RW

I saw your post in the other forum... Is this Muay Thai-style kickboxing (shin kicks, kicks to the leg, clinch) or American/Dutch style kickboxing? (Basically karate kicks with boxing punches)?

Thanks Zaine! BTW I love your signature. I tend to travel a lot (business), so I was wondering, how can one do solo training while away? I'll definitely look into this

See bold

Update: I had my first class! I loved it My first class was going through the basics (basic stance, horse stance, palm strike, etc), and pad work. I was so surprised that things came back to me so quickly. Sure, there are differences with Karate (e.g. you chamber at rib height instead of waist height), but the commonalities are more than I imagined. After class my first thought was, "it's good to be back" Thanks to everyone in this thread for your awesome replies.

Thanks

so this topic got moved from general to karate. So is kempo a karate style? (as you can see i havent joined the dojo yet lol)

Thanks guys! That's exactly what I'll do

After having left martial arts for years, I found a local school that teaches kempo (I have a shotokan background, and there are no karate schools in my area at all). What do you think about this martial art? Are they different kinds of kempo? I hear people talk about things such as "kempo", "shorinji kempo", "shaolin kempo"and "shaolin kempo karate", are they the same? I am a bit amazed I know so little about this martial art, since I read a lot about martial arts and got pretty familiar with the history of some of them.

Thanks guys. These 2 guys looked really senior. The red & black was like, 85, the red & white was like 50. I hope they were not trainees

Usually, the black belt with the white bar is a Jun-Shodan or Shodan-Ho ranking, which would be a "Junior Black Belt." Sometimes, though, I have seen that used to denote a "Shidoin" title. The black belt with the red bar I have also seen used for people with a "Shidoin" title, but some people also use it to denote "Renshi" level instructors. Thanks!

I walked past a karate club (you don't see many of those nowadays!) today and I noticed the instructor had a belt like this one: http://www.upcycledhound.indiemade.com/sites/upcycledhound.indiemade.com/files/imagecache/im_clientsite_product_detail/dsc_0002.jpg Yes, it's a black belt with a white bar in the center, all along the belt. Then I saw another guy with the same belt, but the line was red instead of white. Both were instructors. What does this mean?

fragile compared to other swords I meant

I keep reading that even real katanas, made using traditional techniques are quite frail... is this true?

Interesting. Do you have any link with videos of this? I am curious to see it in action...

Yes they should evolve, and in my opinion, it's about time for many of them. I can talk about my own experience here, with Shotokan, but I guess it also applies to other styles. Why do we, for example, pull our hand all the way to the ear, only to bring the forearm back down to the front of our face when doing a ude uke? ( ). It makes no sense. Why would one waste previous time, bringing the forearm all the way to the ear, while there is a punch travelling straight to my face? This is only an example, there are so many other examples. Why do we chamber punches? Have you ever seen a mawashi tsuki ( ) used in a real fight?The main answers to this kind of questions has always been something along the lines of "well, we don't fight like that" (well, why to train it that way then?) or "it's just for perfecting technique" (how is it good for technique, if it's not what you're supposed to do in a fight?). I'm not saying "get rid of ude uke, chambered punches, mawashi tsukis... (and by the way, stuff like the zenkutsu dachi position, etc)". All I am saying is, I see room for change, room for evolution. How to modernize the martial art and still keep it (in the case of my example), karate? Well that's a good question, one I am not sure I can answer. But keep in mind, Muay Thai wasn't always boxing punches with thai kicks, and with a training more akin boxing than to traditional arts. At some point, it was Muay Boran, and it had curbesome punches, and even "katas" of its own (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=357hGHv6sJ8). It has definitely evolved... this is different from the muay thai you see at the MMA gym isn't it?

It must be one of those old fashioned, not so informed statements (and dare I say, reactionary). If your sport/art involves striking "it must be dangerous" or even "savage". Tai chi is no contact, and Judo is grappling. This is a bit ironic, since judo can have quite a bit of contact, while some karate varieties, or taekwondo, are very light contact or based on point sparring.

One thing that comes to mind, for me when I read this thread, is that we are discussing this on a martial arts community where you are preaching to the choir in large part, regarding the Olympics and martial arts. What is said in this thread likely does not represent the way the majority of people who watch the Olympics think. Many, many people would consider tennis, ping pong, badminton, cycling, volleyball, water polo, soccer/football, basketball, hockey, etc. to be sports, more so than karate. Weird is an interesting word. Sometimes I find that people often use it for things they don't personally like, have experience with, care about or are simply different from what they know. There are a lot of "sports" in the world and everyone wants to see their "sport" represented, but that isn't how it'll end up working out. It's easy to dismiss it as politics, it's harder to accept that there is more out there. Just a thought. Thanks, Patrick I agree with you. I still have to meet one person that thinks to him/herself "I can't wait for water polo to begin!!! This season is going to be so exciting!" or "I will totally get the next badminton match guys, I will pay for the PPV so please come to my home and we'll watch the game together". Are they more of a sport than karate? Perhaps, karate is a martial art. But one can't say they're that popular or widespread... so why are they Olympic again?

Eye pokes are scary. Every time they happen I cringe and fear for the fighter's eye.... Groin shots, in the other hand... yes, in some cases they are really bad (like that guy, what is his name? The blonde guy kicked by Gonzaga in the video, he almost puked), but in most cases I feel that fighters just exaggerate so they can get their 5 minutes or whatever. Why do I think so? Because in some of the first UFC events, groin strikes were allowed... and no fighter ever made a huge deal out of being hit there. There was this wrestling guy who got punched there like 5 times and kept going...

Excluding the full contact styles, I have a hard time believing this. Not that the study is wrong, it's just flawed. Say yes, karate DOES shorten someone's lifespan for 10 to 15 years. But being a couch potato may as well shorten it for 20 years, weight lifting may shorten it for 18 years, and competitive cycling may shorten it for 19 (I'm just making this up). So in that context, a 15 year "cut" is actually a 5 year GAIN when compared to being a coach potato and 3 years over weight lifting... it's all about perspective.

How come the Olympics have so many weird sports (water polo? ping pong? badminton? Like, 4 different kinds of cycling competitions?) but karate is always denied Olympic status? I plain dislike the Olympic committee, there must be so much politics into their decisions. "Hey guys, let's remove one of the original Olympic sports (wrestling) but keep badminton and all 4 (5?6?) variants of cycling!" Karate is different enough from TKD to warrant its inclusion... Olympic TKD has sort of become a "tag with the feet" exercise, while karate would focus on solid kicks, and using hand strikes too. Karate sparring would have more contact and people would not simply bounce around without covering their heads because they can't be punched in the face.

When and how did mainstream kickboxing switch from the karate kind of kick (snap, instep) to the muay thai type? (no snap, shin). As far as I know, kickboxing was born from "full contact karate", but now it uses muay thai kicks... not so in the 70's. What happened?

But, why do we pull our hand behind our ear and THEN start the block when doing a shuto uke? Wouldn't we be hit square in the face by the time the hand retreats to behind our ear? Why do we pull our closed fist towards our ear before performing an ude uke? I have never understood that. It doubles the time it take too do the block. Plus it opens up the guard. That can't be good...

Ever hit a target, full force, with a knife hand? My small finger tends to "open", while all my front knuckles collide with each other. I don't get it. I can break boards or the like just fine, but any full force strike will have that effect.

In the olympics I saw Marlene Harnois (french TDK competitor) get tagged there accidentally. She reacted for, like half a second, then she continued as if nothing had happened...