brickshooter

A broken nose, chip tooth and black eye can make the prettiest girl look less lovely. Hence the MA is less desirable. Also, walking into a male dominated MA room is probably as intimidating as a guy walking into a female dominated Zumba class.

I've used two types of endurance training in the past. The first is "wind sprints" - For every 300 yards, sprint 50 yards. Repeat for 10 times. This builds lung endurance. The second is "endurance weight training" - lift at 30% your max as many reps as possible without stopping. There is no 2nd or 3rd set. Do it all in 1 set. This builds muscle endurance. You will need at least 2 days of rest in between. Hope this helps. Unsure what the effect is in a short 30 days.

Boxers also work at enlarging their lats. It's probably the only muscle that they try to build mass in, fearing weight gain would bump them from their weight class. Judokas also heavily work on pull-ups and pulling excercises. In other words, pull ups are extremely beneficial.

Hate to break the bad news, but I think they ordered the non-shrinking version.

If I'm getting surrounded by more than one guy, or if I see my attacker pulling something heavy from his jacket, I'm dropping him regardless of what Funakoshi said. I'll send my attacker flowers if it turns out that I over reacted.

"...im working two job 11pm-7am and 2:30pm-6:00pm so I get very little sleep and hate my second part time job." That leaves him with very nasty sleeping hours. No wonder he's tired of training. He's probably not getting into REM sleeping.

I think that both styles would benefit with drilling distance control. They Shotokan guys can really benefit from more separation skills which would enable them to distance themselves quicker, and allow them to setup for an immediate 2nd attack. And the Kyokushin guys can really benefit from with closing & hikite skills instead of waltzing in or letting an opponent waltzing out at will. I don't know if it's the tournament rules, but I don't see drilling in these skill sets. I hear a lot of talk & explanations. But unfortunately I don't see a lot of drilling to keep the opponents in a fighter's optimum range. And the result is that a lot of Karate guys (regardless of styles) are stuck with what ever the opponent chooses.

I agree. Children should start with Judo/Jiu Jitsu/Wrestling which is better for the type of self defense they generally encounter at their age. I'm unsure of the optimal age for Karate, but I think that I want a students who are in their teens because I want them to comprehend what they're learning and I want the them to be physically able.

Sure but that's Bill at the peak of his professional life. Most of us including me aren't ever going to approach the speed limits with a lead leg kick, which is almost completely dependent on leg muscle. In fact, I believe that his world record kick was clocked with a rear leg kick. There is no way Bill can clock a 60mph kick with his lead leg. Anyways I recall several of his professional fights. He tended to use his lead kicks like boxing jabs. I don't remember any knockouts by them. And I don't remember any opponents fearing them like they would a Cro-Cop head kick. Good points! It was his rear leg that was clocked, and it was his primary weapon as well as a back fist strike. I stand corrected, thank you for correcting my boo-boos. No no. I'm not saying that Bill is doing it wrong. It's just that for his time it was the correct thing to do. One can apply Bill's principles to today's fights if slightly modified. For example, Bill used to slide his supporting leg to close the distance. The problem is that this doesn't provide enough KO power. Instead, if one were to take an aggressive forward step with the back leg before kicking with the lead leg, one may be able to get enough rotation + weight transfer into the lead kick for a KO. My point isn't that a lead leg high kick is vulnerable, but any high kick without KO power is vulnerable. BTW, once Bill entered full contact kick boxing, he went away from the backfist and relied on big giant hooks. In fact everyone making the transition into Boxing from Karate threw the big giant hook for some reason.

Sure but that's Bill at the peak of his professional life. Most of us including me aren't ever going to approach the speed limits with a lead leg kick, which is almost completely dependent on leg muscle. In fact, I believe that his world record kick was clocked with a rear leg kick. There is no way Bill can clock a 60mph kick with his lead leg. Anyways I recall several of his professional fights. He tended to use his lead kicks like boxing jabs. I don't remember any knockouts by them. And I don't remember any opponents fearing them like they would a Cro-Cop head kick.

You guys know that Bill is a southpaw right? Yep. He's a lefty. He learned how to box a la Marvin Hagler. It's the main reason why his left leg is so dominant. A lot of the things he teaches are great for point fighting/kick boxing. But some of it really opens his groin up or leaves him susceptible to take downs. Personally, I think that if one is brazen enough to do head kicks, they need to have knock out power. Otherwise, they're going to get deflected instead of blocked and the opponent has a great chance of taking you down.

Kind of like asking an Aikido practitioner to pull his punches. Sometimes he can. And sometimes he can't.

