shadowspawn

Whoops you're right LOL IDK how that came out as 5'10". Must have been tired. I usually get online right before I go to bed.

A black belt in our school is really just an "official" license to teach. There was a particular blue belt (3rd kyu in our school as we only have 5 kyus) who was thousands of miles away training others for 20 years isolated from the main dojo or any of its branches under our school's banner. When our shihan found out about this, he instantly promoted him to 3rd dan black belt (at the time a high rank since we only had 5 dans during that time). When it comes to reality, a black belt is just like any other trophy or souvenir: it only has as much value as you choose to give it.

Martial. In the world "martial art" people forget the definition of the word itself. Literally, it is an art of war. When you go to war, you don't pick up your rifle and expect to "subdue an attacker". When someone starts shooting at you, you shoot back without giving a second thought as to whether you can get in close enough to disarm them or not. The same extends to martial arts. When someone is threatening your life, the first thing people should do, as martial artists, is fight back and fight back hard with the intent of killing their opponent. That's why it scares me that parents are sending their kids off to martial arts dojos as if it were some kind of summer camp or day care.

Hmmm. I agree to a certain extent. I do believe there are some things that some people will naturally adhere to more easily than others, so practicing some techniques for retention's sake with the intent of passing it on to another who might better make use of it. For example, the nukite spearhand technique is probably one I'd never personally use (in favor of the much easier IMO hiraken foreknuckle strike) due to the risk it would pose to me if I were to miss. But for the techniques that stick with you, yes you should practice it with purpose rather than simply going through the motions.

They could have, but a carjacking isn't exactly a rarity. I doubt it would have gotten anywhere near as much publicity as something like this. Still, the guy shouldn't have been shot, yes and it's probably something I'd never do. The best way to defend oneself is to simply not be there. Putting yourself in harm's way is the direct opposite of self-defense. But I'm not going to lie and say that I don't have a great deal of respect for the man and his actions. I'm sure his kids, his family, and the bystanders would feel the same way.

I've watched a few. Martial arts as a sport has never really been my thing, but here where I live, it's something that I'd estimate 70% of the population is into with maybe 20% participating in at least amateur bouts. From what I'd heard, Pride was superior to UFC during its time. Still IIRC, when Pride was rounded, UFC had already "reformed" to suit the politicians protesting it.

I suppose that's how every sport in America ends up eventually. American football is a classic example. I don't recall the groin strikes being legal, but then again UFC wasn't as big a thing as it is now when it first emerged.

Can't go wrong with attacking the knee. It doesn't take much to snap a knee and even if the attacker is still determined to kick the crap out of you, you should be able to outrun them at that point. Groin, throat, eyes, spine, and the area behind the ears are all other alternatives. Generally speaking though, the knee is often the easiest target as an attacker is less likely to expect an attack for the lower body than one for the upper body. Plus if they're coming after you, chances are they're larger than you and thus reaching up for the head area might not be the best idea in terms of range.

Even so, I personally don't believe they should be allowed to simply get away with it just because they have a gun. I mean if this were just a simple carjacking, I doubt that a $5000 bounty would be put on this guy's head and now he's going to have to answer to a murder charge as well when he gets caught. It's tragic, to say the least, that he died; but, at least his death wasn't in vain. It was for a good cause and, let's be honest, how many of us think that we'll die standing up for what we believe in when that time comes? I'm sure I'm not the only one who has deep respect for such martyrs.

A daring move to say the least. One mistake and he could have been dead. I'd say that story is quite the opposite of self-defense as he was actually putting himself in harm's way, but still props to him LOL

I'd have to disagree with Pain here. I mean yes it may have been a dangerous idea to put himself in harm's way, but at least people who would put themselves in harm's way to try to stop a wrongdoer shows that there is at least some degree of chivalry left in our society and that there are people who aren't afraid to take action for what's right.

I used to do something similar. Well not really. What I'd ultimately end up doing is "bullying the bully". Technically it is fighting fire with fire. It was often interesting to see their responses as I was always the smaller guy. Still it worked for the most part and whenever I was around nothing really happened. Luckily I never had to get into an actual fight doing this (whether they were scared of me or just getting into a fight, IDK) and I did earn a reputation as a bit of a "tough guy" despite the fact that the furthest I ever went was a simple shove to get one guy's attention.

General question eh? GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY! If a truck is coming straight at me at 60 mph, I'm not gonna stand there and try to stop it. I'm not Superman. The same could be said about many other situations: Simply don't be there. As the saying goes, if you play with fire, expect to be burned. Just like how if you hang out with the wrong kind of people, expect to get your butt kicked sooner or later.

Well as long as you compete and give it all you can give, there's nothing wrong with that. But to just go through the motions with an attitude of "I'm not gonna do well so I'm not gonna try" is a big no-no in my books. In my experience, it's better to not do something at all if you're only gonna give 50%. Just my 2 cents.

Well at the rate we're going, with elbows and knees legalized, UFC is becoming less geared towards BJJ practitioners and other floor grapplers and becoming a more well-rounded style. Not that it would ever be completely balanced since in a real fight, a quick, accurate snap kick to the groin would probably mean the end. I mean if they didn't allow these types of devastating strikes, we'd mostly be seeing jujitsu fighters vs. jujitsu fighters without much diversity at all. I suppose I can understand why they allowed it; but, as you said, it does become a pretty dangerous "sport" at that point.

