Neil

It is not so much about being to deep as it is being to large and awkward. You will also be taught to lock out the back leg because it looks good. Although when you get into the shotokan stance you tend to find your self almost 'pulling' your self up using hips. You tend to have to jerk your self forward instead of just naturallly flowing from one stance to the other. There are 3 bows of the body. When you put your self in such a large stance that you are immobile you isolate then, where as if you keep it shorter and push all your weight over the front leg you compact them up and joint them and then explode pushing off the back leg like the proppeller of a boat. NEVER NEVER bend the back leg. If someone tells you to bend the back leg, walk out fast, becasue that person knows nothing about the ody and when you'l be in your early thirtys you'l be walking around like your sixty. And by the time your sixty, god knows, you'l probobly be in a wheelchair.

"Snap kicks don't help the matter either" Actually the snap is there to protect the knee. Locking out the knee joint is kicking obviously recks the ligement in the knee and back of leg and you will have operations at a very young age. Same with punches where you lock out the elbow joint. Neil

No, its nothing to do with the stretching. it is true that many shotokan practitioners have knee as well as hip problems. Knee problems actually come form incorrect stances. Go into any shotokan dojo today and you will see people with their front stance being over 4ft. The longer the better it seems is what the majority of what the karate world is. Bad hips always seem to come from the mawashi geri. The unnatural awkward movement of lifting your leg out to the side and using the hips instead of the waist really mucks up your hips. When you see Gichen Funukoshi or Ken Funokoshi their front stances are never more than 3ft apart.

I'm making a new one since someone closed it down without even saying why!

Lazy. My teacher has been a bricklayer since he was 15 and damaged his back when he was in his 20's. Doctors told him he would never be able to do anything to do with karate or any sport. My teacher instead got books and courses and learnt about how to keep his back in shape. So in the end, instead of having a bad back every day, he only has it 3 times a year or so. He is incredibly surpasing many of the athletic type built peolple at are club. When I say heavy I mean someone that has a heavy dense body, not fat body! Anyway this post is getting out of hand, Size does not matter? True. 'Its not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog.' This has nothing to do with size, we are simply talking about how one can train their own body to either lose weight and become lighter and strong, or build a heavy dense body (not a fat body!) And can we stop saying about skill! We have a 2nd women who is well under 5'4 and she has gone all over the country with my teacher and breaking the egos of many of todays so called Martial Artists by completly demolishing them by using her own body to her advantage. Training and effort is all you got. But I am not talking about this. So far quite a lot of people say that an athletic build tends to be better in sport and in the ring, and a more heavily built body (not fat) will do better in a real confrontation. Anymore comments would be helpful, and please no more crap about how training is more important of course it is but THAT IS NOT WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT! Its like doing a kata and thinking that that is the way you will respond in a fight, 2 different topics of discussion, so please only comments about heavily dense bodys vs light athletic ones. It may seem quite an immiture post, but hey I'm 15 years old let me be immiture. thanks Neil

I have seen quite a lot of pictures of Miyagi when he was younger and he has pretty much the same build as me, although I am smaller in height 5'7. I just want to ask becasue I still can't decide whether I want to lose weight or gain. If I gain it I could be a very heavy small fighter who proboly has more power? Or I could lose some weight and be a lot faster. I just don't know! Anymore comments about stocky vs athletics are welcome, absolutley anything, even if you are just looking post anything I want to hear about this. Maybe more about karate people build like masters, or maybe just some fight encounters or something. Neil

