Wastelander

"Strong" is a very subjective term, and how much you lift in comparison to how much you weigh means very little. What bushido_man96 says is correct--if you want to bench more weight, focus simply on improving your bench press. There are many weight training sites online that can provide you with information on how to do this, and you already know your 1 repetition maximum weight, which is what they will rely on.

I do have one kyusho/pressure point experience I will share: My sensei, before he joined the Shorin-Ryu system we currently train, learned much of what he knows about kyusho and tuite while training in Taika Oyata's system. Taika Oyata's group is pretty much the only one I have heard of that can consistently demonstrate their kyusho and tuite effectively on people who don't know what is about to happen. He was once demonstrating an application for a technique from kata and grasped my right wrist with his left hand and applied pressure to a nerve in the underside of my wrist with his fingers then struck a nerve in my upper forearm with his other hand and my legs completely failed underneath me and I dropped to my knees, and he bounced the strike off my arm to my neck where it would have struck the carotid sinus if he hadn't stopped it, which could have made me pass out due to the change in blood pressure (I have not seen this done personally, but have read about surgeons using something like it to make patients pass out for a few seconds in addition to martial artists saying they have seen it). This was with no warning as to what was going to happen and with me being a major skeptic of pressure points and anything associated with ki/chi/qi/energy. Outside of that one demonstration, my experience with kyusho has been that some of the points hurt and some of them do nothing or very little to me, and when working to apply them to other people I get the same results--some hurt, some do nothing or very little. Typically, I will use pressure points in sparring to make arms or legs hurt or cramp up--typically hammerfists or one-knuckle strikes to the nerves of the forearms during deflections/blocks, or simple leg kicks--or I will use them in grappling to help make space. They are certainly not something I rely on but I will use them if the opportunity presents itself, and if they work then I will continue to utilize them as they become available but if they do not work I don't pursue them.

Women and men alike ask this question on grappling forums all over the internet, and the overwhelming majority of people think that more women should take up grappling! There will, inevitably, be one or two guys in the gym that don't want to work with you because you are a woman, but that just means that they aren't worth your time. If the instructors and some of the more experienced students are willing to work with you then you will be just fine, and if you stick to it then anyone who is hesitant will eventually come around. Just remember that you aren't SUPPOSED to be a challenge for them when you start--you'll be a brand new white belt, just like everyone else who starts a new martial art, and they will expect to work with you and let you practice on them when you roll until you start getting better and they can increase the difficulty level. Just like sparring, rolling isn't a competition, it is a learning tool. As far as "awkward touching" issues go, martial arts are contact sports and if you are training with sufficient focus and intensity you don't even notice.

I have noticed this as well, and even on forums like this one it makes me hesitant to participate in some discussions. I have noticed that during seminars black belts will inevitably only work with other black belts unless they can't help it, and that can carry over into the dojo as well. I am lucky that my dojo does not have this issue, but I have experienced it before. I understand that I do not (or should not) know as much, and I am not (or should not be) as skilled as black belt ranked students, and I am always respectful and defer to them when I have questions. That said, it is definitely frustrating when you are immediately discounted due to your rank.

I assume you are talking about competitive kata performance? If that is the case, then any custom-tailored heavyweight gi is generally the best because it will look and sound the best when you perform. People also often use longer than normal gi tops for that because it helps the stances look lower. For practicing kata for any other reason, just something comfortable and durable that fits properly so it doesn't bunch up or catch on things.

I have two karate gi that I use, one I don't, and two for grappling: KI Heavyweight Cotton Karate Gi Custom-Made Middleweight Hemp Karate Gi Ronin Heavyweight Cotton Karate Gi (too big to use) Datsusara Hemp Jiu-Jitsu Gi Chinese (Unknown Brand) Single Weave Judo Gi I'm afraid I don't have any "ritual" that goes with them. I wash them and hang them up to dry, and then I fold the pants, belt and my UnderArmour up inside the jacket and take it to class, wear it, wad it up when finished with class to take home and repeat the cycle. I don't iron my gi unless I'm going to compete or something of that nature--it's a workout uniform, and I'm going to get sweaty and gross anyway so I'm not terribly concerned about looking good as long as it's clean.

Being a karateka, I understand what you mean when you talk about using the hips. I think that the thing we must remember is that the hips are the indicator that we are striking with power--they don't move on their own, as JZ alluded to. The things that we do to make them move are the things we need to do to generate power 'with the hips'--our abdominal muscles contract to tuck the hips and connect their motion to our upper body, and our legs drive the hips forward so our hips can then be used as a launching platform for our upper body to turn on and generate additional power. If our hips torque into our strikes then it means our legs are driving our strikes, and if our hips are torquing it means the shoulders are probably also turning into our strikes. This is why the hips are the indicator for whether we are generating power correctly.

