Spartacus Maximus

One trend that seems to be universal is a drop of attendance on Friday and Saturday nights. This is especially common if the student group are teenagers or of undergraduate age. At that age socializing takes up a large part of free time available. Only a small minority of students will be there at every single training session. This is usually the most dedicated students and the most serious.

It is always harder to see changes in ourselves than for others to notice it. Self evaluations are always biased in one way or another; and at various stages of learning one can start to have doubts or become discouraged with training. Training and practising longer usually brings more questions than it answers, but questions are good because they are the seeds from which knowledge, improvement and mastery grow.

I am not quite sure if this fits with the topic of my original post and the subject of this thread. However if it can be of any usefulness I will offer my opinion. Without the context of the speech you are referring to it is very difficult to interpret what the sensei meant. Anything you read here is but speculation because the only persons who can know for sure are those involved in the conversation you mentioned. An instructor is always justified in refusing to teach someone who does not want to learn. These type usually leave without having to be told and only people with serious attitude and behaviour problems have to be expelled. Such people are usually confronted explicitly and clearly by the instructor and any sort of hint dropping, mind games or insinuations are a waste of time and counter-productive. If a student is a problem I very much doubt an instructor would waste any time dealing with that person. Anyway the only way to know what was meant is to ASK. There is absolutely no shame in asking an instructor to explain.

Luckily I there was none of the things you mentioned. After a little less than two days after the injury the swelling was gone. Aside from some redness until a week ago there was no other changes in the appearance of my thumb. Now it is mostly back to normal as the sensitivity is not as bad and I can bend it like before, although some stiffness remains.

Raising the heel of your support leg when kicking is a mistake that compromises balance and over extends the kicking leg. Stance must be firmly rooted for the entire action and knees should be slightly bent. Balance is kept by the action of the core muscles to maintain the centre of gravity and keep it from shifting. Explaining this in words is unfortunately much more difficult than showing how.

A dislocated joint is much more serious than a regular sprain. I expect it would take at least a couple of months to heal under the best circumstances. I have just looked at available medical information resources online and a regular finger sprain normally takes 2-6 months depending on how much trauma was caused to the nerves, muscle and ligaments. Anyway, now I have personal experience of the consequences of not keeping my fists closed tight enough.

The exercise I was referring to involves practising each type of kick one step at a time in slow motion and with ankle weights(these can be found quite cheap and only a little weight works very well, no need to have super easy ones). This but one kind of exercise aimed at making legs and core stronger.

When kicking you should try as much as possible to solicitate the muscles of your core. This is the area around your navel at the front and the area near your kidneys at the back. Stand as if you were gripping the ground with your feet and when you kick, keep the tension in your core. Without the stabilizing action of tightening the core, your balance will swing onto your supporting leg and the force of your kick will drag you up and forward resulting in an ineffective kick or a nasty fall when done at full speed and power. Reaching or overextending a kick beyond its effective range will also compromise balance. The difficulty of executing kicking techniques is underestimated by many. The leg and foot are just the weapons and obvious components, but the launching system and power source are the most important. Learning takes time, practise and patience. For beginners it is advisable to practise slowly each part step by step. It is also recommendable to perform extra exercises to build up strength and endurance in the legs and core such as weighted slow motion kicks, leg raises or crunches and sit-ups. Anything that works the lower body and legs is helpful.

Neither at the time nor since the injury occurred did I think getting an x-Ray was necessary. The reason being that I have had more serious injuries such as hairline and micro fractures and this was not nearly as painful. Whatever is causing the lingering discomfort and sensitivity is most likely nerves as I suspect a ligament injury would be more painful and would restrict my thumbs range of movement a lot more significantly.

Over a month ago I got hit while executing mild intensity kumite drill. The strike somehow landed directly on the last joint of my thumb where it is attached to the hand. The result was not quite immediate, but gradually increased a few minutes later. I realized I had sprained my thumb and when I returned home an hour later it had become noticeably swollen. I took care of it the usual way sprains are treated(ice, balm,etc...) and eventually the pain and swelling went away as expected. My thumb is still not back to normal after over a month and now I am beginning to wonder if it is worse than I thought. It still feels stiff and uncomfortable when I bend it or fold it to close my hand. There is some numbness and sensitivity to pressure. Does anyone have a similar experience with a mild injury such as a sprain taking a long time to heal?

