atzounis

Maybe i was misunderstood. I never meant to say that building a strong body is a disadvantage in martial arts. What i say is that building a massive body turns you in a big, slow piece of meat. Neither Bruce Lee nor Mas Oyama were massive, although Oyama was a quite big man himself. Power lifting is a good way of training but only for increasing strength and stamina - not muscle mass. For me the ideal body is a gymnast's body. These athletes achieve the best strength relatively to their body staying amazingly flexible. That's why it is often said that a successful gymnast can be successful to any kind of sport (like a very well known ex-gymnast snowboarding champion, or a good friend of mine that after being a Greek champion in uneven bars turned to be a world class female wrestler - you may check google for Konstantina Tsimpanakou) Regards Antonis

It depends on what kind of weightlifting you do. It happens that bigger people tend to load more weight at their training. If someone trains with small weights and many repetitions, then ok. This is strenghthening. But body-builder-like muscles are short ant thus not suitable for martial arts. In my opinion the goal in martial arts is stamina, flexibility, speed and trying to build strength with as few as possible mass.

Uechi-ryu and i am really happy about that! I would also like to practice Goju-ryu some day along with my style, of course, as it is a sister style to Uechi. I also enjoy practicing with Korean TangSooDo - SooBahDo students, their style has its roots in China too - they also have Seisan Kata. Respect to all styles practicing them for a good reason! Regards Antonis

Being a big guy my self (190cm - 120kg) i suggest you do lots of running, and no weight lifting that will shorten your muscles (you need to stay as agile as possible). You can do sort of aerobic exercises and and work with makiwara for accuracy. Speaking of Karate, of course, a very good aerobic exercise is KATA! Repeating the same kata for 60-70 or even 100 times a day will teach your muscles to respond using the kata moves as easily as you hit a mawashi geri. No matter how strange and complicated your kata moves appear, you ll discover that are truly effective! Repeating kata so many times will also strengthen your mind very much.