Kirves

Kali and American Kenpo, both have the fast-slapping hand action that can be made look like that in the film. The film had everything sped and cut up so it was hard to see much else than "slap and flash".

If you have access to a Sambo school, go check it out. It is a lot like Judo, but has some differences in their approach.

You're probably right. Hokutoryu was founded by a Finnish body guard / security professional (who had Juko Ryu Jujutsu, Kyokushin Karate, Kickboxing, Boxing, Wrestling, etc. experience), and the style is popular in Scandinavia, Western Russia and the Baltic countries. It is very well known for it's realistic approach and is the art of choice for most police officers, guards and military personnel around here, especially in Finland. Hokutoryu has empty hand techniques for all ranges, police baton techniques, methods for submissing the opponent for easy hand-cuffing and weapon disarming. Of course other arts have them too, but these are the focus of Hokutoryu training so it does seem tempting for me. Hokutoryu uses full contact bare knuckle sparring from green belt on and the style has a good record in the local NHB/Submission Wrestling/Freefighting tournaments. Yeah, I think I'll talk to the instructor today. PS. If you want to compare the styles, there are some Hokutoryu video clips at http://www.finjutsu.com/Videoleikkeet/videoleikkeet.html tell me what you think.

Pukulan Pentjak Silat Bukti Negara is a subsystem of Serak. While Serak is an old school designed for a full time warrior, Pukulan Bukti Negara only has the core of Serak so the modern person with full time job and a family can still learn effective self defence method. It was founded by Pendekar Paul De Thouars.

Why not Pukulan, it's much faster to learn...

It is always better to join the affordable nearby school you can continue with than go to the one which teaches "the ultimate dream art" but due to costs or timetable you are never able to attend. (This piece of wisdom assumes the affordable school is not one of the famous McDojo franchice line) Even if the judo is taught with sport rules in mind and lacks some of the realistic good self defence tactics which are taught in some other schools, you get what is called "the delivery system" from it. If you get real good with judo, someone can show you a nice neck manipulation crank in a seminar and you are instantly able to make it work because you already have the base delivery system. On the other hand, if you try to study an art which teaches all the neat stuff but the school is far away and costs a fortune to train in and because of all this, you only attend once a week, you get to know lots of neat techniques but because of lack of basic training you never get very proficient in applying the neat techniques as you don't have "the delivery system". Hope you understand my rant, English is not my first language and I wrote this is a hurry.

Well, first of all, I was mostly fooling around, but I see your point too. Yes, in Aikido you have stuff to attack with if you want. But most people interpret the O-Sensei's philosophy as one of not attacking and if attacked your self, not damaging the attacker if possible. Well, at the moment I'm a bit confused. My previous training was "The Inosanto Blend" mostly composed of Kali/JKD/Silat in that particular order. Most of my training was with Kali techniques, using JKD Concepts as a filter with which interpret the martial arts as a whole, and some Silat thrown in for a measure. Later, once I moved, I started Karate but now after a few months I have grown to dislike the school I'm in. Now I'm on the lookout. I have found a Hapkido school that looks interesting, but am also looking into this Hokutoryu Jujutsu school I found today. Hokutoryu is a very modern all round self defence art and seems very promising. I still have some JKD interests and feel like I inspect everything I see with a JKD filter on my eyes, so I am contemplating on a possibility of studying JKD and some other arts mixing them up in the future. I need realistic self defence, because of my line of work (security) and that's why I'm less interested in tradition and lineage and more interested in how much bang-for-the-buck I get AFA self defence is concerned. PS. I might add that because of my JKD past I have ran into lots of people from different arts and even I don't train most of the arts, I have been thrown around once or twice by many of them and have at least superficial knowledge of them.

The movie is good. Best car chase in a long time. The fight scenes are cut and sped up for super-duper-fast-action, but looks a lot like american kenpo at times. Though looks a lot like other arts too. Hey, he's a super agent, he's probably been taught American Kenpo, Krav Maga, Jujutsu, Hapkido and Systema.