The vizualisation definetely works, you can see the person you want to be and that is the burning desire that gets you there. Evereyone that ever drops out of military training is that, when the going gets tough the body sais to the mind 'Why I am doing this? Why do I have to through all this pain?' and if you havn't set a goal you will of course have no awnser! With regards to the nuts they are the best source of fat, although don't let that put you off since this fat is utilized by the body since it is natural fats, its only when we eat unnatural fats is it actually stored as fat (margerine, cakes, chocolot, sweets, mayonase). They are also a brilliant source of protein. To find out whether they are a good replacement simply eat them and note how you feel afterwoods. If you feel energetic and light then its a good idea to continue them, if you feel a bit bloated and slow after eating them experiment with some other nuts. I find almonds the best body fuel there is during exercise. Also remember that if you want to lose fat you need to lower the amount of calories comparerd to the amount you burn, and or course to burn more than you are eating it is a good idea to start exercising. Do some form of aerobic work everyday since oxygen is the best burner of fat. Start off slowly and then gradually build up. Do them in the morning on a empty stomach since you will burn calories more effectively. It will also continue to burn calories for many hours afterwords (I can't remember exactly how long something like 8 hours I think). When your nackered after training don't be tempted to start gauging, just have water, some fresh fruit, and yogurt. You may want to start with walking and then slowly moving to jogging. Also mix some anerobic exercises in as well since you don't want to turn into a thin weaklin at the end of it! Do the basics. Do push ups, squats, sit ups. If normal push ups are too hard, do them from your knees, or even against a wall. Squats should be done for now with hands on hips and feet shoulder width apart, squat down as far as you can go while keeping a flat back, and remember to lift the heels up as you go down, so you work you calves and therefore the entire leg, then go back up. Sit-up must be done properley. Many people advise against sit ups and advise crunches because of injury. We will get injured doing sit ups but only if you them with incorrect form. To do them properley do half-sit-ups. Lie on your back, push your feet up close as you can to your buttox, place your hands over your chest, and lift by contracting the abdominals (stomach area) and then this will ensure that you lift with the abdomen and not yanking up witch will damage your back. Lift as far so your lower back justs comes off the floor. This will be very hard at the start so you may want to do crunches where you simply crunch up where you only lift your shoulder blades off the floor. Again with the push ups always kee the elobs tucked so that your elbow is always in contact with your lats (your upper side muscles that are on your back). Keep the abdomen tucked in so your upper body is kept straight. Also I just remembered a really brilliant low-intensity work out for you. If oyu want to walk practice deep breathing. Inhale to 5 secs, and then exhale for 5 secs. gradually increase the breathing rate, or simply walk faster. Always listen to your body. When your book arives however start his program and his advice. Neil

My teacher sais a Karate body should be strong and heavy and not athletic, the boxing teacher sais I should lose some weight to become faster. For people who have had any real experiances out in the street and in the ring for that matter do you find (of course excluding such things as movement, skills etc for now) did you find the more athletic fighter hard to beat or the more heavyily built fighter? Basically a light strong fighter or a heavy strong fighter. Neil

The food pyramid is right. Matt Furey simply sais to cut way back on starchy carbs. You are still getting carbohydrates from vegetables and fruit. This is not the Atkins diet where you eliminate carbohydrates as a whole, you simply cut way back on the starchy carbs. My teacher is still burrowing my 3 Matt Furey books combat conditioning, no bs guide, combat abs. I remember the diet Matt Furey listed in combat abs which he used to drop 20 pounds in 6 weeks. Morning: Fresh fruit or yougurt mixed with fruit Mid Morning: Raw almonds Lunch: protein salad, or roast chicken with vegetables, or stir fry (with no noodles obviously, just the vegetables and meat), anything basically with vegetables and lean proteins - be creative Mid afternoon: Fresh Fruit Dinner: Pretty much the same options as lunch although on a day to day basis it would be best to have a different meal when having lunch and dinner so you give your body a bit of variety. remember to follow natures laws. eat only that which you can pluck from a tree, pluck from the ground or get from an animal. Eating natural food will produce a lean, strong and healthy body full of vibrance and energy. I strongly suggest you sign up to his free newsletter on his website. Also I would recommend you by his book on how to cut weight for wrestling, just go onto his website and search under products and look for that book or simply find one that is specific for you. But this book is specifically about losing weight while maintaing strengh so I strongly suggest you buy it. Remember I have bought 3 of his books, I don't work for his company, I am an individual who honestly swears by his methods, simplky becasue of the results. http://www.combatwrestling.com/spreport.html this link goes staight to the weight loss book. Neil ps I don't know how much weight I lost, but my love handles where I had almost an inch of fat disapered in less than a week!