I've never broken a board for testing, but we do break them for fun every now and then. I can tell you that you DEFINITELY can break your board with a hammerfist. Make sure that you try to hit all the way through the board, drop all of your body weight and squeeze your fist tight and you'll be just fine

I guess by traditional I mean similar to the major forms of karate internationally. I use the term fairly loosely. Humour check, dude. If you are wanting that type of "traditional" then I imagine Koryu Uchinadi would probably not be the ideal fit for you, but you really would have to visit the dojo and watch classes to find out. With regards to the humor check--if I didn't think you were joking I would have gone on a tirade. Instead I said you were silly

Koryu Uchinadi tends to have a good reputation. As I understand it, Koryu Uchinadi is a system that Patrick McCarthy developed based on his traditional karate training and his research into native Okinawan fighting arts (pre-karate), and it is highly dependent upon partner drills for conditioning, sensitivity, flow and practical combative applications. I imagine that every instructor is going to teach it differently and put different emphasis on the level of contact and resistance, even though they would largely rely on the same drills. Whether this style fits what you want out of training is a question only you can answer--go watch classes and talk to people at the dojo. If people from other typically well-respected styles go there, that's usually a pretty good sign, and people who trained in styles with a bad reputation that train there just means they wised up. As far as transferable skills go, I am sure you that you will be able to transfer concepts of power generation and balance, and there may be some crossover in basic techniques but there will be a lot to re-learn if you move to another style. I think what is "traditional" depends on your sense of what that means--most karate that is considered "traditional" is teaching what was taught to Westerners post World War 2, which is generally restricted very much to block-punch-kick karate. Traditional karate DOES include joint locks/dislocations, chokes, pressure points and takedowns. What Patrick McCarthy is trying to do, as I understand it, is bring back the roots of what karate had been before it was watered down into a form of exercise and basic point sparring techniques. As far as your last statement, that's just silly.

Being self-taught works well for a great number of things, but martial arts is not one of them. The problems you are going to face by trying to learn a martial art at home are numerous, but there are two primary issues: -No supervision -No feedback If you have an instructor in front of you, watching what you do, they often make many adjustments every class to how you move and use your body. If you do not have that then you run the risk of developing bad habits that will impact the effectiveness of your training (it takes about 300-500 focused repetitions to develop muscle memory, but it takes about 3000-5000 repetitions to change that muscle memory). You also run the risk of seriously injuring yourself by doing techniques incorrectly--slight mistakes in how you pivot on your feet, how you throw your strikes or how you torque your body can potentially destroy your joints, for example. What I mean by "feedback" is actual physical contact in your training. Without training partners you do not have anyone to work drills with or spar with. Without those things you will not be able to develop your techniques in a manner that is alive and will work for you when a person is actually in front of you and you need to use your training. Without training partners you will end up feeling lost when you actually try to apply the techniques you have been practicing, and you probably will not be able to make them work. I don't want to discourage you from training, but I would discourage you from trying to learn on your own through any sort of distance learning program. They typically are out there only to take your money, and even when they are not they are not an effective or safe way to learn martial arts. If you want to learn Tang Soo Do, there are at least two places in Toledo, OH that teach it and I would recommend checking them out and learning there. If you want to learn martial arts, but are not set on a style (this is a better mindset) then I encourage you to check out all of the martial arts schools in your area, talk to the instructors and watch some classes and see what fits you best. When you have an actual school that you attend and train at regularly, then videos and distance learning programs and personal study can be of great benefit, but without training with partners under the watchful eye of skilled instructors they are a bad idea.

Unless the gorilla was trained to play-act as if it were being beaten, it can't be done--he's either so arrogant that he actually believes the lie he's telling or he's pulling your chain.

I said "extended period of time" because dynamic tension takes a lot longer to make you stronger. bushido_man96's clarification is correct.

Is it necessary? No, it is absolutely not necessary to name anything in any language, but I assure you that humans will continue to name things and use names for things until the end of time . The fact that karate comes from Okinawa and Japan will mean that the Westerners who learned it originally learned it entirely in Japanese, and so they taught it the way that they were taught, and so on. Persisting with this adds some feeling of authenticity and tradition to training, and in some cases (like the word "uke") it can be beneficial as there is not a good English translation, but that's about it. I will note that my dojo has a well-respected psychologist that attends some of our classes and helps us with our childrens' programs, and he has studies showing that children who learn things in multiple languages develop better (mentally) than children who learn everything in one language. That would indicate that teaching children martial arts using Japanese terminology could be beneficial to them over time. I doubt that there is much benefit in that field for adults, however.

