AnonymousCoward

Those moves seem very similar to the Fairburn & Skykes methods taught to the very early SAS... All good. For those interested, you can download some of the manuals given to new recruits at: http://www.gutterfighting.org Complete with victims dressed in WWII German uniforms!

Thanks a lot for the tips. I've never read a martial arts magazine before (the pictures on the front always seem to be of muscle bound men in poses) so I'll have to stomach my embarassment and take a look! I'm also glad that my suspicions relating to extra gusset are true...

Slightly off topic, but I reckon that the best sword fighting duel I have ever seen in a movie is the one in Seven Samurai... the tension, the crowd, the grace and poise of Kyuzo - it's got everything. In terms of favourite actors, I don't really have one. But I did enjoy the fight scenes in the new version of the Bourne Identity. I thought they were nicely shot and well written. I think that we might have a suprise in the new Martix films. I enjoyed the fight scenes in the first film a lot and I heard that Keanu was suffering from some back / neck problems in the first film and he's been training hard since then... I'm sure some will disagree, but I thought he was pretty good in the Matrix and I reckon there will be some interesting scenes in the new movies.

I was watching the new series of 24 last night and I saw this guy do a spinning back hook kick at head height whilst wearing a pair of jeans. It got me thinking, I see a lot of high kicks in martial arts movies where the actors appear to be wearing jeans or other tight-ish trousers. If anyone can remember the scene in Timecop where Jean Claude Van Damme holds his leg up to the bag snatching skaters face - those are the tightest trousers I've ever seen in a martial arts movie - how in the world could he walk... In my jeans, the highest I can kick is about breast bone height without causing an injury in the trouser dept. and I also find the denim can be restrictive when chambering a kick. Do the stars of martial arts movies have modifications made to the cut of their trousers? Are they using stretchy denim or are they using another material? Or, do I just need to wear baggier trousers? Or should the awesome power of my kick simply tear my trousers into submission? In movies, often the characters look like normal people. Most "normal" people I know don't wear dobok / gi trousers or other loose fitting clothes for everday activities, so how do they do it? Just wondering what people thought...

I used TMPGENC (http://www.tmpgenc.com) to convert and resize the videos to a VCD complian format. I then used Nero (http://www.ahead.de) to create a VideoCD project with my CD burner. It's jsut a case of drag and drop. Nero will even convert the streams for you, but it's slower than TMPGEnc and you can't leave it over night. If you have other codecs installed such as DIV-X, you can convert your DIV-X's into VideoCD's / SVCD's to play on your DVD player. Some DVD players don't like to play CDR's though, but people have found that their DVD players favour a particular brand of CDR, or in some cases, favour CDRW's. In general though, if it plays MP3 CD's, you'll be OK.

Ah, sorry, as you can see, I'm new to the forum. Long time listener, first time caller. Didn't want to join at first because of the ridiculous flame wars. That's why I'm still an anonymous coward

I dunno, I injured my lower back in a car accident years ago and it still hurts every day, but I've found that Taekwondo has eased up my back a lot thanks to the extra flexibility and strength I've now got. I guess he would have to give it a go, take it easy i.e. stop if it hurts and do as much as he can. Back pain is a strange thing, I've heard from a lot of physiotherapists that the worst thing to do with back injuries is to stop doing anything. But I'd definitely avoid inner twisting kicks! If I was him though, I'd get medical advice before starting any sporting activity though.

My club has guests come in and do seminars. Recently we had a seminar with some Jiu Jitsu people and they showed us a lot of throws and other techniques (arm bars and stuff) which was really great. Unfortunately, at the moment, the club where I train has a hard floor, so takedowns must be done carefully. That suits me though, since I have a back injury which will probably never be fixed, so I don't like to hit the deck. Throws aren't really a part of the what we do where I train, but we are encouraged to use what works for us. Of course, some of the people I train with have studied Judo and other martial arts and everyone shares what they know. Advanced students can partake in sparring using throws takedowns and locks, but only if both people want to. Best thing would be to ask for it if you want to learn it...

I found this to be quite useful: http://www.taekwondo.to/patterns.htm It's got a set of 24 of the ITF patterns in MPEG format. I downloaded the lot and converted them to a VCD. I find it can jog my memory of some movements.