Kuma

I doubt "style" has less to do with it than "training." If you want to fight full contact, train full contact.

Can't argue with any of this advice. Practice more, hit the heavy bag, take things slow (form first, speed and power comes later), and really try to understand the principles behind the technique. For the last part, I can recommend two good books. Martial Mechanics by Phillip Starr Advanced Karate-do by Elmar T. Schmeisser, Ph.D.

I'll have to disagree with you on that. The "never quit" attitude is definitely useful for self defense. Think about it: you're halfway through your test, and by this time you're tired. You can barely keep your hands up by this point, and every few minutes a new opponent comes in, just as fresh as the last. You could simply just give up, after all in this case all you lose is a belt rank. In a real fight though, if you just simply give up, you could lose your life. By learning how far you can actually push your body (which your mind will give up long before your body will), you can achieve that spirit of OSU, that never say die attitude, the perseverance to fight fight fight until the enemy is defeated. That could be one of THE most important things you need in a self defense situation.

Too many variables, impossible to say. If he was the cause of it, yes, but if he was the victim then no as anyone can be a victim. Though most likely, knowing my sempai, he would put a hurting on someone. After 25 years of Kyokushin and just being a pretty tough dude in general (he did awesome in his last belt test where at 50 years old he fought for over 50 minutes straight in jissen kumite) he would do well.

Pull-ups will do wonders for you. You can do shrugs while hanging from a pullup bar as well, hits it from a different angle but still hits that area.

I think part of the reason is because by going outside your comfort zone (i.e. the techniques you are already very familiar with), you can see how the principles of your art apply to other techniques which in turn may teach you something about the ones you prefer. Yes I train moreso in the techniques I listed before, but a good portion of my art (Kyokushin) is devoted to jissen kumite, knockdown fighting. So while realistically a high kick (jodan mawashi geri) would be the last thing I would use in my job, in our kumite it's one of the top knockout strikes. There are also the flashier kicks which, though fun to use, I would never consider using wearing a pair of boots, uniform, duty belt, and vest (i.e. axe kick and spinning hook kick). Why do I practice them? Because they take me out of that comfort zone and can possibly teach me stuff about my other base techniques. Oh yeah, and they can be kind of fun at times. And really, that's what it's all about.

More bagwork will help, as some of the reason may be a technique issue. However, there's lots of exercises you can do to get stronger wrists. Here's a few good ones that are either free or charge or very low cost: 1) Seiken pushups - Can't go wrong with these. 2) Wrist roller - All you need is a roller, a length of rope, and a small weight. Keep your arms out straight and just use the wrists themselves to roll and unroll the rope as the weight suspends from it. 3) Levers - Get a stick with some kind of weight on one end (a sledgehammer works best). Hold the stick straight up and down, arm extended to the side. Now, just bend the wrist towards you until the weight almost touches your nose or shoulder then go back up. You can also rotate the wrist left and right while holding the stick.

I think a lot of it boils down to what are you really studying your art for? If there are several people and one does it for sport, one for art, one for fitness, and one as combative training, each one may in fact be studying their art in a different manner. Remember, karate is a personal endeavor no matter how you look at it. To give a brief insight into my own training, I'm in law enforcement so my training may be different from the tournament type guy or the "just for fun" person. I prefer body conditioning but not to an extreme, as there are many other weapons out there to strike somebody that I don't need to work on conditioning to use effectively (palms, hammer fists, elbows, knees, etc.). I also need to focus more on locking and holding techniques as well as weapons disarms, wrestling, etc. Thrusting nukites into vital areas when I'm just arresting some drunk goofball might be looked down on a bit when I go to court, hence why I don't train very often with them. I definitely learn a few tricks to really end the fight if lethal force is called for, but since I'll rarely use those more of mine is softening-up strikes to effect an arrest. Compare that to how I used to train, more as a kickboxer. Quite a difference from then, and a few years from now I might even be training more differently than I am now. Karate is what you make of it, plain and simple.

I am still and will always be a big Wolfenstein 3D fan. They're totally missing Zork though. <-----(WARNING: Showing his age!)

You can train just short of failure and do that consistently, it's true. Not a bad way of training. Personally however I don't agree with it. While the current "grease the groove" fad is going strong with weight training (and, in essence, bodyweight exercises), it's not quite as result producing as one might think. Take, for example, the deadlift. A staple exercise in the "train almost to failure so you can train more often" philosophy. It's rare you see an individual who can even perform twice their bodyweight for a rep or two in that manner. Compare that with say a powerlifter who maybe deadlifts heavy every OTHER week, who is moving impressively heavy poundages and still getting strong yet staying at the same weight. For bodyweight exercises, training more frequently is definitely okay, you just need to make the exercises much harder as you won't want to do high reps. You'd want to keep the rep range low, so to do that you'd need harder and harder exercises. That means for dips adding weight, for pushups elevating your feet, and chinups should become pullups and eventually weighted pullups. IMO though, you will see much better gains with more rest.

