wayneshin

Congrats. Great effort. I was at the event yesterday and had a student in your division. Unfortunately though I wasn't able to watch him because kumite had started by then and I got caught up coaching.

It has already been said but if you are uncomfortable fighting southpaw then don’t, especially in your upcoming competition. The majority of top level fighters have one clearly dominant side and rarely if ever switch. Many people have the capacity as you have stated to punch well with both hands and kick well with both feet but the ability to move well in the opposite stance is far more rare. You may like to keep training it in class. It is a certainly worthwhile skill but not a crucial one.

I can highly recommend the Arawaza light weight kumite gi's. I have 3 Opals and 2 Onyx Evolution They are easily the most comfortable Gi I have worn. Microfibre, so as well as being very light it has sweat wicking properties. Prior to that I have had a number of Adidas and Tokaido. They are bringing out a new model - Onyx Air -I will be grabbing one as soon as they get to Australia. I can't speak for their kata gi's.

I have taught all 3 of my children and it has been a very positive thing for my family. I have a daughter now 21, daughter 18 and son 15. All started around 4. My oldest daughter is now 3rd Dan, my son is (Junior) 2nd Dan. My youngest daughter no longer trains due to illness. All 3 have been involved in competition and have represented their country on multiple occasions. I have learned plenty in teaching them, made a few mistakes but at the end of the day I have a good relationship with each of them and in my (somewhat biased) opinion, competition aside, the 2 that still train are pretty decent martial artists. My first piece of advice is never ever initiate any training at home. Leave Sensei in the dojo. The second thing is never forget that they will always see you as Dad, no matter that you are Sensei to everyone else. You tread a fine line between being too hard on them and letting them get away with too much.

All the best tomorrow.

Well when it comes to a foot injury and it is causing pain, people will normally change the way that they walk to avoid such pain. So the change in angle/movement of the leg will affect the knee and hip since it was "travelling" up the leg. Hmmm. Not sure if your agreeing or disagreeing but that is exactly the point I was making.

I would be stunned f your foot injury isn’t contributing to your hip problem because you have had to change the way you move. A couple of years ago my daughter (who at the time was 19 and has been training since she was 4) was having similar problems – her kicks had deteriorated over a number of years. It turns out she had development bones spurs on her hip joints, the right (she is right handed) was far worse than the left. This meant the hips were not moving freely within the hip capsule. She also had developed severe osteitis pubis (inflamation of the pubic bone). At the time we became aware of a number of other similar age kids on our state and National team (different clubs) who had similar hip related problems. My daughter ended up needing surgery on both hips. Apparently it was caused by a combination of genetics, her foot position and specifically tightness in the iliopsoas (hip flexor) area. Because there were a few having similar problems we got a physiotherapist who specialised in dealing with Elite sports involved and she believed the problems were caused by so much training on the reverse punch combined with not enough hip flexor stretching. Other factors such as restricted mobility in the foot and ankle may also have contributed. If it is anything similar to this it is not going to go away on its own. You need to get it checked out.

Good effort in both matches. Some nice timing. Just some thoughts that may help you avoid the turning the back issue. Work on some footwork drills, simple moving forward and back. Esp in southpaw stance. You seem to change stance regularly and when you get into southpaw your instinct is to turn away when attacked rather than move your feet.

Good luck to your son. Proud times ahead for Dad!!

For thise who may be interested, the WKF World Championships are currently being run in Bremen Germany. The finals are going to be livestreamed on Saturday and Sunday on the WKF youtube channel. You will fnd links to this channel at wkf.net

I have had a number of Adidas kumite gis and found them very good. Well cut, lightweight, well ventilated. Probably better than the Tokaido I have had but not as good as Arawaza.

This is about right (and stated so eloquently/bluntly). Slipping is about poor body mechanics and the relative ability of your core strength to overcome them. Work on your core/your ability to land with stability and your final position. Maybe traning on the slippery floor is a blessing. If necessary shorten your stances until you can manage them without slipping.

