tallgeese

Yeah, I don't think a cotton fabric would look like that after a cold wash. Hopefully they give you a replacement item.

GS, I wish it were a cool story like that. I was piling out of the SWAT van on vehicle assault training in full kit. Somehow I tweeked my knee between the getting down and turning in the direction I needed to go. Go figure. It could hardly get more pathetic. I'm back to work tonight and plan on starting to work out again on Monday. Hopefully, transitioning back goes smooth. Feels good so far.

It's actually a great idea. You can learn a ton cross training like that. The best venue I ever had that vibe in was a college ma club I was part of. Everyone got together, trained in everyone's specialty, and sparred in any number of venues. Highly valuable. It's harder to do commercially, due largely, as has been said, to liability. However, it can be pulled off with the right set of schools and people involved. I'd start with approaching one or two clubs, I'd try very hard to get just the best people from each school. Maybe bill it as an advanced workout kind of thing.

If you really want to stay with a form of karate, then I think there is some good advice here. Find a system or school that de-emphasises kata. Not just systems, but schools often vary as to what they focus on, check some out that are geared towards sd and see if it's more to you liking. And stay with BJJ! But I'm biased Good luck, keep us posted, and welcome to KF!

Week off due to knee injury. Pretty minor I think, but still frustrating. I came off a week of the best rolling I'd ever done. Everything was clicking, I had the "why can't I do this every time" thing going. Then I have to go and tweek my knee at work of all things. Bummer.

9/20 Warm up on bike 2.5 mile run pull ups neck shoulder press curls dead lifts abs

We all love to win bouts, it's human nature. Just remember that the more you can take the desire to "win" against teammates, the quicker you'll learn. Focusing on beating classmates at all costs puts you in the mindset of needing to win, that means that even subconsciously you're going to start bringing your A-game. Because you need the "win". Unfortunately, this means that your A game is all that gets worked, you get too nervous to just try other things because you don't want to "loose". Loosing inter-club "matches" is a huge part learning. It's good you're doing well. You should be applauded. Just be careful about looking at anything at the inter-club level as anything but learning. Keep the scorecard for the tournies. Even then, don't get to caught up in it. It doesn't reflect anything but a snapshot of skills on the mat that day. What's more important is where your skill is compared to where it was even yesterday. How much has the movement of the art become part of you. That said, and it's a caution I put out to just about everyone, good job on your progress.

MP, GS, who is fighting? Out of the club or Brian's?

9/19 Drilled pummel to double unders. Moved on to guard to high guard. Armbar, triangle, omo series. Worked passing the guard via sliding pass then to near side armbar from side. 30 min free roll.

9/18 Drilled takedown drills. Sprawls, heavy legs, ect. Free work with singles and doubles and variants. 30 min free roll.

I'll second bushido man here, it's a great experience. For the same reasons he cited. Plus, it's a chance to look at things thru a completely different lens. The two arts you are talking about are different enough that you shouldn't have any issues with them stepping on each other. Are you talking Japanese jiu jitsu or BJJ? Either way, you should be in pretty different territory. Good luck and keep us posted.

Sorry about that, bushido man They will be well worth it to you.

Neither can my wife . All seriousness however, I do try to keep things balanced. Some weeks I'm more successful at this than others. I want to do some deep research on this on the front end, as well as make certain I can make the training time (luckily it's light, once per week at the Japanese Cultural center near me) before I jump in. If I'm going to do it, I want to time it so I can do it consistently, not just be in and out. I'll keep you posted.

Hey all, on the heels of my post in the thread on traditional weapons forms, I'm considering joining a nearby dojo that teaches the Muso Shinden Ryu style of iaido. I've done the internet research on the form for a bit now, but I was wondering if any of the more traditonal minded crew here on KF had any experience with it personally (or other formal iaido training). If so, fill me in on what I couldn't find on the web. I've got a couple of books on the art heading my way not, not to learn from but just to get an overall feel for the art. However, I know there are some guys and gals on here who've seen alot more classic arts than I have and I value your opinions. The schedule would actaully fit into my already hectic martial arts regime without taking away from my main goal right now, to progress in BJJ. Further, the staff there seems very professional and I get a good, if formal , vibe from them. I think taking an authentic sword art would be an interesting step for me, considering I've actually gotten more into the art of things the last few years and the Japanese sword arts have always appealed. I'm still in the planning phases of this but input would be welcome since this is a drastic departure from the level of formality I've been working with lately (read ever). Thanks all.

I think there is value in these things, just not combative. There are pleanty of reasons one might decide to train traditional weapons. Cultural preservation, self betterment thru their discipline, or just becase they are cool. The beauty of ma's is that there is usually a niche for everyone and their goals. We get to hasty sometimes to quatify why what we are doing transfers to combatives. It doesn't have to. For the last few hundred years the sword has had more to do with developing the self rather than fighting wars. That's okay. We just have to acknowlege the intrensic value of the art for arts sake.

