Spartacus Maximus

I have seen very strict almost military type dojos and family-like dojos. I would describe my actual dojo as more like a family. There is discipline and duties but they are more implicit rather than explicit. I understand them as follows: 1: Maximum effort until practise time ends 2: Always accept training advice from your seniors 3: Help your juniors whenever asked 4: Practise only what sensei says until he ask you to do something else. 5: Never interrupt anyone's practise for any reason. 6. Do not waste your time in the dojo. There is always something to work on. 7. Respect the dojo and treat all your fellows with kindness and appropriate courtesy. 8. Never use any equipment without sensei's permission.

The absolute worst case scenario here is if weapons are involved. This bully sound like the typical punk. He has been beat but still thinks he has to be tough. This can be dangerous because guys like that don't know when to stop and can easily escalate things beyond control. That's why it's a good idea to tell people around you what is going on. If you can get a copy of the Facebook post where he says he will attack you with his friends you have tangible evidence of his plans and it can be used to support what you say. Show that to your parents, your sensei and your school. Another very good piece of advice is watch out for HIM. Know where he is likely to be and never ever let yourself be distracted when you are out and about. This the same advice I would give anyone wether they are dealing with a specific enemy or just in an unfamiliar place. It's the best way to avoid being surprised by an attack, mugging etc. Awareness of your environment is a fundamental point of self defense. Martial skill is useless if you are easily caught unaware. Even the basest animal knows to lookout for predators but this seems to be a lost sense for most humans living a modern sedentary life.

I would not advise you to try to fend off a group. Do not do anything to escalate or encourage aggressive behaviour from him. You have already shown him that you are able and willing to defend yourself. The best solution is to inform adults around you especially your parents and your sensei that you have been threatened. Tell them every detail of the situation and stress that you do not want to fight and are trying to stay out of trouble. Next thing to do is to avoid traveling alone to and from home. Walk with friends from school or your dojo. Plan to use different ways home instead of always the same path. Be unpredictable and hard to follow. This will greatly reduce the chances of the bully acting on his threat. If and only if you have tried everything to avoid him fails and he still comes after you, hit him hard and RUN as soon as you have an opening to get away. Don't just RUN away from HIM but run to someone to who you can explain what has happened. I repeat DO NOT meet him or go looking for him. Ignore him unless he is in your personal space and about to attack you. Otherwise it will not be self defense but a fight.

Stupid and kobudo are two things that should never mix. That goes double when stupidity is coupled with immaturity. I remember a young teenage black belt who nearly took his own ear off with a kama. The kid was visiting the dojo I trained at in japan and he decided to show off a kobudo kata he had just learned. He picked up a pair of kama without noticing an important detail. In japan, kama are a common tool sold in all hardware stores. The blades are more robust, heavier and always very sharp. Anyway as he starts swinging them around he stops in the middle of his kata wondering why others are looking shocked, and finally notices blood flowing from behind his ear onto his gi. He now has nice scar to remind him of that.

Personally, I loathe the concept of government regulation for the martial arts. The martial arts are much too diverse to be regulated by a single governing body. Government regulation usually means that everyone will have to teach and practise following standards and opinions which they do not necessarily share. Many European countries have government federations for martial arts requiring any one who teaches to be a recognized member ranked by this body. This means that ranks earned elsewhere and actual competence are not recognized unless the appropriate exams are passed to the standards established by the federation. This means that if your system is not standard or recognized, you cannot officially teach it no matter how competent you may be as a teacher and how skilled you may be. Of course this only affects those who want to open a school. There are many independent teachers, but it is very hard to do without the federation membership and support. I could not ever accept anyone telling me how or what I should teach. Especially people who do not know or understand what I do. I will teach what I have been taught the same way I was taught. Politics be damned. Government regulation only magnifies all the political bickering that already plagues the martial arts. Take the worst kind of political problems in any martial arts association and imagine that on a national scale for all martial arts... A nightmare indeed!