I also used to have motivational problems. You have to set your self goals but also when it come down to it it will always require will-power. Remember 'starting is half done' 'a body in motion tends to stay in motion'. 'If your not training someone else is training to kick your ass'. Take resposibility for your actions. If you are anticipating whether you should eat junk food or not think about the consequences. Whene my alarm goes off at 5:am to go for a run all I want to do is turn it off and go back to sleep. Especiaally when its cold and dark and I know what the hard work lies ahead. But I also know that if I don't get up I will feel bad about it and say why din't I do it and so I do it. Set one goal at a time. One step foward is just that, a step forward. Begin today to slowly change your diet. first start to slowly eliminate all the junk food. Then start to get rif of processed foods. And then finally start to elliminate all the starchy foods from you diet which is keeping all the weight on. Then start to do something aerobic every day, even if its walking for 10 minutes. I'm going to remmend a sight to you to help you to lose weight. I am doing this becasue this guy has brialliant knowledge and the diet he suggests actually works since I have used it and within lees than a week it got rid of my love handles! https://www.mattfurey.com eat fruits, vergetables, lean proteins, natural fats (butter, oil, fish, nuts),

Although I am no longer a weight lifter I have read a lot of books on the old time ways of weight lifting. Basically with any exercise be it weight lifting or bodyweight exercises you want to make the movement as compounded as possible (using as many muscles and joints together in one movement. Bodybuilders are starting to be exposed and now many people know that they lack any functional strengh. They are infact very weak, I know this from experiance of actually doing body building and meeting fellow bodybuilders my self and are very weak, why? Because they isolate thir muscle which make them more "buff" and larger but do nothing for strengh. The body naturally moves as one co-ordinated self, not a bunch of individual muscles. Remember Rocky Marciano. The smallest reach of any heavyweight boxer, only weighed 180ibs 5'10 and yet had the strongest punch of any boxer. His punch was actuallt tested and his punching velocity was greater than a speeding bullet! This man could hit! And how! Because he used his whole body to punch with. Co-ordiantion of power is what you want. When doing shoulder presses for example don't just lift the weight with your arms. Bend your legs and push the weight up first with your legs, then the stomach, then the rest of the upper body. Now instead of just exercsing the shoulders and arms you have exercised the entire body. This is how the old timers trained, and they where extremly strong. Regarding movements, you want the most simple and multi-jointed (compounded) as possible. Vary the exercises and movements as much as possible, so you train you rbody from different angles. Remember the more you train your body from different angles the more functional your strenghwill be. If infact you are into combat sports or martial arts I would highly recommend bodyweight calisthenics exercises over weight training simply since bwc can train everything in one go. https://www.mattfurey.com I have bough 3 of his books so far and use them every day.

Hi, Is anyone here a fan of Rocky Marciano who knows of his training and diet? thanks a lot, Neil

It can and it can't. As long as you RELAX under pressure and put in minimum effort, so as to use only the amount of strengh to lift the weight as opposed to tensing the muscle as hard as possible which WILL slow you down. I used to do loads of weight lifting and weh nI started Martial Arts and combat sports again I was extrememly slow and lethergic. But when I met my teacher he was teaching us to relax under pressure and when I applied this I saw that my speed increased as opposed to decrease, it also improves strengh. Most people don't even know they'r doing it, you can also apply this to body weight calisthenics. Tensing wheres out the muscles, makes it slower, weaker, and much more prone to injury. Neil

To make sure your not doing to much oyu should be exercising at a rate where you can keep a conversation going, if you can't your doing too much. All so if you perspirate blood instead of sweat or urinate blood that is allso a sign.

My teacher has actually talked about this. When you push past your limit you produce cells which make the muscle larger and slightly stronger. But if you push your self to the point of struggling and no further you will build cells that build strengh over a period of time as opposed to great big bulburous muscles that are not as strong. Also it is a phsyciological thing. If you push past the struggle the next day your body will not want to exercises becasue it knows it has to go through it all over again. Whereas if you only exercise up to your limit this gives the body energy rather than take it away, and so the body will want to exercise. A few days a go I did 100 hindu pushups and when I went to look in the mirror I was perspirating blood on my chest. This is a sign of over-training. My teacher said that more people die of heart attckes through over-training than obesity. You should be exercising where you can keep a conversation going. But don't you think its a good idea to really struggle once in a while. For example every other day, or once or twice a week? thanks, Neil

Hi, I have beed bulking for over 6 months now and have been very succesful. I have put on over 20 pounds but since my training is here and there due to my exams I have already started to grow some love handles. Due to that I have been eliminating starchy carbs to lose some of it and that worked very fast (less than a week and they are pretty much gone). But I want to start again except I want to know what foods I can eat that will turn to muscle and what foods not to eat so it just stores as fat. I know that the body should have 35% of fat but these have to come from things like fish and vegetable oils, not fried foods, processed etc. Could someone please tell me what foods to eat to minimize body fat while increasing muscle mass. thanks Neil