I definitely have to give props to Uechi Ryu for the toe kick, it may take a heck of a long time to condition for it but man does it look impressive. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWfXX5aQhjc (Watch about 0:28 of this video)

Not exactly a karateka weapon, but I was just practicing with it the other day and forgot how much fun it was: the kusari fundo. Nothing like a length of chain with a weight on each end to ruin someone's weekend.

I would do it every other day. You'd be surprised how too little rest can affect your gains. I found out for myself that I actually thrive on just two full body workouts a week. Dips and pushups work similar muscles, and chin ups also will affect your dips so doing all three, day in and day out, will hinder you. However, doing them every other day might in fact work better for you. If you want to keep doing them every day, then you don't want to work to the point of exhaustion but then that's getting into more technical aspects of training. The simplest way is to work hard, rest a day or so, then do it all over again.

Most schools nowadays are more about learning a few forms/kata per belt rank, so the days of learning one every few years is now gone. However, just because that's not how your school is doesn't mean that's how you should be. Sure, practice all the kata you know up to this point for your school, but choose one in particular you want to get great at and practice it much more than the others. I myself am doing that with Sanchin kata right now.

We have a treadmill at home but I can rarely use it. I'm much more of a track or trail runner. Tracks especially for me are the best as then I know exactly how far I've gone so I can see my progress.

I believe in this as well. I think crossing your legs when moving makes you too unbalanced and vulnerable, especially in this day and age where more and more people are training in arts with leg kicks and takedowns.

Best advice I've ever heard: "If you want to kick someone in the head, knock them onto their butt first. Heck of a lot easier to do it when they're on the ground." My grandmother was a mean lady.

It's an interesting show, but not completely accurate as some have said (I was mad when my Viking brethen lost!) but definitely entertaining. The Spartan one was also excellent, I really enjoyed that one. Part of the fun for me is seeing the effect on the gel human torso of some of those weapons. The great axe was by far the most gruesome.

Running is a necessary evil for me. I hate it, but it's useful. 2 miles 2-3 times a week is plenty for me, I'd much rather be shadowboxing, hitting the bag, or skipping rope.

I can second that writing down everything pays off dividends eventually. At the time, you may have no idea what the heck they mean, but sometime later you'll be looking back, read something, and it'll click just like that.

I'd say train so you can do it all in one set. The beauty about bodyweight training is you can do it every day provided you're not physically crushing yourself. For example, your test says 80 pushups, right? On Monday, drop down and test out your max. Let's say you can do 50 pushups, a nice even number. For the rest of the week, do half that amount (25) every day. The next Monday, test yourself again. Let's say you get 60 pushups this time. Do the same, only this time doing 30 pushups. And so on. Nice, easy, and progressive. Old military trick, where when a PFT was coming up, you just did the minimum daily so by the time the test comes around, you know already you can pass so you blast right through it and get a great score.

Much like there's no best technique for anything, I'd say it ultimately goes down to what you're comfortable with. Push kicks, low round kicks, scoop kicks, destructive knee kicks, foot stomps, knee strikes....all effective lower body techniques.

I think you'd be a lot better off doing regular squats instead. When I got a back injury years ago, at the time I was squatting 285 for a set of 20. Since I could leg press after some recovery (it didn't bother my back at all and I wanted to keep working my legs), I got to doing it a lot. Worked up to 800 for reps in short order. I finally got back to being able to squat again and could barely do 225 for a set of 5.

There's probably an infinite variety. Maybe we can all spice this thread up a bit and share some of our favorites. Here's some of mine: **Diamond/kanku pushups, hands together forming a triangle under your chest. **Elevated pushups, feet up on high object **Handstand pushups, walk up wall so you're facing it then do some pushups **Superman pushups, extend your arms as far as you can and keep them close. **Clapping pushups, on the up part push up and clap your hands then back to the pushup position so you don't land on your face.

It's unfortunate that things happen like this sometimes, but in this situation from what you told us it sounds like you did nothing wrong. You and your friends were just having a good time, you got a bit tipsy, and were sucker punched by some jerk from the sound of it. Being sucker punched or even knocked out is nothing to be ashamed of. We all are martial artists here and have skills the average Joe does not, but that still doesn't make us invulnerable or superhuman. Sure some people are tough and can fight well, but there's always someone tougher and badder. Where to go from here? I don't think you should necessarily give up MA now due to one encounter. You have an edge many MAists don't: you realize violence CAN occur to you and it doesn't matter if you're a black belt or an untrained person, you can still get defeated. Knowing this, you have a big advantage as now you have motivation. Motivation to know that the next time you might not be quite so lucky. I apologize if it sounds a bit extreme, but I'm hoping it helps some.