SevenStar

dipped foam... the point sparring stuff? heck no. you need real equipment: http://www.ringside.com https://www.fairtex.com you can start with those two. ringside, fairtex and twins all carry decent gear.

can you post the article? who did the study? creatine is naturally produced by the body anyway. I don't see how it will kill you unless you misuse it, but that applies to anything... theoretically, you can eat too many banannas and die of a potassium overdose...

that's actually the benefit of the trampoline. the increased height give you more time to flip - you can work your technique. It's like anything else - for example, the MA principle of spiraling. you will begin with hug spirals, but as you get more comfortable with it, you can produce the same power with increasingly smaller spirals. at the gynastics school, we started on a trampoline. then, a flooring that provided less bounce than the trampoline. Then, to the normal gymnastics floor.

that's funny... really. I trained at a cma school with taiji guys... I've met dr yang jwing ming... I don't need to read any books. I've always been an external stylist, but I've been around internalists long enough to know crap when I read it...

yang style has combat applications. the problem is finding someone who can teach them. No, he won't. The major difference between internal and external MA is body mechanics. they generate power differently.

one thing to consider is shelf life. in liquiid form, protein shakes, creatine, etc. will eventually begin to breakdown until they are virtually useless. When you buy these, you don't know how long they've been on the shelves...

that will depend on the individual. typically, you learn falls first, and are allowed to do nothing else until you can properly fall.

that's all there is to it. No secrets. the more you spar and train, the more conditioned your body will get.

weight training can definitely have a negative effect, but I'm not sure about stretching. However, I just did a search on toddler's and yoga, and noticed that ALOT of yoga instructors are having classes for toddlers now...

what I've always heard about bhodidarma is not that he taught them fighting, but that he taught them a series of static postures that when linked together made for a decent method of exercise for the monks. these postures where the the 18 lohan postures.

I've always heard the opposite. I wonder what others here have heard?

the other thing with the tennisballs is the telegraphic nature: 1. you know to anticipate them coming 2. you see them coming from further back than you would an actual strike.

by starting on a trampoline. A guy I used to train with was a part time gymnastics coach, and he was able to get me into the gymnastics club for free once a week. The biggest problem I've seen with people trying to backflip - and the same problem I had - was that they actually try to jump backward. DO NOT DO THAT. All of your effort should be used to get you as high as you can go, giving you plenty of room to flip without landing on your back/head. jump straight into the air and swing your arms upward while simultaneously pulling your knees to your chest - this is where the backward arc begins. stay tight into a ball and you will continue flipping backward. And yes, you are correct about the mind - it's scary going backward, and is hard for many to deal with. once you can get over that, you can get the backflip. That said, I haven't tried one in years and likely can't do it anymore, but I know how to obtain it again, since going backward is no longer a problem for me.

hwo cool is it when they say they can bench 350, and you can't can't even do 175? There's a tradeoff there. Of course though, the ideal would be to be able to do both.

One BIG thing to realize here - they are fighting. My longfist forms were beautiful when I trained them. In fighting, the applications aren't as good looking. Same thing with thai boxing. When shadow boxing, a fighter will have picture perfect form. When fighting, it generally looks ugly. Naturally, as fighting itself is ugly. it only looks flawless in the movies. as far as body mechanics, hip motion. Naturally, that's not everything, but on a very basic level, it all comes from the hips. However, the thai boxer will turn his hip all the way over when doing things like a roundhouse kick, making it more powerful than the normal snapping variety. other techniques, like the teep and straight knees involve a thrusting motion of the hip, as opposed of a turning over. They use various energies as well, such as yielding and borrowing - things you may be familiar with since you have trained in chinese styles. the main difference here is that there is no name for these energues - they are just there. whatever is open. in general, good striking targets are the sciatic nerve, the inside of the thigh, the jaw, the liver, the xyphoid process and the kidney. the problem with knee breaks, elbow breaks, etc. is that you cannot train them with any force during sparring - it takes away from the training, IMO.

Please do. It's always good to hear about success someone is having. It's a good motivator!

my initial guess would be that you lost the fat, but replaced it with muscle. Muscle is more dense than fat, so you may have only added a slight bit of muscle and it was enough to equal out what you weight originally.

go get it checked out. In some cases, repeated clicking/grinding can indicate some other injury, such as a grinding noise in the shoulder being an indicator of a rotator cuff injury. It could be an injury, but then again, it could be nothing. Better safe than sorry though, I'd get it looked at. Also, I'm not sure how heavy the weight you were using was, but if you've been off from lifting for a while and then go back to it, be sure not to go too heavy until you work back up to it.

Also, there's nothing wrong with making lunch at home. Set aside some time the night before to prepare something, that way you're not pressed for time in the morning.

for lunch, don't forget canned fish. keep a can opener at your job and stock up on fish and salmon. tuna is usually dirt cheap and it's packed with protein. For shakes, I've used several, but don't really have a specific brand reccomendation. Things like that can get hairy anyway, as different individuals respond differently to different products.

just do it. Play with a few things and you will be able to determine on your own if/when you are over training. I am in the gym daily. However, I try not to extend my workout any longer than 30 mins. I am in class mon - thurs and train on my own on the weekends. While you're in the gym, keep your workouts brief and to the point. Get the most out of the time that you are there. Pay attention to your body and adjust your wokrouts accordingly.

when speaking about jkd, things can get confusing, because you have several groups - original jkd, jkd concepts, jun fan and modern jkd. What I trained in was jun fan. Jun Fan is an art that served as the basis for JKD's theories. JKD technically isn't a style - it's a series of concepts that you learn and apply. Remember, lee was an advocate of "the way of no way" - to fight without style. He took elements he thought were useful in a fight - trapping, punching, kicking and grappling, and then took techniques from various styles that fit the description and worked well for him. It's not really a style, but a msesh of styles tied together by the concepts that lee fleshed out as JKD. Naturally, this causes confusion, because it seems that you can train whatever you want and call it jkd just because you mixed different styles together. traditionally, jkd has a base of stiking, trapping and kicking. But, you have modern groups now, like the straight blast gym guys who have a more MMA type approach. naturally, i like this approach better. trapping is not common in fights. however, clinching is. the SBG guys's program consists of boxing, thai boxing and bjj - this covers the ranges of striking, kicking, grappling and "trapping" - clinchwork - very nicely.

here's a program that's been circulating the net for a few years. i've never tried it, but I know people who have, and they've had success with it: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Field/4992/100push.html

actually, kickboxing is more of a derivative of karate. back in the day when "full contact karate" was becoming popular... it is what became kickboxing. the competitors at the time were frustrated with the point scoring system and wanted harder contact. western boxing has definitely had a huge influence over it, and recently, thai boxing has as well.

also........kyokushin lowline kicks, if trained correctly, can be the most devastating kick to your opponent, Many victories have been one with gedan-mawashi as a finisher. from what ive trained, and who ive faught, i think there is more body science behind kyokushin technique, which takes a long while to even remotely master, whereas muai-thai is more brutal and straight to the point from the beginning. other than that, there are dojos in australia which teach whole systems of both Kyokushin and Muai-Thai under one roof. i personally dont think the two styles are that much different, only the views of those who practice them. the low kick they use is more evidence of the influence thai boxing has had on kyokushin. I would guess that this is why alot of the clubs where you are teach kyokushin and thai boxing under the same roof.