lit-arate

I've done martial arts for twenty years. I began when I was six. I've stretched, and stretched, and stretched. And I'm still several inches off the floor when I do a side-split. I would love your suggestions for how to get through that last bump. A bit of info that may or may not help: 6'6" (1.98m), 185lbs (84kg) (hooray for autoimmune disorders that keep me from gaining weight). I have black belts in American Kenpo and Taekwondo, and can kick well over my head. I do yoga for my stretching, and the usual sets of kicking repetitions. I do six hours of Aikido and three to four of TKD per week in-class, plus my own practicing at home. Thanks to Aikido, I have a strong and flexible core (which gave me a few more inches on my split, I think). Help me, karateforums. You're my only hope. PS. "But if you're 6'6" and can kick over your head, you don't need to do the splits," you say. You're right. Until we're invaded by eight-foot tall aliens whose only weakness is front-snap kick to the chin.

I love GNT's videos, and after he posted this one, I started using some of them in sparring. They're certainly not going to knock an opponent out (not my kicks, at least), but they're great for distracting to set up a more powerful strike--and they're positively murder in point-sparring.

My understanding is that the "Karate" appended to the end of Parker's Kenpo was as much a business strategy as a lineage marker. Unless I'm misremembering my sources, Huk Planas (I think it was Master Planas) has said that the name had several different endings in its early stages (Karate, Kung Fu, Jujitsu) depending on which was more popular. I believe he also said that GM Parker referred to it in conversation as "American Kenpo," and only added the other appellations for promotion. Compared to hard, hard-styles, Kenpo seems to be awfully full of open-hand circles. Especially the later techniques and forms look far more Chinese than Japanese to me (Long 6 may as well be Hung Gar). I had an easier time transitioning to Aikido's soft-style movements than to Taekwondo's hard-style. I was also renown in my Kenpo dojo for being too soft and circular in my movements, so take this with a grain of salt.

I'll be testing for my shodan in Taekwondo at the beginning of December, and in Aikido either December 2014 or July 2015. I already have a black belt from American Kenpo, but it's embroidered with "American Kenpo" in Chinese on it, so I can't exactly wear it for the other two. Plus, it's rather low-quality, so it hasn't so much frayed as just torn off the top layer and exposed a core that belies the thirty dollars I spent on the belt. So, in short, I'm on the market for a new belt. I've scanned this part of the forum and found many useful tips for where to buy belts, and varying opinions on the available materials. I'd like to get a satin belt, because I'm so fancy. However, everyone says that the satin belts wear out more quickly, but I was wondering: how dilapidated is "worn out," and how long is "quickly"? I'm hoping for some actual numbers gathered from experience, here. Like, "My belt was unusable after two years," or "My belt was quite worn but still presentable after six years," etc. I'm leaning either Eoisn Panther or Kataaro, so if you had one of those, that's even better. Thanks much!

I'm an British Literature Ph.D. student/in a few years (hopefully) Literature professor. I read poems to my students while I make them do pushups. (Not really. But I should.)

What irritated me most about this video is that her belt wasn't even. That's something my dojo always emphasized, and it really bugs me when black belts have one side of their belt dangling a foot below the other. That is to say, everyone complaining about the video is being silly. Yes, the guy was awful. Not in question. Maybe he wasn't sure about fighting a woman, at least until 4:00. Then he was angry, and was really trying to hit her within whatever rules this pseudo-organization uses. No, he wasn't trying to kill her, but you note that she didn't just kick him repeatedly in the groin after breaking his knee. So, those arguments are invalid. I think she did exactly what I would have told her to do. She wore him out by running circles around him. She worked his legs like a boss. She hit him in the face with that rear-hand reverse punch every time. And when she saw that it worked, she kept it up. She convinced him early that taking her to the ground was a bad idea, so he gave up on that (bad move, him). She played it beautifully, in my occasionally humble opinion. Final judgment: in a refereed, rule-bound fight between a small karate-ka with solid techniques versus a larger "street fighter" with no technique, this is what it should look like.

