Ironberg

ASK - American States Karate

I agree wholeheartedly with everything stated in the video. My school is a traditional MA curriculum: American Karate (Tae Kwon Do, Karate, and kickboxing). My instructor is a bit strong on kata, but he knows good sparring when he sees it. The truth of the matter is, I have very few equals at my gym who appreciate sparring as much as I do. I don't appreciate the fact that my MA isn't as alive as it should be, but I can't do much about it other than train hard and condition myself the best I can. The gym I train at is the best in my town, and is the best I can do given my location. I have no chance if being alive if no one will else will teach it, or accept it.

I agree that taking him aside shouldn't be last resort. Good hygene is in my club's student manual. As an instructor, you shouldn't be afraid of confronting such issues. Just mention it to him, tell him there have been complaints, and that future offenses will be taken seriously. I once tried a class in another dojo with a kid who obviously didn't wash his gi all week - it was annoying. Granted most thugs and muggers won't smell tasty either, but hey, getting away from them should only take a few ticks.

A wheelchair martial artist. Are you kidding!!! Seriously, I've seen a 64 year old man test successfully for his blackbelt. He did sparring, forms, kicks, and broke concrete. Gotta give him credit for persuing so much activity courageously at his age

I'll be testing for blackbelt this summer. I guess the anticipation of backstabbing is worse than the decapitation itself.

Especially in TKD, speed is the primary thing that makes kicks more lethal. Personally, I suggest that you work on your speed and technique before working on power. Power will only be gained by more speed, improved balance, and larger mass of muscles. Work on speed, and then try a little weight lifting if you can. Force = mass X acceleration. Don't forget to do lots of heavy bagwork. Kicks in the air are primarily helpful for learning combos and improving the extension techniques within your kicks. Standing bags teach you different things than swinging bags, so do both if you can. Also, there are two primary kinds of kicks with reguards to the heavy bag: pushing and striking. Pushing kicks have little or no penetration power, but they move the guy back. Stiking kicks are the ones that break bones (ideally). Both have their place, but in TKD, you should probably be focusing more on the speedy snap of your kick. Strike the kick with the aim of causing it to cave-in, not heave it through the wall of the gym. Oh, by the way, stances in your hyung (kata for Karate) or drills that involve stances should be emphasized more. Believe it or not, to work on your kicking form better, it is benificial to have nice, deep, low stances that cause your leg muscles to cramp up (no pain, no gain). Their gaining flexibility, and endurance will be a good asset. Even if your kata or hyung doesn't have any kicks in it, you could still be helping them nonetheless.

Well... for starters Karate sometimes has techs like the such: - 360 kicks (side hook and crescent) - Tornado kicks and combos (more momentum than balance, but still) - machine gun kicks (doing multiple kicks without putting the foor down) - Ariel kicks - Stances like crane, and one with a chambered sidekick (The knee is near the face). Kinda like Bill Wallace. I could mention more, but kickboxing likes to keep things a bit simpler and not as challenging to actually pull off.

What kind of techno were you listening to back then? Sure, alot of techno is actually pretty repetitive, but the good stuff knows how to keep you on your toes.

Not to mention the utter temporariness of Creatine.

Knuckle Pushups seemed to go beyond conditioning when I tried doing them on my driveway concrete. More than ever, I'm being asked to lead the beginning class exercises and warmups. Being more conditioned than most people in my tiny town, I'll usually be doing knuckle pushups equivelant to the the amount of pushups I ask people to do (40 or 50). My instructor wouldn't care if you turned regular pushups into knuckle. He wouldn't care if you turned regular pushups into clapping pushups, people do that to. A person shouldn't be penalized for making his workouts harder, as long as they aren't effecting anyone else's workout.

Beka is right. Neither you or your future relationship doesn't deserve to have your unfortunate circumstance stand in the way. Take some time to reflect and confirm your own identity - gain the correct perspective of yourself. You have no power over anyone else but yourself.

Good idea. I'm learning the hard way that having skin taken off doesn't necessarily help.

Yep - I'll agree with you there. Life sure ain't predictable is it.

One question - does your school of American Karate have a heavy influence of Tae Kwon Do? Mine sure does, and for me, that's good.

I like the knee pad idea.

The first point fighting tournament I entered I was bumped up two belt divisions (because of age and height) and told to spar one of my club members. It was basically a gold belt versus a red belt, and he was one of my sparring partners. I was pretty upset because I knew he was much better than me at the time, so I got slaughtered, not just because of my inexperience, but because of my being upset, andthis guy knew all my tricks.

Though it changes from time to time, right now I'd have to say "One Must Fall: Main Theme".

Ha! I got all the prices mentioned beat. I get month membership to the Karate studio in town for $40.00. The sister gym out in Wabasha that's about a 45 minute drive is free - and that's where the good sparring guys are!

Though I'm a very strong hybrid - I'll go with what has influenced me the most: Tae Kwon Do (Korean). Tae Kwon Do has turned me into a lean, mean kicking machine.

I remember that stage. I felt that way until I started doing more and more stretching after very hard and strenuous workouts because the muscles were so warm that they realy upped the anty in terms of flexibility. Also, challenge your hips with different stretches. Working on the front splits will help your side split. Nowdays I can sometimes waltz into class, dive into the front splits, change sides, and then go straight to a full side split.

Perhaps I should have restated my thoughts with - no one carries the heavier load, but many times it seems true from what I've seen around me that the husband is initially responsible for making marriage successful. We're not talking about wives who betray their husbands, we're talking about a couple honestly trying to make things work. One of the biggest mistakes in marriage is putting in 50/50 (picked that up from a marriage counselling book). In reality, it seems, a marriage needs 110/110. There are times you need to bear the heavier load to support the other in their time of need. Just look at us... I've mutated the primary topic from "helping someone gain confidence to find a girlfriend" to "what is marriage all about". Sorry ya'all.

Being a young, inexperienced but compassionate guy, here it goes: I personally hope for the woman's and child's sake that you decide to commit soon. Best of luck to you and congrats nontheless.

Names like that give me the Mcdojo impression.

I've already had one minor knee injury from striking alone. It fully recovered, but I worry about this joint injury business. Bill Wallace is my idol. He dominated the point sparring circuit and then the kickboxing circuit. It is quite ironic IMHO that mearely grappling training, not a match, injured the guy.

Not trying to be sarcastic or anything - but shouldn't karate teach more about balance than kickboxing. Sure both require the same thing, but some of karate's complicated kicks require more balance than alot of kickboxing techs.