The fact that the chief instructor/director teaches most of the classes says something substantial about him/her. In most of the poor dojos I've experienced, the chief instructor (CI) hardly ever teaches (lower ranked "underling" blackbelts/instructors do most of the teaching); mostly just sits in an office and/or behind a desk to observe and collect fees (if present at all). In these kinds of dojos, the CI usually only teaches "special" classes for "high ranking" or "inner circle" students.* From what you've described, your CI is very approachable, teaches often, and involves as many students as possible in activities...marks of a good dojo. Also, in most dojos, it is fairly common for higher ranked students other than the CI to run warmups or the like; they're studying to become instructors, themselves, and need the practice. As for your style, the terminology you're using (i.e. "Heian Shodan") leads me to believe that you are Karate (not Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu, etc) from a Japanese style (as opposed to Okinawan), probably Shotokan. The fact that you do a lot of "mixed" or an array of moves doesn't necessarily mean your dojo is a "mixed" art. Most of the "singular" MAs, like Karate, Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do, have many different types of techniques with different uses (applications). To compare, I study Okinawan Karate known as Shorin-Ryu (Matsubayashi-Ryu). To us, the "Heian" kata are known as "Pinan"; same kata, but differences in language (Okinawa is part of Japan, today, but is culturally/linguistically different). * These types of dojos/CIs misuse (corrupt) cultural concepts from Japan to prop themselves up. In Japan, there are remote and inner students depending on familiarity and trust. The more they know and trust a student, the more they will teach. There are others here on KF that can explain this cultural aspect better than I. I second this. If the chief instructor is actually doing the teaching, it's a great sign especially if it's to the lower ranks.

Anyone here have any firearms training? You are taught to keep your finger OFF of the trigger until 3 seconds before deciding to shoot. The reason is that research have shown that anything that startles you (like a kid coming around a corner) will result in you pulling that trigger. It's a reflex mechanism. Here, I think that the pistol in the victim's face startled him because he wasn't paying attention, and he thought that he was about to be killed. I doubt that he went for the gun to protect his iPod. I don't think it was any decision to defend his property. And I think that the victim was extremely lucky that the perp didn't apply any pressure on his pistol otherwise his reflex mechanism would have resulted in a squeezed trigger.

I don't run a school, but I would imagine that it's like any other business model. You start with adding all your expenses up. This is your break even price. Then you factor in the pricing from competitors. Add some for more services, deduct for some services cut. Then you throw in a promotional price here and there to help the weak months. $50 and $100 are touchy prices. It's where people generally budget their recreational expense at. It's where they draw the line. In other words, there's much more than $10 separating a price of $95 and $105.

I think that working off of Kata is the best thing available. Either the full Kata itself or a series of 4-5 techniques found in Kata at a time. And don't worry about limited spacing. Go ahead and work the Kata in the small space, which will simulate the footwork and balance of a fight in a small place. Why Kata? Because it's probably the one area where a student can self-correct better than other methods of training. And where a student can actually repeat for 30 minutes at a time without stopping due to boredom. Kata can be performed without warm-up or warm-downs. IMO, if a student only does a 30 minute session of Kata per day, he can probably progress in Karate twice as fast as the average student.

I'm guessing that your lead instructor is kind of like most of us oldies, a product of several schools of Karate. Consequently he's going to teach a hybrid style that comes from different schools based on his personal experience.

Ha ha ha. I remembered training in t-shirts and shorts for the first 4 weeks, because they ran out of Gi and had to order mine.

The thing is that as a beginner, you're committed to learning basic techniques and basic muscle memory . Consequently you need a nurturing and understanding instructor who cares about you, make sure you're not being used as a punching bag by seniors, hold your hands when it hurts, and make sure that you're having fun and reasonably progressing. High Karate knowledge, fighting instructions, high levels of training, etc doesn't really come in play until a year from now where you'll have enough basic knowledge to understand what the instructor is actually trying to communicate. In the beginning, just pick an instructor that can effectively encourage you to come back to train.

If a person has less than 12 months of training, it's not to make any meaningful difference the quality of the instructor nor the style.

Shamefully I choose my styles based on how close to my home the school is plus the $ I have to pay. I really don't care what the style is as long as it's convenient. It's only has to be somewhere between work and home.

11 years old and wide eyed. And I was told to do what ever the Sempai was doing. Did that for the first 2 years.

White Yellow Green Blue Brown Black No stripes to indicate dan levels because no one really cared. And there were no half ranks.

I got training with them for about 6 months before stopping due to a job transfer.

Technically he style isn't more difficult to learn. But they tend to attract more physically fit people. So the training is more physically demanding.