My bo isn't tapered, but it also isn't 6ft long or round--I had a bo custom made out of Ipe to be 6ft 6in long and octagonal. It changes the game a bit when you do weapons sparring against a bo that routinely breaks other bo

Dynamic tension is very good for developing muscular endurance, as they will work your Type I muscle fibers extensively. This will also make you stronger, of course, but you will mostly be stronger over an extended period of time and you will not tend to get huge muscles because of it. If you are wanting larger muscles and more explosiveness then you need to work on developing Type II muscle fibers. Type II fibers only come into play when your muscles are required to exert a greater amount of force (something like over 25% of your maximum, if I remember correctly) over a short period of time. Most people utilize weights to achieve Type II muscular development, as it is very simple to increase the amount of force required of your muscles, but explosive exercises like squat jumps and plyometric pushups can also develop Type II fibers.

Interesting! So, in ShorinKan you don't actually follow an embusen as such, you move only forward and backward? Your technique is neat, tidy and powerful. Impressive. Don't criticise yourself, had you not said anything, I wouldn't have noticed! OSU For the three Kihon Kata (the other two are very much like this one--the second has you punch to face level going forward and do a cross block and low block going back, while the third has you high block going forward and cross block going back) we do just go straight forward and straight back, and Fukyu no Kata is much the same but you turn around to go back the way you came. They are really just formalized floor drills to get new students used to practicing some basic techniques in sequence in the air while visualizing what they are doing. After those we put them through the "real" kata, so to speak. As far as criticizing myself--I'm afraid that's just how I am. Still, it does mean I can work on the problems that I find and do my best to fix them

I remembered this thread when I got to the dojo yesterday, so before I did anything else I made sure to record the first kata in the Shorinkan curriculum to add to this thread. I'm stiff and my right side seems to have had an issue (dropping the last punch and the blocks aren't in front of the shoulder) but otherwise it isn't too terrible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZP_Dr1jBpE&feature=youtu.be

In Shorin-Ryu, without the hips your body is disjointed, off balance, slow and weak. I think this applies to all martial arts, for the most part, though.

Very cool, Ev! Thanks for sharing!

Children will tend to do those types of things--even if you explain how they should treat their uniform, they will either ignore it or forget it. The only thing that can really be done is to be consistent with enforcing discipline and protocol over time, and it must start from Day 1 or it is incredibly difficult to reign things back in. I say that you should talk to your instructor about getting into the teen or adult classes if you are bothered by the behavior you are seeing in the younger students' classes. As long as you are focused and disciplined and respectful there shouldn't be a problem.

I'm with Evil Dave and JusticeZero--sexual preference has no bearing on how skilled a person is at martial arts and teaching them.

Ohhhh, there's one down in Gilbert, AZ. I'm tempted to invite them to our open sparring event

In Okinawan kobudo we have a spear called a nunti (or nunte bo) as well as a very short spear and shield combo called rochin and tinbe, and in some Japanese arts you can find yari or naginata. These are the options you might be able to find for spear kata, but I don't believe any of them are typically included in Kyokushin. You could certainly call around to Okinawan karate dojo and see if they also teach kobudo and would be willing to let you drop in and learn about any spear kata they may have. Not all Okinawan karate instructors also know kobudo, and not all of the instructors that know kobudo know spears but it's worth asking if you're interested. I know my Shorin-Ryu organization, which has a kobudo branch as well, has a dojo in Livermore. If I recall correctly it would be a bit of a drive for you, but if it's something you only do two or three times to learn a kata and some basics it might not be too bad. I know that several of our system's dojo have karateka from other styles come in just for kobudo, so I wouldn't think they would have any issue with you coming in. http://www.livermorekarate.com/ And there is also this dojo that might be closer (I can't quite remember where you live) although I don't know much about them other than the fact that they mention kobudo on their website: http://okinawankaratesanfrancisco.com/main/

While I agree with the general concept of these three categories (although I do know that some people get upset when you assign animal characteristics to humans) but I think Evil Dave is correct. I know martial artists who are NOT capable of violence, despite training in techniques designed to inflict violence. As a matter of fact, I actually got into a discussion on a martial artist's blog about that very thing.