karate-ka

white yellow gold orange green purple brown probationary black (shodan-ho) black (shodan) For us when you have your shodan, you act as an assistant to the sensai, no official teaching... Rather annoying, the whole probationary thing. Sometimes it can take a year or two before you are allowed to test for your shodan. My dojo makes you work for it in every way shape and form.

Rick E .... about the protein powder. Whether you want to get really big, or really lean, or what have you... Taking whey protein is in general nothing but beneficial, I would suggest its use regularly in association with weight lifting

On what mikS said... Many forms of MA take a good while of practice before they can be used effectively, especially any showy techniques. You never mentioned how long you were practicing there, because it sounds like you are simply new and have no idea what the heck you are doing. My advice to you, learn the basics somewhere they TEACH you the basics. And if you were taught the basics there, then you should have been wise enogh to use them instead of an advanced technique. Double kicks are something I happen to favor in certain circumstances, but they are not something to be used regularly.

If you want to improve dodging speed effective, try this: Find someone who can throw (I used my friend who happens to be a baseball pitcher) Take a bunch of tennis balls and stand 5-7 yards from each other. Give the balls the thrower, and let er rip! You will not only have to block them (depending on where they throw to) but you will have to dodge certain ones in order for them to miss you. It is an excellent excercise for speed.

Junino? What form of karate are you taking exactly? (Ive never heard of that either)

You just described exactly what I was going to. Good call except when you break out, you said to step forward. I have found it is more effective after you have raised your left hand, to step across your left foot with your right, THEN turn trapping the arms. Its is quicker, making it far easier to turn, and you wrap the your arms around their elbows, forming a lock and possible break. then of course you have your free hand at close range to do whatever you want

Exactly! One of my favorite counters to a roundhouse (although you have to be able to take a bit of punishment for it to work) Is actually move in and take the kick close to the knee catching it in your hand/arms and simultaneously roundhousing THEM. Its very quick and powerful, the second they roundhouse they are exposing themselves to your attack

The main reason they would not want to do knockout is danger potential. Just imagine two highly trained BBs going at it full tilt trying to knock the other out... Can you say bloodshed and broken bones?

What I find to be even worse than holding a horse stance, is holding a 1/2 pushup ... after the end of an intense class. We go through the class then make two lines, one line in a half pushup, the other line does kata...we hold the pushup until the other is done with the kata! *shudder* its just nasty thinkin about it, especially when they forget the correct movements!

When you say jugsaw mats you are referring to the soft-ish foam ones right? Those things are nasty when it comes to burns!!! ouch!!

In many cases, a belt means almost nothing. Unfortunately, many dojos simply promote people to earn more money. And even more unfortunately, these mcdojos are everywhere. Even in the straight dojos, often times the blackbelt tests are far too easy. In my two dojos, the difference is extremely obvious. In the one dojo, where your cat stance is not low enough on one middle block in a kata, you are denied your BB even if the rest of your test is flawless. Then you have the 2nd dojo, where if you put the wrong move into a kata, but make it look GOOD, they will still give you your BB. For a BB test the 2nd dojo is stretching it reallly far, and as a result there are a good number of mediocre BBs. But everyone is going to be different, there are also a decent numbers of incredible BBs - it all depends on individual effort. I can easily say, however, that some BBs dont deserve them, and especially the ones that flaunt their shodans-ho's, and even many shodans. Oh, and take it easy on tournament fighters, they tend to be poor on average... As a white belt at my first tournament I took Grand Champion white through green in kumite. Admittedly I had a decent bit of MA experience before this lol, but its still not very impressive of them.

what traditions were you referring to? Traditional training has hit an all-time low since many of the MA teachers have become 'americanized' and are now teaching to suit people so they can best keep an income. Hence there is no longer the ultra conditioning very often, or much full contact sparring. (Im speaking in general) Traditions as in dojo etiquette and such, isnt quite so bad, although that has slacked off many places as well. There is no longer the strong spiritual aspect most of the time, and the respect between pupils has changed to more of a respect for the belt than respect for the person. Is that what you were looking for?

Am I the only one here that DOESNT feel anything from these energy drinks?? Ive tried things like Sobe, Amp, Red Bull, and Snapple, but havent recieved any kind of 'lift' or 'boost' in energy... I just drink them for the taste. Maybe it they run along the same lines as other caffeine-products with me... no effect. But that doesnt explain things like sobe.

Im about 11% body fat, 6'1 170 lbs all that good crap, I find that if you are at the point where you can obviously see a 6-pack (like myself) then you will be in similar condition throughout most of your body, and there will be a general promotion of muscle and lacking of fat. To test my current conditioning, I had two kickboxers, both about 20 lbs less than myself punch and kick me in the torso as hard as they could. It was very easy to take the puches and most of the kicks, they simply turned me a bit red, and their punches basically bounced off. That doesnt mean a solar plexus hit wouldnt take me down, but through all the conditioning and natural physique advantages, the high muscle % really has made a difference in how much punishment I can take in comparison to most people.

Here is an question for anyone who can answer... I am about 11% body fat, 16 male, 6'1 @ 170 lbs. My top abs are plenty visible, but for some reason my lower section has fell far behind in the progression. As far as I know, there actually are no "Lower" and "Upper" abs, its one string of muscle. Are there any particular excercise routines that could target that lower section? I have tried a thousand different excercises and I diet correctly, but all I have achieved is reduction of the fat. I just cant seem to bulk it correctly. Any suggestions?