Ideally I personally would avoid getting involved in trying to deal with someone who has PTSD if I knew for sure. People with any kind of problems related to emotional or psychological trauma and shock make me very ill at ease. I dislike to see a fellow suffer and even more so when I know there is nothing I could do right then and there to help them without making them feel worse. Just as anyone who is not trained in helping such people, the best and only thing to do is lend some ears to listen if they are inclined to talk and offer help in finding professionally qualified help. Other than that I would try to leave them alone and let them manage it, unless of course their behaviours resulting from PTSD was severely affecting other people in a very negative or dangerous way. That is usually only in extreme cases though. The only real experience I had with PTSD was as a young teenager when I was visiting the town museum for a school assignment. There was an old man walking back and forth in front of a section about the last world war and then he started to look as if he was about to fall over. He went out to the bench outside and sat there staring into nothing with tears rolling down. Curiosity got the best of me so I went out to see what happens to him. I found out he was the last soldier surviving soldier from our town. All I asked him was if he was alright and he started telling me everything he went through for over a hour. All I did to change his mood was say "thank you for fighting". That was all he needed and later explained that it reassured him to hear that.

A one hundred percent clear open and shut case for self defense is rarely seen. In most cases the process will be long and any trial is quite costly. The only way to keep the law on one's side is to make escape the ultimate aim of any self-defense situation. Running away should be one's first defensive move and wherever this is impossible, it must be a close second. No matter who "started it", authorities and witnesses tend to see the "winner" as the aggressor. However, if one defends oneself after attempting to escape an attack and being pursued it is very difficult to argue against self defense. It is also difficult if the defender defended himself in the process of escaping the attacker. Even a casual witness can tell the difference between someone attempting to escape and one fighting. If there is no attempt to break away and escape, it is a fight and fighting is a criminally sanctionned offense.

6 grandmasters in a single organization sounds like a lot of nonsense to me as well. I have a feeling that the title of grandmaster seems to be a more common and loose notion in taekwondo, but this sounds ridiculous. I have never ever heard of any martial arts associations having more that one "Grand Master". Even obvious Mc dojo schools. In legitimate serious organization usually the "Grand Master" is the inheritor of the organization and at least 75years old. Furthermore Grand Master is an honrific title, not a rank or a term by which students would address said Grand Master. How many companies or businesses have more than one person as President/CEO?

Goals for this year is to make my legs and feet stronger, more flexible and more controllable. Also, I hope to improve my stamina and endurance so that I can train for longer before my breathing changes.

In my case, like most posters I have my share of movie martial arts heroes. I have no specific move from movies that inspired my interest to start training. rather than specific techniques, I admired and hope to become as quick and powerful as Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. It was always the slighter, slimmer and wiry types that I idenfied with instead of the heroes who were more obviously tough guys built like iceboxes. The smaller fellows somehow seemed more real because they looked ordinary until the scene called for them to explode into a fury of fists and feet blasting the bad guys with unexpected power. I enjoyed the idea of an ordinary unassuming hero whose appearance hides his ability because I always believed that is how the really great martial arts experts are in real life. Just like in the movies, in real life it can also be a very bad mistake for a bad guy to assume that a frail looking little guy is an easy target.

Control freaks would be on the more extreme side of the spectrum of negative personality instructors. These types are common in the martial arts but the other type often encountered is somewhat more difficult to deal with. Instructors who have nearly no interpersonal skills and by their unfriendly demenor make themselves unapproachable to students. It is desirable and beneficial for an instructor to train students strictly because it is necessary. However, after training or before training it is most beneficial for anyone to be able to get feedback and additional advice from their instructor. I hope I will be forgiven for referring to movies but I believe that is where I can find the best pop culture references. Namely the "Karate Kid" series. The Kobra Kai sensei is an ex-military man whose teaching style is very militaristic and harsh. His students are just like him and they fear him so much they are afraid to even ask a question. They just do you whatever he says. Mr Miyagi is also strict in the way he teaches, but he shows a real sense of humour and is also very pleasant company. Throughout the trilogy it becomes obvious which teacher truly cares for the skill progress and wellbeing of his student. That is the best kind of instructor one can hope for in my opinion. After all, the true mark of a great instructor is the number of great students and successors trained.

