Karateka63

if I ask someone who doesn't do martial arts it just feels like I'm bullying them when I'm not because I'm just trying to improve but then I get frustrated because I know I'm not improving because there not really doing anything to make me feel like I'm in a combative situation. there either afraid to get hit -_- or they think it's an invitation to beat the crap outta me -_- then I gotta tell em I'm trying to improve not go the hospital then all the sudden they ease up too much then there afraid to hit me anymore after that -_- this is frustrating because my mom doesn't have that amount of gas money to take me from place to place to place just to train 45 min at a time each day while going to college -_-

how does a martial artist train combat techniques without a sparring partner? I can practice kata all day long, however that just helps me condition my body to make those techs feel natural. now applying it to actual combat is a whole different story because I've notice all the techniques I learn in kata are slightly different when applying them in combat situations. like for example, in the kata, futokata-iche you throw these upper blocks when really in combative training? all it really is, is a upper punch deflecting an arm o.o (amazed) so been wondering -_- how can I get better at combat training when I only have one person that trains me in the combative form twice a week? -_-

I stumbled upon a shorin ryu club at my college and me, being a huge fan of the Okinawan styles and the fact that I hated it when my dojo had to relocate due to recession, out of years of just getting by with kata and crying my eyes out cuz I missed my sensia and all the students that had become my friends, I finally found some free time between classes and decided to jump at the opportunity...........I knew immediately this guy was legit because he was teaching just as my old sensai tought me the simple steps to matsubayashi ryu -_- that and my old sensai made us study the okinawan culture witch I took a great liking too anywho, Idk if it's the yoko geri's or the mawashi geri's or the fact that my new sensai demonstrated these kicks on me to refresh my form of these techniques which I picked up on rather quickly, anyway either I was kicking wrong or it was a time when he demonstrated one of these kicks on my left knee, my left knee......for the past couple of days every single time I throw a yoko geri or a mawashi geri it kinda stings inside my knee and now a portion of my left knee is swollen and warm??? o.o

look guys I'm just a Shorin Ryu Martial Artist Seeking the philosophy, the lifestyle, and combat skills of an honorable warrior who protects his friends and family ok, yes self defense techniques are clever, quick, and good to get out of jams but to be in a fight lasting more then 30 seconds, sorry for sounding arrogant but under those circumstances running would be a pretty good idea.

yea masterpain I agree it feels that way that it would be illogical, however, I don't know any other way I love shorin ryu with all my heart it is the style I will always have a deep connection with, but to be surrounded by schools that do not practice the actual art of combat along with the philosophy aspect of martial arts....... you guys want me to change styles but tho I wouldn't mind a little cross training because I do love MA as a whole however I want to be a Shorin Ryu Martial Artists and a strong wise one at that, how can apply my techniques if all I got are strangers and scarce dojo's? this sucks I want enlightenment I'm so tired of being held back when I know I can do better if the sensia's would just stop with the constant meduim contact sparring I have the techniques down flat....when I'm sparring meduim, but if I fight at medium I will always fight at medium why can't they see that in their student.

I realize my techniques broken apart is actually a pattern that combines into combos masterpain but look, all the fights I've ever been in were in my childhood with my dead-beat father and logically won all of those fights because I was 7 but I put up a hell of a fight just so he wouldn't hit my mom or older bro that was back when I barley knew anything about martial arts, and I still know very little however it somehow seems the only way to effectively improve myself as practitioner of martial arts is to risk getting a couple bones broken all while attempting to put all my techniques to use, see what works for me and what does not. for those that don't work out I'll just train them till they do work out.

it's funny how in martial arts they teach you to avoid fighting at all costs, that is the philosophy behind it yet in order to be a brilliant martial artist you have to train under those conditions, I feel like all my training I've ever done ever was all spiritual nothing I can actually take into combat with.........I hate that this country doesn't have free health care -_- lol

