tallgeese

Ok, I've lived this one so I'll give you a heads up from my experiance. Bear in mind that everyone's physiology is different so everyone will deal with this in a slightly different way. First, we'll deal with the muscle mass issue. This really depends on how old you are. Early 20's seems to see an increase in the ability to put on mass, this decreases thoughout the later 20's. However, that's not to say that great gains can be made past that. Bear in mind that putting on muscle is more about nutrition, supplimentation, and training than anything else. But, once you get into the mid 30's, stacking on signifigant gains becomes more difficult. Your diet will have to tighten down considerably. Now on to the core of your post, the ability to cut weight. Here we go to diet again. Yes, cutting weight is more difficult as you age but by no means impossible. I found that towards the end of my amature career, I was really needing to be more strict with my diet between training phases than I was earlier on. If you take care to keep you natural weight lower and closer to your fight weight, your cutting phase will happen easier. Sometimes, as was my case, this can mean a fairly signifigant lifestyle change. This tends to mean that you have to start cutting calories in a less signifigant way. The increased training time leading up to a fight will often go a long way to dropping those pounds prior to shaving out food. On the happy side of things, if you've conditioned your body to reamin in shape, and train regularly in the off season, you do tend to cut easier. I can't scientifically explain this, it's just an observance from being around gyms for a while. Remember, a lot of this training thing is a head game. If you can apply your mind to it, you can still get results. As you get older however, you may need to be more realistic in your approach to training and cutting. Expect to take longer to lose poundage and longer to recover after you reach your target weight. This means you'll have to consider you post-weigh in nutrition and liquid intake very closely to acheive optimal performance the next day. It boils down to- If you plan of fighting as your metabolism slows, plan on budgeting more time to cut and recover and keep your diet cleaner so you have less to get rid of come fight time. Just my observations as I went along and things that worked for me. Others may vary.

Also a good read that is kind of along those lines, howver dealing more with personal safety from being a victem is The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker, he also has a book relating to children called Protecting the Gift. Both excellet reads wiht many valid points. I can't say that I agree with 100% of what he's saying, but I think th at probibly 85-90 percent I could give the thumbs up to.

As to the inital post, Logic has a good point, most martial artist will consistantly and automatically go to a "sword" type grip. I would bet that the "icepick" grip is probibly utilized more by the average person on the street and can't be discounted. DOJ had a artical out a few years back now that indicated that most domestics that ended in knife assult often resulted in a "downward stab" to the victim. Take the information for what it's worth. I don't have the reference right now, I'll see if I can dig it up. Logic is also right, knife attacks suck. You're already at a signifigant disadvantage when you begin your countering movements. This is where the mindset training I always preach comes in. Are you gonna get cut? You bet? Are you gonna care? Nope, not until he's dead. That's it, you have to accept that this is it, worry about being cut and you're hurt worse. That's why mindset training prior to conflict is critical. Now, geting off my soap box... I think that yes, you have to practice against a multitude of attacks. This needs to run the gambut from stabs to threatens to every thing in between. The more you make these drills spontaneous, the more likey you will be able to pull them off in the street when eveything is going to the crapper. Attack and defense drills should be chroeographed at early belt levels, it's how we learn principle. Once those movemnents and priciples are engraned, try to move away from set drills to randomized attacks and defenses. Bushido man does raise a good point about practicing heavily with both the "sword" and "icepick" attacks. You have to start somewhere learning movements, why not with the two most common attacks. And I think certainly that statistics bear out that most crimes commintted with a knife where someone is hurt are of the "grab and stab" variety. Cuts are much more rare, again, not unheard of, just less utilized. The principles I follow are: Evade Stun Unbalance Control Almost everything works around these priciples. So you avoid an attack. Hit this guy enough to hurt him, or at least distract him. Take his center to minimize the chance of further counter attack. Then you control, wheater by stripping the knife (not my favorite option and not a final control of the situation in any case), or perminatly ending the threat if called for. When you add weapons, you need to consider contorling the weapon and the distance first and foremost. This may very well let you escape. Finally, consider escalating weapons. Get a longer weapon, or range to counter the attacker. Broad priciples? Yes, just like another post ealier. But this learves to unfetter the mind and free it from technique.

Yup, booze. The number one factor in turning emotional distess into physical conflict world-wide. Or at least my little corner of it. What this generally means for most people dealing with these idiots is that you will not be able to reason with them with any sort logic. Something to keep in mind while preparing for this typoe of conflict.

