GeoGiant

Sorry, PrettyOrchid, I was just having some fun with ya. I couldn't carry a tune if you handed it to me in a bag!

Some interesting points made. I've never been told I'm intimidating and I guess I don't have body language that omits intimidation. People stop and ask me for directions all the time! I'm fascinated (& concerned) that I could let a guy get in my head because of his outward appearance. To me its understandable to feel that twinge of intimidation, doubt, whatever you want to call it when someone is taller or twice you weight but to feel that self doubt just because some dude is covered with tattoos or looks scary is illogical. And again, maybe its the prospect of actually fighting that causes me anxiety and I'm confusing that feeling with self doubt....? I don't know. Anybody out there ever had an amateur fight that has dealt with this?

Welcome & enjoy!

Welcome!

When I mentioned myself seeking muscle, I was thinking a Bruce Lee type not a big WWF wrestler. I'm thinking either build would be good as long as one maintains high levels of cardio & flexibility. Personally, I don't have the genetics to become a hulk type, my body isn't built that way.

I'm not sure if my dojo has a policy about this. As most have said, I only see young kids wearing their gi to class. I wear my gi pants sometimes when I'm going to train but I bring other cloths if i need to stop somewhere between the dojo and home.

I can't say that I've been in a fight since grade school but I think I have fight in me. The more I train the more I wonder where my skill level truly is. Its one thing to kick a bag or kick at a person while sparring but I wonder if I will be effective in the real world. i pull my kicks and punches and I think I've learned better control as my training has progressed but what if I didn't pull a kick or punch....? As I stated in another thread, questions like these are making me examine myself as a fighter, maybe for the first time in my life. My desire to be a better fighter has me wondering if the next step is an amateur fight. I'm not a manic but I wonder what it would be like to go full contact.

Unfortunately I can't bring anything to the discussion other than to agree. I love taking Tang Soo Do but I've learned that my ground game is lacking. Tallgeese said it best, "who want to progress as a fighter and who is comfortable with just doing their style". While I can understand why someone may only want to train in a style, I want to progress as a fighter... on a side note, I'm taking my first BBJ class this week

Although, one might consider practicing outside as showing-off, drawing attention to one-self, and might not feel that that would be appropriate. True. Maybe I misinterpreted the initial post. I got the feeling that this person was nervous to workout in front of people much like most people are afraid of public speaking. I was trying to push them to face their fear and I didn't think about the drawing attention part. On a side note, I think you benefit from practicing kata as a kata as opposed to reviewing individual moves. Maybe I'm assuming too much but I'd think after 2 years it would harder to perform the kata as a whole as opposed to individual movement. As long as you keep working,,, that all that matters

Its funny that you responded first because it was your comment that made me post this thread. So your saying experience changes you perception...? So are we talking about reprogramming, as in, when I see someone that tries to look intimating I associate that with weakness? Right now i see my perception of someone's outward appearance as a weakness. I can't line up across from someone and let them get in my head because the "look" scary.

I also have to agree with ps 1 however I would add that you should try to practice outside. With 2 years of experience you probably know your kata well so overcoming your fear of practicing in public will help you as well as you kata.

