tonydee

I think your question gets off to a bad start by limiting the answer. For me, the term master has certain connotations, and should be awarded when someone has achieved a certain level of ability, insight, and character (confidence, determination). What dan level might roughly correspond varies wildly between schools. Indeed, in many schools the standard of practitioners at the same dan level can vary too. That said, my old school would consider someone of 4th dan to be a master - the only person at that level locally had been the local chief instructor for about 20 years beforehand, kept at 2nd dan by an 8th dan who didn't like sharing "power" (or money, apparently), before splitting off his own school and (opaquely) rising a couple dans in a couple years (and a couple more not too long after that). Dans and titles are all politics to me, and I'm unashamedly cynical about all three . Cheers, Tony

You might want to think about what's causing the injuries. Training hard enough to get an endorphine rush doesn't have to be injury prone. Find something sustainable. For example, if you're doing too much contact sparring, cut back and work hard at kata or basic techniques. If your injurying yourself because of poor flexibility or technique, spend the time to address is squarely so you can practice harder later. If you're injuring yourself on the bag, strap up or wear mitts, pick less injury prone techniques (e.g. roundhouse over side kick, elbow strike over punch). If you tell us a bit more, might be able to offer more specific advice. Cheers, Tony

Yes... with many joint locking and throwing techniques applied expertly, the natural instinct to resist just leaves your centre of mass up higher and your body straining away from the fall, which means that when the time comes you simply fall harder and on to less resiliant parts of your body. Reminds me of an anecdote re the founder of Aikido, albeit a counter-example. Indeed, it's about the only humbling anecdote I've ever heard about him - most of them paint him to be godlike in ability (teleporting out of the path of bullets, fighting top swordsmen unarmed until they gave up in exhaustion, unable to get the blade to him). So: Ueshiba demonstrated a basic technique on a white belt, grabbing his arm and pivoting shoulder-to-shoulder such that the guy's elbow lifted skywards - hand behind his shoulder, then he went to drag the arm downwards, which would normally drop the opponent on their back. Trained aikido (and hapkido) practitioners will know that resistance is useless - at least if their hips are forced forwards and their body weight lifted in the process - and typically do a backward breakfall with their free arm. This whitebelt was somehow standing there facing Ueshiba, who was still holding his wrist. Turned out he was a top ballet dancer, trying out aikido while visiting Japan, and his instinct was to accelerate with the spin that Ueshiba forced him into. He'd completed turning - escaping with the same principal that a roll employs but along a vertical axis instead of horizontal - before Ueshiba had started to tug the arm down. That this could take Ueshiba by surprise shows just how instinctive resistance is, and that even trained people might stop after doing the necessary minimum to avoid trouble, without considering the possibility of actually doing more. Whether true or not, it's worth keeping in mind as a general pricipal in your training... keep an open mind! So many things in martial arts are like this. For example, I remember being shocked the first time I saw a shaolin monk block a punch outwards with the back of his upper arm (triceps)... why do that? Tenth of a second later the elbow was facing his opponent and the knife hand had swung forwards to the opponent's neck. So blindingly obvious in hindsight, but I'd delivered how many thousand knife hand strikes and never thought of such a move. Similarly liberating to learning you can turn a block into a subtle grasp: one hapkido and taekwondo master who used to come to train with my hapkido master in Sydney mentioned he loved to use grasping techniques against the local taekwondo fighters, subtly enough that they'd think "that's odd - my balance is bad today, making me too slow to recover or follow up", not realising he was manipulating them. The distinction between blocking with brute force and deflection, blocking inside the focal distances and moving towards or away from an attack to meet it when unfocused, dozens of such important insights accumulate over the years, working their way into the techniques and tactics of an experienced fighter. Cheers, Tony