Thank you guys for all your explanation however, I'm getting so sick and tired of feeling like all my training is inapplicable to real fighting scenarios and given the fact that the types of dojo's you guys are suggesting are scarce, I just feel like going outside and getting my butt kicked so many times to the point I get it right I have done kata's for over 3 years, practicing the science behind the movement just to get the technique down flat all in acts to protect my friends and family.........I am a fan of bruce lee and so many other martial artists, I study both the movements and the philosophy behind martial arts because it enlightens me to be a better man for myself and my family. I want to protect my friends and family, I am sick of slow progress if I need to get my butt kicked a couple times so be it, if it helps me protect the ones I love......I'll do anything for them. help me you guys.......martial arts has always been more then a hobby to me I love it.....but to have all my training lean towards philosophy and not actual combat...........I think im bound to make a stupid decision since I can't find a dojo in my area where martial artists will hard contact spar, I'm am sick of relying on my adrenaline! my adrenaline has won me fights! but I hate it when I'm not in control of my own body! I always feel pathetic after the fight weather I win or lose!

ok guys lately I'm kind of thrown off of the concept of real fighting because as Bruce Lee says, if one becomes too methodological your fighting style becomes robotic but if use the Art of Expression you say "here I am as a man". Science = too robotic Art= too unrealistic so my confusion is a lot of martial artists say when you are in a fight it is a series of random brutal chaotic events that play out in a short amount of time so if a fight between 2 people is chaotic, how can an individual effectively apply useful techniques to a fight if the fight itself is chaotic??? (tell me if I'm not making sense) lately I've been trying to figure out why I've become so tense when it comes to sparring and fighting in general, when I train my body I follow step by step to perfect technique and now when I throw these techniques they feel natural in sparring but when I'm in a fight, my fight or flight kicks in and I just feel like going donkey kong on someone. for example, when I practice kicks, I know the movements are Up, Out, Back, Down, I practice kicks in steps and putting those steps all together but when I'm in a actual fight and not a sparring match my body just wants to forget everything I ever trained for and just tackle someone to the floor but I know if I do that their just going to stick their arm out and punch me....but my body wants ta do it anyway how the heck can I stop this lol.

ok besides picking a fight and sending each other to the hospital, how can one get someone to spar effectively without making them feel so threatened that they feel like they have to break your nose just so they never have to spar with you again lol ??? I hate dramatical situations and when you challenge someone the entire situation sounds like conflict when you just walk up on someone and say want to spar, and some people just take it as, "oh he wants me to break his nose.......ok BAM!" lol not that that has ever happened to me lol just I have friends that do this and I mean I thought the entire point in sparring was to improve both people as fighters, not crippling each other till one can't stand? I mean thats a great way to improve your reflexes lmao when someone is attempting to break your spinal cord lol but I somehow get the feeling this is not how 2 people spar effectively?

thx for your help guys, I controlled my anger and didn't fight him I appreciate the words of wisdom thanks.(sarcasm)

I have some confusions I'd like some help with because I'm losing my cool here, this guy keeps threatening my ex and me trying up and down to provoke me to fight him and he keeps harassing my ex is just bawl out crying because this guy will not leave us alone and the only reasons I'm not fighting him is because 1, he's a minor, 2, can't afford to get my college schooling taken away from me because of this drama. 3, I've already won, I had a feeling this guy was a player and he was caught 3 times by my ex's friends with 3 different girls ok as soon as my ex broke it with him he started threatening me to fix it lmao that's how this all started. This guy is 16 years of age I am 19 years old, my blood just keeps getting really hot, my throat hurts, my heart hurts, and it won't stop racing, how can I regain control? How can I not let my bodies instincts get to my head? What can I do to get this guy behind bars? guy wants to join the marine core yet he's on a strict weed based diet, what are some other restrictions of the marine core because I am aware there is good and bad in every profession however I know this guy is bad, I do not want him contaminating the marine core by him getting admitted in, I want to break his arms and legs, I know how to do this but I know that it is pointless and wrong because he hasn't yet laid a finger on my ex or me but my temper keeps getting to me so badly I think I may do something I'm gunna regret later please help me regain control, I haven't been this angry in years? [/code]