Thats what I'm doing now except someone ate all the fruit and yogurt and I had my English exam so I had to make a sandwich (bread=starchy!) from time to time over this past week I have had to have the occaisional starch and I just had a lasanya (can't spell that). Afetr eating it I could see my muscle definition melt away. Yesterday I could see my 8 pack! I had no idea I had an 8 pack! But everyone sais to get a 6 pack its what you eat rather than what you do. That means loads of people proboly have 6 packs they just have a layer of fat over it. But following natures laws (Matt Furey's diet) really does work. I still don't know what I want to do. I'm not into looks, it all has to be functional. I'm not a bodybuilder but I certainly would not mind ontinuing to pack on more muscle. Today someone said I look like a rottweiler which for some reason really made me feel great! I'm goona do a really big workout today and I'l after and decid whether I'l stick with a diet to trim or to get more size and weight. thanks, Neil

kicking and punching thin air is not going to make your punches or kicks any stronger. To make the kick or punch stronger you have to condition it using a heavy bag, makiwara. I use both. To strenghen the muscles used in the kick you should do bodyweight calisthenics. Some simple bodyweight exercises for specific karate conitioning is. Fist pushups: Get into a pushup and rest your upper body onto your first 2 knuckles of the fist (the area you make contact with). Keep your elbows tucked in by your sides so your elbos are always touching your lats or sides.Tense the fist as hard as you can and relax all the other muscles in the body. Keep the abdomen pulled in by rolling the bum in witch in-turn rolls the stomach up, witch will help you to do the push up easier. Go down and make sure your nose touches the floor and using a plyometric movement push your self up as fast as you can. When you get to a sticking point rest at the top and breath deeply and then continue. This will help when you reach a plateua. Finger tip pushups: Same us above except rest all 5 finger tips on the ground and so you are holding your bodyweight with your balls of the feet and finger tips. Remember when executing any pushup always keep the tummy pushed in since using more muscles in the execution of any exercise produced more co-ordination of power and co-ordination is the best strengh you can have in a fight, and keep elbows tucked into your sides! The more co-ordinated fighter always wins. Never isolate any muscle. Palm pushup: With this all of the weight on the palm as opposed to the whole hand so you are always using karate techniques. Back hand: This is very painful at the start but just do it. Place your back of hand together with the other hand so the fingers of your left hand are touching the fingers of your right hand nd vice versar. Make up you own pushup, even do fourum pushups, and do fist handstand push ups. Also for legs do spuats. To see ho to do a corrct hindu squat as well as a hindu pushup. http://www.cbass.com/Furey.htm I do bodyweight calisthnics based on Matt Fureys books. I highly recommend them to be very specific conditioning for combat sports and martial arts. https://www.mattfurey.com regards, Neil

Due to my exams and my bulking diet I havn't had much time to train very much in the past 3 to 4 moths and due to my large food intake it has started to come on the waist and bum. When my last exam is over (June 13) I will start to train like mad again, but to lose that extra fat do you think I should diet or should I just wait and then turn all that fat into muscle without cutting back on food? The thing is I have alreadt started a diet eliminatuing starchy carbs and is working very very quickly, and I'm starting to worry about ppower thats all since for so long it has become a habit to never be hungry and now I have to restrict food and my body is very confused. Iwant to start bulking again, but don't want to put on extra fat! thanks, Neil