There is so much different and conflicting information in relation to stretching. If you search the internet you’ll find a variety of opinions starting with, You should always stretch before exercise, you shouldn’t stretch before exercise, you should only do dynamic stretching before exercise, you should do your static stretching after your training, you should only stretch warm, you can’t make physiological changes to your muscle length if you stretch warm, you don’t need to stretch at all……………………………………. Very few genuine studies have been done so most is opinion. I found this article recently which does report on a study http://breakingmuscle.com/mobility-recovery/how-often-do-i-need-to-stretch A quick extract from the article; The groups varied in terms of frequency and total time stretching: • Group one - stretched daily, 2x/day, for 14 minutes total per week. • Group two - stretched 1x/day, for a total of 7 minutes per week. • Group three - stretched 3-4 days per week, 2x/day, for a total of 6-8 minutes per week. • Group four - stretched 3-4 days a week, 1x/day, for a total of 3-4 min per week. • Control group - did not perform any stretching. The results of the study revealed there were no significant differences in the rate of grain or loss of hamstring flexibility between the different stretching protocols. All of the stretching groups gained range of motion in the hip when comparing pre-study measurement to measurements taken on week 4. Those who stretched at least 6 times per week gained more than those who stretched 3 times per week - a 24% gain versus a 16.8% gain.3 To me a 24% gain is a significant difference to a 16.8% gain so based on the study anyway 6 times a week is better than 3 times a week. I personally do some form of stretching most days but I base it very much on how my body is feeling

I agree. I spoke to a friend of mine recently who is a fairly High Level (1 Below WKF Level) Referee for both Kata and Kumite and said Pinan Shodan Depending on how well it is done scores moderately but then again Bassai Dai and Seisan score higher due to the 'extra' technical requirements in both which is in relation to difficulty Your Instructor is the best person to advise you of this because it very much depends on the tournament circuit you are entering. Nidan Melbourne is correct. “Technical Difficulty” is one of the judging criteria for kata under WKF rules. Further under WKF rules you would be wearing a blue or a red belt so the referees would not know what rank you were. However many/most referees do not like to see a competitor performing a kata that is clearly beyond their level and abilities and will judge them accordingly.

Congratulations! What an amazing journey you have had. I am sure you have just as many great times in front of you. As others have done I would also like to thank you for your contribtion to this forum

Maybe something for his travel then. A nice piece of cabin size luggage to carry his gear

Love my kindle. Just bought the latter of these for 3.67 on Amazon in about 5 seconds.

It depends very much on the nature of the class and the particpants. I regularly run classes with 30 students and all goes smoothly but I have others with around 14 or 15 participants that I have 3 assistants and without them the quality of the class would suffer.

I normally stay out of this debate because some have very strong views but I have a slightly different perspective to offer. We now have in our organisation 4 twenty somethings all of whom started at 4 years old and all of whom received their Junior Black Belts very young. (10 or 11 from memory). In each case they are very highly skilled martial artists and contribute enormously to our organisation. Children (and adults) need goals and achievement to stay motivated and while it is only speculation I suspect that if we did not award Junior Black belts some or all of the 4 would not be with us now.

Thanks again. On reflection there is one particular combination we use a crossover step for. A punching technique we only use in mirror stance (eg right handed versus left handed) so we can get outside our opponents line. I only teach it to advanced fighters but I guess there is a time and place for everything. One fundamental difference in the rule set (and correct me if I’m wrong) is that we are allowed to sweep and throw. Any kick can leave you vulnerable at an elite level but a crossover step to kick probably more so than most.

Interesting - Nope not against the law here. We get that sort of thing most days. . Some love them - some hate them but most will still pay attention when they get them. The other very successful thing we do is advertise through schools - either ask them to hand out fliers or put something in their newsletter.

This is a great article. I teach WKF style kumite and it is interesting to ponder the difference but especially the similarities in movement. Probably the footwork we most commonly use is what you term the push step. A top level competitor can make up to a metre with this step and if more is required we would use what we term a double step. In general a push step is also the first part of defensive footwork moving backwards. Your descriptions of sideway movement (push off to the open side/switch to the back side) are identical to the way we train my students to move sideways (we commonly call it breaking line) One point of difference – I actively discourage the “crossover/foot-to-foot” especially in beginners. I don’t particularly like them bringing their feet together. For punching a double step is faster and can make more distance. We used to still do it for kicking off the front leg but I have even cut that back. Would you mind clarifying the switch step. I presume both feet move at the same time?? Is it used in competition?? Also if you ever have the time and inclination I would love to hear something from you about kicking drills/setting up kicks.

The term for that position “Hike Te” translates as pulling hand. Ie As previous mentioned grabbing something and pulling it as you strike. Also hand in hand with this is understanding that the term “uke” more closely translates as receive than block. So think of your “uke” as defensive techniques that involve both hands.

Excellent marketing ideas here, especially the cinema ads!! Define, if you don't mind, "letterbox drop", please, thanks!! Simply delivering fliers to peoples letterboxes. Our printer sets it all up for us. He prints the flier then organises delivery for us. The cinema ad has been a real surprise packet. We have probably just had our biggest year of growth and this has been one of the main factors.

Can't help thinking that 2nd clip will live on. I've never heard the term Dan translated as man. I've always understood it to mean level and some quick work with google has confirmed that. I also came across phase and stage which would be a similar concept.