Wastelander

I'm not sure I understand your question, exactly. At my old dojo we did have 6-10 lesson plans of exactly what was to be covered every class for every rank up to green belt (5th kyu), and that was rotated through for everyone in those ranks. White belts would have 6 lesson plans, for example, and so every six classes they would have covered all of the material that a white belt needs to know to test for their next rank, and that set of classes is then repeated over and over again while people either remain at white belt to keep learning their basics or pass their test to go up to their next rank and go through the next set of curriculum. Once you hit 4th kyu and up the classes became much more fluid. Is that the kind of thing you are referring to?

I did mention that price, but that was for Judo, specifically--it tends to be a very cheap art as far as the cost to train in it. I haven't, personally, seen karate any less than $70 per month unless it was free from someone teaching out of their home, although I've heard of people teaching it in park buildings for $5 a month. I haven't seen BJJ cost any less than $90 per month and have seen it as high as $225. As mentioned, I'm sure there are places out there that have very low costs for their martial arts classes but they are probably in very small communities or have very small windows of time in which to train. There are exceptions to every rule, but I think that if you averaged the cost of training martial arts in the US and training them in the UK, the cost would be less in the UK and that is because there are more schools in the lower end of the price range there than in the US. I could be wrong, of course, but that seems to be the impression I get from martial artists on the other side of the pond.

@ Patrick - You will certainly be able to find comparable pricing in the UK to the US, but I think that the key is that the gap is much wider--you are going to find lower prices for training in the UK than you will in the US, with some exceptions. Judo in the US is sometimes free, and when it isn't it tends to run between $40 and $60 per month. That said, most other martial arts training tends to start at $80 and go up from there, with about $110 being the average. That's been my experience, at least.

For the purposes of this discussion, the student and bully are around 13 years old and all of the bullying was verbal/emotional with occasional physical provocation (pushing, knocking hat off, tripping, etc.).

Interestingly, I just wrote an article about applying joint locks in the context of karate--it's nice to see someone in LE who agrees with using striking in conjunction with locks . To the OP, regarding your most recent reply--yes, some styles of karate and kung fu will have what you are looking for, as will some kenpo and plenty of RBSD programs like Krav Maga. The key isn't so much the style as the content that the instructor teaches and how effective it is, so you need to be doing more research on the content of classes in your area, regardless of style, and you need to go to those classes to watch them before you make any decisions.

I'm afraid that what you're asking for is not going to be style related in most cases, but instructor related. For example, Shorin-Ryu karate contains both strikes and grappling and my instructor likes to fully explore both aspects, but some instructors choose to focus almost entirely on the striking. Many karate styles contain both, but you would still need to find out of the instructor actually teaches both. Alternately, you could take up wrestling (grappling for control rather than submission, for the most part) along with an art like karate and kenpo (striking and limb destruction, and maybe some extra grappling depending on the instructor).

Hello everyone, This is an interesting question, to me, so I thought I would pose this question to the forum--how do you, as instructors, handle a situation in which a student who has been dealing with being bullied finally cracks and knocks the bully out?

Can this be done in modern America? If such a thing as the San-Do competition can exist and be sanctioned in two states, I'm pretty sure you could find SOMEWHERE to do something like that

I can't see the videos because I'm at work, but I assume you're referring to the "fist chambered at the hip" position when punching? Personally, I think there is an awful lot of emphasis being put on that without it ever being explained to people, so they do it and think that they are just supposed to punch that way. I know that the chambered hand is only there because it is pulling your opponent toward you while you strike outward, but many people do not teach that or make it widely known, so there becomes some misconception as to what it is for.

Honestly, I probably would have started finding students to train at my home or in a park before I invested in a venue. Word-of-mouth is going to be the best advertisement but if we use your scenario I would say that I would get a big banner printed up with my dojo name and website on it, and I would make the website as clean and professional as possible, and I would also set up a Facebook account for the dojo. There are many sites for reviewing businesses out there, so I would probably set up a page for my dojo on as many of those site as possible and whenever I get people in for free introductory lessons I would probably refer them to my website or Facebook page where there would be links to review me. I would probably also hand out flyers at cultural events and martial arts movies, if there were any at the time. Isn't marketing grand?

