Kirves

Okay, if you're so young you can get two problems: 1. authority problems (try to lead a club when you are one of the youngest) 2. money problems (try to go see the instructor in the neighboring state if your wallet is empty) But don't give up on your style when you are so advanced already. Whatever you do, keep practicing it along. Then, whenever you have the chance, make your self and friends a favor and bring the style to your town.

Yeah, we all (in my country) get basic training in pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, snipers and machine guns when we go do our service for the country (mandatory for all males here, optional for women). I myself stayed 11 months there, so I got quite familiar with most of the basic firearms. I recommend basic firearms training for all who have the possibility to get it.

If there's a will, there's a way. And you are already a 2nd kyu! You could easily take the group under your command and get yourself a black belt soon.

Ah, yes. It is a grappling art. But it also includes stand-up grappling. I do agree that their kicking or punching curriculum is not that great. But one cannot forget their stand-up grappling skills. Yes. But that can be said about any single art. PS. Thanks for the nice words, I also rank your views up high on this board.

Right on! If you are totally surprised from behind, you find yourself lying on the ground, lying under someone, feeling pain, and wondering how to get up. A gun that may be in your pocket, or may have already been taken away won't help much. And c'mon, how many of us wants to rely our lives on the fact that we'll be packin all the time? Anoter point: not all violent situations are lethal. This is a point often forgotten! A violent encounter may be a situation at the family occasion where a drunk uncle starts troubling your kid sister or whatever. Would you rather know how to handle him with some wrestling holds, or draw a gun and start waving it, possibly even pulling the trigger? Martial arts give you varying degrees of damage you can inflict.

Some people feel a martial artist should never drink alcohol. One famous karate master said, he doesn't trust a man who can't control himself with a little alcohol. Some of us drink occasionally. What's your personal story, how do you view and use alcohol? No ideals here, but reality, how often and how drunk do you get? Remember, some of the best warriors like guys in the military are drunk just about every week, so there's no shame in speaking the truth. Just a quick survey.

My first fight was against a guy on drugs, my first counter attack was a kick to the groin, my kick was right on target and I think it was a hard hit, yet he didn't even flinch. I don't know what he was on, but he didn't feel a thing, yet he was sober enough to try and steal a purse (not my purse BTW ) and then fight for a few minutes and then run away.

Two things: 1. Muscle strength isn't the end all, so practice technique. A better technique can beat the stronger but not-that-good technique. 2. Strength is an asset. All being equal, the stronger one has the advantage. So getting strong is good. I suggest reading Brawn or Beyond Brawn (either one will do) by Stuart McRobert. But his methods require some equipment / or a gym. Another recommendation would be to get a barbell and lots of plates (especially the small ones, so you can add small amount of iron at a time to gain strength for the long term) and read Pavel Tsatsouline's Power To The People, which is all about strength with the minimun equiptment. PS. The secret of getting bigger is this: eat a lot more than you do now. If you really are that slim, you may need to double your calorie intake. Train twice a week doing the big weight lifting exercises: 1. Squat or Bent Legged Deadlift (which one you have equipment for) 2. Bench Press or Weighted Dips 3. Dumbbell Rows or Barbell Rows Do something like 2-5 sets of 5-15 reps, with 1-3 min rests between sets. Keep a journal and keep every session similar so you see real progress. Add a small amount of weight to the barbell everytime you reach the rep target for each set. Eat enough to keep this up for a few months. Do this and you'll get bigger and stronger. Read the aforementioned books for more detailed info.

More than one! J/K

I disagree. Mastery of karate comes when you get by without ever having to fight. Until then, you have not mastered budo.

If you think your instructor is harsh, read this article: http://www.joelewiskarate.com/joe-lewis/article5.asp then make up your mind if he's too harsh. But as said: you determine what you want to do. Nobody can force you. If you don't like it where you are, go somewhere else. But before you do that, think: are you just doing it to get it easy instead of really working for it, or are you justifiably getting wrong kind of instruction.

Simple, yet to the point. Relax, smile a bit, then start playing the game. First thing: try to keep your eyes open and see what's happening. Bite your teeth together and think "it doesn't matter if I get hit, but I'll try to sidestep and counter if I can". That's all there is to it. Experience will do the rest. And the more different people you spar with, the faster you'll learn it.

They aren't "angles" per se. A better term would be "The Five Strategies/Tactics of Attack" but Lee chose to use the word "angles" to describe them. They are an essential part of JKD and are thoroughly explained in his textbook Tao of Jeet Kune Do.

The problem with TKD people isn't that their self defence doesn't work. The problem, as I see it, is that 99% of the schools focus on the sport aspect. If you get 5 minutes per session of self defence instruction, it won't help you when you need it. And it is hard to find a TKD school that doesn't focus on sport. PS. I understood your point

Where I live, the laws about both: guns, and unarmed self-defence, are very strict. Guns are very hard to get legally (you need a good reason, "for self defence" isn't enough) and even harder to get illegally. And if you use a gun here, even in self defence, you usually get a long sentence. So, here knowing martial arts is the best option. Just the other day, I read in a newspaper that a gas station owner was convicted because he fired a warning shot in the air with a shotgun when robbers were outside. He had to pay fine and, you're not going to believe this, had to pay to one of the robbers for causing mental distress! That is the law here, guns just aren't tolerated in any manner. The good part of it is that even the criminals have hard time getting firearms, so you don't have to be afraid everyone's packing. The bad part is that if you want a gun, you have hard time getting one.