I'm not familiar enough with Muay Thai to give an informed opinion of Ong Bak. I hope that someone who practises it would comment. If I just judge it by what I have seen, I would say that there are more spectacular techniques than anything else. The most intriguing scene for me is where he appears to be doing a form whenhe demonstrates before his uncle. Is there such a thing as forms in Muay Thai? I thought they trained mostly by drilling individual techniques and two-person combinations practise...hmmm

I tend to use my experience as a reference and most of it was training in okinawan dojos or under Okinawan senseis. So yes, according to that, the word OSS is more prevalent on mainland Japan and even there it is mostly kyokushinkai or offshoots of it who use Oss. It is also used to a lesser extent in other Japanese karate styles. Kendo and judo have always been more popular than karate on the mainland but in Okinawa karate was not, as far as I know ever considered as a base endeavour. Okinawans were always proud of their native art. It has been taught in schools for the last hundred years or so and passed on in families of noble or martial decent. My teacher is an example of this as his father taught the police and his relatives include some famed and legendary experts of the old Ryukyu kingdom. He is also close to Fumio Demura's age, perhaps older. Anyway, I don't make a big deal about the misuse of Oss. If I ever trained outside japan, I might explain it once but I don't think I would insist on changing the dojo habits of people who are not with me. I would be more concerned about the misuse of martial skills than the correctness of dojo Japanese.

Also forgot to mention there is also jumping variations of the roundhouse, sidekick and front kick. All these are done the same manner as the non-jumping ones, only targets a different. The front jump-toe kick is aimed at the throat and Adam's apple. The main idea with toe kicks is to kick straight into the target or upwards at an angle and in. Exactly like stabbing with a knife or spear. For example a front kick would go straight into the liver or it could go up into the arm pit or behind the groin.

In general most people have poor blood circulation to their toes and poor dexterity. This is because of the usual way feet move. We don't usually use our toes for anything other than walking. That is why they must be trained to gain a new range of movement. The best exercise is to practise curling your toes up and down. Do this every single day in bare feet a many times and as often as you can. You can also practise walking around on the balls of your feet or pushing your self up on them and standing like that for as long as possible. The main reason you cannot pull your toes back far enough is that the connections controlling your toes are weak. Only solution is daily practise for at least a year. You should be able to do it eventually, unless you have some sort of physical anomaly or medical problem.

In all styles that I know to train toe kicks, the kicks are limited to front kicks and roundhouse( mawashigeri) kicks. Both target soft areas from the solar plexus to the legs from a standing position. Higher targets may be kicked if a previous technique sets them up. The kicks trained and impact areas in my dojo are like this: Front kick: big toe Roundhouse: big toe Sidekick: heel Back kick: heel Stomp/knee kick: heel

My goal is to become worthy of my teacher's expectations and accurately pass on everything he is teaching me. Second to that is to be able to practise and perform all that I know even when I reach advanced age. Maybe the image of the little old martial arts master with amazing abilities is a movie cliche, but my teacher is exactly like that. If I can do what he can do when I'm his age I know I will have reached my ultimate goal.

I believe you are referring to the movie titled: The Hunted? Also as a reference to what I said about choreography , I highly recommend a British TV programme called ITV. Go to YouTube and search for the ITV martial arts episode. There is a very clear explanation of how techniques are adapted to the movies versus how they are really used. Very interesting. As for one of my second choices of movies depicting fights I would chose an old war movie about WW2 called The Devil's Brigade. I like the hand to hand combat training scenes and fights with the Canadian hand to hand instructor. I saw old historical footage of empty hand training and it was very much like what is shown n that movie

The main difference between a toe kick and a ball if the foot kick is as you said, the more compact striking surface. This allows the power of the kick to penetrate the target. With ball of the foot kicks, less power goes into the target because it is dissipated by the larger striking surface. The difference is the same as hitting with a blunt object and striking with a sharp pointed one. Both will damage the target but the sharp one will cause deeper damage. Clearly learning this technique is not for everyone and the ball of the foot kick does work if done correctly but I am convinced that a toe kick will have better effect in some applications, especially against a larger adversary...with or without shoes. That is why I believe it is worthwhile for me to go through all the painful conditioning.

Most films featuring any kind of fighting, or martial arts show something that is meant to be flashy and specacular. It is all for entertainment after all. This is why my original question is a challenge to answer. The are very few films made where the fighting scenes are realistic. For that there has to be a very good choreographer preferably someone who has knowledge of how and why techniques work. That is a difficult job because realistic is often chaotic, hard to observe and not entertaining enough for the masses. It is also easier for a spectator to evaluate what is shown if said spectator is familiar with it. Interesting choices so far, keep them coming.

I don't practise weapons anymore but when I did, I was always recommended to use a heavy weapon for practise. The idea is that heavy practise weapons allow the learner to develop fast, strong and controlled movement. This idea is frequently used throughout history and is universally known. I have read historical accounts of warriors and soldiers training with practise weapons that were slightly heavier than the actual weapons used. For any wooden weapon I would prefer a dense hardwood like maple, ash or hickory or oak.