I'm just curious about it, that's all. I'm not judging one way or the other on numbers promoted. It makes me t hink that I should actually get to work propigateing the arts I study a bit more if anything.

Well, there I go skimming posts again , sorry for the mis-read cross.

Bushido man, I figured you were in LE of some kind. If you want patrol, keep at it, it's a great job and you'd love it. Like I said, I wouldn't do anyting else. You guys do great work as well, and I make a point to never give our corrections guys grief. At least I deal with a resonable subject occassionally .

The last couple of threads here have gotten me thinking...we all have pretty divergent backgrounds, and who knows what kind of organizations we've come out of. Considering this, for those of us who instruct- how many people have you promoted to black belt over the years? I can see the number being all over the place. I'll start off, after about 14 years or so of teaching I've promoted exactly 1 guy to black belt in my primary art. Another soon to test in my second system. I know, it sounds like I'm a slacer. Remember, I come out of a small organization and can actually still name all the black belts within it. I've had guys training with me for enough time to reach the rank before, but they may have only wanted to do MMA stuff, so they don't get ranked in a system. It's more of fight training for them, on this front I've had the great opportunity to work with several fantastic competitors. That being said, I have about three guys now around orange belt level or so who may make a go of it. How about everyone else...

cop, with a good sized sheriff's dpt...and I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing

Yeah, I'm late on the draw on this but I'll chime in post-poll anyway. I'll take the attack option any day. Defense is a needed skill, but only to allow you to counter aggresion with your own. Falling into a defensive mindset is something I try to stay away from. Once confronted with violent behavior, and I mean really in -your-face, spittle flying, guy wanting to rip you up meanness, you must take back the initiave as soon as possible. Make him worry about defending, it limits his ability to conentrate on attacking you, leading to you getting hit less. You need to react in such a manner that destroys either his ability to fight you, or his will to fight you. This end and the law are not mutually exclusive. From as far as I can tell from reading posts here, I don't think anyone would condone beating on someone once the threat is passed, and that really is the litimus test- has the threat pass? If it has, deescelate. If not, continue to aggressivly act to make the threat pass.

While Yellow Orange Green Purple Brown (1st, 2nd, 3rd) Black Testing kind of happens when we have someone ready to be promoted. It's a subjective test due largely to the fact we don't actually test until the student is working at the next belt level reguarly in class. Figure that it's around 5 years from walking through the door to black belt, no prior experiance. Test's for everything up to purple are done in house at the school and may or may not have a testing board. Brown and Black have a testing board present. Personally, I don't even have my guys wear a gi. So the guys working through the system may test for a belt without ever wearing it. Although I make certain to give my guys brown and black belts at the ceremony after those tests. Compared to some others on this thread, it's pretty laid back. However, I'm out of a very small orgaization so it's easy to keep track of such things. I can definatly see how groups with several hundred students and a multitude of schools and instructiors would have to be much more regimented it their approach to testing.

You could always go with bushido man's advice...if your on your own, any tradition you want can certainly go out the window. Granted, you may not want to do away with the core movments of your system or anything, but something like this is largely administrative in function and probibly wouldn't affect the growth or development of the art at all. Let's face it, rank of this kind pretty much is geard around denoting profiency in the art, familiarity with the theory behind the art, time of service to the art, and instructional skill. All of that dosen't mean much for governinig an organization. There are probibly business managment students who've never stepped on a mat that could actaully "run" an orgaiztion better than some of those who've very well earned that level of rank. Bottom line..it's your party now, you get to make or keep the rules and policies you want, irregardless of what's been done before.

Crazy...yes, I would agree with bushido man. However, I wouldn't discount the possibly you mentioned of liking the girl, especially if he's a tween or teen. Stranger things have happened.