But, without proper guidance, can such customization be applicable? My comment above wasn't related to your question, but no, I've never met anyone who didn't need real face-to-face time with a credible instructor to bootstrap them towards becoming a good martial artist. I have several plenty of people who kept the ball rolling long after they'd left their early instructors behind, and a few who continue to train and improve without an instructor. I try to do that myself these days. I am not agianst the idea of practicing with other from antoher style. I am stating that the choice and such has to be conducive to the methods that one is going to be familiar with and/or emcounter. In short, it maybe a waste of time and effort if such practice would produce results which such may have a far improbable chance to present itself. All martial arts practice should be as realistic as possible, and for optimal results focus and effort needs to be directed towards more likely and effective threats / opportunities. I agree it is useful to cross-train. But for myself I consider it primarily as fine-tuning of the way I employ what I already know. I emphasise being good at what I specialise in. Same with the BJJ guys - all this cross-training stuff, but - unless my eyes deceive me - they're not making much effort at mastering striking techniques, just learning enough to plug the gaps in their own system. I'm in MAs for the long haul: when I couldn't yet use my main art to my own satisfaction, there wasn't much point considering the wider pool of challenges. After 5 or 10 years, sure. Visiting my old school a number of years back, I was frankly shocked and disappointed to see junior black belts and even an instructor more interested in sharing scraps of other arts' techniques after class, instead of working on their own techniques (which left a lot to be desired). Sometimes it's an easy way out for those that aren't psychologically tough enough to knuckle down and do the hard yards of introspection and practice necessary to move a plateaued technique or tactic forwards again, or up the intensity with their training partners until new challenges, issues and insights arise, and the training methodologies to address them are employed or evolved. That said, intelligent people wouldn't blindly stick to what they happened to have learned first - any more than it makes sense for people to defacto endorse the religion or cultural values popular in the country they just happen to be born in - they may find more resonance elsewhere. For me personally, striking arts resonate... not so much modern taekwondo, but I believe I've made my way back somewhat towards the karate roots, and that's where I belong. Perhaps strangely, I'm not sure if I want to go further - Shotokan seems to have itself moved towards sport in many schools. I've touched on other things - a few years' hapkido, half a year of aikido, tai chi, and bagua, a few months here and there of a generic kung fu, a shaolin school. I currently train in a kickboxing gym though I don't interact that much with the kickboxers. So, I don't feel I'm hiding with my head in the sand... just that a touch of cross-training is fine and useful, but needn't turn you into a would-be jack of all trades. Cheers, Tony

Agreed... it's an interesting issue. I find it useful to visualise it as a two dimensional plot of techniques/strategies/skills/attributes: effectiveness on the Y axis, time/effort/insight in practice on X. Definitely true that some things never give a good return on effort invested. Others give a lot of bang for the buck when you're first starting, but don't progress too much further. Perhaps a few are useless for 20 or 30 years of full time practice, then perhaps become awesome - or is that just myth? (thinking tai chi, bagua). Just to communicate that concept with a little ASCII art (of course, happy to discuss the illustrated opinion on return-on-investment for various punching techniques, but will leave that until asked). Effectiveness |...........................................-- karateka's punch |....................................../---/ |......................------------------- boxer's punch |.....---------------/.......-----/ |..--/.................-----/ |./...........--------/ ||....-------/ |x---/...................................--/ taichi punch (heading where?) |..................................-----/ |x-------------------------------/ +---------------------------------------> effort Then you need to consider the synergies... if you don't get good at A (e.g. dodging), can you counter-balance that by being good at B (blocking, jamming, distancing...?) Whether it's knuckle or shin conditioning, fitness or strength, front jab or 3-inch punch, turning/roundhouse or spinning hooking kick, throws or joint locks, holds or weapons - putting all your effort into an ad-hoc mismatch of things limits your progress. I think learning to differentiate and understand where on that graph particular techniques belong is key to becoming a really good martial artist, as it guides your efforts for the mix of short, medium and long term progress that you require. So, just as bad as practicing fancy, impractical moves, is practicing only the moves/skills/tactics that work almost immediately but can't be improved on. That's the terain of those Black Belt magazine ads ala $50 'one move that will drop any opponent in the blink of an eye, known only to the secret bodyguards of the Kingdom of Dosh'. There are plenty of things I practice that I'd say those unfamiliar with them often undervalue (perhaps after a token effort to learn them, aquiring some useless outward semblance that they find dissatisfying). Side kick, inward knife hand, front kick (not just a kickboxing style push, but a real kick), axe kick... all these things take work to get usable results from. To some people they'd be flashy - to other people, a jumping spinning hooking kick is flashy. To others, XMA is the only thing that still qualifies as flashy. Anyway, educating our conceptions about where to draw the line should be done with an awareness of both the results we feel we can achieve, and that one day we might bump into someone who can make something work that we'd long dismissed as nonsense: a good instructor saves a lot of aimless effort. Regards, Tony

