Groinstrike

Thats never fun, It seems that i take far more head trauma while grappling than striking, due to scenerios just like this one.

8/22 Warmup consisting of bagwork, jumprope, jumping jacks, pushups, and dumbbells all wearing a snorkle. 6 rounds sparring

I find the limited responses to this question slight unsettling. I understand that many schools have a limited focus on sparring, i also understand that many people have different definitions of what a beating constitutes. I personally believe that fear and pain are instrumental into molding a proficient martial artist. I have seen too many martial artists that cannot fight their way out of a paper bag. Maybe i am just being grumpy, but when my girlfriends 13 yo nephew has earned his black belt in tkd and he can't answer the most basic self defense situations it really grinds my gears. Rant Over. Feel free to disagree

8/17 Warmup 9, 3minute rounds of MMA sparring at 60-70 percent. Training ubrubtly ended when i kicked my only training partner in the liver, making him lose his lunch. Luckily he got to the bathroom in time, YAY ME!!!!

8/16 Takedown drills 45 min freeroll Watched Big Trouble in Little China to get some of our younger students some culture. I am apalled that a 20 year old has never heard of this movie!!!!!

8/15 Light clinch work light GNP and grappling

Are their guns allowed? if not i will be attacking during their sleep.

8/11 Giant open mat with our entire clan. Worked grappling, gi and no-gi, clinch fighting, trapping, and freesparring. Got hit in the groin rather severly, had a throw down with the longest tenured member of our association, played around with our new guys as well. Got some great mat time with tallgeese, masterpain and spaceman craig. Fun was had by all. p.s. Congrats on the purple belt Alex.

Good times, it was great to get on the mat with Tallgeese. Seeing youtube videos of myself makes me hate the sound of my own voice, i sound way more southern than i actually am. Also i find it hilarious that most of audio from these is me asking how to run the camera.

And this is a virtue how????

I have read this book and was very impressed by it. I believe that it should be required reading for any martial arts student. I also believe that it should be required reading for every freshman boys P.E. class. Fighting over anything other than your life, your safety, your families safety, or your general wellbeing or wellbeing of others is assinine(sp?) in my opinion. Being a high school teacher, i see "fights" all the time, these are usually glorified pushing matches. There is a stigma held by many young people that fighting is cool and gives you "cred" or makes you "hard"(never understood that one, somewhat disturbing). The fact of the matter is that fighting is dangerous, and people are severly injured and die. A real fight is a chaotic, dangerous, brutal enviroment and you don't want to be in the middle of one. That is makes awarness so important. If you are in a bar and can't notice who the trouble makers are, you may find yourself in the middle of a very bad situation. Even if you can't avoid a fight, your awareness of the situation can allow you to get into positive body position or near an exit. (Sorry for the rant)

I disagree, i have found that the only thing the spazmatic types respect is pain. This is not to say that just because someone is throwing with far to much power during sparring, that you should immediatly destroy them. I recommend first asking them nicely to calm down, if it continues ask them again to calm down. If they still don't heed your warnings, hammer them, hard and fast. Don't continue beating them into a pulp, but instead explain to them that you are attempting to help them and have there best interest in mind.

What is "k-control?" 8/10/2011 SL 5x5B Squats: warmup: 45x5x2, 135x5, 205x3, 225x2; work: 270x5x5 Overhead press: warmup: 45x5x2, 65x3, 85x2; work: 135x5,4,3,3,2 Dead lift: warmup: 135x5, 175x5, 210x5; work: 295x5 Assisted pull-ups: 8,8,7 Stretch: standing and kneeling quads, front and side kick bar stretch. Today was a mixed bag at the gym. My first stall on squats was at 270, and I was able to push through that today. On the other hand, my first stall on the overhead press came today as well, so I have two more sessions to see if I can push through that, or if I need to deload. K-control is a position from open guard where you are hooked under there leg with an arm and have a knee in the opponents chest while extending your hips. I find it is a really good position from the bottom for a stack-happy opponent. 8/9 30 min freesparring 45 min freeroll Drilled Marcelo pass from butterfly Drilled half guard sweep series

8/8 Takedown drills to warmup 60 min freeroll went of techniques from "k-control"

Way to go, im sure it will be incredibly rewarding. Don't worry about being "too old" one of the most impressive martial artists i know started when he was 50, got his black belt when he was 55, is now 75 and scary as hell.

Being from a combative system where defense is paramount, i don't think i will ever get past the idea of self defense. We do, on occasion, dable in sport applications. But the center of our system will always be efficient and realistic defense.

Great link, thanks MP.

Even training full contact, injuries will be rare. I've only been hurt twice in 20 years. Much safer than most sports. I've had a few slugfests with LiverPunch that rank pretty high. I took a great beating with a padded escrima stick by a guy named Errol. It should be stated that Errol is an instructor in Escrima who trained under the great Angel Cabalas. Nothing to be ashamed of there MP.

Second Honorable Mention: The mos vicious low blow ive ever taken was by Sensei's wife during a womens self defense course. I was a co-instructor and somehow drew the short straw to be the "attacker" on the night we were introducing knees to the groin. She is a TKD black belt in her own right and even though i was wearing two cups, left me a coughing pile of goo on the floor.

Im posing this question out of sheer curiousity, not all schools believe in hard sparring, mine however does and usually this leads to me being beaten up on a bi-weekly basis. Probably the worst ive ever gotten it was from my sensei who hit be with a 3 punch combination followed by a knee to the head while i was against a wall. I lost the ability to speak for about 30 seconds. Honorable Mention: Any time we visit our sister school where the Sensei is a Kyusho Jutsu instructor. I always get to be the pressure point dummy. Fun Stuff!!

Thank you for clearing up my point for me without going into a rant about the plot from "In the Army Now"... starring Pauly Shore.

8/3 Light 40 min freeroll worked backmount control and escapes 15 minutes boxing.

It seems to me that you are pretty convinced that parkour is a martial art. Thats fine, but if your argument hinges on it being created by a military organization, im not sure that holds water. Many things have been created by the military that i wouldn't consider a martial art. For example, water filtration. Our fighting men and women in desert areas are using some of the most sophisticated water filtration systems that the world has ever seen. These systems aid soldiers and make them a better fighting unit. Now, no one would disagree that having clean water available to your troops is necessary in implementing any campaign. People have to be trained in operating these water filtration units in order for them to be succesful. Now because these people are trained in a discipline that aids in succesfully attacking and nuetralizing an enemy, would you argue that operating a water filtration unit is a martial art. (sorry if i rambled. Parkour was invented by a military organization, it is possible that it could be used for small scale escape and evasion tactics, this is true. But, based on the content of parkour its martial applications would be limited to a very specific set of criteria. IMHO

8/2 Muay Thai drills freesparring with a 6'7 kid, im 5'8 so it basically consisted of me eating kicks from the outside, rushing in, throwing an overhand right, then dirty boxing from the clinch. Worked arm traps and escapes from backmount Hip bump/shoulder bump sweep series from guard 30 min freeroll.

8/1 Boxing/Muay thai drills light sparring 30 min freeroll No-Gi