All above are good points and should help. One thing that may help as well is specifically focusing on you weakness during sparring. Go out and work specifically with a partner whose intent is to "feed" you opening. Explain the situation to a senior member, one who has a strength in free fighing and just ask him to occassionally "give" you openings. Then reallly work to capitalize on them. If you're missing one, he can point it out and you can continue. I find that training this way really helps. Also, I don't know how you spar at your school, but this type of training really works best in a continous manner rather than stopping at a point. This way, your body gets into the feel of the movments and you can rep more corrent movments as you see the openings, a key to gaining a new skill. Another drill I would use is working with a pair of focus mitts. Have a partner move and circle as if your sparring. He should have the mitts against h is body while doing this. Then he will randomly "feed" them out for a strike. Anything is on, punches, kicks, elbows, what ever your system and level allow. This will get y ou used to exploding from a moving position to attack. Once you get the hang of that, have the mitt holder throw some easy shots out with the mitts. You cover and move as if it were a fight. He will then present the mitt or both mitts for counters. This keeps you moving and defending prior to attacking. I know this can sometimes trip of even expeiaenced fighters. It helps if you get a good partner for these last two drills as well. One who's good at sparring. That way the openings he will feed you are ones that you are more likely to see in reality. Just a couple of thoughts to add on to the good advice already given. Whoever said above about keeping a positive focus through all of t his may have hit the most important factor that will run through all your training. Keep working, keep your chin up (figuratively, of course ).

Bushido man, you are right. The good old fashon stomp is also very efficetive from the situation I descibed. It reallly comes down to which weapon fits better to the target you're aiming for. I've seen some pretty sweet knee bars and such set up off of a solid axe kick from between the legs. It was an eye opener to me who had pretty much sworn off the axe kick- proving once again that an old dog can learn new tricks, or at least re-learn them .

Varies by belt for us. At the lower levels they have to demostrate proficiency with several self defense movments. There is a spontaneous componant to these even when testing for yellow belt. They also have to deomstre basic movement and strinking. Sparring is involved at every level, even white to yellow. Free grappling is expected at around green (even though everyone is rolling already, that's where we genrally expect people to have a certain level of comfort). As one goes up, expect weapons defenses, weapon use, more sparring and grappling and the integration of all fo the above. From purple up, pretty much all self-defense is expected to be spontaneous in nature to randomized attacks. Multiple attackers and such also start to come into play. For black belt, all of the above plus an hour of sparring plus skill demonstration. This includes stand up, takedown, grapping, MMA. Additionally, weapons sparring is inclused as is the finale of multiple opponant sparrring. It's an enduro beat down by the end. We don't test people unless we're sure they're gonna pass. They test when they're ready. Pretty much it goes with what was said above about "hanging" with the guys a belt rank above them. We're a spar heavy system, so when someone is going toe to toe with us it's a pretty clear indicator that they're ready. For me personally, I don't even run a test until purple belt. Until then, it's kind of a verbal "Yeah, you're a (insert color here) belt. Congrats." I do have guys that are just interested in MMA type stuff, I don't rank them in my primary art. That distiction I still keep seperate for those guys who want to learn the complete system.

Just finished Liddell's bio "My Fighting Life". I'm also waiting for the 3rd Eregon book. The second was better than the first, even the horrible movie couldn't ruin it for me. I've been reading back through a Dragonlance fantasy trilogy prior to bed. Tanis Half-elven is truely one of my favorite fantasy heros of all time.

Pretty varied really.... Supernatural is pretty high on the list Big fan of Doctor Who as well (the new series is fantastic, go Britian). Love the Stargates. As far as reality TV, it's all the Ultimate Fighter, Deadliest Catch, and Man v. Wild. Soft spot for Dallas SWAT and DEA as well. Other than that, I'm kind of a news junkie.

Best superhero movie....ever.

We do something similar with the catching of the punches. It lets you set up some great drills. That being said, we've never gone away from mitts completely. They're just too useful for developing power in combinations and full speed precision. That being said, the Straight Blast guys I've know are pretty top notch. There's probibly good theroy behind what they're saying. Still, I don't think I'll do away with mine entirely just yet.

fighting

My group is called Bujin Combat Solutions. I help with fighter training at a gym called No Joke Martail Arts.

My personal philosophy of the ma's is very simple. At the end of the day, it's about combative efficiency first and foremost. Everything else is seconday to learing to fight. There is nothing wrong with placing worth on the other philosophical outlooks spoken of above. They are all highly valid. Most are developed as a result managing to stay with training and continuing to get up off the mat. I think sometimes, we get so caught up in those other things that are developed via training that we lose focus on what the "martial" in the name means.

We go to the "force likely to cause death or great bodily harm" here. Sexual assult can indeed be the cause of great bodily harm. Therefore, deadly force is in play.

This is a pretty esoteric question for a knuckle dragger like me, but I'll take a stab. No one wants to die, me included. However, I'm more concerned with the "how" part of dying rather than the fact of dying.