Yes, there's some truth in that. My experience has been that people who haven't learned a similar art instinctively fight to remain on their feet... which can make things harder for them. Of course, the MAist who's so used to people rolling for them may find their technique doesn't work anyway, but that's another story.... Cheers, Tony

I like your general point. I think it's more relevant for stances though... I'm tired of hearing of "shoulder width" walking stances and "90 degree" back/L-stance as if those measures were absolutes of excellence from black belts and instructors. They should understand the stances' parameters are driven by the ability of the legs to move and support the body optimally.... For side kicks, generally the position of the supporting foot necessary for good hip movement is close to optimal - the stronger the hip movement the more it necessitates certain foot positioning, particularly for what I described earlier in the thread as a thrusting variant. Still, I've seen some people flexible enough to move their hips through the correct angles without rotating their supporting foot far enough, and it can leave the base leg vulnerable to counterattack, as well as making the body unstable and frustrating post-kick recovery or follow-up. For many other people, a cyclic situation occurs: the rule-of-thumb guidelines help get them in the right ballpark to start experiencing the correct hip movement, so the insights necessary to further tune the overall movement - and the foot positioning as part of that - arise in turn. Cheers, Tony

Nice one... congrats!

I think it's safe if you make an active effort to keep the back straight. One I have heard is dangerous is the "hurdlers'" position... sitting on the ground, one leg out straight with foot facing upwards, and the other thigh perpendicular along the ground with the knee bent so the foot tucks in behind your backside, with the ankle twisted so the rear foot faces backwards. Apparently it's nasty on the rear knee and ankle, but I sometimes do it anyway as it's about the only stretch I can find that leads in to the front splits, which is the "ultimate" static stretch for my style of kicking. I don't get students to do it though. Cheers, Tony

Congratulations .

Both psychological and technical elements can contribute to such problems. I see the solution being through the latter: systematically building her knowledge of techniques, and experience with them, so that she trusts they'll work and knows when and how to apply them. This means engendering a thorough understanding of: - stances and body mechanics - correct arm positioning so the powers from both the attack and the defender's body mechanics are connected without the arms become a weak link in the chain... - deflection - footwork, distancing and timing - maintaining a guard that's hard to penetrate - maintaining threats towards the opponent, ready to take the initiative to prevent attacks etc. You can explain potential pros and cons of alternatives even if nobody's doing them, so students understand they're not just doing something arbitrary, but something thought through and trustworthy. Then, partner exercises where one side delivers a particular attack - not rushing but firmly, gradually ramping up the speed and power as they see the other side's coping. The other side practices the defense until it's 100% reliable, boring even, and then they should deliver that block with just enough power and commitment while preparing/delivering a counter-attack. (If a student can't get good enough to block a similar grade's single attack when they know what's coming and they're walked through what to do, then their technical flaws must run deep, and you know you've got to set the clock back and probably help them outside class or put them in a holding pattern grade wise.) Still working one attack, allow the attacker to move around and attack from either side when they're ready, so the defender gets used to picking the attack coming and the footwork, timing, distancing needed. Work your way through half a dozen basic attacks, then do semi-free sparring where one side is attacking with only those techniques - still with that deliberate "here's one you can see coming for you to block" feeling, while the other side just defends. Then, gradually allow free-form techniques, either side attacking when they see the chance. This kind of matched defense/attack cooperative, junior-friendly sparring is . Notice that the senior side isn't relying on strength or speed to outclass the junior... everything's clearly controlled, with neglegible risk, and freedom to experiment and learn. It's a good stepping stone to fast sparring.Gradually ramp up the intensity until both sides know they can go hammer and tongs and throw anything they can think of. It may or not be an approach your style/art is interested in using, but I believe it works and gets good results... . Cheers, Tony

