AdamKralic

My son and I use dumb bells, bench, body weight and plyometric type exercises. Curls, box jumps, medicine ball tosses, flys, squats, pushups, crunches, bench, tricep rows... Basically I like a lot of the exercises that a guard in basketball might do. Quick, explosive first step speed is the goal. Will add wind sprints into the routine soonish.

How is wrestling not a sport? How is boxing not a sport? How is MMA not a sport? Every competition is a sport. Spelling Bee? Sport. 5k run? Sport. Eating competition? Sport. Karate sparring? Sport.

I have found a few kickboxing schools, but they are not dojos and do not give belts, more like fitness gyms. Looks like I'm going to have to suffer through learning katas in order to get the training I need to spar. No, no, no. You HAVE to find people to actually spar against. Not optional. There has to be a karate dojo nearby that spars. Has to. As far as technique...well honestly you can learn a lot online if you are of such a mind. (though always a good teacher is best...no doubt) Jadi Tention, Alex Reyes, Ross Levine...North American fighters with top notch instructional videos up on youtube. Check them out. Here is a crucial...yet relatively simple drill that helps in sparring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWbd7v4XhJ8

I can see why Tai Chi was approved...but Judo?

I liked that first linked fight...nice example. The continuous tournaments in NASKA count points. Basically it's who gets the most points in 2 minutes/3 minutes...whatever. I've seen tournaments with a WIDE variety in scoring/rules. But yes generally there are far more point sparring matches than there are continuous point matches. Also agree on finding a school that regularly competes in such events. At the very least you'd need a school that has a traveling team. (though in my experience this is a double edged sword) On one hand the sparring training the school gives you is good basic technique...but it is different than the training one gets with the traveling team. To get on the traveling team you have to stand out...but to do that? You have to spend a lot of time on techniques that the traveling team will "beat out of you" quickly. Most specifically guard stances. You simply cannot get away with a stance that shows "two boobs" (my terminology is visual...sorry) You need a perfectly sideways "one boob" stance. Whereas in the regular classes most students are 1.5 - 1.75 boobs. The guard of the hands is different too. Regular class? Similar to boxing guard. Traveling team? Lead arm is extended almost straight out with the rear arm guarding the solar plexus. Then there is the fighting itself. Regualr class seems to teach a "jousting" technique. (two fighters advancing straight at each other) Traveling team uses angles and circular movement. So...just a head's up as to what I'd look for in determining if the school taught techniques that will keep you alive against a guy that can slide kick across a ring fast in a tournament setting.

I love this fight as a lesson in reverse punches and efficiency.

Well this is NASKA. They do both continuous and point sparring in competition. It's karate basically. In my neck of the woods these style tournaments are the vast majority of events. Kung fu fighters compete, Tae Kwon Do fighters compete in them...karate fighters compete in them. I do agree that the previous example by the poster above myself was a bad example of what to expect. Those fighters were horrible. Slow, no defense, stood there and just traded. My example is more like what one could expect from good fighters. VERY fast. Lots of counter attacks. Foot work is actually crucial as opposed to optional.

I can see that...but what I see MOST of with children atleast? Parents believe karate is a glorified babysitting service. For every good young karate student? I'd guess that there are ATLEAST 15 glorified baby sat kids. Those parents will put no more effort into finding a dojo than they did prior. The biggest McDojo chain they can find in a 4 second google search will win their $$$. Olympic training isn't really what they want as that might require some effort on their behalf.

It's very disappointing to me. We need 1,400 different running events but cannot have more than one martial art? Also never understood karate people that were against it. How exactly would it hurt you? Rule changes? Hey there is a NBA...yet my son and I are free to play H.O.R.S.E. without fear. Your local dojo would also not likely change their entire system to adhere to a event that happens once every 4 years. I'd imagine most of the people that believe that it would somehow negatively affect them...are not even regularly competing in circuits. Yet there are children out there right now...that will lose opportunities due to karate not being in the olympics.

Boxers hit MUCH, MUCH harder than karate practioners do. This has been shown on psi pads to be true over n over n over again. The difference in force is astounding. The sports science episode that I saw had the boxer hitting literally twice as hard as the karate master. Do you want that kind of power? Go to a boxing gym and train. If you want karate punches that are quick and hit far less hard...then you are at the right place. Boxing is a style of martial art. It has it's strengths and it's weakness much like all martial arts do.

I'll take the boxer. Boxing is TREMENDOUSLY dependent upon skill. Raw power only works up to a point. Just look at Floyd Mayweather Jr.. All skill...medium to low power. He's untouchable STILL and he's in his late 30's. There are outliers...Tyson...Foreman. But really those are the only two that I can think of and of the two Foreman is the better example. Foreman's game was so simple...he can take all of your shots...you cannot take his. Tyson had speed in addition to power...and he had good fundamentals up until Don King took over his life.

I boxed for a few years as a youth...headgear is of limited use. For one the face is open...the 2nd worst shot to the head is the one that hits your squarely on the nose. White stars come out! The worst blow to the head is the hook to the jaw. That is a knockout blow and the helmet does very little to change that. The parts of the helmet where the padding is thickest just so happen to be the strongest parts of the skull. So? Another bad thing about the helmets is the constant sweat in the eyes and lack of peripheral vision. The great fighters use peripheral vision...a lot.

You will lose with a retreat style in most tournaments. The aggressive fighter looks like the winner before a technique is even landed. It is also easier to throw a combination that links into another. You eventually will not block something. It's a matter of time. In a street fight...you'd not want to wait for the big man to swing. You'd attack before the big haymaker came. Somewhere around the pushing you portion. You being up close before the blows started would be in your advantage. In a fight you HAVE to be close to connect.

Your sensei is correct. You do not want to give up ground in fights. How many techniques are strong when in retreat? Very few. Your momentum is working against you in retreat. The one that comes to mind right away is... D-side kick. It's a "get out of jail" card. Otherwise you might want to consider the possibility or going left or right to avoid an attack.

Cool. That'd be fun.

Yeah you can get nice and close. Really well run though...they give you exact fight times per/age/belt. That is kind of rare around these parts. We usually have to show up for black belt bow in and spend the next 3-5 hours bsing with others. Everyone else: thanks for the kind words.

Aggressive people win 8/10 times. It's "easier" to keep throwing combos until something gets through than it is to counter endless combos.

My son Zachary is in the white. He took 1st place at the May 2013 National Karate tournament that was held in Schaumburg, Illinois this past weekend.

You need to be able to attack first. You need to be able to counter. It's never all this or all that. It's being able to do it all. So if you are VERY aware that you are not attacking first as often as you are waiting...then you need to attack first a lot more often.

I too would bet on Couture. Segal is waaaaaaaaaaaaay out of shape unless you count a sphere as a body shape.

Training in the water is a old boxing "trick" Footwork, running, burst exercises, punching...etc. The gentle but never ending resistance of the water dramatically increases the cardio and strength portion of fighting. I'm actually shocked that more karate fighters don't get more tips from boxers. Boxers train HARD.

__________________________________________________ The IP Man movies and the Tony Jaa Ong Bak movies are my favorite "more modern" MA movies.

I'd consider the origin of karate to be Chinese not Japanese.

I played A LOT of Civ 2 in college. VERY addictive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVoOtpDuZwA Seriously this bothers me to no end...sorry that it isn't 100% on topic but this needs to be seen by as many people as possible imo. Beratement does not = coaching.