tommarker

Umbrella techniques can come from those taught for the cane, which can also come from fencing and bayonet fighting methods. Having a golf umbrella thrust into my solar plexus doesn't sound like a pleasant way to end my evening.

pcam... is there a gymnastics class nearby? backflips aren't really something I would recommend trying to teach yourself! I can do one on a spring loaded floor, but that's it. I wouldn't even try a flash kick. Juji's Trick Tutorial site has the back flip, but not the flash kick: http://www.trickstutorials.com/tutorials/tricks/backflip.php http://www.trickstutorials.com/ The tuck is very important to not landing on your grape.

it sounds like you're describing the kick that would could place into the middle of a backflip. Kinda like when a soccer player does a bike kick, but is able to land on their feet I would imagine that first, you should be extremely proficient with a backflip, and have access to a foam pit for practice

Is anyone else a sucker for old karate books? I go to a lot of used book stores, check ebay, abebooks.com, etc... always looking for good deals and rare gems. Sometimes you get some real good stuff, and other times... well, you know where this is going. Anyone come across some good ones lately? I found Ed Parker's guide to the Nunchaku which has some great ideas in it.

I guess if your instructor is Bill Wallace, then left-leg forward is the way to go

there is another thread that discusses this... i think it is called "bounce" or something

tsdmom... To be honest, I wouldn't worry too much about him not wanting to compete, as it could stem from all kinds of things. Obviously, you are concerned and you don't want to rush him into competing too early. As someone who has judged a ring with kids the same age as your son, I'd be inclined to say let him wait to compete until he gets the itch to do it. Chances are, it might be right after this competition and he sees the medals and trophies his friends picked up. I'll be honest, with kids that age and especially beginners, it is HARD to judge children on the same subjective level as you would teenagers or adults competing at the same level. As such, the scores are sometimes wildly different from judge to judge (some judges look for different things, others unfortunately hate judging kids and don't do a good job) This a lot of the times ends up in a lot of hurt feelings on the part of the kid, and the parents who think their kid got a raw deal from the judges. I see lots of kids crying after the competition... enough to make me think that it's not worth having. On the other hand, it's perfectly natural to be nervous about these things too... I think I worried myself sick about a school play when I was your son's age. There's a lot of stuff riding on it... peer approval, coach approval, parent approval.. etc. Obviously, you'd still love your kid if he forgot the whole form or did it wrong, but... in the kid's head... If it's just nerves, the extra work might make it more or less stressful.

Sorry to tell you, but that's the stuff that rotted and fell apart on mine It'll last for a fair amount of time. By then, you'll want to rip it all off and replace it with leather or something cool!

Best bet is abebooks.com or ebay. There are usually three or four online, and you can get them for about $20.00 or so. That's how I got mine.

I know a few people who have restrung them with leather cord with great result. Other people I know have meticulously wrapped silk cord around the handles. I just used cloth tape

I've seen a few open tournament nunchaku routines on bilang.com but as for traditional stuff, there is little/nothing out there. Even in books, there isn't a whole lot to find. Demura has a short kata in his Advanced Nunchaku book. Sakagami has a good form in his "nunchaku and sai" book, which is out of print but readily available on ebay.

While the pads do cut down on bruises and cuts, they haven't shown themselves to be very effective at preventing major injuries.. Especially to the head.

Tae Kwon Do and Tang Soo Do are fairly similar in theory, but tend to be different in practice. They share a similar history and have only really differentiated over the last 30 years. Tang Soo Do is a hard/soft style. While many will say it is a direct desendent of Shotokan (A hard style) I believe that Hwang Kee (Founder of Tang Soo Do) changed the philosophy to incorporate what he learned of Tai Chi. Like TKD, there is an emphasis on kicks. You will learn a lot of fancy and seemingly improbable kicks. But you will learn a great deal of upper body technique as well. On top of that, Hapkido will round a lot of your skill set. Another advantage is that his school is part of the World Tang Soo Do Association, and there is a tight knit group of schools that often get together for training, clinics, and tournaments.

i tend to experiment a lot in sparring. i have a style that works pretty effectively for me, but I always like to try new tactics. I'll change my strategy depending on the other person's rank, size, speed, etc.

a good uniform i think will make your techniques feel very crisp. especially when you can get it to snap on a punch or kick. other times, i wanna take that sweaty stinky thing off and just wear a t-shirt

Tibby is right-on with his advice.

unless the people who bought them are martial arts experts and know to buy super expensive shureido brand sai that are up to 5 times more expensive than regular sai.... you've prolly got run of the mill sai. As for high quality, I guess it depends on what you'll be doing with them. Just for toying and playing with, I'm sure they're fine. Usually the cheap part is the handle wrapping which rots and falls off after a few months.

Is Warrenville close enough? I *think* it is close to Naperville. Eagle Academy of Martial Arts Master Dan R. Jansa 2 S. 525 Route 59 Warrenville, IL 60555 630-393-0033 Master Jansa knows his stuff, check him out. I've had the chance to work with him on several occasions and have always learned a LOT from him.

agreed but I have seen people get worked into that very position.

does everyone have a test every two weeks? or, does the instructor have so many students that having a gup test every two weeks is needed to take care of people at different levels? just curious.. it might explain it a bit for me.

Where in Illinois are you? I know a very good Tang Soo Do/Hapkido instructor in the Chicago area.

Excellent post.

Until no one wants to train with you because you can't keep your kicks in check, or until a Sam Dan decides to put you through the wall to show you what it's like.

Says who? How often? How hard is "heavy" or "full"? Have you performed longitudinal studies between people who spar light/no contact versus full/heavy and determined how good a fighter they are? By what standards? At what level of frequency does sparring full contact improve fighting ability? Once a week? Every month? Daily? Do marathoners run 30 miles in practice so they can do 26.2 faster on race day? (no.) Do football players always practice full contact? (no.) Now mind you, I've never said sparring full contact was wrong. And I've never said that light contact was the only way to go. Our class takes a conservative approach to teaching sparring, and students who have gotten into fights have all walked away intact. I'm just curious as to how everyone has reached their conclusions, and perhaps to get a few people to ask some questions of their methodologies. Just because some bruisers train full contact doesn't mean that made them excellent fighters. Corelation does not imply causation. Different people train and learn to different outcomes. What worked for Oyama and Kubota may not work for everyone. Those folks earned their stripes the hard way, proving themselves outside of a ring. I also imagine both of them would be pretty tough without the benefit of karate.

I didn't say they were. But the question was "why no contact?" in comparison to say... "full contact." We address several in-between levels in our class. I will stand by the opinion that people should be be allowed to spar at the level they request, and the person wanting the lowest amount of contact should get their way. I can think of several instances in which someone should be allowed to say "no contact" and not be subject to chastising, eye-rolling or thoughts that they are unworthy of studying martial arts, blah blah blah.