Is it just me, or is it funny to see this juxtaposed with a thread about Bruce's style with no form, adapting every technique to the instant? Shouldn't he have said "I fear the man who's found 10,000 kicks optimal to his momentary situation"? I suspect there's an issue with Lee's philosophy (though it's been years since I looked at his writings)... still, has he said everything from every angle? You can't be wrong if you hedge your bets, while being suitably vague. Makes me think of some religions, where people picks the bits that resonate for them and praise the whole as if it's flawless, even if there are pretty poor bits in it. Of course, that's the "use what's useful" right built into JKD, so maybe it's all fair after all. I don't see JKD being much different to the "no mind" philosophy KarateEd wrote an article about, except that the adaptability to the moment goes way out of its way to emphasise spontaneous customisation of technique. Just one of many examples: I've visited Wing Chun schools and watched them practicing defenses against kicking techniques, but nobody there could kick properly to begin with, so their practice was largely useless. Even if _some_ of the principles were sound, the instructor couldn't necessarily give them an understanding of the dynamics of a kicker's footwork, the range and timing of their strikes, the power and speed, so there were enough flaws in their execution to prevent it having a hope of working. For this reason, it makes sense to actually practice your style against someone from another style. If you don't have access to an environment where you can get enough exposure to sort out your problems in dealing with them, then indeed joining their training for long enough to get the same insights, understandings and exposure may be the most efficient way to surmount the problem, although it can be a bit rude and dangerous if you're experimenting with counters from outside the style on your junior-belt peers. So, it doesn't necessarily mean there's some unbridgeable gap in the techniques, knowledge, tactics etc of your main art, just that you need a practical way to develop and apply that knowledge. Another example: when UFC came out with rules in which BJJ seemed effective over striking arts, it took a while for strikers to develop the practical knowledge to even the scales again under those rules. Even if your karate (or whatever) instructor could tell you what to do, he may not have been able to simulate a BJJ attack well enough to let you practice your defenses. Learning BJJ may not be done for it's own sake, but as a way of efficiently enhancing your karate. Again, swap all that round for any combination of arts: I'm sure BJJ didn't get ahead in the first place by practicing in isolation from strikers. Cheers, Tony