just for reference, Ive always known the difference between real fights and movie stunts lol just look guys I guess im weirded out by this because I can control my rage vary well.....its vary hard to make me mad and ive only lost (partial) control a couple times in my short life but and those times I was young and protecting my mother and older brother as well as I from getting beaten from multiple relatives on a daily basis. so I have taken hard beatings by multiple relatives just to protect my mother and older bro. The story a couple posts up is the vary first time anger has ever consumed me in an instant without wanting to protect someone. as soon as I saw my ex walk away with the boy who threatened me, It was like my body took control of itself, I was thinking about the crime I was about to commit but it was like part of me didnt care. to cut things short guys ok look most of my childhood I grew up around abusive people but I took after my mother who wasn't abusive and I hated my relatives for abusing my mom bro and I, I got out of that at age 10 and lemme tell you guys,........I Hate It When My Anger Controls Me I Go Through Great Lengths Just To Control It, When Anger controls me it makes me feel like im one of them, those abusive scum of the earth. Its why every time Ive ever lash out at anyone I always end up bawling afterwords. but if Im protecting someone I love and care for things like this never happen to me I usually have some control and can and have injured or broke up fights without injuring all whilst controlling the flow of what I do in those situations this was the first time I ever lost full control and ill admit Im scared becouse this is new to me and I dont ever want something like this to control me.

guys I have to admit, in all my experience in MA Ive only done light and medium contact sparring, I think this is because most of other the other students where 3 years younger with parents watching from the sidelines, only time I ever did medium contact was in tournaments and Ive been to about 7 tournaments in MA all together. I did spar back in TKD and Shorin Ryu but since my dojo had to relocate and my family and I recovering from an eviction Ive had to shift my focus on getting prepared for college and getting a car for transportation.

I'm sure there will be others here better geared to answering your question, however I'll add my own ideas to this. I think the reason you feel the way you do is because, as you said, you don't get in to fights that often; and so both your mind and body are still in a state of nervousness and doubt. I'm assuming the fight wasn't an easy one for you. It's not uncommon for our bodies to kick in to a state of "auto-pilot", because very often, we give in to fear and panic. This fear and panic isn't something very often emulated in the dojo, and so your mind will treat an actual fight differently from normal dojo sparring. What you end up fighting with isn't a focused mind, but on instinct instead (it's like naturally curling up into foetal position when on the floor whilst being attacked). Anyway, I say, give it time. Allow the anxieties to pass. Re-introduce yourself into training slowly, and if you find as though you can't do that, you may perhaps either want to discuss the situation with your sensei (in which case he may make adjustments to lessons to provide for such real fight scenarios e.g. by introducing pressure testing); or you may want to look at other styles which do incorporate such methods of training (I know Krav Maga is notorious for it). Whatever it is that you decide to do though, I would definitely say, don't give in to fear! Don't allow this bad experience to put you off from training permanently. Be persistent, look for alternatives; and if you decide that taking a martial art isn't right for you, please make this decision with a clear mind. P.S- I'm sorry for what happened to you. You seem like a nice enough person; it's a shame that these things happen. oh I didn't get my butt kicked but my body n mind did throw me off. Lemme clear things up and make thing brief yet not vague. I had been dating this girl for 2 years and before those 2 years we were vary good friends, things went well for this girl and I for about a year and a half and when she broke up with me......a week later after our break up she got with another guy, this hurt but I could handle it and didn't judge her on it, after all ever since the break up we were trying to stay friends.....or I was anyway, soon after she got this boyfriend, she started comparing her new bf with me. I told her to kindly stop as I am moving on and it already hurts enough to randomly run into you guys. she stopped for about 3 weeks then easily picked up on it again. I didn't say anything about it for 1 month and one day, I told her via txt in a calm mature way to please stop if u want this friendship to work please stop comparing him and I. She responded by bringing her bf over to the library and threatened me in the kids section of the library and with her seeing me hurt she left the library holding his hand and.........something in me snapped, I went outside dropped my stuff walked up to them and as im walking up to them the inside of me is screaming, Hes 16.......THIS IS A PUBLIC AREA! JAIL, HE IS A MINOR!!, apart of me didn't seem to care about martial arts or anything all I wanted to do in that moment was plant his face on the concrete. but....when I got up to him and tried to punch him in the face my ex kept stepping in his way yelling stop and for some reason when I heard that my body slowed down and my chest started getting super hot, got sick of my ex stepping in the way so for some reason my instincts told me to punch his hip bone so I did, he then got me in a headlock and I pulled a Bruce lee and bit him and didn't let go till I heard someone coming to break the fight up......Id have to say if it weren't for my size ill prolly be in jail, the guy who broke the fight up thought I was 15. I kept my mouth shut and went back inside but ever since that incident, not only is my heart in pain but my self confidence within my martial arts feels somewhat crippled, perhaps its because im mad at myself for showing weakness. letting someone get to me because only I control the actions I carry out and when this guy provoked me along with the anguish of seeing my ex walk away with him I fell for it. I hate myself for this mistake, no matter how many push-ups I do I cant rid myself of the guilt, I feel useless and I feel like a disgrace to Martial Arts, I feel like I went behind Martial Arts back and hindered my honor.

