WhiteBelt

Any kind of aerobic exercise will work your heart and energy systems.

Obliques. But I'm not an ab expert. PS. Obliques help the twisting motion.

Plyometrics are exercises that resemble sports. ie: throwing a medicine ball forward as hard and fast as you can, jumping as high as you can... It sounds more like isometric exercises, which build strength but not as quickly as weights. Standing in a half splits and squeezing the floor is isometric and only builds strength in that single position. If you wanted to have strength in the full range of motion you'd have to squeeze the floor at different elevations.

Try these differernt grips and arm positions to work different muscles: -the closer your arms are the more your biceps work -the farther apart your arms are the more your upper back works -hands facing you lets biceps work and forearms rest a little -hands facing away gets your forearms a little You're using upper back, and biceps mainly so exercises that help build them will help too. Work on your weaknesses. Also try ladders and pyramids instead of straight sets if you want variation. Ladder: 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 (do 1 rest for 1, do 2 rest for 2, etc.) Pyramid: 1, 2, 3, 2, 1

I'm not a nutritionist, but you could be getting dizzy from dehydration or low energy levels. Some people advise you to drink sports energy drinks instead of water if you're going to exercise for more than an hour, or you could just snack on a small energy bar. Make sure you eat (carbs) about 3 hours before you work out, if you want to keep your energy levels up, and drink plenty of water as always.

If it wasn't TKD: kick the support leg, or the kicking leg when it is about to land. Shoot and takedown, proceed to make human pretzel. Grab kicking leg and go for submission. Sweet support leg. Rush and jam the kick. If it was TKD: get in close and pretend to jab a lot. I don't have much experience in TKD sorry. PS: This is what is generally called a 'joke'.

I'll go for conditioning and because some of the higher ranks love to see the lower ranks in pain. As for the low stances in katas, the only reason that has made sense to me so far is that they just look better (it shows your strength, balance, etc.)

The biggest difference is the people that train in each MA. Karate is more popular so it will always get more of the people that don't really give a damn. You know, the ones that go to get fit and look cool. MT and kickboxing also are more oriented to full contact tournaments, so you already lose most of the slackers because they just wont show up. You can argue about stances and technique for an eternity, and damn it probably is going to happen, but a kick is a kick, a punch a punch. They're all tools that have specific job, and each MA focuses on different jobs.

Yeah with one arm.

Schedule: lift at most 2 times a week, for the larger muscle groups. You can use a split schedule to go more than 2 times a week to the gym. Machines: generally are bad because you are forced into a single plane of motion which is very artificial, and hence useless for MA. Swiss Ball: if you are able to use it then great, but I doubt if you're doing a 300 lbs. press that the ball will survive. Reps: depends on what your goal is. If you want to get bigger muscles then high reps with lighter weights. You want to really feel the 'burn'. If you want to work for strength go for about 5 reps and 3 to 5 sets, with fairly heavy weights. Stay away from bodybuilding exercises for strength. Static Active: I never looked into it much because I'm not a gymnast, but I have a book with some advice that I could look into later. Core strength: You can do cable pull-downs where you try to only use your abs, or use a roman chair, or dumbells. The idea is to work the obliques, lower, then upper abs, and finally your lower back. I don't have the full scientific reasoning behind all that. It's from books, websites, and trial and error. So far it has worked.

Don't forget leg curls. Now that you're recovering you don't want to have an imbalance cause more problems. When you're ready look into better exercises (leg press -> lunges -> squats -> etc).

Medicine balls are great for conditioning, especially the core muscles. Boxers use them. Tito uses them. I have a whole book on them...

I have a similar problem. However I don't get as much class time during the summer, odd as it may be, so I'm just going to let it pass until school starts. Either that or I'll keep it up at home and show them the results and let them borrow the book.

If there is no pain then I wouldn't worry about it. However, don't sit there trying to get them to pop and crack. Some noises come from liquid rushing in to fill a vacuum that may have formed in your joint; some noises come from irritated ligaments, which have swollen up a bit, that are forced in a given direction.

I had some trouble with front leg kicks at first, so I worked hard at improving them only. No special reason other than, "why leave something at a lower standard?" Now I find them to be very effective because there is less telegraphing, and are faster.

I'm glad I found the 3rd ED in a small discount MA store then. Thanks for the info.

I'd never get a stand because I don't want to accidentally step on the feet of the stand when I'm kicking... Too bad my floors and ceilings are made of concrete and will crumble after some long term abuse.

I've heard from some places that doing exess amounts of hindu pushups can cause atrophy in your triceps. Whether that is true or not is something I haven't worried much about as I never do them in the hundreds at a time. As for which is better, well I do both of these in my workouts. "Regular" push-ups can be done in a number of different ways, including plyometrically. I'd say they each have their purpose and use them both.

I think I can picture that. Thanks for the tips.

I don't have much experience on the ground. Choking him seemed like the best idea at the time but I wanted to see if I could escape the head lock. I have no idea what some of the terms you've used mean though... Maybe I should try to describe it better. He was on the ground, almost on his side, facing away from me with his arm around my neck. I think his hands were clasped together near his chest/stomache. I was on top in what I think is called a side mount where I could reach his face, neck, and legs with anything. If I wanted I could pound his head from behind with my knee/elbow. I just don't have the experience to know what to do, and I want to surprise him the next time.

How do you escape from a head lock when you have somebody in side mount but they have your head and are lying on their side slightly? I got my head in a position that I wouldnt get knocked out and could knee, punch and elbow but couldnt get out of the lock... Sorry if it sounds confusing. I'm just learning ground fighting here and there in my karate.

The reason a bullet is so dangerous is the small point that makes contact, and how quickly the energy is tranfered. You cannot say that it is only because it is small, or only because it moves fast because there are a number of factors that make the bullet effective. If you compare the bullet to the car going 10 MPH, maybe the car has more momentum (depends on the car, and the bullet), but it is moving much slower and on impact the energy will be tranfsered much more slowly. The car has crumple zones which basically slow down the energy transfer, or accelerations involved. On the other hand, the bullet is solid and affects a much smaller area so it pushes through you more effectively. Now if you want an analogy for pushing and how it can be 'weak' or 'strong', how about a catapult vs. a cannon. If you sit on a catapult and we launch you through the air you'll probably feel pretty happy until you hit the ground. However, if you were to sit inside a real, though very large, cannon and we fired you out of it you would not be around to tell us how it felt. The cannon accelerated you too quickly; it was too 'strong'. Even if you reach the same speed on both the catapult and the cannon, the catapult took say 1.2 seconds to get you to that speed while the cannon took say 0.2 seconds. Finally, a punch will transfer more force if it is fully accelerated before it hits the target. You will get the 'pushing' sensation (people flying back) when you accelerate your fist a bit before you hit and try to finish the accelration through the target. If you want the full force you have to reach your maximum speed before you hit and drive that through your target.

I have a black (leather) belt. Does that count?

It seems like a few of the guys on the clips need to learn when to duck (or get out of the way).

I say do your technique more realistically. If it was designed to work then it should work on egomaniacs too. Don't try to hurt him, and besides if you still cannot get your technique to work atleast you know you need more practice.