BladeSmartNY

The senior student should be the right hand man. He should be able to demo any technique and keep up with the instructor. It's a challenging role to fill because everyone in the class will be looking up to you.

You have to learn techniques before any sparring. Otherwise it's the blind fighting the blind.

I think these are mostly a gimmick. If you are training karate at a dojo you will probably be barefoot anyway. Just take care of your feet. File down calluses and use moisturizers.

MMA gyms have very high rates especially in NYC where I'm located. It's popular and real estate is expensive. If you are paying top dollar for martial arts training, you better make sure your trainer is the best.

What's your goal in Martial Arts? If your goal is a compete in Karate, train Karate. It doesn't matter which are is better than which if you train for sport. But if you are training for street fighting... I'd recommend something with more real world tactics.

The key to high impact kicking is body mechanic and strength. Technique takes millions of reps to perfect. You have to work on turning your entire body from the hips up to the shoulders on each kick. To build strength heavy squatting is ideal.

A lot of people are missing the combat in shadow boxing. Shadow boxing should be done everyday to reinforce all the techniques you are learning. You are practicing combinations, movement, blocks, counters. Your shadowboxing workout should be just as intense as drills and sparing.

It takes certain qualities to be able to go through the ringer day in and day out. Obviously you have them, but the other students do not. That's why very few people take their training to the next level.

You can't really condition bones. But you can condition the muscles on your forearms and shins to kick and block. These can get really tough Over time you will get desensitized. When you fight someone that hasn't gone through this training, they won't know what the hell hit them.

30"... on my work computer.

Breaking a finger can be way more painful than you think. It doesn't matter what size the person is, they will always feel the pain. But what's more important about finger locks is that you can manipulate someone and injure to a degree. You don't always want to fatally damage someone. Applying a finger lock can allow you to control a situation for safety.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9igSoJHEdUo Realize the real dangers of a knife!

Techniques have different levels of effectiveness on different body types. You should be training with all different types of people so that you know how to apply locks, takedowns, strikes to any size opponent.

Don't back up. You have to answer their attacks by going to the inside or outside of their attacks. Ideally, you are the one giving forward pressure.

You need to build conditioning in your forearms. When you get bruised the best thing you can do is take an anti-inflammatory and rest the arms until they are healed.

What are you worrying about breaking your hand in a street fight for? You can deal with that the next day. The most important thing is ending the fight. Chain punching is a great tool once you have made your entry because you can keep going until the fight is over. You also have your opponent backpedaling.

All I see is a fat guy punching another guy standing still in the chest. What does this have to do with combat?

JKD has been so watered down by poor instructors that nobody here can even explain it. JKD is Bruce Lee's derivation of Wing Chun trapping. He took specific techniques that could be combined with boxing to trap your opponent. The key principle is that you keep your opponent backing up with your attacks.

I've trained with sticks, swords, daggers, karambits, balisongs, improvised weapons and nunchucks. They all develop different levels of coordination and the techniques you learn can be shared between them.

Think simple. Improvised weapons can be found everywhere. Any stick you pick up on the street can be a self defense tool. My instructor picked up a railroad spike from a dumpster that is shaped exactly like a karambit.

You want to train in Kali (Filipino Martial Arts). It's a system that specializes in edged weapons. Learning the basics will make you more competent than the average individual in a self defense situation.

A tactical folding knife under 4 inches is legal in most states. This is your best defense on the street. In the event that you have to use your knife, you must contact the police immediately and explain that it was self defense during the 911 phone call. This information is recorded and explains your innocence. When they arrive on the scene follow the instructions of the officer. This information was handed down to me by a martial artist who has worked in law enforcement and teaches police officers/correction officers.

Most street fights end with one guy pummeling the other guy. It's highly unlikely that you will square off with someone and start throwing jabs and sidekicks to gauge your opponent. The average guy you get into a fight with doesn't have training. Or maybe at best he did a little of this or a little of that. When you start blasting him with non stop punches he won't know what to do.

It all depends on the art and the skill level of the practitioner. The Filipino Martial Arts were designed to fight 3 people with 3 hits. It's effective because the hits are all aligned to get on the inside of your opponent and end a fight. Multiple opponents only happens in the street. Now if you consider that most people are training for 1on1 competitions such as kickboxing, jiu jitsu, karate, TKD, etc you will realize that most martial artists aren't preparing for multiple attackers.

JKD is a very elusive art. Many people practice a watered down version of the art because they never learned the proper techniques and how to apply it to combat. If you are looking for a JKD instructor, go for someone that know how to teach trapping in combat. Not just in reference points. Anyone that spent a great amount of time training under Dan Inosanto or Paul Vunak would be very knowledgeable.