It seems to me that the question of "Effectiveness" can be misleading. The beginning of the thread started out with this question, but it seems to have been buried. Is the jab an effective finisher? Almost definitely not. Is the jab effective in a streetfight? Apparently, debatable. Is the jab effective at doing what a jab does, which is keeping one's opponent defensive, thinking about one's hands, and maybe convincing one's opponent to give away his or her favorite defense? Yep. So, if the question is efficiency vs straight power, that's something you could actually measure: energy given for power generated. Taekwondo rear-leg roundhouse is probably the most efficient kick for the massive power it generates. But is it an effective jab? Not in a million years. So, which question are we asking? Power or effectiveness for the designed purpose?

I second Tempest. No center control = no balance, no power, no targets.

I would look to see how people taught each other: The Sensei/Chief Instructor is the one who practices with a partner and makes only a few corrections with only a few words--if even. The senpai is the one standing there not practicing with his or her partner, and delivering a lecture on what the partner was doing wrong. The kohai (I had to look that word up, I admit) are the ones who are both correcting each other. My Aikido Sensei almost never speaks in class. I've had her come over to my partner and I, stick out her wrist, perform the technique, pause in one spot and look down at her foot, and then walk away without saying anything. Technique corrected.

I picked camaraderie, but I think I could have picked "Culture" under a specific definition and meant the same thing. I started as a Kenpo-ka, and switched to Aikido not because I wanted to add a grappling style (as if Aikido fits that definition, but whatever), but because I couldn't find an accessible Kenpo dojo. I added Taekwondo because it's a club at the university where I study. I would train in Fuzzybunny-do if it meant I got to practice some kind of athletic bodily practice with people who love doing the same thing.

You seem quite nonchalant about your condition, but I just want to express my sympathies if it inconveniences or hurts you in any way. I would say that sticking with Aikido specifically will be helpful in ways you wouldn't initially guess. I claim no expertise in Aikido (I'm probably an "intermediate" student, if black belt is "advanced"), but I am willing to say that I have really, really good ukemi. Eventually, you and nage will flow together to the point where nage doesn't actually have to immobilize you, or cause pain; ukemi becomes an almost pre-sponse (like a response, but before). This should help you recognize when you're going to injure yourself before it actually happens, both on the mat and on the stairs. (This does depend a bit on which branch of which federation you're practicing. If you're under someone like Chiba-Sensei or Tissier-Sensei, then you'll learn to flow with nage's insane force, and it will probably hurt you. Not that I disagree with their styles; it's just different.)

That wasn't a fight: that was murder. Give your son a high-five for me.

I second pretty much everything everyone has said about angles, circling, faking, and versatility of strikes. My three additional suggestions (two practical, one abstract): 1) Keep your bloody hands up. Half the points your opponent scored on you were from the flying superman back-knuckle someone mentioned above. That's a move that is super effective, but shouldn't be; your hands should be extended in front of you and covering your face/head so that you can just bat that move away and counter. I think of my defense as a zone defense: front hand covers solar plexus to abdomen, back hand covers solar plexus to nose, front leg covers abdomen and lower. If one of those slides out of place, or drops when you kick (may I emphasize that one again: drops when you kick), that zone is open, and your opponent will be glad to enter. 2) It might be counter-intuitive given your hardstyle background, but I recommend getting your stance forward (weight on front foot, feet pointing forward/45). Watching you fight, it seems like you have a tendency not to follow up or throw multiple multiple strikes, and I'm certain shifting your weight would remedy that. If you're facing away from your opponent when you throw a kick, you have to turn all the way around to throw a hand--and by that time, it's too late. 3) Start thinking about playing your opponent more. This is effectively similar to faking, but a slight psychological difference. As in chess, where you really should be playing through your opponent's head (what will s/he do next if I do x?), I find that I do much better if I drop my own plans and just try to help my opponent make poor plans and get him/her to agree to make a mistake. As with the side-kick groin-shot post above, if you notice that your opponent tends to drop his hands when he throws a roundhouse kick at your chest, give him your chest--and a head-shot. When you think about it, most martial arts techniques (ie. from kata, bunkai, etc.) begin with a block/counter, so it's your job to pick which block/counter you really like, and invite your opponent to practice that technique with you. And an observation: I'm 6'6" (198 cm), flexible, and have solid kicks. I throw spinning kicks, aerial kicks, etc--and I think I've landed maybe two in my years and years of sparring. I throw them for two reasons: they freak people out (so that they make mistakes), and they help my opponent fixate on my legs so that I can score with a basic straight punch. So, learn fun kicks if you want--because they are fun--but don't fool yourself into thinking you'll score with them. And keep in mind that if someone calls your high-kick bluff even once in a tournament by blitzing when you jump or spin, that strategy is sort of shot to hell for the rest of the match for sure, and possibly every other fight you have left in that tourney. Keep it up!