Board breaking has always been optional in both of the dojos I have called home. It's a decent way to measure how hard you can hit something (takes about 115lbs of force to break one board and get's exponentially more difficult when you stack them without spacers) but it's mostly for novelty/fun or for demonstrations. I haven't broken boards in about a year, but I can assure you that if you don't drive through and align everything properly the boards will injure you, as DWx says.

In ours we start by bringing our left hand up to head level, open, and then striking it with our right fist, then opening the fist and bringing the hands down to groin level, then we step over before and then step out for the haito-uke/empi-uchi and te-uke. If you are just referring to the beginning up to the step over, we use that as a block/head-grab/backfist counter, then forcing the head down to strike with hiza-geri to the face, then fumi-komi to their knee. If you are referring to the haito-uke/empi-uchi and te-uke, we use that as blocking a punch on the outside and striking the ribs beneath it or the head above it, followed by grabbing the head and applying either a choke or a neck crank.

I have had a broken toe for a couple months now because I keep working out with it and any time I land a kick with my right foot it gets re-injured, so just be careful with anything that will cause your foot to make contact with anyone or anything.

Your instructor being able to see your attacks coming a mile away is fairly irrelevant, really, since you will probably be competing with people around your skill level. To answer your question, though, you really just have to practice launching your attacks without any extra movements.

The word you are looking for is "ukemi waza" which should make it much easier to find information about in Google

Congratulations!

I'm actually having an immensely difficult time understanding these posts--the grammar is atrocious and the spelling is really throwing me off. Who is the "judo kid" and who is the other guy, and who did what, exactly? It certainly does sound as MasterPain described, but I'm still not sure on the details. As for them being 14, I can't say I am surprised, as that is fairly standard behavior for young teens with poor social skills and a lot of testosterone. That said, judobrah, I think it is worth noting that 14 year olds most certainly CAN go to jail, despite how funny you seem to think it is.

The Shorinkan branch of Shorin-Ryu (Kobayashi) has it, although we call it Passai Sho, and we also have Passai Dai. Shuri-Ryu just has Bassai Dai, not Sho. It is definitely an interesting kata with different ways of running it and applying it, but I'm still a beginner in that respect.

I learned it in Shuri-Ryu and still use it now in Shorin-Ryu--the same goes for my instructor, actually. My Sensei typically only uses it when he's punching something hard (makiwara), whereas I use it for all my punches except for my jab, hammerfists and backfists (I use tate-ken with the thumb on top for those).

The same name in multiple places builds name recognition in the area, which could be beneficial.

For Shorin-Ryu (nicely documented): Tode Sakagawa-->Bushi Matsumura-->Anko Itosu-->Chosin Chibana-->Shuguro Nakazato-->Eddie Bethea-->Richard Poage-->Me For Shuri-Ryu (tends to be contested): Tode Sakagawa-->Bushi Matsumura-->Anko Itosu (and others)-->Choki Motobu-->T'ung Gee Hsing-->Robert Trias-->Joseph Walker-->Me My Judo lineage is a little confusing because I learned from two different people, and I don't remember who taught it to their instructors in the first place

Wing Chun, as I understand it, tends to be very focused on fast, close-up striking and joint locks. That said, they also don't seem to hit very hard--it seems to be more focused on blasting an opponent with so many strikes, so fast, that you stun them. WC tends to be labelled as a McDojo art, but I still hold out hope that there are places out there that teach it well.

Mine is built like a tank, but WAY oversized--I actually can't even use it because it's so big, so it just sits in my closet. Still, the fabric is very sturdy and the stitching is clean, which is impressive for such an affordable brand. I find Ronin gi's to cost less and be better quality than several other brands.

Do you know uchi mata or tai otoshi? Tai otoshi will let you slip the throw in regardless of them leaning over, and you can do a modified uchi mata by stepping off to the side and dragging them over your leg horizontally instead of flipping them vertically. It's hard to explain, I'm afraid, but something to consider.

It sounds as if you quit karate because you are upset that you can't perform like you used to. That sounds like a very youthful thing, and I honestly think that you will regret the decision later in life if you do decide to stay out of martial arts. If the problem is wearing shoes with inserts, stop wearing them. Get rid of your shoes and start wearing Vibram Five Fingers shoes on a regular basis, instead. Those have been proven to help build up the muscles in the bottoms of the feet, just like walking barefoot, but still provide protection from whatever you may be walking on. I don't have any, myself, but one of our black belts does and I've had them recommended by a constantly growing number of hikers who have similar problems to you.