ok there is this really confusing thing that happened that doesn't happen often because I don't get into fights often but ever since I got into this one fight a couple months back I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on this. Whenever my body and mind felt threatened by this person my body and mind seemed to want to abandon everything I learned in Martial Arts and wanted to go on some sort of Auto-Pilot, that consists of me fighting carelessly. When my body was in this mind set, I seemed to have fought with myself, telling myself as the bully is threatening me, or the people I care for, "fighting carelessly is foolish and reckless I've known this for years, so why is my body reacting this way now?? (thinking this before and after the fight) Ever since I got into this certain fight, I find the auto-pilot is not going away and every time I try to fight it my body and mind seem to counter by making me feel like my martial arts is a waste of time and that I should abandon it all together, and lately I find myself fighting with myself constantly telling myself, "THERE IS LIVING PROOF BY THE THOUSANDS!, THAT MARTIAL ARTS IS EFFECTIVE AND FIGHTING CARELESSLY WILL GET YOU NOWHERE!! I AM LIVING PROOF OF THIS EFFECTIVENESS, AND THE CARELESS ARE PROOF OF THEIR OWN DEMISE!!" (there is more to this story cuz it really only involves one fight that somehow got my body and mind fighting with themselves. help???

[edit: I misunderstood a previous post I think] I have to commend you for being so caring for your mother's well-being. However, I dare say that she'd probably also hope that you wouldn't sacrifice your own career goals on her behalf. The best way to prepare to teach martial arts is to train yourself. So I do wish you the best there. Do you know if the college you will be attending (this fall?) has a karate club? Just as a word of caution though, I have in my life only met one person that was able to pull off being a full-time martial arts instructor, and he did so with a lot of difficulty. It's a difficult thing to try to do. That being said, a good friend of mine is actually a private music teacher and teaches kids' karate too. So it's not impossible. Do your best! -Shizentai yes the college I'm attending does have martial arts clubs and a weight room!

I remember in TKD my body kinda had turrets when it came to bo staff(I kept accidentally hitting myself lol) So my sensia had me try nunchuku and he saw I liked them lol so he had me train with nunchuku as my first training weapon but he still didn't like how sloppy my form was with them so one day he traded me my foam nunchuku for his metal nunchuku and lets just say my form improved quickly every mistake I made hurt so bad I didn't want to mess up anymore.

