theswarm

i would pay around 6.50 per class if I had to pay, the most i'd pay for any martial art would be 12 per class - but that'd have to be a pretty impressive and enjoyable martial art for me to pay that much.

do they? im curious i was at a tournament today with mixed styles and saw some awesome weapon demonstrations but i felt like i wanted to see weapon sparring but i doubt there would be because of the injuries involved.

determination is good up until a point but blind loyalty is not far from idiocy

what part of oz? there's classes in Melbourne in nunawading, melbourne uni, and surrey hills that i can think of off hand

using the ball of your foot can be pretty brutal to the opponent but also to you if you don't do the technique correctly.

start doing cardio now let your style worry about the other conditioning stuff

i like tournaments - they teach you how to deal with neves, sparring with strangers, point tournaments tell you how to pick people off, continuous tournaments just teach you to have to be all around good. I feel like i've learnt alot of stuff i wouldn't have otherwise.

People say Tai chi Chuan is not effective, it doesn't surprise me people think the same of Wu Shu

what's the difference between grupo bahlia and filhos de bahlia (or names similar to this effect) if there is a difference? I'm looking to start cross training in it and was wondering before I go signing up to anything.

hapkido looks to be pretty good. I don't do it though

that sounds alright I agree with you the club has it's negative and positive points and I don't say that in a way to bash my own club or put my own club on a pedestool - just certain things i've noticed in my time here. I tend to get told when I assist not to be so strict, i tend to change my instructing style depending on the environment - sometimes I feel discipline is needed and if students pick up a habit of poor discipline then fixing that lack of discipline is going to be really really hard later on, and i've seen many examples of this. But most of the time I try and use positivity to instill discipline into students I help out, just trying to show the positive benefits of self discipline rather than being hard on them for not being well disciplined, self discipline was something I discovered myself - not from being taught, punished, or anything. But yeah anyway enough of my tangeant, I hope your child has fun!

i'm curious as to the offensive applications of: gedan burai i can already think of one for gedan uke chude(or chuge?) uke uchi uke (the inside outisde hooking block) soto uke jodan age uke maybe some of the jutsu students can help me out

generally at lower belt levels - I found that yellow tip to white belt grading was all Basics, stances, simple combos, first kata. yours might be different (ps i dont take shotokan)

i know this is imagined but wouldn't an unexperienced knife handler just be aiming for mid section swings and thrusts? I dunno i guess I just can't imagine someone leaning down to strike you in areas low. But as you can probably tell with my posts - unless i had some surroundings i could use i probably wouldn't survive a knife fight, not to say i wouldn't try

I like that too, but I was even more impressed when I heard it when training my cotton/spandex pants at home! hahahah was that snap followed by a rip sound?

that's the face i have when i spar anyone above black belt and my mind is telling my body 'move, move!'

oops i just realized i think i may have put this in the wrong forum

What's the difference between different capoeira schools? I've noticed Grupo Bahia and Filhos Di Bahia schools near me - I'm interested in doing it because it looks like fun.

I reckon i'd like being the only beginner in a class think how much attention you'd get and how much quicker you'd learn with all these experienced people to look onto. I can only say this after having done martial arts though.

I do Go-Kan-Ryu in Australia and have been doing it for a bit over a year from what I've heard on these boards the standard in the UK of Go-Kan-Ryu doesn't sound too great, this might be because G-K-R has only existed in the UK for 2 years, I'm not sure (or making excuses). In answer to your questions Is it true that it isnt REAL karate? The founder of Go-Kan-Ryu created it based on Gojukai and budokan - he had been doing both for 38 years (i don't think necessarily at the same time) and had only an interest in karate and no other martial arts. From what i've seen of those similar arts it's more like Go Ju than budo or shotokan. So that will depend on what your definition of real karate, if real karate is one of the original styles then no. If being a real karateka is more to do with personal character building, attitude, self discipline, and etiquette, and proper kihon then yes. But that being said I can't speak for the schools where you live. Is it true that the instructors are not black belts? Both. If you see an instructor that has a black belt with a white stripe through the middle this is a junior instructor - these instructors exist because in the school 1 in every 500 students is a black belt (i think that's the figure) and it makes it a little diffcult to get every single of that 1 in every 500 to instruct. The instructors you see with a black belt are black belts, and the ones you see with black belts with japanese writing on them are shodans and above. (and the ones whose belts have faded heaps are usually fairly high) Is it true that GKR is not accepted by the Karate body or whatever they are called? This one I have no idea about, sorry. Is it true that GKR students cannot take part in tournaments? nope, in Australia we have the blitz magazine national all styles tournaments - which is many styles muay thai, jiu jutsu, taekwondo, kung fu, kickboxing, karate, etc etc. (there's actually one coming up this weekend) which the state teams compete in here and do pretty well. http://www.nationalallstyles.com.au I believe is the address. We have a few champions in that. There's also the world all styles championships but i'm not sure of any website for this - one of my instructors was a world all styles champion for continuous(jiyu) kumite. We also conduct our own tournaments - Within the Region, Within the state, and on a national level. Is it true that GKR have a history of not having proper insurance cover? I don't know about this one, i haven't heard any stories - but i know they have proper liability insurance where I live, the best bet is since you've already paid for your membership you should contact your regional instructor (not the sensei at the place where your kid trains) and ask them these questions. Personally what i'd be worried the most about is the fact that they let your child of 4 years old enroll, when it's pretty clear here that the minimum is 5 years of age. I'm also wondering about the enroling cost being 80 pounds, that'd be what 150 australian dollars? I paid 48 dollars for mine, i dont know what's going on there - mine was a white card and not lifetime, but it got upgraded to lifetime (lifetime i think costs 80 dollars here) because I got my yellow belt in the first month. ok my question is was the class an early class? What happens in a dojo I assist at is we have a one hour class earlier in the day mainly for the kids and for those who are serious to warm up, those classes tend to be a little messier, then we have a class usually 15 minutes after that that's far more serious that goes for 1 and a half hours. These aren't true of all our dojos though - there are some that simply do the 1 and half hour serious class and that's it, the 1 hour classes seem to be at the newer dojos where there's lots of lower belt kids who have short attention spans. My advice to you is to try this: you should have been given a piece of paper that says a few dojo locations near you right? Well hopefully you were - pick another dojo - it might be better, if it's no better find another style or school. That's what I'd have done if I wasn't happy with it. Good luck and i hope my advice helps you and your son out.

i tend to find that you always think you are doing a kata well until you know the kata well enough to know you're not. Then the rest of the time is spent perfecting technique and movement, i know about 6 katas (first 2 basic, saifa, bassai dai, seinchun, empi) but i find myself going back to the early ones - the saying 'jack of all trades and master of none' can easily be applied to kata i think, so i'm just making sure i do them as perfect as i can until i can move on to perfecting the next. I don't think i could ever get bored with kata - and i'm only doing 6 at the moment there's plenty more to learn for me.

how good are canvas gis sooo good i had cotton for a year now i can't get over the snap you hear in the gi when you do a technique in canvas

Are you not at least slightly suspicious about points that must be hit "at three thirty p.m. on a cloudy thursday while facing north and wearing a charteuse sweater?" hahahahahahahaha

thanks!

I once heard a story off a friend of mine that did Kung Fu about a guy who did alot of acupressure/acupuncture etc etc and knew that at different times of the day there were different points along the chest where you could hit and cause a blood clot going to the heart. I'm not sure if this is true or not. Sounded interesting tho