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You can do a number of different excercises with the ball and the excercise you choice will dictate the muscles that it works. http://gymball.com/exercise.html <<< might be useful.

Watched that fight last night, the Cuban was just to experienced, but Khan will go a long way in the future.

Chambering is basically lifting the knee before the kick.

I agree with you Shorin Ryuu.

I dont know much about KSW specifically but you will find that most traditional martial arts are very personal things. Meaning you study at your own pace and the aim is to constantly improve yourself both physically and mentally. So it really doesnt matter how good you are to begin with because you will always improve.

True, in some cases.

I had never heard of this until i did a search for it just then. (i dont know if this will help you)From what i read this is what i now know about it: 1. Does not contain leg techniques. 2. Been around in india for more than 350 years. 3. It was banned and practise went underground. 4. Revived by a british police chief. 5. Originally involved multi-opponent bouts, later on one-on-one bouts became standard. 6. Bouts had few rules and everything except groin was targeted. 7. Deaths were common. 8. Practisioners were known for extreme hand conditioning. Im sure this brief overview doesnt come close to doing the art of Musti Yudha justice, but hopefully it will start you off so you can continue with your own research.

I wear a heavyweight gi at karate and shorts and shirt when training at home.

What a funny story

Maybe even hapkido.

Its important to give your body enough time to recover after each session.

Sparring is a great way to test what you have learned and feel the pressure from a resisting opponent but sometimes the self-defence drills are more realistic in terms of the types of attacks used, e.g. In a very basic self defence drill your opponent punches, you defend then attack. It doesnt continue on in an exchange like sparring usually does. Both are equally important in my opinion, and are used to train very different things.

Maybe you are missing something. Either way have a look around at schools in your area and see what you like.

Why cant you stick with Shorin-ryu?

I doubt people will rely on groin kicks alone in a self defence situation, its just one of many options. And I have to say that any normal person will curl up in a ball screaming after getting kicked full-force in the groin with steel-capped boots. By that do you mean boxers flinch less when getting hit??

Standard kickboxing usually uses kicks above the waist and the rules dont allow leg kicks, which can be a disadvantage to people training in it.

Training everyday sounds like a good idea.

An interesting method of self-expression through physical and mental activity.

The same sort of thing happened at my dojo last week. After ages without anyone getting injured, a husband and wife both got hurt. The guy got a broken nose from a stray forearm and the wife jarred her thumb after getting kicked. For some reason there was a slightly smaller class the next night.

Ive mainly seen kickboxers competing in Australia so my opinion is slightly limited but I will go with Gurkan Ozkan.

Assuming you have both a boxing and a MT school in your area I would say go with MT simply because it will give you more tools to work with, and any half-decent MT school will teach you half-decent boxing skills.

I wouldnt worry to much either way. Headgear is not really that great at stopping shock to the brain. Sure protects the outside of the head and absorbs SOME of the shock, but the brain can still freely impact against the skull (which is what normally does the damage). Also, looking at some of the headgear recently being sold, most are open faced and therefore wont protect the person wearing them from strikes that hit the most targeted areas of the face. i.e. nose, chin, eyes and cheeks.

Good advice Jussi Häkkinen, I'd just like to add that even if you choose to build up callouses on your knuckles(which i dont recommend) there are still areas of the human body that will peirce the skin even if its conditioned and the callouses wont really add much strength to your hand.

zuluking, Rotten Head Fok, made some very good points and I would like to add that belts are only a very small part of martial arts training. I would be questioning you instructors ability if they even allow you to attend a black belt grading without being fully prepared for it. Even though you 'failed' your black belt grading your skills are still the same has before. Its not like you suddenly gain a whole lot of new abilities when you recieve a black belt. Just remember, belts are just a piece of material and they are often not a very good guide to a persons skill, or lack there of.

I dont completely agree with this, one punch knock-outs do happen in these types of sporting contests. I dont mean the guys face off then one throws a punch and the other guy is knocked out. There is usually a long exchange of techniques between the 2, but when the knockout actually occurs, it is generally brought about from a single technique. In a self defence situation one strike is the 'ideal' way to end the conflict, and against a person who probably isnt expecting you to fight back, or attack in the first place (pre-emptive strike), it is possible that one strike will work to at least stun the person so you can escape, if not knock them out. What im trying to say is dont rule something out or call it unpractical just because you dont understand the real purpose of it. Obviously if the single strike doesnt work you have to be willing to continue with further attacks. But the mentality of "one strike, one kill" should be used with every attack even if your doing a combination so that each technique has the potential to end it. Im sure that all of you do this already when performing techniques, but thats just the way karate-ka describe it.