Now I don't really have a health method or anything because I don't think I can get the ball rolling on eating healthy until I'm on my own because I don't know how to cook much of anything and I can't inspire my family to eat smaller portions of things that don't involve butter or a microwave lol. so that really only leaves me with buying my own stuff witch every so often I also have tried my brother's usually break into my food when the junk is gone. but what I do for now is, since I began my mulching job a year back I have switched to guzzling water and milk because if I guzzle soda it really slows me down and boss gets on me about being slow plus every so often we will work a long day and one day I threw up my soda on the job so that's what inspired me to make the switch lol. since the switch I feel more alert and awake and I have way more energy then I did with pepsi. that's about it with my health habits for now.

oh yea, and just to let you guys know, sorry for the long posts, this forum kinda took me by surprise because it actually is a forum where people actually log in and are active and 2 other karate forums I went to are or have become dead lol. so due to the fact of finding noone to talk to about specific MA ideas and decisions aside from my best friend Sam who is far less experienced then I am in MA and whilst training mildly now, that's going to change soon cuz some MA people on this forum gave me some advice that inspired me to go back to how I used to train even tho it was still alone but alot harder then I train now, so if I have long posts just know it's because I haven't talked much about MA in the past couple of years and all the information question's I have been bottling for the past couple of years are now being vomited lol on this awesome forum.

I also have a best friend who I inspired to actually hit up a dojo awhile back and wound up taking Krav Mega and it was like this christian money raising thing anyway Shortly after the bad economy hit My best friends dojo still stood in place for a 2 months longer then mine did and eventually like my school had to relocate, before the relocation tho I asked my best friend to ask his sensia if I could join a free class, Best friend gave me the ok so I tagged along and even tho his class was less strict then the dojo's I'm used to attending the sensia did what my sensia did, he never judged my previous arts even complimented them and welcomed me to train and even understood I was going to have a little Shorin Ryu Turrets lol. The only thing he didn't let me do was spar and again I understood. Had fun there even tho they only had class 2 times a month. so I really only went once but the ironic thing was I was so open minded and Enthusiastic about his class, after class (I was really just desperate to get back into MA after finding out my dojo had to relocate.) He gave me a piece of red tap and put it on my white belt, announcing to his class that I had the Highest Fighting Spirit in his class. (I brought white belt because I was new to that style) My Best Friends Sensia's Class was about an hour and 20 minuets and the balk of it was just fitness things, push-ups jumping jacks, running around the dojo forward backward side , the usual stuff lol..we didn't get to the Krav Mega Techniques till about 40 minuets in and that lasted about 20 minuets and finally ended in Kata, the last 20 minuets, tho he didn't teach me any Krav Mega Kata's He was however nice enough to let me perform a kata I know from Shorin Ryu. even tho I was a little weirded out on how the sensia not having the entire class suffer for someone trying to cheat because there were alot of cheaters in that class lol. In the dojo's I'm used to is if you were caught by the sensia trying to cheat your way to success, the entire class would get double the reps and the idea behind this tactic is to make the entire class want that one person to stop cheating themselves. despite this fact I still had a great time and learned some new things about Krav Mega. so I guess a big difference with cross training is: In order to effectively cross train either the class or 2 or more people have to be accepting of each others style differences and yet at the same time be open to learning ideas the other persons style has to offer. Makes Sense

