techniques to promote calcification of bones. When you impact a punch bag, an oil sips through pores in the bones, and that oil attracts calcium so the bone calcifies and becomes stronger. It is important because it allows you to be able to keep performing even after a fall or blow.

E.g. if you fall riding a bike, strong bones would minimize breaking possibility, and will allow you to get up and keep going.

Martial arts training done properly provide many benefits that are very health conducing.

One of our favorite Kung fu Chinese movies when young was "the 36th chamber of Shaolin", there it depicts a fictional look at the training of a Shaolin Monk, expert in martial arts, and weapons of the time. That also influenced some of us to pursue martial arts.

Christlikeness in martial arts, and physical training can go a long way to help people take care of their health, while at the same time showing them that excellence, respect, cooperation, solidarity, genuine concern for others is a mark of a true believer.

Many think that martial arts are evil. I understand that when you start to get into the meditation, grid slashing gestures, or inclusion of occultist practices into it. Biblically speaking, Israel was a super power military wise (given their small size compared to others), yet they displayed proper respect for life and limb as commanded by God.

Was David a war mongering testosterone blasted alpha killer? not originally, he defended the sheep from predators, and send a impactful message from God to Goliath, the intentions were not malicious, just holy indignation and willingness to protect innocent.

My best instructors in martial arts were very cool, easy going, pacifist type persons, yet they could do big time damage if needed. I have that same kind of easy going personality, maybe that is why many of them preferred me and taught me much.

Too many hormones type problem? try Di tang quan, you will see how mellow you will become after some time practicing:


Sorry for the long post, but I really like the subject, and wish many persons got into more physical training, with a planned and progressive scientific approach. And at the same time develop good virtues and qualities such as resilience, toughness, humbleness, respect, appreciation of other human beings and of peace, etc, while combatting modern day preventable diseases.

Kind regards.

I thank you for all of this info. I was aware of the calcification of bones upon impact. Did you know that more testosterone is released during osteogenesis than muscle repair? I’ve practiced punching cement walls for years now after watching a special about how martial artists can break through bricks without busting their hands. My children are getting to an age where they are a bit most self sufficient. I fully intend to join a dojo of some sort. I was leaning towards Aikido. Thoughts?

The system to choose depends on your interest and your physical composition.

As a rough guide, in Kung fu, the grandfather of all martial arts the split is in two major schools:

Northern systems (were people were tall, athletic and lean), tended to systems more like 70% kicking and 30% hand techniques. They did a lot of acrobatics, and had a superb cardio base because of the use of so much kicking.

Southern systems in which people were short and stocky (more agricultural type) had a prominence of hand techniques in low positions to generate power. They also developed systems that explored the acupuncture knowledge to strike pressure points.

Many think that in the south because of taoism the internal arts developed more, so that internal energy (chi), was used to effect neutralizing effect in the pressure points.

Modern hand systems have a mix of techniques:

For good arm / fist conditioning Wing Chun kung fu is considered great.

For self defense Krav Maga (Israeli commando techniques) has a combination of styles including wing Chun.

Aikido is considered a soft system (circular, redirecting energy type), as opposed to karate which is considered hard direct in straight line system.

The recommended path for stand up fighting is: boxing, tkd, muay thai, varieties of kung fu including sanda.

for grappling: judo, Brazilian ju jitsu, variations of mma.

Aikido is a specialty, has good break falls, economy of movement, and includes sword training at higher levels.

Remember that in original kung fu (Chinese) there were 5 areas: punching / striking, kicking / kneeling, sweeps, throws, holds and locks. It took too long for a monk to become master of all techniques, so the set was broken up and the best students of the different areas were trained in that specialty.

The beauty of Krav Maga, is that the technique has to work on all 3 levels to be accepted: standing, sitting, and on the floor.
That allows to have a limited amount of techniques that can be applied in almost all situations.

I do martial arts mostly for physical training, after a while of doing it I noticed that specialization has disadvantages.

If I box a boxer with boxing rules, I will lose most likely.
If I spar a tae kwon do guy with their rules I will most probably lose.
If I do wrestling or ju jitsu under their rules, they will smoke me.
so on, and so forth.

Funny thing is that when allow to free fight, I can beat most of them easily because I use what I notice they do not know.

Example: I was sparring guys that were smaller than me, so to not hurt them too much I would just clean them and slam them down to the mat, letting my weight fall on them was enough to have them out of breath and quit.

Then I came to a guy that was a wrestler and bigger than me, I did a fake kick with rear leg touching his knee, and he tried to catch my leg with both hands, I did a switch in mid air n kick him in the face with the lead leg a la tkd (actually just kind of fan his face, barely slapping him, but with such speed that he got scared, and decided to end the spar).