In our school, if all they did was knock them out, they probably weren't using their karate. We put an emphasis on striking vitals and other vulnerable areas that would kill/cripple/maim the other person for life. It's kind of like giving them a gun. If all they did was knock them out with the gun, it could have been magnitudes worse if they used it the way they were taught to.

A tactic I noticed people with similar rules use is to "fake" for the face. I'm not sure if fake is the best word, but you extend your lead hand (open hand with fingertips facing upwards so as not to look like a fingertip strike or anything) to either make them flinch or break focus due to a technique they weren't expecting and then follow up by quickly closing the distance and landing a few strikes. Doesn't work on all people though and it may be banned in certain tournaments (not sure about the rulings). The faking hand is really just there to check them and see what they'll do. If they back up or freeze and you have a fast enough reaction, you can close the distance quickly and nail them. Just be careful of people trying to suck you in and don't let your guard down.

As long as every movement has a specific tactical purpose, I don't see why it would be a bad idea. Our sensei always instructed us to always move forward. Even when sidestepping, we try to move at a maximum angle of 90 degrees when facing the opponent. The idea being to "bully" the opponent into backing off and then cornering him as he can't stop his backwards momentum. Still I have seen some white crane practitioners who deliberately take two steps back to get your momentum coming forward and, similarly to aikido, pivot out at the last second and take you out. Typically speaking, moving backwards is a bad thing in a fight, but there are some styles I've encountered where backwards movement is an integral part of their style. I suppose as long as you know what you're doing, there's nothing terribly wrong with backwards movement (at least not any more so than other, IMO, ridiculous things like kicking for the head).

There have been mixed reports to practicing kicks with more resistance, being water or weights doesn't matter. I would say it's indeed useful for speed, but others say it's not. Never understood why. One thing I seemt o have difficulties with, is quickly jumping backwards after attacking to avoid the counter attack. I seem to be too slow when doing this, probably because my legs are not strong enough. My arms are no problem, but my legs need some work. That's why my Sensei has adviced to practice the explosive jump thing: crouch till your upper and lower leg do approx 90° then fiercly jump up. Also I'm as supple as an icepick... when doing Low-Kicks, Mawashi's or Yoko's I usually aim for the upper legs of my opponents since I simply can't go higher. I stay away from their knees since I don't want to damage them obviously. The knee, along with the shin and the groin, are among our primary targets when kicking low. We're not really too big into kumite, not to say we don't do it. Most of our strikes are intended to hit vitals/vulnerable points that should kill or maim/cripple with one strike. You could say it's very dirty, but we usually never kick any higher than chudan unless it's for kata competition.As per the jump backwards thing, we're usually not encouraged to move backwards (at least not directly backwards) and instead move forwards when trying to evade attacks. Works really well for me since I'm a short guy. It has caught me a few accidental elbows to the face during kumite though, but I guess that's the risk you run when fighting aggressively. As per kicking speed, I don't see why either. Unless they're referring to return speed (which is another story), I don't see why they'd say it doesn't help. @Zero: For people with long legs, moving backwards and keeping a significant gap between you and your opponent can be beneficial. The pure range that they boast can often justify backwards motion simply because, even if they didn't move backwards, you'd still be out of range. I've noticed a bunch of TKD practitioners who try to expand that gap. For someone like me though, moving backwards would almost always be a bad idea unless, of course, done on purpose to "suck them in".

I apologize in advance if this sounds rude, but honestly, it sounds to me that you're just making excuses for yourself. Kind of like those people who say "I can't work out cause I don't have time to go to the gym". You can always push yourself to make time to work out just like you can push yourself to compete in a tournament. Either you can go the extra mile and do your best or you can take the safe way out and not attend. But to say "I don't want to compete because I don't think I'd do well" just sounds really weak to me. Regardless of how you place, as long as you do your best, what more can anyone ask?

1. Ker ah tee 2. That poor sensei/sempai who has to get punched in the face by a white belt in-training (unless it's me LOL) 3. People who can jump up, launch 3 powerful and on-target kicks before hitting the ground 4. Getting kicked in the crotch 5. Getting kicked in the crotch 6. Other people getting kicked in the crotch 7. Kata 8. Nothing really. Just randomness. 9. If a robber's got a gun and all I have is a bag of popcorn and some root beer, I'd probably give him a few bucks and hope he goes away. 10. Humble peeps.

As soon as he said "In the movie, Ip Man fought 10 karate men and they were crushed by Ip Man, and those 10 karate guys couldn't even stop him." I'd have said something like "Well you know who could beat Ip Man? Goku. His power level is over 9000!"

In terms of hardware quality and overall potential as a system, PS3 takes the gold. X360 doesn't even come close in terms of hardware specs (still stuck with a DVD drive rather than blu-ray) but it's cheaper so people buy it for the same reason they buy Dells: It usually gets the job done and the occasional catastrophic failures are worth the inconvenience to save a few bucks. They're both good consoles for different reasons, but being a fan of quality>quantity myself, I definitely have to go with PS3.

Elbow strikes are truly devastating. When they legalized them in UFC, I was extremely surprised. One of these days, they'll legalize headbutts. Then we can see some real damage.

It really depends on what your goals are. If your goal is to be the grand champion kumite guy in your district, yes I would say so. When it comes to competition in physical "sports", it's just like anything else from boxing to football. You have your prime and when that's done, it's over. If you intend to be able to defend yourself and actually take someone out, it doesn't really matter how strong or fast you are. All that really matters is your willingness to learn. It doesn't matter whether you're faced with a 5'10, 90 pound woman or a 6'11" 210 pound giant. A shot to the throat will take either down in no time at all.