True, but there's more to grappling than what Aikido typically teaches, so if one wants to learn a complete grappling curriculum, he may end up wanting more if he takes up Aikido alone. Aikido attacks - now there's one more oxymoron! (just foolin' around) Several Aikido locks and moves can be performed on the ground, yes, but it is hardly ever practiced in Aikido dojos and don't tell me that if you've seen someone dabble with it a couple of times, he's going to pull it off in a fight. If you think of grappling as a whole, Aikido focuses only some parts of it (mostly limb joint manipulation from standing or kneeing position). Wrestling focuses on another part of it (clinch work and ground work, with less wrist manipulation). BJJ has a more wide grip as it has lots of the stuff Aikido has, but also stuff wrestling has, and some other stuff too. PS. I'm not saying Aikido is bad, or BJJ is good - I don't study either myself. Just saying that if someone "wants to learn grappling" he might want to check out an art with both standup and onground work trained regularly.

Aikido has standing and kneeing grappling, but not really wrestling or that much clinch work either. Although there are lots of different Aikido styles with differing focuses, I've yet to find a style that trained techniques in the guard, bottom or side positions on the ground. They more or less focus on the limb joint manipulation and locking from standing or kneeing positions. But as I said, there are several styles and certainly I'm not familiar with all of them.

Thanks, I'll look into those! I also found another promising looking club that teaches Hoi Jeon Moo Sool (more info about HJMS can be found at: https://www.ltky.lut.fi/org/hjms/engl.htm).

You make a very common mistake. That (usually 4-5 min) figure comes from person not breathing, which is totally different than blood flow to brain being cut off. A person can stand minutes without breathing because he has several litres of blood already in his system. The oxygen he has in the blood will last for minutes. But whoops, when you cut off blood from circulating to his brain, all that oxygen already in his system is cut off from accessing the brain. Brain damage comes a lot faster that way.

That's right. And "too far" isn't that far either. It's only a few seconds, definitely under one minute. You have to watch the guy carefully and release the second his lights go out!

Well, your real dilemma (there's the spelling ) is not about martial arts but about wether you have the courage to do your own thing instead of just following someone's lead. My choice would be to try something else for a while, but you're not me.

Thanks for the links!

I have only a few months karate behind me, but I already found out the karate dojo I've been attending, isn't authorized by the style headquarters at all and any rank given by that instructor is not valid by their standards.

Is there any martial arts action in Chuck Norris' new flick The Bells of Innocence?

Nowadays there are several different organizations in Japan, and abroad. What O Sensei did or his followers do, is no longer the de-facto standard that everyone is to follow.

Again, that's just one organization's policy.

Sure, I was impressed, "Wow, great circus!", but I wasn't impressed in the way the text implied, i.e. "Wow, great martial artists!". But that's just me with my background. One man's opinion only. I have seen demonstrations were I was impressed about the martial skill, not the acrobatic skill of the demonstrators, but as I said this is just my opinion, and hey - what do I know?

Nice videos and seems awful lot of acrobatics to be "more martial". I never understood teaching high, flying, spinning, etc, kicks for self defence. Especially if their agenda is to state their style is not sport but more martial and realistic. The videos were nice to see but left me confused.

You're right, and it was merely an observation. I did forget this anyway: good luck to the original poster!

It depends, but usually if I just "drop into" a sparring stance to show something or for no reason, it looks mostly like option B. But when in action, hey that's another story.

I have never seen a dojo which allowed under-aged members to test for BB but hey I don't live in the U.S. Around my neck-of-the-woods a BB means a lot more than knowing the required kata, technique series, etc. It also means one has shown maturity in life, has the psychological maturity to own such a weapon as martial arts skills (usually under-aged aren't allowed to carry weapons, drive cars, drink alcohol, etc. and for a reason that's been scientifically backed up: they're not mature enough). But again, I guess the culture in the U.S. is a bit different about this, I've heard there are BBs under the age of 10 up there so maybe the Americans mature early or something...

May have happened for some people, but the modern system of colored student ranks and black trainee ranks were simply invented by Jigoro Kano (the founder of Judo).