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At our school it goes in order of rank, if there are a number of people at the same rank it goes in order of age. I wouldnt let something little like where you stand worry you to much. You show your skill on the mat, not in the position you stand in line.

Certainly hitting someone in the nose hurts. But who's to say that the foot is a sensible weapon to be hitting the nose with? Most systems use some variation of the "closest weapon, closest target" principle. Following this approach, the foot and the nose are basically furthest weapon to furthest target. Not a tactically sound approach at all, particularly in a self protection context.

I have left the dojo i currently train at a couple of times before for various reasons.(mainly personal ones, not to do with the dojo or instructors). The main thing i would suggest is that you leave on good terms if possible. That way you will always be welcome back.

I agree. No time like the present.

I think its all comes down to context. Regardless of the martial art you train, you probably will be learning useful skills, its just understanding the context in which they relate to self defense that is not often covered. Take for example all arts that focus on striking techniques, each one has its own way of developing powerful fast strikes designed to damage another person. Learning the physical part of how to hit hard is one thing. But in what context are we hitting hard? Do we just walk up to people and hit them? Do we wait for a person to threaten our life and then hit them? If you look at this striking skill within the context of a self defense situation and you understand the principles of pre-emptive striking, and you perform your powerful strike off a trigger question or after distracting the aggressor, now you have a meaning for the techniques because you know what context they are best used in.

Kyokushin: http://youtube.com/watch?v=URXu20Ofnt0 Ashihara: http://youtube.com/watch?v=NJhe-f2WyQM Enshin: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9QSQ3VDsvo8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=KIDDQaz8BmY daido juku:

Various fighting stances are discussed fairly regularly, one of interest is the evolution of the kyokushin fighting stance, which shares alot of parallels with the evolution of the boxing stance from bare knuckle days to now. Mas Oyama the found of kyokushin is pictured in what he taught has the kyokushin fighting stance: http://www.unitedkyokushin.com/images/Masoyama.jpg In his book "essential karate" he notes that the foot position is in neko-ashi-dachi(cat stance). Akiyoshi Matsui, the current head of kyokushin is pictured in the modern position taught and you can easily see the resemblance to a modern boxing stance: http://www.kyokushinresults.freeserve.co.uk/Pages/Profiles/Photos/Matsui.gif Its interesting to note that one of the main reasons sighted for the evolution of the boxing guard is that due to modern rules, fighters have less techniques to defend against and large gloves which can be held against the face for protection. But if you look at the styles which deal with full contact strikes on a regular basis(kyokushin, enshin, ashihara, daido juko, muay thai, boxing, mma etc) All these fighters use a similar fighting position regardless of the techniques allow or the use of gloves. In styles that rarely deal with contact within training you often find more "obscure" hand positions that often dont hold up under pressure, or are outdated(has in the older kyokushin hand position). Thoughts?

Whilst pain itself is hard to condition against, you can alter the way you react to pain. Each time you are hit, if you begin to feel pain most people will react in a negative way and want to give up or hold onto the area that is hurting. Ideally you want to condition yourself so that you either have no reaction at all, or have a positive reaction e.g. push yourself further. So whilst you still physically feel the pain, mentally you are dealing with it in a productive way and not letting it rule you. A simple drill we use to condition the above is(and im using body shots has the example but you can replace these with anything you want to condition): Have one person wear large boxing gloves, then face off with a partner and have the glove wearer throw reasonably solid body shots, when each shot lands, have the person who got hit throw a counter shot immediately. This overrides peoples natural tenancy to stop after being hit, and turns your reaction into something positive. Hope this gets you started.

Some good advice already. Just go back to the basics and focus on 2 things: 1. Your fighting stance and 2. Your footwork. Without a solid fighting stance you will not be able to execute techniques or footwork very well. So your initial body positioning is important. Also, to develop the forward drive you are talking about, it all comes from your footwork. You should be able to move smoothly and not with the "hop" you mention in your initial post.

Do what feels right for you. Considering they asked you to teach the seminar, then i think you should be able to take the material in which ever direction you want to. Obviously they will want to focus on the flashy components, so you can show them the fancy parts, but also include applications and your philosophy on the use of the movements etc.

It varies slightly depending on the technique, but in general the power comes from hip rotation and slight forward movement.

Principles are important, but at some point you must say "using the principles found within this sequence of movements we can defend against . The balance between teaching principles and being 2 specific is important.

Some techniques are best applied against specific attacks, and that is the most basic way of practicing bunkai. Once you move beyond that and look at the principles of the technique you will notice that a single technique can be used in a number of ways.

Its completely your call. Firstly it depends on the type of relationship you have with your instructor. If its strictly business and you view him has providing you a service then you dont really need to ask. If however, you have a great deal of respect for the instructor and there is some form of friendship there, perhaps it is better to be open with him. One way to could bring it up in conversation is to say something like "i was interested in learning some judo at , do you think that would interfere with my current training?" That way you are not directly telling him that you are going to do judo, but your just running it by him to see what he thinks about it. Based on his answer you should be able to make a judgment about what to do next.