Have you ever been on the receiving end of a snapping wet towel? Well, that's a crude explanation of the bold type above. If that wet towel doesn't snap back to serve its effectiveness, well, the only thing the wet towel will do for me is...well...get the other person wet. Good example to raise, thanks. A snapping towel is indeed a fascinating phenomenon... very complex in the way contrary movements creates a whip of, and extra velocity for, the tiny proportion actually striking, at the expense of not having weight from the rest of the towel behind it. Still, viewed along the length of the towel, the fabric can bend left and right with remarkable freedom, while the human body is generally rigid with only a few joints. Some can straighten but not reverse direction (e.g. elbow), others have more free (wrist, shoulder), so there are limited human motions than can employ this principle. The most obvious of those (to me) is a flicking backfist/backhand/outward-jab motion, where the elbow can reverse direction before the hand strikes. This creates a tendency for the fist to swing about the wrist at contact, rather than my normal backfist where the back of the hand stays in line with the arm. While I'm no expert on Bruce Lee, I think he tended to do this a lot with his front hand, especially when trying to illustrate striking from a relaxed position and unexpectedly, explosively covering a lot of distance. I'd hazard a guess that he didn't do it because the towel-like action increased power - rather, it was a natural consequence of getting the arm out there as fast as possible irrespective of power, and without starting from or waiting to get the fist positioned in front of the elbow (the way I maintain it in a guarding/fighting stance). Decades ago, I used to experiment with flicking my fist out with the hand loosely clenched, and get a whippy sound from the finger tips striking the top of the palm. I think it's one of those movements where the hand speed just might be able to made a tiny bit faster than normal, but at the expense of having no power transfer or body weight beyond the hand itself behind the strike. Quite literally, I use this class of technique to swat mosquitoes - because the hand travels fast enough to smash through the air and get them before they're blown away - rather than hit targets or people. Perhaps someone has made more of this principle than I, but I'm still doubtful that it can be applied usefully to striking anything where the weight of the fist itself isn't adequate to do the damage. Having everything whipping in during the strike, such that they're at maximum velocity (as per DWx) with muscles locking throughout contact produces a system of strongly connected forward-moving bodies that resist reaction forces, and keeps the target/elbow/shoulder/hip/knee/foot quite linear to prevent energy dissipation - to maximise momentary stresses on the target. So, Sensei8, is there a specific movement you employ to get a more effective recoil punch? Is the early recoil operating up and down the spine, in the angular velocities around the spine at the hips and shoulder, or along the striking arm? I'm be curious to experiment with anything that you've discovered or learned.... Jay: not sure where you came in on the discussion. A punch should "snap" out (as in, not simply push), but the question for the thread is whether recoil (i.e. snapping it back), inherently increases power. Re your arguments: let me begin by making a counter claim, so we can later compare ramifications of both our assertions in various scenarios. My claim (sorry - not well expressed - too tired tonight to spend twenty minutes to reduce this to something simpler to follow, but hopefully you'll follow): The effectiveness of a punch is a weighted sum of (the momentary power with which the target must resist/decelerate the punch, further weighted by the momentary penetrated depth), with a further adjustment for the striking surface area vs the rigidity of the matching target area. Lots of factors there, for example: - a low-peak power, extended-time punch is what we'd normally call a push, as tends to drive the opponent backwards without injuring them so much, so peak power tends to be extremely important, but - if a punch peaks at the surface of the target, the peak energy may still not be enough to break an unsupported rib, but if it uses some earlier less focused push to reach into the target for 5 cm before the "snap" energy peaks, the rib will then be pre-stressed and jammed back against its supporting cartilage etc, and hence more prone to breaking, - if the flat of the front of the fist strikes across several ribs, it's less likely to break any one in particular than if the top of the specific striking knuckles manage to focus the impact along one rib. You say decreasing the contact time increases force. This is only true of the time at which your contact is exerting force, and if you dissipate the same amount of energy during the strike. If you penetrate similarly, such that the expended strike leaves the fist resting against the target, you can't say that pulling the hand back then reduces contact time and hence makes the earlier strike more powerful. It doesn't work retrospectively like that. DWx wrote it up well. Likewise, if you punch and start to pull back before the strike has dissipated all its power, your strike remains weaker not stronger. Still, otherwise, I agree that a faster strike is more powerful and useful. That's where you really went wrong: during the period when the strike is doing its damage, the follow-through punch shouldn't be slower or spend more time in contact with the target. The only reason I can see this happen is if the follow-through punch is poorly delivered, or the recoil punch is being withdrawn before the energy has all transferred - in which case it's necessarily less effective. DWx: nice analysis, and a good, workable simplification. There are other factors touched on above re preparedness to keep force focused as target reaction forces intensify resistance, prior compression before releasing peek power etc., but that's quickly heading off into incomprehensible complexity. The time to make contact is important for general fighting ability, but I think the thread's more about maximising power, e.g. for breaking? Initial speed and recoil are definitely much higher priorities for general fighting. Great point about not striking too close to your body because you haven't had time/space in which to reach maximum velocity. Particularly interesting because some arts (e.g. tai ji, wing chun), work hard on shorter-range punches. I do this too: they're useful in a fight for many reasons. But, while you can get a surprisingly high proportion of the full power into these limited-motion strikes, it's nonsense to suggest that artificially limiting the range of motion doesn't come at some cost. Jay: can see from your last post that you've sorted it all out and summarised it nicely. Correct depth does indeed vary with the useful travel of the striking tool. Once the velocity of target and striking tool match you've indeed no reason to maintain contact, but as DWx says you gain no particular benefit from withdrawing either, and as above to withdraw/recoil any time before then is reducing power in the punch. Cheers, Tony

