Soheir

Idk. I don't think there's anything wrong with acknowledging the fact that sometimes life stinks. Even if you do keep a positive attitude, sometimes life will be very hard and not good at all. But you can get through it if you realize that nothing lasts forever and no matter how bad things are, they can get better with hard work, intelligent actions, and persistance. Well, We need those times that stink, to be happy. To say that life is not good for you at the time you have to adjust.. That you feel bad doesn't mean your life is bad.

I think it is. I do believe everybody's ignorant on some way. And, that one cannot be arrogant without ignorance.

Living it fully. Life goes on, no matter what you do. And what ever happens, with small but yet huge help from your attitude, life can be good to you all times.

I wouldn't say any of those. Everyone does it by himself. That comes a lot from society (but since the same pressure is there for everyone..some overcome it..). The pressure to achieve something as fast as possible.

Well said! I don't really know Shotokan at all, but in Kyokushin all the self defence techniques are in kata' Without underrating the importance of sparring, of course.

"Knowledge is no guarantee of good behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior." -Martha Nussbaum Do you ever have to remind yourself for not being arrogant on something or somebody? If one doesn't, does that mean he is so ignorant that he thinks he doesn't? Some people use much time thinking about other people who are arrogant, and don't realize that they are being very ignorant about themselves. There are also those who think it is okay to be arrogant at something if you really are good at it. But that doesn't make one a better person! This is easy to forget though. To think that the other person is always better than you at something..But that doesn't make a big difference, since we are so ignorant, that we think our thing is better that theirs! Your thoughts? I was generaliseing. Do you think it's reasonable to do so?

I agree. But lets make sure all karake-ka aware that being able to lung lunch someone to chest with no power at high speed, as will similar in fencing, will not work that well in a real fight. The first black belt in norway was a woman, an incredibily good looking one at that, who was presented by her black belt by Eneoda non the less.... a couple of years ago a somali imigrent broke into her house and grabbed her, the first thign she did was a reverse punch to the stomach. It bounced right off the guy. He lifted her off the ground and she was lucky someone disturbed them before he did anything else. All of her karate training up until that point was based around sports concepts (touch point), not real fighting techniques. in the horredous sitatuion she had to use her tecnhiqie for real it simply didnt work. 20 years of training. Eather she was training for completely something else. Or she was training badly. I'm gessing the first one, because what else would make her first attempt into that? Let's just hope she didn't think she could "win" or make it from situations like that. I mean trust on that... Of course anyone could make it, and one can train on many different ways even the style being sport.. But you gotta know your chances.

Well, the police is way too close! Why on earth did he go right there with the gun? But, maybe he had a reason....who knows. Perhaps he took the gun out on the first place because he was alone, I can't make up another reason.

It doesn't really matter what you can do, but what you want to train. Perhaps, you should first decide if you want to train grappling, stand up fighting or both in the same. As I have the picture that not in many styles that do point sparring, grappling's involved. I might be wrong. And of course do you want self defence techniques to be part of your training. Although I got the perception from your message that you're mainly looking for on an competing concentrated style.

Well said! Yes, there is. But even when leaving out the importance of practicing with men too, it helps to gain confidence in grappling and in stand up fighting. It also expands one's outlook on sparring/grappling. Truly. (lets not forget how many different karate styles there is.)

I wouldn't wear my old belt even if it was allowed. And in all cases you have to work up the grades on some level. You might do it faster, but I believe there is that much differences between those styles. I think you should choose the one you like better..It doesn't really matter if you get confused on stances or such, if you're willing to train and to understand the philosophy of the style, you will get better.

I have gotten the impression that in Kwan Nyom Hapkido, sparring is not necessarily part of one's training. I would like to hear about the reasons for this. Does people training this style think it's good or a bad thing (do they sparr anyway?) /is it necessary for self defence in this style? This is not provocation if it sounds like it! I would just like to know the outlook on this from the people who train Kwan Nyom. And if Im wrong on the sparring thing and it does belong to the style in your school, let me know.

In grappling, I would say defence first. But it's not all true, since it's propably impossible not to lose if one doesn't have his own goal (the attact). In stand up fighting it's quite same. In a fight, no matter a competition or a streetfight, the defence is the main thing. Of course there's exceptions. Which one should be taught first.. depends completely of the teacher's outlook. You definitely can't attact well without defence. There might be a style where learning to defend helps learning to attact, but I bet in most styles they both support each other.

Sometimes you'll be there anyway.

I don't keep the word 'beginner' as a big deal..The most important thing is that everybody would understand How much there is that they don't know. Actually this goes to everything outside of martial arts too. In training, it is one of the biggest mistakes to think yourself better that you are. But mostly I have seen that these guys don't stay along a vary long time, since they eather realize the martial way or think that they already know everything worth knowing.

WTF uses more protections in sparring. I believe thay have more of those "fancy" kicks. ITF uses more hands in competitions and weapons in training. Some people say that ITF is a little like Karate.

s'not really my main goal to get a black belt. So there's no questions, just training. But the subject you're going to write about is exellent, good luck!

Maybe you should find some video from youtube, where is performed the kata you're practicing and take an example of the one that seems right.

Strength has nothing to do with it?? It does. And you've just gotta practice. You keep kicking, practice the technique daily, without a punching bag or the like and with it. That is the only way to make your kicks/punchs as powerful as possible (I mean that without it, it isn't going to work).

But is it necessarily so important for parents to be involved? Children do need their parents approval, that what they're doing is okay. They shouldn't show that it wouldn't matter. I have noticed some teachers experience that parents watching the class is not always a good idea. It sometimes takes the kid's attention away from what they're practicing. Also some parents have a bad habit to give wrong advices to their children, that's not helping their kids to learn.

That's obvious (for me). The experience.

I don't see why would they be sociopaths? But I think one becomes a sociopath.

Stick and knife are useful to know how to use. Also while learning how to use a knife, you learn how to defend against it, and that is useful.

Keep on trying. In the end, it shouldn't take long for you to learn all that again. But you gotta lose the fear (or what ever is the feeling in control right now) and keep in mind that you can do it. I don't think there's many who has trained for some time, but hasn't gone through this. I think, that situations like this remind us of the importance of the basics, and also makes us do those basics time after time. Propably many people while doing those techniques, often feel like it's so easy, you could do it while sleeping.. But then your away for some time, and you realize that you can't..And that's a good thing .

I agree with what you posted. And I don't see logic on those peolpe thoughts, who think that doing the basic techniques which lower belts are practicing (for the firt time), is waste of their time. I have seen this attitude even on very low ranks.