While it may not soothe your nerves in quite the same way, and while it will get easier, I just have to say that I still get flinchy, sometimes. I've been sparring for eighteen years--I can barely remember not being in martial arts--and sometimes, when someone hits really hard, or I know I'm outclassed, or just for no random reason whatsoever, I'll have a lot of trouble not looking away or caving when pressure comes on. I hope this is some comfort in that while it may not go away entirely, it doesn't mean you'll make a poor martial artist. I've won grand champion in tournaments where I've flinched and shied away in some rounds. I've never been a terribly aggressive person, and you don't have to be, either. Best of luck to you, and long live martial artists who don't much like hitting people but are good at it, anyway!

Started just before I turned 22. I figured that I had no marketable skills, so I should have some incredibly refined and specialized unmarketable skills. I appreciate very much both the fact that you quote yourself, and what you said. You're right; if the problem is length of time to belt, then changing that length in either direction won't solve the problem. I really, really, really like your approach. Oh, the readings of threatened masculinity I could do on this ... No, not wrong--just an infinite rabbit-hole of semantics. What would it mean to "convey a system"? I'm pretty sure that one could, with equal reason, argue my capacity to convey the system of American Kenpo (I can execute the full syllabus) and my instructor's incapacity to do so (he's always refining his execution of the syllabus) with nary so much as a breath between. I think this post just operates on the same flawed logic that Shizentai corrected me on: why not just have 500 ranks? Why not just two? Because length-to-rank-x is the problem, it can't be the solution. Again, thank you all for your excellent input and discussion.

Two more hypotheticals to reframe the discussion: What if there were a system where it took ten years to get a black belt, but that was because there were something like twenty kyu (white, white with yellow, white with orange, yellow, yellow with orange, etc.)? Let's leave aside that anyone who came up with such a system would make a fortune in testing fees... What if, instead of a set belt order for a style or organization, you let people pick their own order? For example, mine would probably end with a nice fuscia (second kyu)/teal (first kyu)/forest green (dan) sequence. Do either of these help rethink my questions?

. This is quite true. I hadn't considered internal consistency as a factor. I don't yet have a rebuttal, but I'll see if I can come up with one for the sake of argument. The other philosophical question your post raises is: if one plays devil's advocate against a post that is originally meant to be a devil's advocate, does that make you heaven's advocate or do you work for a third party? You have more faith in the average person than I do. I feel like the desire to practice for something other than the reward of a belt has to be cultivated. Isn't that perhaps why it only takes X amount of time to go from 6th kyu to 5th kyu, but 5X time to go from Shodan to Nidan? Valid point. I think this is another place that the metaphor breaks down, though. Academia is largely populated by awful people who would weed out easy-Ph.D.s so fast their heads would spin; MA tends to have neither the forum in which to do that (there isn't a place where you can basically lose your black belt), nor people interested in doing that. But your point remains valid. I wholly agree with your final sentiment. That said, it seems to me to directly contradict the sentence I've quoted above it. Could you elaborate? Yes. I'm sorry, I forgot that karateforums posters tend to be real adults, and not internet-addled children. I believe the proper response to this is: Q.E.D. With utmost respect, this entire post seems to me to demonstrate the exact paradoxical thinking that I originally sought to investigate. Black belt is, according to you, just the beginning, something you don't earn, a point from which to depart, something that gives you a mental boost ... but not something that should just be handed out. What makes six years arbitrarily a better point to just begin, to receive a mental boost? Thank you all for your contribution to the discussion.

