tallgeese

That is the single finest interpertation of that story I've ever heard. Bravo!

Not with that organization, but I played in the SCA for quite a bit during my college years and some after. It's kind of authentic, but as with anything with imposed safety rules it can sometimes devolve. Overall, I enjoyed my time playing it. As you can see by my verbage, I treated it like a combat sport, not a historical activity. My armor showed it to. I was less into authentic looking garb and more into full contact fighting with rattan. The beauty of the organization was there was plenty of room for both. Worth a look. The SCA has groups just about everywhere.

I think that sums up the decline of the relevancy of traditional karate in a nutshell. Stances, and their mis use has been a major pet peeve of mine since starting in the arts 20 plus years ago. MMA quickly confirmed to us the fallacy that many people already wondered about, that immobility is a liability. If you're breaking up someone's arm who you've just thrown to the ground via joint manipulation then a horse stance is great. However; move it out of this application it becomes less adequate. The other two items are problematic as well. The soccer mom syndrome we've done to ourselves to an extent by allowing kids classes to become the money maker at almost all commercial schools, thus the perceived focus of what we as martial artists do. The stance thing, which is what strikes the biggest chord with me is actually a symptom of a larger, more problematic, root cause- a lack of realism in current training methods. This, to my mind, is caused by a couple of things: 1) a failure to modernize training as new methods and information come to light. 2) a failure on current generations of practitioners to either understand or pass on the combative nature of the arts. In number two, we see the misapplication of stance work that Justice spoke of. Either people don't know what it's for ( a fault of their teachers by the way, not theirs) or they just don't want to take the time to teach a more complex concept (a commercial component that is entirely their fault). Now, when the stance does not work as prescribed in a misunderstood kata, the art gets bad rapped for being ineffective when what really happened was that the practitioner used a hammer to try and drive a screw. That causes a major disconnect with relevancy.

Sport specific conditioning for sure. Long, slow cardio as well, along with weight lifting out side of class time is highly helpful as well. Now physically, during the fight, relax. Again, relax. It's the big usual reason that people gas. Burning energy needlessly or being tight when you don't need to be is a major factor in killing of levels of efficiency. Lean where to relax and where not to. And how to transition between the two. If you learn to read these times, you'll immediately have more energy long term. Mentally, that's another story. This is something that is hard to teach. It can be refined, molded, but it is very hard to create. Not saying it can't be done, because I've seen it happen, but I don't really know how. I'd start with reading the works of great thinkers on the subject of warriorship...Musashi (duh), Morgan (Living the martial Way), Grossman (On Combat), Howe (Leadership and Training for the Fight). There are plenty of others, these stand out to me. If they don't inspire a person, not much will. On another note, don't disregard MP's advice. Attaining dominate position will burn less energy than attempting to achieve it. It doesn't mean just grappling, it means any art. It's up to the practitioner to find it's dominate position and how to work that to his or her advantage. It also means dissecting what you do with your strategy and your training. Depending on how you work certain aspects of your game, it's possible that a position that could be considered non-dominate to some is incredibly dominating for you.

Welcome aboard!

MP, how far you have come...You might be the next great martial philosopher or our time. Nicely put.

Welcome to KF!

9/9 2 mile run abs

Gosh, the last one I went to was a regional camp with the organization I was part of at the time, the USBBA. That's been going on 15 years ago now. It was a two or two and half day deal with multiple instructors from the group doing various aspects or combative arts. We had some affiliate instructors in as well doing things that really wasn't in our skill set. An kendo guy and judo guy if memory serves. I don't even recall the cost, but I remember it being steep for an unemployed college kid. A friend of mine keeps trying to talk me into a pressure point camp that goes on every year, I haven't bitten yet. As it is, I'm more likely to go to someone's BJJ school abroad and train for a week or so at this point.

9/8 Drilled passing the guard via a reverse knee in motion. Moved to taking side, then transition to knee in position. Fininshed iwth basball bat choke. drilled armbar series from guard to close out technique. 30 min free roll. Good to be back at the home acadamy after some time away to visit other places.

I think that you're defiantly hit on to a working theory here. It's probably how a lot of arts got their start. The "traditional" adjective might be a stretch but that's just a connotative label anyway, but certainly you'd see the development of a martial art.

Nice to see things are status quo down there guys 9/7 3 mile run neck pull downs shoulder press dead lift abs

9/6 2 mile run

Mitsuyo Maeda > Carlos Gracie > Carlson Gracie > André Pederneiras> Charuto Verissimo> Chris Lund> me

8/5 Finally, back to real life 2 mile run neck pull ups curls squat bench abs

Congrats!

9/1 2 mile run. Finished out my week long night ops class. Not really related to personal sd, but it was a pretty cool week of some ninja action.

8/31 2.25 mile run

8/30 3 mile run. Now off to train where I will apparently be in the rain for the next 12 hours doing open area approaches to targets while bad guys shoot at me with sims. There are days I love my job...then there are the other days.

8/29 40 min free roll. Thanks again Des Moins BJJ for letting me get mat time while I'm away at training.

Right. One of the best tools out there is the sex offender registration sites that you can access in most states via your local law enforcement agency web site or sheriff's department web site. Granted, it only logs convicted, and compliant with registration act offenders, but it's still a good bit of information to have handy. Putting a red flag on certain homes can greatly influence the choices you make about safety, especially, in this case, if you have kids. I check frequently, especially if I see some new move ins or for sale signs go down.

8/28 1.25 mile run

MP, are those Brian's guys? 8/27 2 mile run db bench curls shoulder press lunges calf raises abs

There's all kinds of things to work on. Just remember, like ps1 said elsewhere, you're still very young in your grappling career. Really focus on position far more than subs. Subs will come, but only when your position is unassailable. Shoot for that first. Your position IS your submission. If you can take position, and maintain it, subs will flow from there later.

8/25 Heavy force on force day. I can't even begin to guess the amount of sim rounds we got to go thru.