And that is where you got it a bit wrong. It is "primarily a ground art" with the sport rules. This same issue often rises with Sambo. People don't realize that there are three versions of Sambo: sport, self-defence, military. In a same way there are two versions of BJJ: sport, self-defence. The difference is in the rules. If you go to a BJJ school (or Sambo school) that only teaches by the sport rules, you can understandably get the idea you obviously have of the art. I should know. In my country, BJJ is very new thing. Most training groups are lead by blue belts, as nobody here has a higher rank yet. We are lucky if we see a back belt from abroad twice a year. In the early steps of spreading BJJ it is usually done with pure sport rules. Thus, in my country, the only BJJ that is taught in class is the sport version. Sambo has been here for a bit longer (because the best source is just a couple hundred miles away), it started here with the sport version spreading first. Then when the quality of students rose, self-defence Sambo arrived here too. My guess is, you have yet to see self-defence BJJ. It is just my guess, based on your post, but my guess is that you have only seen the sport BJJ. I have been introduced to self-defence BJJ even I don't actually train in BJJ at all.

Make sure your form is good (use hips, legs and back to generate power). Hit the bag, hit mits, do some speed push-ups (like clapping hands together during pushups) and so on. Build stronger muscles via weight training.

Different arts and styles prefer different kinds of knots. Here's one way to do it: http://www.combatteam.com/belt.html You can easily find other instructional sites by just googleing the web for: tying karate belt. Not that hard...

For those who think that being a cop somehow makes the opponents be nicer towards you, read the story of Sampson: http://www.lwcbooks.com/crouching_tiger.html

Well, first of all. Most traditional arts are "monkey see, monkey do" styles. And true, in the more open styles, you aren't really creating a new style, you just find your personal way of using the style. To give a simple example: Shotokan is very poor in groundfighting and trapping ranges. No matter how hard you study Shotokan, you won't learn much of these ranges. You can go to BJJ school and learn groundfighting, then go to WingTsun school and learn trapping. Now you have rounded up your skills. But this isn't that your Shotokan instructor gave you the tools and you use them as fits yourself. And you can't teach all this mixture of the three arts and call it Shotokan karate. Ergo, Shotokan does not give you all these tools in its own curriculum. Same thing applies to any style. As long as it is a "style" it has its curriculum and with that, it's boundaries (=limitations). The base premise of JKD is to free yourself from such boundaries. It is essentially a MMA, but what makes it JKD is that you follow Bruce Lee's concepts about what in his mind makes a good fighter. He had specific ways of determining the quality of a single technique or tactic. He also deviced strategies and philosophies, like his famous "Five Angles of Attack" and these all are mandatory studies for the JKD student. So, no, JKD is not just doing random MMA, nor is it a style with a curriculum like most other arts. It is a set of concepts, that you use to evaluate techniques, then study them and use the ones that work for you, the importance here lying in the JKD concepts - without them you would just be doing MMA.

Well, sorta. When you study according to Bruce Lee's principles, your art starts to look like the stuff he did too. He didn't just say "do whatever works", he gave strict guidelines a.k.a. concepts to follow. Lee's main points were to not be bound by any one art, and to become well rounded fighter, i.e. to be able to freely flow between the ranges of a fight without problems whatsoever. Because the concepts direct one towards a certain kind of fighting style, Lee's own Jun Fan Kungfu is often used as the base art for JKD studies. So, usually when someon starts training JKD, he actually starts studying Jun Fan Kungfu and then he tailors it for himself using the JKD concepts. Did anyone understand? Could someone with more JKD experience tell more here, please?

JohnnyS had some excellent points there. 1. BJJ self defence teaching is usually done standing up, not rolling on the ground. 2. Ground grappling has it advantages on the streets in some situations. 3. When you start grappling on the streets, you are not as gentle as in the ring. For example, nearly all ring rules have a rule that "unsportsmanship" will be punished/disqualified. That means that you are not intentionally allowed to injure the opponent. In the ring you go for submission. You do an arm bar to make him tap out, not to break his arm and continue beating him to pulp (or running away). A normal BJJ self defence technique includes a) getting close b) securing a lock/hold (stand-up version preferred if possible) c) using the lock/hold to damage him (not make him tap out, but to go all the way and do it fast)

I have studied several arts and styles in the past. None was ultimately better than the other.

World has changed. Back when Bruce was still alive, it was something very new. Lee was both hated and revered because he said things like that. Nowadays people are more open and experienced. Today if someone came up with the same ideas, people would just say "old news". As it should. Many martial arts are far from common sense. Or at least many martial artists. Yes. The whole of JKD concepts are a set of things that help you evaluate a technique, tactic or strategy, according to Bruce Lee's standards. Just as you said, you can see a technique and from your base knowledge of Taijutsu, you can evaluate it's realism, the JKD concepts are there for that same purpose. You see a technique, you check if it contradicts the JKD concepts, if it doesn't you study the technique, then you try it. The final test is, after you have studied it, can you personally make it work? It doesn't matter if it is the most realistic technique in the world, if you can't make it work, it won't help you. Thus you will end up fighting with a style that is completely personal to you and works best for you. JKD weapons training aims for realism. In most cases the basis for JKD weapons training comes from the Philipino art of Kali. Bruce Lee learned Kali from Inosanto and liked it. He also thought the Kali principles overlapped with his JKD concepts. So kali methods mix well with JKD and thus almost all JKD schools teach Kali as part of their curriculum - for both weapons and empty-hand tactics.

Many MT schools divide classes for different purposes, instead of giving classes of everything mixed, they have a technique class, a sparring class, an equipment drill class (mits, heavy bag, two-end-ball, etc.) a.k.a. attributes class, and so on. So it is not necessarily bad if the whole sparring session is nothing but sparring from start to finish and the rest of the classes focus on techniques, combos, fitness and equipment training.