Kirves

Bleak? No. Heavily focused on death? Yes. For that is Bushido - the philosophy of the feudal bushi. Hagakure is a classic. As is "The Unfettered Mind". And no other book deserves this more than The Art Of War, bu Sun Tze!

Yeah, add to the experience pool that we have here. Looking forward to seeing your posts.

Yeah, nice intro! Until I read to the part about you having a boyfriend - what a letdown. Snif! Just kidding, welcome to the party!

Yeah, you may have to buy several gis during your budo career. I myself have a good durable gi, but it sorta get's in the way all the time. It is for my height allright, but apparently for a bit chubbier person. It moves quite a lot compared to other gis I've had and in some occations it gets so twisted that it limits my range of motion so I have to "reset" the gi which annoys my instructor... BTW: Welcome!

Yeah, welcome! Important thing is to do what you enjoy. Hope you also enjoy this forum.

Ha! I got one more. Just to ask if you noticed that I had edited the post after you read it..

Well, fact is, you can't grow much of a single muscle alone. You can try a bit, but usually you need to grow "the whole package" with it. When you get all your muscles growing with the program I gave above, and keep adding iron to the bar, your body will grow stronger, bigger and more balanced all over. If an untrained guy tries to build a single muscle, like biceps, doing a biceps curl for example, he will not get much of result because body wasn't designed to work in pieces.I mean, have you ever seen such a ridiculous body that had Swartcshenegger's upper arms attached to Woody Allen's body? It is physiological impossibility. And would look very stupid. When you do the big push movement, it will make your pecs, shoulders, triceps and wrists grow all over in accordance to your genetic print (genes are the thing that eventually determine what form your muscles take, you can just make them bigger). The big pull will work your back muscles, trapezius, some shoulders, lots of biceps and wrists. The big lowerbody movement will hit your legs and back like dynamite. These movements are all so big too, that they require the little stabilizer muscles to work like h*ll all over your body (you can't squat jack without your abs and lower back working their butts off, and so on, I'm sure you get the picture). Eventually, gene's determine a lot about how you'll look (i.e. what shape your legs or arms will be). What you can do is make the muscles bigger (train them) and you can make the muscles more visible (keep the fat percentage down). Sure, by careful choosing of the moves, you can focus on different muscles in an area to make minor adjustments. Different rows hit different muscles of the back with slightly differing intensities and so on. So it is possible to focus on making the trapezius bigger or the lat bigger, if one has such problems. But first you need to get the foundation done. Who cares if one of the tricep or deltoid heads of your upper arm is 10 smaller than the other one, if they are so small nobody sees much of them anyway! Make the package grow as a unit first. Also, when you work out your body as a unit like this, instead of isolating single muscles (what Pavel Tsatsouline mockinly calls "The Frankenstein approach"), you get your body trained for the kind of functional strength that is useful in real life activities. When you happen to need strength, you usually need your body to work as a unit. It is also safer this way, as all the minor stabilizer muscles around and inside your body get accustomed to working as a functional unit too. With the Frankenstein approach it is possible to create unhealthy imbalances as some stabilizers aren't up to the task demanded from them by the bigger muscles that have grown strong in isolation.

Some people even use such small increments as .5 kg or 1 pound, to keep the gains coming at the end of the cycle. You can go on for weeks or even months like this and this means more strength and muscle to you for as long as you can keep it up. If you suddenly add 5 kg to your already-a-hek-of-a-death-match bench press, you'll kill the cycle right there, but if you keep adding one kilo or half a kilo per week for the next five, or ten or more weeks, you are in the game.