By coincidence, I'm going to begin training in Taekwondo tomorrow, and begin volunteer head-instructing American Kenpo for a local social services organization. This juxtaposition had me thinking about belt ranks: I've often heard TKD accused of handing out belts, and I was thinking about how slowed down promotion might be for my students since we'll only practice once a week. And the conclusion that I've over-philosophized to is that objections to rapid promotion stem from a problematic fetishization of the black belt. Here's my line of reasoning. People object to black belts obtained within three years, or to children having black belts. Why? Because a black belt is something to be earned after forty years of training, following a grueling two-week test that culminates with the practitioner defeating an enraged bull elephant using nothing but ki (I may exaggerate this sentiment a bit). And yet, some people (often the same people) love to announce that "a black belt is only the beginning." Both my Aikido and American Kenpo Sensei have remarked that a black belt means you're beginning your training--not that you're a master. So, that being the case: why not give people their black belts in three years if--and this is the fundamental sentiment--if it keeps them training in martial arts. I assume that most of us for whom martial arts means a lifestyle, and most of us who instruct, desire nothing more than for our students to love MA as much as we do, and to continue with it for their whole lives. But that kind of love takes a while to develop--so in the meantime, why not keep people coming by making them feel like they're accomplishing something? You want ten different colors of belts? Sure, if it means that you'll train for three years to get all of them. You want a black belt in five years? Whatever, as long as you keep training for five, ten, fifteen, twenty years afterward. My thesis is that any resistance to these sentiments comes from an unnecessary and paradoxical idolization of the black belt. If it really means "beginning," then why panic when a school has a bunch of beginners? A metaphoric example. If all goes according to plan, in two more years, at the age of twenty-six, I'll complete my Ph.D. in literature from a Tier 1 American Research University. No reasonable person is going to object to me having a Ph.D.; I will have taken all the exams, written all the articles, completed a dissertation. But no reasonable person is going to think that I've reached the pinnacle of my field, or even the end of my scholarly journey; a Ph.D. really is just the beginning, at least if I want to have a career. A key difference: a Ph.D. is pretty much standardized. Even if some schools aren't as allegedly prestigious, the people who went there still did basically the same amount of work; regulations see to that. But the critical notion we can learn from that difference: those people who haven't put in the same amount of work will lose out in the job and publishing market. Proficiency in the field yields results; the title is only a title (and the belt is only a belt). The final key difference, and the crux of my over-long argument: very, very, very few people put in the work to get a Ph.D. and then sign out from the field; lots of people get a black belt and then never train again. So, what we responsible martial arts instructors need to do is de-fetishize the black belt. If you make people feel like they've culminated some sort of lifetime achievement because they made shodan, they're going to quit. Nobody starts a martial art saying, "I just want to get my green belt." TLDR: That thirteen year-old kid's black belt isn't special, because a black belt is just the beginning. Your black belt isn't special, for the same reason. So don't tell people it is, and maybe they'll stop wanting it in three years. Until then, just give it to them so they'll keep practicing. (You know you're a Ph.D. student when your "TLDR" is a paragraph) Thank you for your patience and for indulging my rambling.

For Christmas, I got a set of Proforce Velocity gear. (random link: http://www.discountmas.com/prvepuredorb.html) So far, I super love them. Admittedly, I haven't used them against people yet, just the hanging bag, but they're comfortable and solid. I'm interested to see if the finger independence enables me to use more Aikido when I spar, and I'll keep you posted if you're interested. What I'm wondering, though, is if anyone thinks the independent fingers will be a problem for tournament sparring. I realize regulations may differ from style to style, but just as a general question: different = bad?

Yes, "destruction" is reserved for left hand/foot techniques. And "grammargasm" is the name of one of our shodan techniques. I trained under Sr. Prof. Scott Halsey, who is a direct student of Sr. Master Huk Planas. Master Planas is big on the connection between kata and the techniques, so I'd say it's about even. A typical week of training was about 37.5% kata, 37.5% self-defense techniques, and 25% sparring. And yes, it was precise to the tenth of a percent. Generally speaking, though, I think most Kenpo schools don't focus much on kata (to the detriment of their techniques, imho).

Those are the attacks against which you would defend. Sword of Destruction is for a left ("destruction") roundhouse punch: you step back left and extended outward block, slide back to a cat stance with right, front rising snap kick to groin, land with inward-downward swordhand to C7 ("sword"). The name describes the attack and your response. Intellectual Departure is a weird name for a technique against a front snap kick. Couldn't tell you why it's called that, honestly, except that you open as if you're going to run away on an angle ("departure") and that you cleverly (I'm stretching that) turn back into them for some extra striking. I think the fundamental misunderstanding here is that Kenpo is semi-unique in the way that it's structured. We have basic "moves" like a front snap kick or a left roundhouse, and we have kata ( ) (me practicing our nidan kata), but we also have what we call "techniques." Techniques are a prearranged sequence of moves--whether it's three, like Sword of Destruction (which is a 9th kyu technique) or much, much longer in the later belts--in response to an attack. So, moves make up techniques make up kata. Our moves tend to have (overly?) precise names like inward-downward snapping hammerfist; our techniques have descriptive names like I've been trying to explain; and our kata have boring names: Short Form X, Long Form X.

