Lachrymosa

I had a similar problem when I started Karate too. For me the problem was that when punching or kicking I would hold my breath when I contract my muscles and even in between strikes or series.. It is not too bad when you do one set of ten, but when the sensei would ask for 50 or more I would often start to feel dizzy, over sweat, start to have blurry vision and feeling like I am being close to feinting. (This happened to me twice) It has not happened to me since I started to breathe normally while doing drills. Also I would not push myself as much if I feel I would start to experience this problem (cut out on the speed and power) . Before I would just keep going because I was saying to myself "It's the last ten!" but it would sometimes go far beyond 10 more. I hope you will find the source of your problem! Don't give up, it took me a while to find out what I was doing wrong.

There is a new movie coming out staring Jean-Claude Van Damme. From the reviews I saw on the internet, it seems JCVD really prove that he can be an actor and not just a MA machine. Most of his last movies were not even showing in theaters anymore so it is a come back on the big screen for him. What do you guys think, did JCVD really launched his 2nd career?

From what I saw on the show "The Ultimate Fighter", Frank Mir is convinced that he is in all aspect superior to Nogueira. Stronger, faster, more endurance, but I am not sure Nogueira will be an easy push over. Funny fact is that in the coach challenge on the show, they had to face off in a soccer (EU football) match and Nogueira is the worst Brazilian soccer player ever Nogueira won the match but it was not like Mir did his best. ( So much easier not to give your 100% and say after you lose that you could have won if you would have give it all...)

Nogueira and Mir are currently coach in the UFC series "The Ultimate Fighter" and will fight each other at the end of the season. The winner of those two will fight the winner from Brock vs Lesnar for the "Undisputed Heavyweight champion" title. "After the season concludes, Nogueira and Mir will meet at UFC 92 for the title. The winner of the fight will face the winner of the Randy Couture vs. Brock Lesnar fight at UFC 91 to determine the true undisputed UFC Heavyweight Champion." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Rodrigo_Nogueira ) Lach

It seems we are also going to get a remake of the good old karate kid: http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20081111/en_top_eo/68205 It will feature Will Smith's son Jaden! Can't wait to see what they will come up with, I really liked those movies when I was a kid.

I was thinking back about this challenge and when I went to look back at the page I saw that they updated it with FAQs. He claims to have seriously injured someone and killed another one in his dojo in 2007, but I can not find anything on the net about that incident. Sometimes I wonder if any of his claims are true.

Gotta love Mythbusters. That's really amazing

I was a bit sore in that area for about 2 weeks. I stopped training at home during that time. I was still going to my karate classes but I was not pushing it. I do not really know what happened but it seems everything is back to normal. I checked hiatus hernia on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiatus_hernia) and I do not and did not experience any gastric reflux or other symptoms. The next time I will go see my doctor I will talk to him about it.

I never had the chance to have a 1 on 1 class yet with my sensei, but to have a private exam must have been special. Congrats for your new belt!

Thanks for all the great posts regarding my issue. I will try various of your workout idea and I will continue to work my front kick .

I can lift my knee at my solar plexus level, but its the unfolding the knee that cause problem. I can extend it if I snap but I can not keep my leg fully extended the knee just fold back. Also if I do it in slow motion I just can not unfold my knee completely. I just don't know which muscle and what exercise to do train. Would knee strikes help with this? Also when you say ball of the foot, do you mean the heel, or the area just below the toes?

It seems I have a problem with my front kick and I would like to know if you guys have any idea on what exercises I could do to help correct it. I can not fully extend my leg when doing a front kick. Just in case not everyone does the front kick the same way, we do it by lifting the knee to waist level or higher and extend the lower leg. My sensei tried to support my leg and lifting it horizontally and I did not feel any stretching pain either in the back of the knee or the butt area. Then my instructor said that it was probably my muscle that lift my leg that are not train / strong enough to support my leg standing horizontally and allow it to extend. What type of exercises would be good to help strengthening those muscles? Or maybe you guys have other idea on why I can not do it. If any of this not clear, do not hesitate to ask.

The only game I have finish in that list is Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania and BattleToad were really hard, I have never finish them. Another game that they did not mention that was really hard was the first TMNT game on the Nes. When it is too hard there is no fun in my opinion.

Good luck. I hope you will enjoy your first tournament!

Is it because it is a lot harder from shodan (1st dan black belt) to nidan (2nd dan black belt? Or that most people get their shodan in their 20's and after that life catch up (work, wife, children, etc) Or that having a black belt is enough? There is probably a lot more reasons, but I want to know what you guys thinks about that.