Toptomcat

The particulars of the martial-arts history for this period are indeed frustratingly, headache-inducingly vague. As I understand it even the existence of the southern Shaolin temple rests on fairly thin historical evidence, let alone the particulars of its political relationship to the Emperor. What are your sources? At any rate, the Emperor driving out non-monastic students of martial arts from the northern Shaolin temple does not necessarily indicate a personal distaste for them. He may, for example, have used it as a measure to restrict the spread of martial-arts instruction to criminal or rebel elements in the area.

That's the one that's mainly a Shorinji Kenpo thing, right? The kanji for it might help. EDIT: Oh, I see. 'Rakan ken' uses the same characters as 'Luohan quan', 羅漢拳, which I suppose is why you mentioned them as the source. Some, all, or none of this might help. I'm seeing occasional references to 'Rakan ken' as a drill or two-man set, not a kata per se: I'm also seeing mentions of the kata Seipai being directly derived from Luohan, in which case it might be the same thing under a different name, or at least partly related to it.

Is it that you can hear your feet squeak and that's throwing you off mentally, or are you having a too-much traction problem or are you having a too-little traction problem?

What kind of elbow strike are you talking about, exactly?

What are the rules? Stop-and-start point, continuous point, something else?

Hmmmm. You're making the assumption that anyone who'd been trained in a Shaolin-derived art was automatically a monk, and I'm not sure that was necessarily the case even in the 1700s.

Really, if you've narrowed it down to only two schools it's probably a good idea to try a trial class in both of them. Your personal compatibility with the schedule, teacher, and students at the two schools are more important factors than how well-suited you are to the style in general.

And to be entirely fair, they're also pretty far from the demographic most likely to commit an assault with an edged weapon.

And your high school ought to have a wrestling team.

Edit- misunderstood the situation

Southeast Asian Games, a regional Olympics equivalent. Looking at footage of their matches, they certainly do allow punches to the head, but I don't know the specifics of the scoring system.

Um. Yeah, generally speaking Systema isn't worth much, but lack of 'proper stances' isn't really the problem.

Tang Soo Do is one of the original schools that 'Taekwondo' was unified from, as was Soo Bahk Do. Kukyi Do was split off from TKD then hybridized with hapkido and judo. Chun Kuk Do descends from Tang Soo Do. Kun Gek Do is an intentional hybridization of Muay Thai and Taekwondo. The background of Choi Kwang-Do's founder was in ITF taekwondo. Kuk Sool Won is split from hapkido, which in turn takes its striking techniques from taekwondo. Some are before Taekwondo on the family tree, some are after, all are in the general category of Korean martial arts with their genesis in Korean study of Japanese Shotokan during the occupation of Korea.

Yes. It doesn't do anything egregiously terrible, but it is quite thoroughly mediocre and unreasonably expensive to boot. I believe the dude who founded it has written articles for business magazines in which he explicitly said that marketing is his first priority and ensuring instructor quality is among his last.

Some training in improvisational drama couldn't hurt, either. Charisma, mike skills, and presence are what help differentiate good professional wrestlers from great ones: I think Mick Foley once said that the WWE heavyweight champion would be Kenta Kobashi if it were purely about the ability to perform physically.

I can't speak to the historical side of things- the hows and whys- but I am reasonably sure you're underrating the technical differences between MT and karate. Don't think of it as being a matter of elbows and knees- think of it as being a matter of a developed science of clinchwork. Karate has knees and elbows, but they are very rarely taught as clinch tools. Similarly, Muay Thai's advantage isn't that they know how to kick with the shins, but that they make them their primary tool for kicking and condition the living hell out of them, resulting in an entirely different animal.

I'm not hearing about the 'strike' you mentioned as off-balancing in the OP in either of those cases, which is what made me curious...

Hmm. You want to be a professional wrestler? Professional wrestling isn't martial arts, it's a physically demanding form of sporting theatre. I'd reccomend that you start with gymnastics training and high school and collegiate wrestling, pursuing them about equally. That will get you the basic aptitudes you need: to my knowledge most of the more specific skills involved are learned in professional-wrestling specific schools run by retired wrestlers, and I wouldn't be sure where to begin in finding one. Looking south of the border would be a smart idea, because the Mexican tradition of masked professional wrestlers is absolutely awash with spectacular aerial maneuvers, far more so than the native American stuff.

Would you mind elaborating on exactly how you perform osoto gari, preferably with a video of your own method as well as the contrasting ones?

I don't really want to see more karateka in the UFC. I want to see more good fighters in the UFC, and I want to see the level of competition continue to rise. If those good fighters come from a karate background, excellent- I'll be watching what they do closely to see if I can learn anything. If those good fighters come from a background in Welsh shin kicking, my reaction will be precisely the same. Though I personally come from a karate background, I think it would be slightly arrogant and provincial to cheer a fighter purely because he happens to do the same.

Hmmm. A lot more machismo here than good, clear video of useful martial techniques. If you're selling a martial arts instructional I'd have preferred fewer close-ups of angry bald faces and more wider, still-camera shots against a neutral background so I can see what these guys are doing- from footwork to head movement- and try to emulate it. Not a bad transition from the shoulder throw to the armbar at 1:15, though.

I think it may just be that I have unusually high standards for 'good for fighting', namely able to produce people who can perform in their area of martial focus- in Tai Chi's case, standing grappling- at or better than the ability of the typical judo school to do the same, in the same time period of study for the student. I've only ever seen one or two such schools that fit that definition, and their training was not what I would recommend for someone rehabilitating a sprain.

Lee's stuff is always great to read through. Probably due to the rapidity with which his fighting style evolved within his lifetime, he was a better rough-outline man than final-draft man: in my experience a lot of what's published under his name is best read as notes, using a single chapter or section as conceptual help to inspire a training session or experimental few rounds of sparring rather than trying to hoover up whole books at a time and trying to find some overall, unifying fighting method within it. Which dovetails quite nicely with his more general and philosophical writings on what he considered Jeet Kune Do to be, so I don't even have to feel guilty that I may be missing something

You'd have to have gone to a really good Shotokan school to be able to get by with minimal cross-training and use it in MMA striking. Your confidence in your ability to dodge anything that comes at you is, if true, a great asset, but I'd test that against some strikers of different backgrounds before you step into the cage counting on it to keep you healthy. Go to BJJ, but if you're serious about MMA, also go to a number of different striking schools: Kyokushin karate, boxing, and Muay Thai should top your list. Once you've sparred with a good man from each of those systems, you should have a better idea about how well your striking training has equipped you for MMA.

As far as I'm aware they're synonymous.