I believe it is "the carrot AND the stick" rather than "the carrot OR the stick". There is a slight difference and instructors who know how to manage both are usually more successful in transmitting skills to their students. All stick or all carrot is no good because there is no balance.

That is the truth I also believe. If martial arts could not be trained safely, then anyone practising would be crippled from cumulative injuries after just a few years. The risks of injuries should reasonably decrease in proportion to skill level.

It was indeed the right thing to do to exercise control and minimize damage. Dealing with a drunken family member or relative is definitely not the same as a situation where one is facing violent aggression from an enemy. The response must be in proportion to the attack AND the type of violence. A drunken family member attack is not of the type of criminal or predatory violence. It does not justify anything more than the strict minimum such as a controlling technique. After all, the attacker is your family and you will have to deal with him after he sobers up. Seriously injuring him may very well compromise your relationship in the future. In my experience, situations involving aggressive drunks are among the easiest to avoid without ever having to resort to physical defense.

The safe way to train martial arts is to use ones head. Train hard but train smart. Knowing one's limits when to slow down or stop goes a long way in avoiding injuries. There is more to training than endless full power repetition of the same thing over and over again.

Wow! 5th Dan is just an advanced student in any serious system. An inflated sense of self due to rank often goes together with the negative personality and attitude types.

Yes, it is really hard to install mats in a space that is public or shared by several different training groups. The most a student can do is suggest the idea to the instructor. As an instructor and for personal use one must make due with whatever type of floor one can find or build. As a student one must train on whatever floor the instructor has.

Okinawan shorin ryu has been my chosen martial art since I was a youth but my interest in the subject has led me to try and visit many different places where other systems were taught. I have done this for comparison and personal research and in doing this I have met many kinds of instructors with different attitudes and personalities. In my experience, the instructors attitude and personality is the most important trait because it is what new students notice first when they step into the dojo. It is also of capital significance to effectively teach. It is much easier and agreeable to learn from an instructor who welcomes you in a friendly manner and teaches patiently and tirelessly. Hardly anyone can suffer trying to learn from an instructor who is unapproachable, gruff or and unsociable. Only the worst and the best stuck in my mind as which model I will one day hope to emulate. The best example is my present sensei who is the toughest I have ever met. Despite his fearsome skills and strength, and strict teaching style he is always in a friendly and pleasant mood. He never has to shout or order anyone about. He is always approachable to explain anything or demonstrate for any of us. Off the floor he enjoys relaxing with students and shows true concern for each student's progress, growth and general well being. To many of us younger students he is like a wise grandfather figure. In stark contrast to this, the very worst I can still remember is a Japanese JKA Shotokan instructor. This man was the instructor at a small city dojo I visited many years ago. He was certainly very skilled at what he did as he was in the top 10-20 instructors in the country. A retired undefeated champion in his weight class. Despite this he treated his students very roughly and hardly said a word to them except when he barked or shouted orders at them. Students were absolutely terrified to approach him for anything at alll! He even shouted at me for breaking some protocol detail I had no way of knowing as both a guest quietly observing and a foreigner. Needless to say I did not stand this treatment very long. I left as soon as I could.

This is the year I realized how much progress I made and how much more I have to learn and improve just in the year to come.

I would suggest to keep in mind that zero risk is impossible when engaging in any contact activity. Judo is a martial art at its core and in martial arts the training involves learning and practising various types of power. It is normal and expected to experience soreness or aching after training, but it is also unavoidable in the process of skill improvement. The best advice I have heard is common knowledge to any instructor or sport coach: beware of overtraining, know yourself and then challenge yourself but do it gradually. Injuries come from lack of concentration and thinking too much instead of doing.