Off the top of my head in 15 minutes: - discipline and determination to study/practice hard - an eager and analytical mind to experiment, recognise, deduce and weigh different concepts and understand what can work and why, and what doesn't work and why, creating a positive feedback cycle of refinement in their abilities: this applies universally - particular techniques, training exercises and equipment, strategies and tactics, psychology of self and opponent etc. - from that: an understanding of the core movement potentials of the human body, as from that they can understand the relative offensive threats and defensive potential of different stances in static positions and dynamic movement, and they move towards transcending the very potential to be surprised by techniques of an unfamiliar art or fighter - building on that knowledge of the opponent's / opponents' potential movements, an ability to recognise and anticipate commitment to particular movements, or that the opponent won't move to make some adequate defense if attacked in a certain way - spatial awareness and timing to utilise those insights - brute strength and speed is less important than moving in the right direction at the right time, flowing into a position that increasingly compromises the opponent - untelegraphed movement is very important, which comes from relaxation/explosiveness, good posture and alignment of mass around which attacking limbs move, isolation of necessary movement from extraneous etc. - minimalism, especially in flowing from defense to offense: defensive moves should compromise the opponent's ability to keep attacking while preparing oneself for a counter that the opponent just won't be positioned to counter - accuracy and/or power: either is enough to ensure a strike is effective Addressing your list: An efficacious level can be obtained simply by combining good distancing, posture, and stance (including guarding position), such that the opponent needs to move more to find a plausible line of attack. The insights into movement potentials discussed above are essential for this, as they separate the noise from the signal, such that a pure strong signal is distilled from the important aspects of the opponent's / opponents' movement. Speed is important, but even a slower opponent can score via good timing, disguise, feints, evolving techniques in real time to exploit the attempted defense. In fact, one of the developmental exercises I like to encourage seniors to adopt when sparring juniors is to go as slow as possible, making as little movement as possible, while outclassing an opponent. This makes you less dependent on speed, and move aware of timing and positioning. Other times I concentrate 100% on untelegraphed, explosive movement, so that I can combine both elements if need be. Definitely. Footwork is a big part of this.... Don't agree at all. Agree it's important to understand the type of threat or opportunity you're dealing with, and the react quickly. With experience and options, you find yourself integrating your defensive movements with a larger strategy, which is harder if you're limiting the variety of responses you'll employ. As your ability to recognise openings in the opponent's defenses increases, you're increasingly setting them up deliberately, and free to choose a surprising or specialised tool to attack them with. It becomes totally automatic, and is preferable to not having an ideal tool for each opportunity. Defensively, a thorough understanding of the pros and cons of each movement makes it easy to select an appropriate one in real time. For example: an inner forearm block is useful when withdrawing an extended arm for a late block of a close-quarter attack, and keeping the elbows in closer to protect the ribs or set up an upward elbow; while an outer-forearm block is appropriate for blocking further from your own body, and leads more naturally into a counter jab or grasp, or sideways elbow. Such seemingly redundant techniques (one WTF taekwondo assistant instructor I met had never heard of an inner forearm block, though it appears in the old Chang Hon pattern for 9th kyup) can be instantly selected based on particular needs. Depends what you call strength training. The strength to hit hard comes from good body mechanics, and that should be trained. Weight lifting for building big triceps, biceps, pectorals or something is almost irrelevant to martial arts... you'll get enough strength in those parts of the body just from hitting things determinedly hard. Not quite: pigeon-holing people into a "this-style" person and a "that-style" person - each to be fought accordingly - is setting yourself up to be surprised by techniques outside that style. The general awareness of human potential discussed above transcends this. Despite saying that, I agree that in practice you can and sometimes must (if the fight is so evenly matched or weighed in their favour that you're prepared to gamble a bit) use specific expectations to guide your fighting. Cheers, Tony