Generally we use juji uke has a control with one hand and a strike with the other. This is seen in a fair few kata and the preceding techniques often setup the strike. Has a blocking technique alone, juji uke doesnt make a great deal of sense, why would you commit both hands to defend against a single technique? Unless you are trapping has ps1 said, even then its quick hard to block a dynamic attack with a X block. For more info take a look at: http://www.iainabernethy.com/articles/BasicBunkaiPart3.asp

Of course any martial art is going to resemble boxing to some degree and visa-versa when it comes to punching. Its been said a million times, there are only so many ways the human body moves and so many ways to throw a punch.

Has you mention, everyone will do what they see to be best. If survival is your primary concern, which is should be in a self defense situation, then doing whatever it takes to get home is the best thing to do. Weather its running or fighting. You only have to take a look at the news to see the countless stories of a fight were one person gets hit, cracks their head on the fall and ends up dead. It only takes that one shot and its all over. Where is the honour and chivalry in sticking around to fight and ending up in a coffin, when you had the chance to run and go home safe to your family?

All it takes is one of his friends to walk around the corner or step out of the crowd and a reach to the pocket for that knife or grabbing a chair for it to go from an unarmed 1 on 1 encounter to a multiple opponent weapon situation.

Likewise, he has always provided very informative answers to any questions i have.

Hey Dete, Welcome to the forum. I look forward to your input.

Another quote from Abernethy: "To practise karate as a pragmatic system, kata needs to be actively studied, as opposed to just 'practised'." This is an important distinction, most people will just go through the kata and never try to break it down, or attempt to find applications but become frustrated when it doesnt happen straight away. So their training just becomes mindless repetition and you will lose interest fast. But if you take an active approach to kata training and look at how the kata relates to combat, and then start applying it, you find lots of very valuable information. Part of the problem i see is that most bunkai taught is to far away from reality to work even in sparring. So people are put off by it. But there are people, like Abernethy, who teach bunkai that can be effectively used within sparring and is transferable to self defense situations. Some examples of what im currently working on: At the moment i am looking at the clinch work found in Wanshu and how it relates to neck control and striking from the clinch. Also the escapes and dis-engagements from the clinch range. Escapes from wrist grabs found within various kata from the context of the wrist being grabbed after you gouge eyes, crush the throat or crush the groin. Throwing techniques found within kata from the half clinch, and entering the half clinch from shuto-uke. All of which is useable in combat. Its very possible to look at these techniques on their own without the reference back to kata. But making the reference is important for a couple of reasons: 1. Within an existing class, its a common ground because everyone knows the kata so they can make a quick reference to the movement. 2. If you look a step after or before the technique your focusing on you often find important parts of information that make the application more effective. 3. You can do the kata on your own without a partner and visualize the application. The more i researched reality based stuff, the more connections i found back to traditional arts and techniques. Just delivered in a different manner.

A combination of cardio to reduce fat, strength training to increase muscle definition and diet for general health is a good place to start. For the cardio, try things like running, skipping, biking, swimming. For the strength try squats(bodyweight or weighted depending on your access to equipment and ability).

If it causes you 2 much trouble you may consider seeing a doctor. I think that most people would have experienced soreness in their feet for the first few weeks of training, but if its a long term problem then you might have some other things that a doctor can sort out for you.

Another reason i returned to karate is that i found the rbsd type training is not really a long term thing, with good instruction from the right people, self protection can be learned rather quickly, in a matter or weeks or months, so there is not really a great deal of expansion and room to move within this type of training. I dismissed kata has being useless for a while, because i never really understood the applications well enough to develop them and i didnt have the skills to analyze the kata and find the principles and applications within. Has my research continues in finding more and more use for kata and karate style training (even the fist on the hip style punch that i dismissed has pointless in earlier discussions). Kata gives me an almost unlimited depth of training depending on how far a wish to take it, and something that i will continue to develop and learn from in years, not just weeks or months. To some this may seem like a complete backflip on my part, but previous to my self protection focus, i used to believe the above things to be true about kata. After i while i began to question and because i didnt dig deep enough for the answers i started looking for the more direct approach(rbsd stuff), i suppose to find true value in something you have to experience the alternative also. A good quote i read quiet a while ago and found again recently from Iain Abernethy pretty much sums it up: "Martial arts are a life long study, kata is a life long study, but you can teach self-protection in a matter of hours. As I say, the physical side of it essentially revolves around a singe pre-emptive strike. I'd also like to point out that 95% of self-protection is about awareness and having a healthy attitude to personal safety. The last 5% is the "hard" physical skills. Of that last 5% the majority of it is controlling the situation and being pre-emptive. It's a common mistake for people to believe that fighting skills are the key to self-protection."

Assuming that survival cant be achieved when someone with friends has mounted you is hardly an approach that will help anyone interested in learning to defend themselves. If you believe there is a chance that at some stage in your life someone with friends will mount you, id plan on learning some effective escapes from the mount. Saying it cant be done, doesnt help anybody.