Big Game

Thanks guys for the advice. I had thought about the wall thing before I posted. I think I will try that.

Thanks Delta1 - This will help me out quite a bit. I am getting ready to leave for a tournament in a few hours. I will definately use these drills in my training.

Recently while sparring I noticed that I am hitting a little hard. What are some things that I can do to work on controlling my punches and kicks but at the same time be fast while I am doing them?

I also have a boy that is four and loves Karate. He doesn't go with me to the dojo yet as the age requirement is 6. Sounds like our two boys are alike. I currently work with my boy at home. He has his own Gi and he puts it on and we train. My only concern with starting them this young is that they have short attention spans. Not that my boy gets bored with Karate, it's just that after about fifteen minutes, he wants to get crazy and come at me and try out his moves. I am going to gradually start making it more structured for him. For example no sparring or trying out his moves until we work some techniques. My Sensei is also a good friend of the family and has told my son that when he learns the first two moves of his kata he will award him with one patch and another when he learns the full kata. Personally I think my boy is ready physically and is very interested right now in karate. My only concern with him going to the dojo with me and taking an actual class is he may get bored because of the structure. By working with him at home I hope that he will learn to listen to instruction and have a longer attention span when he is the right age to attend.

I think the reason he chooses to wear a white belt is because he started training in another martial art. I am not for sure though I would have to check.

Boy I hope I at least got a few right. Without research I am at a lost.

You have to try to beat this site. You pick a charactor from a tv sitcom and this thing guesses your charactor. It's pretty accurate. http://www.smalltime.com/dictator.html

Yeah it's a great game sport isn't it? I have played the games you mentioned. We built a field at my Sensei's house. He has 80 acres with fields and woods. I have access to a backhoe and we built bunkers and trenches. We alos built an area where we play speedball. That is fun but fast. We built all kinds of forts and stuff. What kind of gun do you have? I bought an E-99 last spring and love it. We don't play during the winter because it's very cold and the snow is deep up here. I can't wait til it warms up. I know what you mean about it not hurting. It stings a little at first but after that it's just a welt. Here is a picture of us http://members.fortunecity.com/biggamekennels/175c5540.jpg

In our style we are required to wear white untile we get to black belt. Then we are allowed to wear black or white in any combination.

Seeing how I was out of town for the week I had to get two gifts. One was because I missed my family while I was gone and usually try to bring them home something and the other was because it's valentines day. We'll probably go out to eat tonight and then maybe go see a movie.

Sorry I should have posted that in my earlier post. Well in our area there used to be TKD but that has since closed. If I wanted to drive about a half hour There is Tai Chi and another dojo that teaches the same style as we have here in my hometown. I wish there were more. We are encourage to learn other styles and cross train when we get up in rank, but the selection is lacking. There may be some that I'm not aware of but is that is the case they must not be advertising as I'm all over Northern Michigan during work.

Do you guys work variations? One thing I like about step sparring is being able to learn my distancing from my opponent. It helps you to know when your opponent is in range so you can deliver the most effective technique.

Just curious if anybody else on here plays paintball? I play quite a bit in the summer. Actually most of the other students in my dojo play paintball as well.

Just thinking about the recent business trip I took. I drove from Northern Michigan to southern Wisconsin and I onky remember passing one MA dojo in my journey. Now I know there were probably alot the I didn't see, but I was just curious how many different styles are available in your area? Around me there are only about two other schools that are within reasonable driving distance. I imagine that in the larger cities some of you guys have quite a few to choose from.

Sounds great. I'll be on line for a few.