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As for how long I train- I try to do at least a half hour of practice every day. Bag work, kihon, kata... if I am really lucky, kumite. I do weight training as part of my training for full contact knockdown, so if you add that in, that's another three hours a week at the least. Then I go to class two days a week, for about an hour and a half or so. The dojo is 45 minutes away, so I can't really afford the gas to go the other days too.

Sounds like a recipe for serious knee problems to me, haha! But I already have knee problems, so I'm biased. Who has that kind of time? Maybe people who are fortunate enough to live in a country that will sponsor their best fighters, and who are fortunate enough to BE one of those fighters.

OSU Bob, If you do that, I would love to see a video of what happens, lolol!

Heh, it happened two both opponents in one sparring match at ranking tonight. Lots of hopping around! But they both kept on fighting... there's a lesson in that! A lot of instructors present a groin kick as the ultimate self defense against a man... "kick him in the groin and he'll stop fighting and go down, guaranteed," they will say. This is not always the case. Be warned! You might just make them really, REALLY angry... OSU!

Uuuuuuuughhhh! Yeah our head instructor posted this on Facebook a couple years back. Do Not Want!

OSU, I am very lucky to have such good and kind-hearted instructors, who are in turn lucky to have full time jobs that are not related to the dojo. I would give so much more, too, if I could. I've never made demands, however. I was invited to train here. I thanked them for the honor of the invitation, and then admitted (rather embarrassed) that I couldn't afford to do it. They insisted I come train anyway. <3

I haven't ever, when I've been tasked with teaching a white belt something, given an adult a punishment. I have given a kid a punishment of push-ups. He was trying to bully another kid.

It's done in my dojo, on the knuckle, elbows rubbing the sides. It strengthens our triceps. I hate it, but I accept it. I only get internally grumbly about it when I am the only one who did whatever it was RIGHT and still have to do 'em... mostly because push-ups are not something I can do well at my weight. Maybe when I get way better at weight lifting, heh.

WuShu and Muay Thai are so very very different! Interestingly enough, two Kyokushin folks at open sparring at my dojo today were talking about how they used to do WuShu. One trained in Kyokushin one day, then WuShu the next. She said it was very weird and awkward going from one to the other, but it was also fun. The both of them also commented on how WuShu is pretty much about form and looking pretty, not about fighting. Your mileage may vary on that, but they said it was more like a martial arts themed dance style, which never involved sparring. Black belt is just the beginning, from what everyone tells me. :}

I answered that my school doesn't have a time requirement... except it does for the dan ranks. That's pretty much Kyokushin systemwide though... you tend to be required to be at a dan rank for a certain amount of time before you test to advance for the next rank, and often there's time spent assisting in instruction requirements as well. We tend to also have a year's warning before testing to Shodan, but that is because testing for Shodan is very hard and a LOT of training and work goes into preparing for it.

Oh yeah, for shodan testing they warn you a year ahead of time at this dojo! But this is just 5th kyu. :}

The make 'em drop again hop, yep! I've seen that many a time. Seen it demonstrated mockingly too, lol, with arm-waving and fancy dancing.

(This is purely academic, though, because my Sensei just told me that he's going to tell the head instructor himself that I'm not quite ready yet, lol!)

OSU, So there's a ranking coming up this week. I'm feeling conflicted about it. See, my instructors decide whether or not someone is going to go up for rank. We get tested, and we can fail, but we are NOT to ask to test. I trust my instructors, and I have faith in them... But on the other hand, I do not feel that I am up to snuff to test for 5th kyu yet. My kata is too choppy, and I have not had enough practice at kumite lately. Tuesday is tameshiwari class, and Thursday is ranking. My Sensei will be with me Tuesday, but he is out of town Thursday. Normally they ask him if he wants me going up for rank or not, but he won't be there. Should I tell the head instructor that I don't feel ready yet for the next rank test? Opinions welcome, though I may or may not agree. :} OSU!

Sorry dude, I'm not equipped to answer this one. Literally. Had my share of groin shots though, but it's a bit different, haha! Did you have a question beyond that?