I was reading the “if you was in a fight today” thread and it got me thinking about dealing with the fear that is created by someone’s appearance. I’m not talking about a person that is 6.5 feet tall (about 2 meters), 250 pounds & covered with tattoos verses a 98 pound weakling. I’m talking about persons of average height and weight with different outward appearances – say a biker look verses polo shits & kaki shorts. Recently I’ve been toying with the idea of an amateur mma fight. In my part of the US, amateur mma fights have rules that dictate – (1) no elbows, (2) when on the ground no head shots, only body shots (3) No restriction on submissions, (4) A match is 3, 2 minute rounds with 1 minute between rounds. (5) Scoring is similar to UFC fights. There is some good banging that goes on at these fights but I’ve never seen anything that I thought was out of hand. The promoters are really good about pairing height / weight of the fighters. Most people fight from a particular school so the instructors make sure that you face a guy with a similar amount of training / experience. Again, these matches always seem fair. Anyway, I went to an amateur mma fight the other night, by myself, with the intent of assessing if this was something that I could really do. I sat on the side of the convention center where the fighters where preparing before the fights. I was really sizing these guys up. Most of these guys looked really rough & tough – neck tattoos, shaved heads, some had gang colors. Truth be told I was intimidated by guys that were smaller than me (not that size means everything). As I watched some of these guys fight, I started to wonder why I was intimidated because these guys were not showing me anything skill-wise that scared me. Again, not to take anything away from any fighter because it takes guts to get in the ring and it takes nothing to sit outside the ring and assess but I didn’t feel like my skill level was that far from being competitive for my weight class. I grew up in larger city and was exposed to all types of people yet I was still intimidated by physical appearance. After the fights I saw some of these guys again and my perception had changed. I no longer saw tattoos, shaved heads, chains and black boots… I saw guys that were shorter and skinnier than me with middle of the road skills. Again I know that you can’t base everything on size but there is a big difference between facing a guy and feeling like, “I can take him” and facing a guy and feeling slightly intimated by his appearance. There was one guy in particular that was scary has hell looking. I watched this guy warm up and I was feeling happy that I wasn’t facing him. This guy fought very similar to me and he ended up losing (his ground game was weak… as is mine). When I saw this guy after the fight I wasn’t thinking I could kick his butt, I was assessing him as a fighter,,,, the outward appearance was gone. Has anyone else experience this feeling? Am i being intimidated by appearance or was i being intimidated by the prospect of actually fighting?

I saw an update right after my post. That hole was not a sinkhole. Sinkholes are formed in karst rock... that area is underlain with pumice rock. I could go on and on about geologic nomenclature but I can see you eyes getting heavy....

The story doesn't give you a lot of information about the rock but the story is kind of misleading. Here is a rough description - water or sewage running over the rock does dissolve the rock.... along the weakest planes first, solution channel are created, and these channels eventually grow to caverns. It takes a longggggg time for this process to occur. However while all this is going on, mud / rock mixes plug up these channels or caverns while they grow. As long as the mud / rock mix is dense enough, the plug will remain in place. After a large rain or leak saturates these mud plugs they become unstable and slide down through the channel or cavern... that is how a hole that big forms with no one seeing anything until its a catastrophe. The thing is, where there is one..... there is more. I agree with the guy that said he was leaving.

I'm tall and thin so I'm always looking to gain muscle. I started taking a MMA class (my dojo offers it for free to karate students) twice a week which has really made me want to increase the strength in my chest and back. The one thing i don't want to do is gain too much muscle in my legs. I started doing some leg presses at the gym and it seemed like it took me twice as long to stretch myself out.

Stretching is important! The older I get (and the more everything tightens up!) I find i need to stretch my calves and shins before I run.

Done!

I would like more details. How long have you been training? What type of floor material do you train on?

I agree with the consensus here. You shouldn’t deny yourself the experience especially since you have the summer to try it out. The great thing about MAs is you decide your pace. We have graduate students in my class that I may see all the time for 6 weeks then I'll only see them maybe only once or twice for the next 6 weeks.

We have belt testing when needed which usually equates to 2 to 4 times a year. Testing is done after a regular class and family / friends are invited. Our instructor along with 4 to 6 BBs sit at a table and judge our one-step defenses and kata. It is not unusually for someone to have to perform a kata multiple times before a satisfactory nod is given. Then the instructor and the BBs form a ring and we spar. Every belt except for the white to yellow transition requires the person testing to spar more than one opponent at the same time.

Thanks everyone! Posting with everyone has been great. This is truly one of the best forums that I've been associated with. There is always good discussion and sometimes debate but the threads never degrade into... well you know. Thanks again!!

Welcome Tim!

Exactly. You hit both points i was thinking about.

Does anyone here offer a black belt package? I would be interested to hear (1) who purchases these packages... white belts.... mid level belts??? & (2) what percentage of people that purchase a black belt package actually obtain a black belt (here I'm assuming you purchase so many sessions that have to be completed in X amount of time. Similar to obtaining a masters degree from a university.)

I didn't know running was an option The multiple attacker drills give me a real sense of confusion. Typically everyone in the drill triangle (3 ppl) or square (4 ppl) gets tagged really good at least once. In my dojo these drilled are always set up according to size and ability for that reason. These drills help me try to focus, analyze and react while pandemonium is occurring around me. If I can get through the drill without hearing some yell "you are dropping my hands" or "get out of the middle" I fell good about the drill, beat up, but good.