Ironberg

Greetings. I know it's been awhile, but I'm getting back into martial arts. One thing that seems to hurt my training is this strange phobia of joint erosion. Especially when I'm training in TKD, I sometimes go for speed by practicing my kicks in the air. Sometimes, however, the snapping of these kicks bothers me. There have been times in my history where I might have overdone it, and my knee/elbow (punch) joints have felt vulnerable to soreness or stiffness. This is why I really have a strong initiative for striking a heavy target or bag. This stops the joint from stopping against nothing but air. I sometimes worry that rapidfire kicks in shadow boxing for speed's sake could cause joint damage in the future. Your thoughts?

It's what happens when there's open gym: A kid will bring a boom box to initiate either bag-beating, musical forms practice, etc. It's called a "kick" (bassdrum, kickdrum): the initial 50-100 Hertz reverberation in it's isolated/basic form is a high-volume sine-wave moving through the air that deafens everyone in the gym. Typically, sine-waves have a strong attack, decay, and are short-lived unless it's a dropping effect featured in some techno tracks.

Nice Iori avatar, Damien Van Damme. Personally, I've only played the Fatal Fury, and some KOF fighting games. Oh, some street fighter too. Power Gyser vs. Hadoken hmmmmmm Tell me, I think you should be renting Capcom vs. SNK right about now.

Aw rats! I have to pick a favorite...?? My back-leg roundhouse is fairly quick and accurate. My front leg front/teep or sidekick is both reaching and provides good stopping power. Don't make me grab my extras in the TKD-toolbox.

Only fight if necessary. But what is necessary? Anger at our young age is such a dangerous thing. In addition, the complications of weapons, guns, and such really overpower bare-handed force. My advice: Do not provoke violence. Have enough pride and an aura of "cool" to be able to brush off your offenders. If they are low enough to jump the gun, you make sure you are within arm's reach. My prayers to your spirit.

I hear that. A more practical, watered down scorpion kick is where your foot and leg is in the same position, but it snaps sideways akin to a roundhouse as opposed to over the back. Possibly still impractical self-defense wise, but I wasn't really thinking self-defense when it comes to "scoprion-something".

I'm not directing this at any style but... This is a specific kick, not-acrobatic but requires PONDEROUS back and frontal-thigh flexibility, and butt-strength. I can do the splits in the basic 3 directions but I can't begin to do this show-off kick. You basically lean forward slightly to allow your back to arch and your heal to rise past your sholder BACKWARDS and snap that heal at the attacker's face as though your leg transformed into a tail. (Any further confusion will be directed to one of Trinity's kicks at the beginning of Matrix: Reloaded). For curiosity's sake: can anyone here do it?

Tae Kwon Do is the artillery officer of the striking department. Grabbing some mid-to-short range strikes from boxing/muay thai/kung-fu/karate could be a God-send. Just my 2 cents, since everyone else already said something akin to wrestling.

Thanks for the replies... Saturday was awesome. I won by unanimous decision. If it wasn't for my kicking abilities, I surely would have gotten clobbered by another of the verteran's hooks that flailed away in close range. Sorry I didn't reply sooner - I was in the hospital yesterday when I accidently ingested a small number of peanuts that I reacted quite badly to.

No Comment... Then why am I posting, sheesh! Well... I think your husband has the IQ of a house-plant (he made some of the biggest "first step" mistakes there could be in a relationship). Then again, I ain't married am I [shudders in loneliness]...

I've prided myself with having resiliant knees in the past. However, in college I'm taking a weight-lifting Phy-Ed for credit. Though it's pretty elementary, you can push yourself the way you need to. About the next month we were supposed to be doing lunges. Having never done them before, I tried for a slightly challenging option, lunges with two 45lb. dumbells. It was still fairly light, but there was a problem a day after me second time doing these: My left knee became grossly sore - and I think it's from when I almost slipped on one of the lunges. Though there's been some progress towards improvement, I especially feel the pain in the mornings going DOWN stairs (not so much going up them). I have an amatuer fight this Saturday - and it's going to be in the evening, so I'm going to be good. However, I'm never doing lunges again - squats, leg press, nothin' else. However, I'm looking back and thinking that I was pretty stupid, especially since the weight was about twice what everyone else was doing.

Well... My first amatuer bout will be this Saturday (Waterloo Iowa - incase any one else there). Depending on the fighter, either American Kickboxing or International rules. I feel ready, but am wondering if anyone else is gonna be there: http://www.ikfkickboxing.com/

Well, me too... Perhaps that might explain alot about my exclusion from the ladies in general - my entire life.

Good lord! That would be so freaky! You would first have to look like Sean Connery in "The Rock" before his grooming - then have at it.

Perhaps it would be wise to leave the martial arts out of this.

Some friendly sparring matches I've had can get pretty elaborate, and sometimes pretty - but Hollywood movies and Hong Kong choreography will always rival it because of expected results between the two humans. I personally don't mind the "pretty" fighting in most movies -it is kind of like admiring superheros. You know you will never be like them, but they inspire you somehow. But I always remember that even elaborate friendly sparring matches go more into artistic sports that fighting - it becomes more like playing basketball than anything else.

Every once in a while, max yourself out on pushups. In the meantime, go with a comfortable figure, or split that figure into sets that combined are larger than done in one set. If you are lifting weights as well, you have to remember that your arm muscles require at least 24 hours of rest before doing pushups again. I had the same problem, this is one of the philosophies I tried. I've tried so many things over the past year that I can't remember them all.

Hey, I lived in England once. Maybe I'll come back and challenge the bloody dares?

I appreciate your replies. Seriously, this has become a rather easy year for me (my highschool did a very good job preparing me). After freshman year, I won't have the same amount of time - the studies will put my nose to the grinder, so to speak. I'm studying software engineering. As a matter of fact, I chose this major because gasping computer science concepts comes naturally for me. Not to brag, I'm just saying that I have had many a lonely hour wandering the campus, and/or trying to find someting to do in the dorm. I got involved with the TKD club on campus - a very good one at that. However, guess who shows up for her first lesson last night: Ms. "I Already Have A Boyfriend" that I mentioned in my last post. It's a mad conspiracy, I tell you.

Good mornings have done me some good.

I've got no ink, and no jewery either. I got so close last week, but the first gal already had a boyfriend and didn't seem interested, and the second girl was just, well, interested in someone else.

Okay, I'll get straight to the point as best as I can. Firstly, I've never been fortunate enough to have a girlfriend in highschool. With the years of being the unpopular guy among legions of clicks, I tried to be friends with two girls, and gave up. One month in the summer, I pulled myself together; hoping that I'd be able to find someone in college even though I was afraid of the girl-to-guy ratio (1-2). It turns out that it is worse than I thought, engineering is the thing here (ladies don't like engineering very much for some unknown reason). College is turning out to be a rather solitary existence in more ways than just females (the lack of girls being the worst) and I'm wondering what your advice is to me.

Sumo Santa (Clayfighter 64)

Piano (off and on for a few years - quit) Alto Saxophone (quit) Electronic Sequencing using Fruityloops (currently dormant until I get my new computer next week)

For me, I'd have to say the reverse fighting stance. It's one that has suited me well over the past year, and I execute MOST of my techniques from. It's almost always sideways, and the lead hand hangs down at the hip to protect my forward ribs, and the back hand hangs high near my collarbone region. If I really feel like playing with my sparring partner, my hands will alternate their positions from the lead hand being up and back one down, and vise versa in broken rythm. Because of the non-regidness of this stance, my feet are free to be open or closed as I see fit. To me, the best stance is the most versatile one.