The Last Samurai was a good movie for the actions and battle scenes but what in your opinion makes it close to reality in the way it shows the martial art? Is the use of weapons shown close to how these weapons were actually used?

What is in your opinion the movie that shows the most accurate and realistic depiction of a martial art? My choice would have to be the Karate Kid series. Besides a few exceptions techniques are simple and not fancy, closer to the way karate would be used in reality. The movie also mentions several truth such as quality versus quantity and the role of kata in training. Besides this there is a very accurate dialogue on the moral and philosophical aspects. Please evaluate your choice according to: Realism of techniques depicted and their effects Training depicted if any Martial art theory of attack/defense. Moral/philosophical aspects of the art depicted Ok go!

Practising karate kept me away from negative influences in my life since I was about 10 years old. Without my involvement in karate I am certain that I would have been I serious trouble. Focussing on karate training and going to my dojo helped me overcome bouts of severe isolation and depression in my teenage years. That is also when karate and martial arts became a part of my life I have never given up to this day.

Arthritis as a result of conditioning is one of the arguments often given against the practise. The same thing is said about makiwara use to train the hands. The truth is that there is nothing to prove conditioning causes arthritis. If this was true, all karateka who engage in this practice would have arthritis in their hands and feet. My sensei has absolutely no cumulative damage to his hands or feet/toes after decades of daily conditioning. I believe there was a research that was done with Mas Oyama's hands showing the same results. The key is to not overdo conditioning and not try to rush trough it. Toes take longer than hands and must be done slowly and gradually. It is also very dangerous without proper guidance and learning correct form from a knowledgeable and experienced teacher

If your are in my situation where you have been taught before but with important explanations missing, then there will be flaws. I am speaking from that point of view. It is only after starting over in my style with a teacher who could tell me what I was missing that I realized I had been taught techniques without learning how they would or would not work and why. If you come from a completely different system then it is probably much easier to start something new. Thinking with a novice attitude frees the mind to focus on what is being taught without distraction and avoids confusion. The first step for me was to realize I was doing things with subtle parts missing.

I never was a big fan of it either. I just did it because It was like a dojo code but it still felt weird and a bit silly. I still picked up that habit after years of karate before setting foot in a Japanese/Okinawan dojo. Now my first okinawan sensei's attitude towards it has rubbed off on me. I have come to see it the same way he does. I would at the very least find it annoying and disruptive when other people are OSSing at everything and each other while I'm trying to focus on my practise.

You already do as much as possible from an attitude point of view. As for the rest, just be honest and open about your skill level in each system you practise or teach. That is the main difference between a fraud and one who teaches or practises for the love of their martial art. If you cannot perform a technique or explain it because it is beyond the depths of your knowledge, be ready to point the interested student to someone who can. Or invite that someone to help you teach. That shows respect for yourself, your students and teachers and the arts you practise.

The only time I have ever slowed down was when I could not get up out of bed or when I was throwing up. Strangely I have always felt better after training through sickness. During colds I breathed more clearly and felt decongested. Fevers also went down a few minutes after I finished. I never worsened in any way and I could rest and sleep better afterwards too

Does anyone else still train as usual when sick with a cold or fever? For the sake of my teacher and fellows I don't go to the dojo but not training is out of the question. I practise and train without slowing anything down even when I have a cold, a fever or whatever else. I have even done it with the flu last winter. The only difference I make is in how much water I drink . Training five or six days a week no matter how I feel seems to be working because since starting this routine I have quickly recovered from anything I caught. My family thinks I'm nuts for not slowing down and resting but I feel worse if I just lay there and wait to get better. Another reason is that if I ever have to defend myself I will not be choosing what condition I will be at the time.

Sensei8 At 56 you are not even close to being a old man. I can tell you that I have seen many karateka who are that age or much older who could mop the floor with their young 20 something whipped-snapper students. Whip em and snap em My own sensei is in his late sixties and he can still outperform the fittest people less than half his age. If you don't ever change your training intensity and rythm since you were younger your body will adapt and follow. I have seen living proof of this many times. Unless you have some sort of very serious degenerative disease it is possible to prevent and overcome most of the age problems that slow down average sedentary life style people. I have a lot of admiration and respect for people like you and my sensei. People who have spent decades of their life training and tirelessly trying to improve one part or another of their mental or physical beings. That takes a while lot more self discipline, focus and determination than most have.