I'm struggling with the "sledgehammer on a chain" pull-back idea. I just can't see how an extra requirement to be able to reverse direction suddenly at the end of a technique can increase the strength/explosiveness of the forwards movement. Again, I think it's psychological: the anticipation of needing to pull back encourages a snappier punch, a tendency to speed up the striking contractions. Still, I think snap or push can exist in the forwards movement anyway, it's more about the explosiveness of that motion, independent of the recoil. Thinking about breaking boards, I don't pull back afterwards: I hit straight through them and leave my arm out, and even when I'd just got 1st dan (1991) I could break three 300x300x18mm pine boards hanging loosely from someone's fingertips with a reverse punch (unsupported boards take a lot more 'snap' to break), and - in hindsight - I didn't even have good hip mechanics back then....

The article only implies he didn't remember seeing it before the dream, or at least hadn't known whom the goddess was, as he had to ask someone. It doesn't mean the Shinto design hadn't been around for a long time. I don't see any conflict with the article...? Cheers, Tony

I don't compete in martial arts, but I've travelled internationally for badminton tournaments, and sometimes been knocked out in the first match. It does seem a lot of effort for relatively little, but I think it helps to view the whole thing as an ongoing experience, rather than think of that one tournament or trip in isolation. What you're trying to do is improve your odds, but also see what you can produce in the heat of the moment. Dealing with unfamiliar opponents and environments, things can easily be up or down for you on the day. I also think it helps to travel with other people, even as a team, so you can stay focused on their progress and enjoying the company. Of course, watch the other players and learn what you can... it all soaks in and gets you better prepared for next time, but also let go of the expectation and let yourself enjoy the environment.... Regards, Tony

Been a meandering thread. Re joint locking a stronger person - wife to husband - I think the best thing is to not give up, and use it as a great chance to learn. I'd guess my hapkido master in Sydney weighs about 55kg - he's kind of skinny - while most of his Korean peers (in Korea, and as a 6th dan when I was training with him) is dominated by pretty solid guys who'd probably be a bit taller on average too. My master found he couldn't outpower them - even with a wrist escape - he had to really make sure he was using leverage effectively, and think things through much more carefully and thoroughly than the average. One exercise he had us do was have someone hold really hard, deliberately anticipating and resisting the technique, and have us work it around until we could make it work. This involved various insights, like bending the legs before an upward motion, so the arm could be tucked in to the torso firmly without resistance before the legs did the lifting. Learning the right timing for a push-then-pull (or vice versa) that gets the opponent's initial resistance to coincide with the reversal. Finding an angle that twists and destabilises the opponent. Using the straightening of your legs to effectively turn the hips. Directing force perpendicular to the line of their feet, so they have to step off that centre and can be manipulated while a foot is lifted. Grabbing the wrist-grabbed hand with your free hand, so the arms can support each other in a movement. This list goes on and on, but it's the process that's important: take what you know, derive what you don't yet, and nut it out until it really works for you. If you can't find anything, then look to other techniques you know and see if some of the principles can't be adapted. Look for more variations on your escape - or better yet the lock itself - and see if they hold clues. Separately, fighting someone big can be intimidating, but I don't see it as an actual problem. The correlation isn't that high. I'd rather fight a Mr Utah who seemingly knows relatively little about martial arts than the diminutive Benny Urquidez, even at his age. I wouldn't even preemptively adapt my technique or tactics... as per KarateEd's excellent KarateForums article... dwell in "no mind", hit when I can hit - see what it does, roll with it when blocking, feel it out and adapt spontaneously. Over the years, I've built enough trust in my technique that the idea doesn't bother me.... Regards, Tony