No prob, MP. 9/15 BJJ: Drileed mount maintainence. Moved to transition to knee in, followed by armbar. Counter to armbar, omo counter to that counter. 4, 2 min rounds mount v. escape 30 min free roll.

9/14 1 mile run neck shoulder press weighted pull ups dead lifts abs

I have to go back, like way back, to get to a point in my life where I was doing karate tournies. However, I like open models quite a bit. Everyone looks a bit different, it's a good overview of what others are doing. Kata divisions can really be interesting, even if it's not your thing. Defiantly go for it.

The principles are such that they work across the board for combat in any form. For that matter, they apply to about any situation where a decision gets made. If people get made aware of them, then taught how to manipulate them, they can work for anyone.

The basics pretty much, intuitively, speak for themselves. These are the pahses that the human body goes through to make pretty much any decision when you think about it. We just study them relitive to combat. The article Kuma links above gives a pretty good account on what each section entail so I won't spend a bunch of time there. Again, just know what each phase is pretty much speaks for itself. Observe- seeing the situation and its variables Orient- yourself to the problem Decide- intellectually pick a course of action Act- actually commit to the action you've picked This cycle then repeats based on the subject's and the enviornments reaction to your act and it begins anew. Now, this is useful, but it really doesn't help us until we figure out how to use the prinicple to our advantage in combat. This comes from realizing that the faster we move thru the loop, the more likely we are to win. By extension, the slow we make the other guy move thru the loop, the more likely we are to win. It's also important to note that the first step, seeing, is just that the first step. The first one to see the enemy will usually have a huge andvantage in the loop. This speaks highly to developing awareness skills. Now, on to how to accellerate our loop. Well, we just talked about seeing first. So, if we're aware and have good observation skills, we'll accellerate our response thru the loop. We've just stacked the deck in our favor. Anther factor to consider is that it's very possible to be distracted by observations that are of no use to us in combat. Paul Howe talks about this extensively in his book "Leadership and Training for the Fight", in fact, he has the best discussion I've ever read of the Boyd Loop. Well worth your time. Anyway, his point is to limit your focus to area that can actually threaten you and place a higher priority on those areas that can be a threat to you miost quickly. This limits the amount of information you have to process during combat. Again, we start to move quicker. When we orient ourselves to the incoming information, this is the stage where we take the raw data and distill it into a workable format. It lets us start to set the stage for the decisions we'll make. All kinds of things go into this: our previous similar experiences, our culture and traditions, and our known capabilities. There are a couple of things of note here. First, when we talk about orientation, mostly it's based on setting ourselves up to deal with the situation. We talk about what's worked for us in the past during similar incidents and what hasn't. As a fighter of any type, it's important to understand that realistic simulated situations give us that "pre-combat veteren" experience. We've tried, under a real as circumstances and possible to gain experiences we're likely to encounter. This helps us structure our training to accellerate our loop process during the real thing. Then we get to decision. This is where countless reps in training pays off. Sidell talkes about this alot as a way to short cut the "Hick's Law" effect. An overstated prinicple that often times does not take into account high reps of dedicated training. If we have pre-programed respones that work across a wide range of encounters then we don't have to spend as much time deciding. It speeds us up. Then we get to acting. If we've addressed the aforementioned issues in training, with an understanding of legal and moral ramifications that we've sorted out ahead of time, then this is the easy part. We just respond. If we've done our job in training, then this is the easy part. And we've gotten here before our bad guy. Now we talk about breaking up the other guys loop. This can occur at any link. If you really get ahold of the concepts, you'll find plenty of ways to do this. For instance, if I get used (as a martial artist) to counter attacking from a non threatening posture then I've messed with his Orientation phase and put him behind the loop. If I create a distration of some sort, the I can mess with his orientation. A flashbang on entry is a good example in police operations. The list can go on. Additionally, be aware that physilogical factors can affect each stage as well. For you and the other guy, it's best to understand these to get a handle on them BEFORE you have to find out for real. There's even studies (Siddell again) that suggest that even an intellectual understanding of this can decrease physilogical effects of combat stess on one's person. This makes it an imparitive area of study for the martial artist that is serious about understanding his given field. I recommend Grossman's work and Siddell's on the subjects (On Combat and Sharpening the Warrior's Edge). I'd also HIGHLY recommend Howe's tretise I mentioned earlier. Hope this gives you a rough outline of the patter and, more importantly, how understanding it can allow you to manipulate it to your advantage.

9/13 3 mile run neck work bench pull ups squat curls abs

Congrats.

MP, I also passed this along via email to Steve-o. He wanted me to let you know that he will be reading it to his Samurai History class tomorrow he liked it so much. Well done, your work will now be referenece in an accredated university's philosophy program.

9/12 BJJ nite: Drilled maintaining the mount. Americana and variant from mount. 6, 2 min rounds of mount v. escape as sensitivity training (eyes closed) 45 min free roll

True, but also for having a great product that has show itself to be effective in multiple setting many times.