Yes that is what I've always believed, every style has there own strengths and weaknesses and it's never the style at fault it's the fighter. I know this isn't really cross training but before long before Matsubayashi Ryu I took TKD from age 4 to age 10 and made it all they way up to red belt before my family moved away, my mother grew sick of mine and my brothers abusive environment around my relatives A.K.A as my mother and I like to call them lol (Those People) Keep in Mind I do not consider my relatives as a part of my Family. They were dead to me long before the move. Anyway, the point is I did manage when I got into Shorin Ryu by age 15 I found I could add what little knowledge I had left in TKD to Shorin Ryu. My TKD got rusty by the time I joined Shorin Ryu tho. (its because I neglected stretching and only concentrated on technique) and Because I fell into one of those life crisis your everyday 13 year olds aren't supposed to have. (Heavy Anger over Court Battle with a guy who was a main participant in abusing my mother, me, and my older bro) but idk how but when you take a style for more then 4 years bits of the style seem like they will never leave you so when I joined Shorin Ryu I only remember the TKD fighting stance, basic blocks and about 3 kicks lol but I had managed to be able to change Style's mid sparr and throw people off tho sadly lol but I found that my sensia doesn't like it when you don't use the style he is teaching when Sparring. He told me to save it for tournaments because inside his dojo he is strictly teaches Shorin Ryu even tho some TKD moves are already interbred into alot of styles including Shorin Ryu and added if he let people come in and change style's there would be alot more accident's in his dojo that would get people hurt and that he didn't want that. I understood and listened cuz it was understandable.

The funny thing is I was up last night watching that same video but the guy was moving so fast I could't see what he was doing, so today I kept clicking the pause and play to sorta give me a slowmo and MY MEMORY IS REFRESHED! DOMO ARIGATA!

ok I know strange practicing kata's at 4 A.M. but hey I was bored and curios of how rusty I have gotten and well it turns out I can't finish Pinan Shodan cuz I forgot the Moves half Way through!! can anyone help me on this? I remember this much so far: (Maintain Zenkusodachi) I think it's called for the fallowing techniques start out turning left, then upper block+Gut Punch (only way I know how to describe it) then turn right, Upper Block+Gut Punch next, step up and draw your hands to the left side of your hip, making a fist in both hands, place your right fist over your left fist. The next few moves involve maintaining (The Nihachidachi Stance) other wise known as (Cat Stance. ) keeping your fists at your left, slide your right foot out in front of you and while your right leg is still extended outward, turn right until your at the place your right shoulder used to be then Front Kick+Back Fist then turn around and whilst maintaining cat stance use knife hands 3 times as you step forward 3 times simultaneously switch from left hand, to right hand, back to left hand then on your fourth step use a Knife hand Thrust with your right hand (I forget What this is called) then looking left turn all the way around until your facing left, then throw 2 knife hands whist in cat stance and after that turn directly behind you and throw 2 more knife hands now: this is wear I draw a Blank , Maintaining Kosadachi You??? (Keep in Mind I do feel dumb after writing this out cuz I just realized I could have just started explaining right at Kosadachi but since there are so many different ways this kata is performed and youtube won't do the trick I kinda felt like I had to be descriptive so people know the version of Pinan Shodan I practice)

alright 2 years ago, I went looking for free trail classes around Columbus because I was that desperate to get back into MA despite the fact I nor my mom could not afford it so I found a close ninjutsu school nearby that my mother was willing to drive to. I kinda had a bad experience at this dojo because of 2 reasons: 1- I had been so dedicated to Shorin Ryu that, this is going to sound confusing but somewhere along the line of practicing kata and yakusoko drills and overall working on techniques, The Shorin Ryu Style seemed to become apart of my natural reflexes. My body kinda already goes into Shorin Ryu fighting stance and I throw Shorin Ryu techniques without really thinking about it, it just seems natural to me. anyway the dojo didn't seem to like this and told me that I had to be learn to be able to forget everything I learned at my old dojo in order to be able to learn a new style and I guess this scared me because I became worried that I would be forcing my body to forget a style I Loved witch brings me to my second reason: 2-After class the sensia and one of his black belts started to explain to me how defective Shorin Ryu was over Ninjutsu and how Ninjutsu people can beat Shorin Ryu people more efficiently and how there Style Rains Supreme over all other Arts. I don't know why but my body took this as a threat, my blood was boiling more or less lol, still I stayed respectful and humble and after that I got out of there so my question is: How do you go about Cross Training without the fear of losing Valued MA Style Knowledge in a specific MA Style???