My post preceded the question above, perhaps you were asking me to elaborate? Not sure.... Anyway, how arm wrestling targets the forearms is too obvious to have been the subject of your question, so I guess it'd be the push ups. The body has a natural tendency to support and strengthen muscles that are being asked to balance things, more so than when they're only working in a single dimension. Doing push ups on the couple square centimetres of contact surface area on each hand means the weight can't just settle down with the palm resting on the final finger joint, behind the nails. Instead, the hand is precariously balanced and able to tilt either way, with an uncontrolled outwards tilt potentially harmful. The body must dynamically compensate for any momentary instability to prevent the body weight crashing down, and it tends to cut in very quickly before the inbalance becomes threatening. Given the wrists themselves don't have muscles in them, it's the muscles in the lower arm that control the angles at the wrist, and hence the forearm is working in this way. You can move on to suspending yourself by the knuckles with the legs raised out straight in front, or with your hands on a railing or ledge and your body suspended off the floor, but you don't want to do too much too soon. Cheers, Tony

I find my martial arts training overall keeps my forearms pretty solid. Also, lots of push up variations... most basic perhaps where only the two striking knuckles touch the ground, and the front of the fingers is kept elevated. Need to be careful though; if you collapse and twist the wrist - not good. Arm wrestling is also really good, but I did most of that in high school... ;-P. Not so cool as a grown man.

I think it's pretty tacky. Honourary lifetime membership of the Kwan - that would make the same point politely and without the connotations and stresses that a black belt involves....

Good topic... sorry I've only just noticed it. I don't consider myself a warrior. It's a bit arbitrary of me, but I think of a warrior as someone who deliberately shapes their political environment - their nation's extent and future - through deliberate acts of war/defense. In some senses, soldiers who aren't driven by those political decisions and motives but just go to fight seem other than warriors to me. Still, that's perhaps a kind of romantic idea that there should be something differentiating warrior from plain old professional soldier / fighter. In a non-military martial arts context, the closest I can think of to warrior would be those who seek to fight at or beyond the limits of their ability, travelling in search of greater and greater challenge, in a pretty raw style and against differing opponents, retaining a sense of ritual, formality, respect, accepting real chance of injury and driven by a belief that the knowledge and experience of each challenge is worth any injury or death, not seeking "glory" as in competition points or trophies. People like Mas Oyama and Ueshiba were warriors in this sense (the latter also in a military sense). Cheers, Tony

And a samurai sword from before 1954 is presumably hand made and worth a fortune... only the well-off would own one, or those who took one from a Japanese officer during the war, and war vets and the wealthy aren't proper targets for law makers....

I don't think you've told us enough to understand your decision. Your fiance was angry and verbally aggressive, but you should ask yourself what you felt, what decisions you made and how/why, whether you knew they were right or wrong at the time. e.g. Were you scared? Exasperated? Reminded of some unpleasant past experience? Feeling he deserved it for some specific act or attitude? You don't have to share all that with us, but if you're not comprehensive in your understanding of the situation, then you can't be honest with yourself and control yourself in future. It's not about blaming yourself, but understanding. It might be that when you think it through, you realise you'd do the same thing again, and that it's actually ok under that circumstance - you'll live with the consequences. Depending on the affect on your fiance - how it shapes his future attitudes and your connection - it may do harm or possibly do good. You can still shape that somewhat if necessary - you've options and power over his interpretation of events through sharing your motivations with him if necessary. Understanding can reestablish trust, where there's will on both sides.

Zen is one form of Buddhism, but I can't see from your post why you are interested in it specifically, more than the other forms. Do you already know roughly how Buddhism applies to the things you describe - karama, use of martial arts abilities, having a great life? And you want to follow the Zen path to refining and applying that knowledge? That all sounds good to me. If you can't find a teacher near you, then for practical and detailed advice on zazen technique and progression, you might consider: http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Training-Philosophy-Shambhala-Classics/dp/1590302834/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257854289&sr=1-6 Regards, Tony