Eliminate all the starchy carbohydrates things like pasta, rice, bread, cerales, potatoes, pastrys, chocolot, candy (any sweets), fizzy drinks and all greasy foods. Eat plenty for fresh fruit, vegetables and lean proteins. Also go on fasts. There are 2 types of fasting fruit fasts and water fasts. Adults should fast for 24 hours once a week, to eliminate all the crap out of the body and flsh it out. Water seemes to be better since fruit can drain you of toxins too quickly. If you want to fast for longer for better results do it for NO longer than 3 days. This is also similar to the Atkins diet where you eat a low carb diet except this I think is more healthy since you only eliminate starchy carbs. I tried this diet for about a week just to get rid of some ever growing love handles and within a few days it was all turned to muscle! I am back on my bulking diet now. Training. The best way and only your gonna get rid of fat in your training is if you do both anerobic and aerobic. The best burner of fat and calories is aerobi respiration. I highly recommend interval training since your switching from short intence bursts of anerobic training to aerobic recovery. What you do is basically sprint 100 meters at 100% effort, then jog the next 100 meters taking no longer than 60 seconds, then repeat the sprint. Do this 8 times so you finish with 8 sprints and 8 jogs. This is by the hardest sort of training I have ever done, and when you sprint you, well just look at Denise Lewis, her six pack came from just running! Exercise in the morning when you havn't eaten anything becasue after you have exercised you will still continue to burn calories for another 8 hours. I highly recommend 'Combat Abs' by Matt Furey. http://www.mattfurey.com/combat_abs.html The basic rule for having a lean body is following natures law which is based in Matt's book and many wrestlers use it today succesfully despite the critism. Eat: Anything you can pluck from a tree Anything you can get from the ground And anything you can get from an animal There a few exceptions to this rule since you should avoid potatoes and kidney beens since these 2 vegetables contain far two much starch. Also don't drink two much milk, milk is used to improve muscle mass a lot. The proteins you eat will help you maintain muscles mass while you lose weight but don't eat two much. Here is the diet listed in the book that he used when he needed to drop 20 pounds in 6 weeks for a tournamount in China. (which he sucssesfully acheived, and wom becoming the first ever American to win any martial arts competition held in China). Morning: Fresh Fruit or yougurt mixed with fruit Mid Morning: Raw Almonds Lunch: Roast chicken and vegetables, protein salad, or stir fry. Mid evening: Fresh Fruit Dinner: Salmon fillet with vegetables, stir fry, or protein salad. remember to also drink plenty of water and to get plenty of fats from vegetables and oily fish. Remember the body needs 35% fats so don't restric them, but only natyral fats from vegetables and oils fish (salmon, sardines etc). hope I'v helped, Neil

A good trick my teacher implies is getting a rubber knife and rubing lip stick on it. If the knife touches you it will leave a mark which represent blood. I havn't done this but he uses when he goes on courses and people have all these theories and dreams about how they will herocially disarm an assailant with and age uke or gedan barai and then punch oui zuki. What must happen to their beleifs when they are taught the truth about knife defence. Most likely and the best thing to do is just run.

Who's your favourite boxer and why? Mine is Rocky Marciano since he is the only person in the history of gloved boxing never to have lost a fight 49-0, and out of his 49 fights 46 were due to knockout and has the highest knockout percentage of any boxer. He also never clinched like you see modern giants after they get tired, and he never retreated. He had heart and courage as well as a friendly and loving personality out side of the ring. He has also had the smallest reach of any heavyweight boxer which still remains today, which tells you something about the way the man had to box. Neil

Yes of course you eat meat, if I couldn't I'd would probobly go mad! I had a salad today. And boy was it nice! Why the sudden change? Who would have known that a bit of virgin oil and vinegar could not only make the salad bearable but very enjoyable. I also had 2 cans of tuna with it (a great scource of protein). For tommorows salad I will do the same but I will have 2 chicken fillets instead of tuna.

Well Matt Furey's diet on Combat Abs is what I am following and you basically elliminate starchy carbohydrates. Things like bread, cerals, pasta, rice, wheat and so on. You eat plenty of lean proteins, nuts, fruits and vegetables. Its called following natures law, where you only eat something that you can either: Pluck from a tree Get from the ground Or get from an animal of course there are exceptions to this with potatoes and kidney beans which contain to much starch. I got so hungy this morning I had some oatmeal I will continue with it, I just need a bit of variety thats all. But I think the atkins diet is eliminating carbs where the diet I'm on simply cuts down on the starchy carbs rather than carbs that you get and need form fuits and vergetables.

Hi, I,m on a low carb diet consisting that looks like this: Morning: Fresh Fruit and yogurt Mid Morning: Almonds Lunch: Stir Fry or salad-(yuhh!) Mid Afternoon: Fresh Fruit Dinner: Salmon, stir fry or another salad (not again!) I have just had lunch and I almost threw up after eating a few spoonfuls of salad. For about five minutes I just had to force it down shuting my mouth each time I was going to throw up. I can't go through this again. Is there any other vegetable meal that I could eat for lunch as an alternative to salad so I don't end up eating 2 stir fry meals one for lunch and then one for dinner? If your wandering why I'm on a low carb diet that is becasue I am starting to gain some very small love handles and is very hard to get rid of. thanks, Neil