Toptomcat

Okay, just to be certain- we're talking athletic tape on the wrist and nowhere else here? Not boxers' handwraps or MMA-style short wraps? That's unusual, I've never heard of it- but then I've never been heavily into tameshiwari. A failed palm-strike break can put a lot of strain on the wrist- particularly if you hit higher than you intended to on the hand and end up flexing the palm back into the arm- and I suppose it might make sense to tape it up beforehand.

What are you quoting?

Are there explanations that you'd accept?

I don't like Wii Boxing at all because the motion controls won't punch as fast as I do As for using Wii Balance Board-like technology to refine weight ratios in stances: I don't know about that. The weight ratios we're quoted by those who teach the stances to us have never been so perfectly defined- they're approximations at best. I think that there's a definite risk of making mechanistic perfection an end goal rather than attempting to adapt the stances for your own needs.

Martial arts may be about more than fighting, but if they don't include fighting as a hugely important part of what they teach then they're just a bizzare combination of modern dance and amateur philosophy. Martial arts are methodologies about how to train for a lifetime to fight. Why would the mere fact that UFC fighters train a lot to hit and take a hit make it impossible for it to be a test of fighting styles?

I disagree here. I don't think that psychological maturity in the MAs necessarily comes along with rank, or vise versa. I think it is something that can be developed independently of physical training, if one seeks to do that. I think Chitsu was talking more about depth of knowledge than psychological maturity per se: he did mention psychology, but not explicitly maturity, and looking at the context it doesn't seem that's what he meant.

There are a number of countries in which is is illegal even to ask, actually.

Have you tried something resembling it in a resistant drill, or just in one-step situations? Because in my experience timing a thrust to act as a parry and counterblow at once is possible, but extremely difficult.

Buh. So a spearhand thrust functions as a block against a linear attack? Whatever that is, it doesn't sound like a 'basic' anything...what do the 'advanced' self-defense techniques look like in your school?

An inspiring philosophy, but not a particularly healthy one. One should ignore the little pains, the habitual complaints of your body when its limits are tested and expanded or when it's subjected to a bit of punishment. But there are BIG pains too- your body will let you know when you've reached too far beyond its limits, and ignoring *that* signal is a sure way to aggravate an injury to the point of permanent disability. True, there's a price in pain to pay for every worthwhile training session. But sometimes it isn't worth what you get back. Pain is like any other currency: spend it foolishly and you'll only ruin yourself. Only if you learn to invest your pain intelligently can you expect returns on it over the long run.

Ask the person who gave you the form what the information is needed for. If you don't get a satisfactory answer, don't fill it out.

Are you looking for something functional or decorative?

That's pretty silly. The only time punches to the head are 'too easy to score with' is when you've told your students not to throw punches to the head, and nobody learns how to defend against them. If someone told me that I'd be tempted up and leave right there, and I have a taekwondo background. Emphasizing kicks is one thing, but telling your students that head punches are frowned on risks crippling their ability to deal with them.

In the meantime, avoiding overambition and setting your mind on incremental goals will help you get there. Right now it seems to me that you're jumping from one grand castle in the air to another: are martial artists noble? Why do people learn martial arts? Should I found my own style of martial arts? Try thinking about, say, how to improve your roundhouse kick and I suspect it will bear more fruit

Reaching black belt level is where 'advanced training' is typically understood to start.

'I don't like my current school and lots of other people have done it' is a bad reason to start a new style. 'I'm certain that I'm technically qualified to teach and have a technical, conceptual, or pedagogical innovation that justifies starting a new style' is a good reason. Remember that you will be teaching your students to defend themselves, and if you teach them poorly you will bear responsibility if and when they fail to do so, with whatever consequences that may bring. There are no legal, bright-line barriers to doing what you want to do, but that should serve as a potent moral reason not to if you aren't absolutely confident of what you'll be teaching.

'Fist pads'?

I typically spar with crappy open-faced karate headgear, shin and instep guards, a cup, a mouthpiece, and either Shooto gloves or sixteen-ounce boxing gloves depending on what we're doing. I'm upgrading to decent boxing headgear once it ships.

Don't equate 'a black belt does not confer 'nobility'' with 'a black belt is not worth pursuing-' or, the yet more moderate position that many here are advancing, 'don't pick an arbitrary point at which to stop learning'.

Just throwing one right out there at any given time should probably not be your go-to option. A combination can be one way to put it out there, but it's not the only thing you can do- you can throw it after a block or evasion, or when you notice a moment of lapsed concentration on your opponent's part, or when footwork has put you on your opponent's blind side...something that'll decrease their chance to react for it.

Heh. I've done some weapons work, but nothing Filipino- reproduction Western martial arts, German longsword. Great big things, lots of different grips to use it like a spear or staff and wrestling work designed to get into a sufficiently dominating position to have the time to get a knife into a chink in plate armor. Not much like FMA, from everything I've heard of it.

Well, given it's an original concept that I discovered in my own training, if I don't write it--even given my lack of experience--I'm not sure who else is going to do so. And by the time I publish it (if I ever publish it) I will be a black belt in Taekwondo. I don't feel the need to tell you about my qualifications in psychology, so we won't go there, but as far as narrow experience goes, what about Bruce Lee? Technically speaking he had a very narrow experience in martial arts. For that matter Gichen Funakoshi had a very narrow experience in martial arts. I mean, actually, when someone says they study six different martial arts, I truly wonder if they are any good at any of them. Wing Chun, boxing, and fencing were the cornerstones of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do: he studied each of them in remarkable depth, and also devoted a good deal of study to karate, judo, Thai boxing, and wrestling among other systems. Bruce Lee practically defines breadth in martial arts: calling his experience 'very narrow' is almost as far from the truth as it is possible to be. And I would be very uncomfortable drawing general conclusions about the psyche of martial artists in general from your experience, which appears limited to Wado karate and McDojo Taekwondo: the culture of Kyokushin is different from the culture of boxing, which is different from the culture of McDojo Taekwondo, which is different from the culture of judo, which is different from the culture of wrestling. They attract people of different psychological profiles who want to study for different reasons, and I think generalizing from one without first making an effort to experience the other would be foolish. Even if your psychological credentials themselves are strong, if you choose to apply that acumen only to an artificially limited set of subjects your results are bound to be distorted.

Yeah, I have to agree that sparring with hard-contact punches to the head and no headgear is cruisin' for a bruisin'. Wear headgear, and endure any ribbing you may get for it. Your brain cells as well as your ear will thank you for it.

I'm going to buck the trend here and say that considering the circumstances of your training and your personal goals, I think that this is the right decision for you. I also think that your experience in martial arts is far too narrow to legitimately write a book about the psychological component of MA training, though.

Like I said, there are different kinds of metal: those hook swords are made of stainless steel, which means that they're likely to break very dangerously if you do too much more with them than hang them on a wall or do forms.