"I would love to hear what you think about what I need to work on the most." That's what I'd ask. I don't usually, though. I get so much feedback as it is, haha. Sometimes I'll get a "I don't know what that was supposed to be, but it was terrible" kind of feedback. Sometimes I'll get a tap to the face as feedback (especially if I've dropped my guard.) and sometimes I'll be in the form of "that was good!" That one is more rare, but I know it really means something when I hear it. Sometimes I'll ask my primary Sensei if he thinks I'm ready to rank up. More often he asks me if I think I am. He isn't usually the one who brings it up to me formally though. That's our head instructor. I don't think it's really a bad or disrespectful question to ask though. Demanding to get tested for rank is probably disrespectful in a lot of schools- I know it's seen as disrespectful in ours. "Can you evaluate my skill for me so I know where I'm at and what I need to work on" would show me that the student cares and is really determined to improve, and I think I'd be glad to hear that.

I don't think most people realize how much danger LEOs have to put themselves in every day, or how many restrictions they have to operate under what could get them killed. I'm glad when LEOs train in some fort of self defense outside of the piddly training most departments give them. Got to learn a lot about what is and isn't reasonable force in class the other night, from one of our LEO instructors. It was a good thing, because one student didn't realize that, if you take a knife away from your attacker and then stab them with it, the attacker then becomes a victim of assault with a deadly weapon. Then there's how much you can do when the person is standing and coming after you, as opposed to what you can do when they are on the ground and not coming after you any more, as opposed to what you can do if they still have the weapon in their hand or under them out of your sight as opposed to when they have been disarmed and are not reaching for the weapon. Then there's the situation and who you are versus them and what's going on... there are some real grey areas too.

Chronic insomniac here. Wish I had an answer, haha! Work out hard and practice on your days off too?

Yeah, he tried to get Sosai to join up with TKD, but he refused. There's a little bit of that fancy kicking that came in at the very end though. Like I said though, that might be more the influence of some of Sosai's yudansha than Sosai himself.

We just have the kanji of our style on the left breast of our dogi. Back in the 70s, they had an AAU patch (cheap insurance! heh) and the Kyokushin kanku as well. Full contact fighters in the dojo my Sensei went to also got a dragon... not typical Kyokushin, but it was a cute dragon, hehe! There is one local school, known to be a cultlike place that takes people for all the money they have, where their dogi look like... like NASCAR gis. Like, 20 patches! I kind of like just having the kanji.

And TKD, just quietly. Haha, a little bit, yeah. Mostly in the later years, though I think that wasn't just Sosai making those changes at that point.

Haha yeah, it wasn't just pain compliance. Sorry if I gave that impression! It can cause muscle knotting, muscle cramps, and it can even make the leg go numb and useless briefly. I've experienced all of these, and they are not fun! Going after the legs is a favorite of mine because I'm so short, and my reach is so short, that tall people who are kickers can take me apart long before I can get to them. If I CAN get in, however, I work at cutting down the tree, so to speak, so I can get to the branches, haha!

Toughening the thighs can help too... and turning the front of your thigh, where the thigh bone is, can help protect you against getting that sciatic nerve deadened. It suuuuucks getting kicked right in the sciatic, either the side branch or the back of the leg section. Tense the muscle, turn the thigh toward the strike. Sometimes that's all you have time to do. Inner thigh strikes... try to not leave yourself open to them, if at all possible, heh! Toughen as you can... but those can be even worse! I like to hook kick with my heel to the sciatic nerve. One instructor has banned me from kicking him there at open sparring events, at least until the end, as it can cause huge knots in the muscles, which takes him out. Another instructor can handle it, because he's conditioned against it, but... after I did it 4 times to him, he did it back to me. PAAAAIN! But it really got me the next day. Everything had tightened up in the night, and when I tried to get out of bed, I just fell, lol! No permanent damage, and I just laid on the floor laughing. Made a point of telling him what had happened. he thought it was pretty funny too. OSU!

Our instructors only have students go up for rank when they believe that they are ready, HOWEVER, students can and do fail. NEVER failing ANYONE at a ranking, no matter how poorly they do or how incapable they are? What does the rank mean, then?

Heh, challenge accepted, and already failed (by that I mean it did not work.) I have PCOS, and it is far, far, FAR more complicated for me than that, believe you me. For someone who has a body that is not prone to easily gaining weight and not taking weight off, and that has no medical conditions, it probably works fine. Most of those people, however, only become overweight (if the ever do) from eating a terrible diet in the first place.