So you have to look at your abilities and needs, also at the kind of situations you may find yourself in.

If you are nimble and fast, you can try Hapkido, which is a combination of tkd and aikido.

If you envision close encounters, then muay thai (knees and elbows), and some jujitsu.

If you do it just for conditioning, learn tkd (olympic sport), and apply the training techs to punching and kneeing, etc.

For quick self defense try Krav Maga.

If you want an artistic type with varied people as fellow trainees, try capoeira, is very interesting and acrobatic, just be careful that at higher levels it turns into occultism.

If you want to break things, and be really tough, and have the body and stamina for it, then definitively do Kyokushin Karate.

Jeet kune do, from Bruce Lee is not that known, but in reality is a good system. It is very practical, but they fight south paw.

If I am not mistaken, in the US there is a Christian martial arts federation. They offer training, certification, or you can just join to have training conducted in a more humane and respectful way (I would suppose).

Chuck Norris' system was Tang Soo do, and he was a real undefeated kickboxing champion before mma (mixed martial arts -octagon- type) era.

I have some friends practice mma, with actual mma fighters, a lot of injuries from sparring and rolling: ribs, shoulders, elbows, etc. so be careful.

You can also put your own training together:


Then you can compare a supposedly comparison between wing Chun kung fu and Karate / judo that happened historically supposedly capture in the movie below:


Aikido has a lot of break fall, if you are heavy be careful:


kyokushin is brutal but effective:



You can always look for templates and adjust to include your preferred system if working out is your objective.

https://www.muscleprodigy.com/floyd-mayweather-workout/

The best deal on a dojo I ever got was one in which for 70 dollars a month, I could do any training offered: ju jitsu, muay thai, and capoeira. That was a good deal.

If there is something similar to a community leisure center, maybe you can get such a deal, do different systems, pick the best of each and some days do your own programming at home.

Kind regards.

Thanks for taking the time to share this information. It’s exactly what I wanted to know. I did TKD for a few years when I was young. The club I belonged to progresssed the students very slow. If that wasn’t bad enough at my first competition, it was no contact. In my third and final fight, my opponent would kick or punch, literally twelve inches (30 cm) from me and get points. I wasn’t even close enough to block. I wanted to impress the judge with how close I could get. I kicked him in the head. Oops! He went down crying like a baby. The judge said I lost the fight, disqualified. My dad said I won. Either way it was the end of TKD.

Hi Magenta, God bless.

Did you do the art yourself? what program (app) did you use?

Have you thought of making christian comics?

I do not know if there are christian comics, but I think there should be.

Kind regards.

You are welcome, glad to have been of help.

TKD is great, the training methodology is very good. What I try to do is also apply a similar methodology to punching, elbowing, kneeing, and the like.

There are better protective helmets that are used in self defense class, and better chest protections.

The main weakness I see in TKD: if you kick them in the shin with your shin they will almost immediately be incapacitated (they do not condition their shins the way Muay Thai does). Also they tend to not protect their face with high guard.

So depending on the fighter sometime is very easy to punch them. Also for some reason they are not that efficient with the spinning hook kick. I saw many times where they fall to the ground by doing the technique. Big difference in Hapkido, which masters that technique, making it very fast and not falling on execution.

If you saw the movie "Undisputed II" (or is it 3?), the top fighters used a combination of TKD, Hapkido, Wing Chun, boxing, and grappling.

As far as programming, you can put a workout mimicking an operation:

Treadmill walk with varying incline for 8 minutes using back pack, rowing machine for other 8min, then some rope climbs, parkour wall cat leaps with muscle up, heavy bag punching, some plyometric work, grappling dummy work, hex bar farmer walk, then clean and press or grappling dummy pick up n slam down. (if no dummy can use sandbag, or tire).

more punching bag (kicks, punches, knees, elbows, tackle rams, etc) the best modality is to do it dynamic: a partner ties a karate belt around the punching bag, and moves it away from you or towards you when you are attacking, to teach you to automatically adjust distance and change limb used and technique as needed.
He can also have a foam pool noodle on the other hand and attack you as you move in or out to engage the bag to promote your defense reflexes.

Then you can finish by doing 300m sprint with 100 min foot work active rest for 5 or so rounds.

Cool down could be 10min very nice and easy stationary bike to flush out the lactic acid, waste products.

You can vary putting different modalities: box jumps, parkour precision jumps, broad jumps, monkey bars, American Ninja warrior elements, traversing, crawling under / hurdling supersets, etc.

In OPEX Mr. Fitzgerald is developing a mixed modality course. I will probably take it, as it teaches you to program for different energy paths, for competition in functional type environments.