I hope the above ^ doesn't come off as overly pretentious, angry, or rude. I'm a Ph.D. student, so pretentious is automatic; the other two might come from a schoolyard "don't pick on my style" response. None of these were my intention.

The Ameri-do-te guys are American Kenpoists. And the names are no sillier than other Chinese martial arts styles' appellations (ie., "Tiger Climbs the Mountain"). They're a systematic way of simultaneously providing metaphor and mnemonic devices to categorize the techniques so students can remember what they are. "Flight to Freedom" is a derivation of "Locked Wing"; "wing" always indicates that the technique centers around a full-arm movement (either a full arm lock, an elbow, etc.). It's called "Flight to Freedom" because the opponent blocks the elbow from "Locked Wing" that frees the "locked wing" (a hammerlock (arm held behind the back). The Kenpoka then takes a full step away from the opponent (flight) in order to escape (freedom). The technique "Dance of Death" gets its name from the technique's complex footwork that one does around an already downed opponent to keep said opponent down. A "salute" technique centers around a palm-strike. "Thrusting Salute" is a defense against a front-thrust kick that involves responding with a thrust kick and a center-line palm-strike. Don't get me wrong--they're definitely silly-sounding. But also, "Deceptive Panther" and "Bowing to Buddha" are pretty awesome. Countered, I suppose, by "Prance of the Tiger" and "Defying the Rod," which always make me giggle. You could say them in Japanese (or Chinese, or Korean, or any language that you don't usually speak and also associate with martial arts) if you wanted it to sound less ridiculous--though frankly, "shomenuchi iriminage" (head-strike entering-throw), while it accomplishes the same descriptive purpose, has much less flair, if you ask me.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum from your original post, I'm 6'6" and built like a flagpole (well, okay, not completely opposite). As a result, if I want to hit anyone with any kind of power, my stances have to be low--otherwise, I'm either punching at an awkward angle contrary to my forward motion, or kicking without a stable base. I was also probably the third most mobile person in our Kenpo dojo back in CA--and the other two (my sensei and the sempai) fought from relatively lower stances than I did. So, proof from on high in your favor. Literally.

I'm only a sankyu in Aikido, but I have eighteen years of experience in American Kenpo, so I can offer a specifically wonky perspective. A few other people in our Aikido dojo also have backgrounds in striking martial arts (Goju Ryu and Shotokan), and they wanted to get together and spar. They have significantly less sparring experience than I (they're both still kyu-rank in their styles), so as an experiment, I decided to use primarily Aikido. Of course, I don't really count as an Aikidoka when it comes to sparring, since I was fighting out of my Kenpo stance, and have experience as a striker that most Aikidoka do not have. The moral of the story is: it was rather effective. If one is doing the point-sparring tag-you're-it kind of thing, Aikido doesn't work well, because while the throw is being set up, the other person can sometimes get in a tap (at least, if the nage is an intermediate/beginner Aikidoka like me). But when it came to more serious fighting, I was generally able to execute basic locks and throws without worrying about breaking my partners or getting punched in the face. As for compliance, in fact, the techniques cause more pain if you try to hit the person throwing you, because it tightens up your body. I would hesitate to try some of the more advanced throws--not because they're "too deadly" or any kind of mumbo-jumbo like that, but because it's generally safer if uke knows how to take the fall, and does so without resistance. Trying to throw someone with both arms whilst they hold onto your arms will probably work, but you'll likely both fall down, and someone is going to get unnecessarily bruised. A striker can always pull a strike; it's hard for an Aikidoka to "pull" a throw. On a slightly different note, when I did decide to use striking, I found that Aikido footwork often sets one up for wonderful combinations. Since Aikido generally responds by entering into a strike and then moving behind the opponent, it puts one in position to do much more than harmonize with one's partner. Not that I advocate violence. TLDR: Yes, Aikido works when sparring, but just like you wouldn't actually break your partner's knee, there are some techniques an Aikidoka wouldn't actually follow through to completion.