Always standing by to help you. You need to be able to do some of the "big" multijoint moves (Squat, Deadlift variations, Bench Press or Dip, Overhead Press, Rows) and barbell+dumbbells do the trick. Power rack is for safety, allowing you do train Squats and Bench presses safely. Without it, I recommend you drop squats from the routine and substitute them with Bent-Legged Deadlifts (a very good move anyways). And Bench presses too, get a dip station or think of something... Basic idea is this: 1. Your routine should contain one big lowerbody move = squat or bent-legged deadlift. 2. Your routine should contain one upper body pull movement = a row, a chin(with additional weight tied with a dipping belt), a pullup or pulldown. 3. Your routine should contain one upper body push = bench press or dip. 4. Add to this some small movements (abs, neck, whatever, depending on how much work you get from martial arts class). 5. Perform 2-5 sets of 5-15 reps per movement, according to your taste/preference. About 1-4 minute rests between sets (choose one). 6. Begin with relatively light weights (don't go near failure in the sets). This way you'll learn the movements correctly and teach your body to start pushing itself. 7 Add a tiny bit of iron each time you are able to reach the rep goal for all the sets of an excercise. Use small increments so you won't kill the "gaining momentum" of your body's adaptation potential. About 1-2 kg (2-4 lbs) to the pull/push movements and 1-5 kg (2-10 lbs) to squat/deadlifts maximum. 8. When the going gets tough, eat like a horse. Better yet, eat a horse. Eat enough to notice your bodyweight going up for 2 or more pounds per month. Don't go overboard (like 10 pounds per month) or you'll just get fat fast. Bottom line: never feel hunger. Eat, eat, eat. 9. When you have been going tuff for 1-2 or more months, eventually the going gets too tuff. You just can't get the reps with the weight on the iron no matter how many weeks you try. This means you have reached the end of the cycle. Lay off completely for a week or two at maximum. Drop the weights on all exercises by 10-15 (or even 20) percent. Modify the routine if you want to (change the rep/set/rest scheme). Then start again. 10. Important: keep a training log, where you record everything you do. This will come up handy later when you start learning which systems and routines work best for your body, we are all different.

Focus on training for confined spaces for now That's what I do at home, I practise shadow boxing in narrow spaces, in bathroom, and so on. I also practise kata by cutting it to pieces and training the pieces in small spaces. This is the kind of real life training that translates to real life skills. Loren W. Christensen (my fav. martial arts book author) recommends this kind of training as it will teach you how the environment affects your fighting techniques and options. Very often, real life fights take place indoors, in crowded, littered or furnitured spaces. Besides being useful, it is fun!

Free weights (lots of iron!) and if you can afford: a power rack.

Lucky you, lucky us.

Yeah, welcome! Thanks for the detailed introduction.

Welcome and enjoy your stay!

Welcome and enjoy!

Yeah, welcome! From the opposite side of the globe, phew!

Personally, I sometimes see many advantages in the Kyokushin sparring rules too. In many arts, people seem to become "head hunters", they treat body shots as something "second rate". In Kyokushin you learn how to effectively punch the torso too. Now add to this some head punching skills and you are quite dangerous. And just the very fact that with the Kyokushin rules, you don't wear gloves, is a great advantage. I have a friend who had been kickboxing for years, and when he tried bare-knuckle sparring he was in for a shock - he couldn't believe how hard it feels to get punched with a bare fist to good body targets. Kyokushin fighters learn to deal with the sharp pain of knuckles hitting your body.

If you want the similar sporting atmosphere as in Shootfighting, take Muay Thai. If you want to try a more "traditional" atmosphere, with all the traditional "bowing to the sensei", "wearing pajamas" and "studying kata for self defence ideas" then try Kyokushin. Both teach you how to kick and punch hard, the difference lies in the other aspects.

Finland.

from the ground up: sounds to me like you are doing it for fun (i.e. you just enjoy it for no apparent single reason).

Well, you won't learn how to release yourself from a persons hold/grasp/choke in boxing or mt. But you do learn such things in Kyokushin. We could argue this back and forth all night and still get nowhere. It is just a matter of priorities. Is your priority that you constantly train against head punches and thus leave out other aspects of training. Or do you train against head punches less frequently and then train against some other stuff instead? It is (again) one of those things where we don't have a clear answer. Each make up their own mind for themselves. The important thing is that we are informed about the options and the tradeoffs. It is also a matter of having fun. If you don't enjoy what you do, you won't stick to it. If someone hates MT classes, just plain doesn't enjoy getting head punched all the time, then he won't stick to it. Now if he also doesn't go to Kyokushin because someone said it is "unrealistic". Now the guy does nothing and that is no good either. So we must weigh the tradeoffs, plus measure what is it that we like to do so much that we'll stick to it, for days, weeks, months, years and even decades on without quitting. Going to Kyokushin class every week for the next 25 years is better than going to MT classes for a month and then realizing one doesn't like it and never train anything again. And vice versa.

Of course, people may have several reasons, but try to think what was/is the primary reason for training, and choosing which art to train in.

K1 is where you want to look at. Lots of succesful Kyokushin fighters there.

Geesh, this one keeps popping up a dozen times today... Kyokushin tournament rules forbid head punches. That's all, tournaments. In class you spar with different kinds of rule sets and equipments.

Kyokushin tournaments don't allow face punches. Kyokushin schools usually spar with differing rules at different times (in my school we sometimes spar with boxing gloves and allow head punches, sometimes bare-knuckled with the tournament rules). And it is a misconception that you wouldn't need to protect your head with Kyokushin rules. If you lower your hands, you get kicked in the head and that isn't fun.