SevenStar

also from slipping - one will slip and fall, dragging the other down. Or it may be done on purpose, a la judo's ko soto gake. I hear ya - not all do go to the ground. There is a real statistic though, and it is published - I'll try to find it. The study was done on police officers and says that something like 70% of all altercations cops are involved in go to the ground. From there, the perp is restrained. Also, in the case of security, you are not allowed to hit - you can only restrain.

for those who fight san shou or muay thai matches, you know that you are allowed to catch kicks and knock your opponent down. The side kick is much harder to catch than the roundhouse is, so it's good in that respect as well.

I don't like the side snap kick, but I use the thrust kick as a defensive technique on a regular basis.

when you execute the kick, you step out at an angle - this is done to get you out of the way of the incoming cross, as it's expected that you will try to step in and jam with a punch. The step and lean is a slip that gets you out of the direct path. Also, when you drop the lead hand back, the rear hand should move to cover the opening on that side of your face. your forearm will protect the front and your shoulder will protect the other side. The throwing down of the lead arm acts as something of a counterbalance when you are throwing a full power kick.

I think it's obvious that this is a pose. However, the hand position is similar to what I see in karate, and the way I was taught when I was training it - one hand covers the body and the other covers the face. IMO, their lead hand is somewhat low. I personally prefer a boxing guard though, as I want both hands guarding my head. My arms and elbows can guard my midsection. the deep stance is what you would see after a throw - not from striking, IME and IMO. If you are doing o soto gari and let the reaping leg touch the floor while it's extended back after completing the sweep, what stance are you in? Also, when you throw tai otoshi - especially for the guys who step deep when the execute it - it looks like a modified forward stance.

IMO, this is where the art in martial art comes in. It's not in learning the forms, philosophy and spiritual aspects, but in your expression of fighting. A buddy and I have known eachother for 7 years, and during that time, we were training the same thing at the same school (with the exception of the period that I trained longfist - he went to kenpo) we were just saying a few weeks ago that even though we had the same teachers in the same styles (bjj, judo and thai boxing) we fight COMPLETELY different. Don't resist doing kicks - that may be your area of mastery. However, you need to make a bonafide effort to use your hands, too - you don't want to be one dimensional.

Shouldn't sparring take care of that?

I love the virtua fighter series.

excellent. What's your current training regimen?

just keep practicing. This is normal - we walk around on two feet...to be thrown off of them and on to the ground is unnatural for us and we tend to resist it.

you don't always have picture perfect technique while fighting - breaks can happen. The traditional way I learned was hard to soft and soft to hard. In other words, the fist strikes soft areas - the stomach, liver, kidneys, biceps, etc. whereas the palm strikes harder areas such as the jaw and forehead.

that would be the first red flag raised with me. People get WAY too carried away with the MMA/jkd models. IMO, this is NOT mma, as I stated above. They strike me more as forms/style collectors who are trying to make a buck. The mma model is simple - striking and grappling. period. could be wrestling and boxing, judo and muay thai, bjj and muay thai, etc. and the teacher and students will have or gain an indepth knowledge of both. because of the way they are taught and trained at alot of schools today. There are people running around who really think that kata teach you how to fight multiple attackers. These same students will teach that to someone when they become instructors. Not everyone knows to break the kata down into individual techniques and drill them. case in point - there is a thread on the karate forum right now where someone is asking how you use kata in a fight. In that thread, someone replied that they teach you how to fight multiple attackers...MMA guys who have only been experienced to TMA who think along those lines naturally view kata as useless. IMO, this is the wrong approach. At my school, each class has coaches. Those coaches specialize in that style. We have to bjj brown belts who teach bjj. A guy with 10 years of thai boxing who coaches tha boxing, then myself and another guy are assistants. Two judo black belts that teach the judo classes. Some of us cross train, but we don't teach the other classes. I've got a brown belt in judo, so I will give pointers and such if asked, but I don't teach. several of the guys fight mma and many of us compete in our respective styles as well. All of the coaches compete, as do assistants. The only thing we tend to think is superior are training methods. IMO, that's the main thing that separates sport fighters from TMA. there were a couple of schools here like that as well - they are no longer in business.

If you can't live everyday life without eating those things, that's a discipline issue. That's not a slight at you in anyway. It's just my thinking that a person should be able to control such things. there's a BIG difference in having the timing to catch a rabbit and evading an aggressor's strikes. You really can't compare the two. All that is doing is making you better at hunting rabbits... you obviously only half-read the thread. Since you missed it, scottnshelly said this: Which makes my above response QUITE pertinent, as I was responding directly to something he said. The point was to illustrate that I have the same potential hang ups as he does and still find time to train alot. Reading is fundamental. I've done without. quite a bit, actually. you sound completely ignorant when you make statements like that, as you have no inkling as to how I was raised...

not really - nothing that I can't already get by training on my own. I have not read all the responses but did sevenstar just say there were no advantages to secluded training that he wasn't already getting by training on his own? If he is training "on his own" isn't he secluded from everyone else? that was in reference to training I do in the gym every day. I see absoloutely nothing wrong with that. That however is WAY different from spending a year in the mountains...

this is the misconception I was referring to. all styles may be mixed to some degree, but that doesn't mean that it incorporates both striking and grappling on at least a near equal level. longfist kung fu is mixed, but tends not to focus on grappling - especially ground grappling. This applies to pretty much all chinese styles. So, even though they may indeed be hybrid styles, I don't classify them as mma.

I think the confusion is over the actual term. mixed martial arts isn't a style, per se. It was the name coined for the fighters who compete in no holds barred competitions. The term reflected that the fighters crosstrained in both a striking and a grappling style. What's happening is that nowadays, enyone who's ever trained more than one style is calling themselves an MMA. so, you have people who trained in karate and tkd saying that they do mma, when actually, that's incorrect. In my eyes, the term MMA indictates those who train in a striking and grappling art. Nothing more, nothing less. competition isn't a requirement, but if you don't compete, I wouldn't use the term MMA because the term implies competition. The other misconception that people have is that MMA is only sporting - as if it can't be used for self defense. It works both inside and outside the ring.

I've never seen one that costs that much. ringside.com has one for 300 - but it weighs 200 lbs. you can get an 80lb bag for less than 100 bucks. at our club we've got a few of those, and we've got three of the 6 foot tall bananna bags. They probably weight about 125 I'm guessing, but those are normally sold unfilled, so they are pretty cheap too.

I agree. that's the message they convey because that's what the general public wants to hear. They technically aren't lying, however. strengthening the abs is easy. It's losing the fat round them that takes all the hard work. Their product isn't geared toward that though, so naturally, they don't focus on it.

exactly. That's why I mentioned that not having a coach would be a detriment.

wipss makes a good mouthguard. look into the "brain pad"

What works the other way? What can you do that I can't? Also, let's define power.

lol.... I'm 26, married, have a full time job, pay bills and have a kid. I manage to do okay. Time is there for those who look. My kid LOVES martial arts. I take him to class with me. I'm going to allow him to start training next year. I lift weights and do cardio on my lunch break. Class isn't a big issue - I just go. I have my son with me, and it doesn't take alot of time away from being with my wife.

Definitely moral, but are you sure about legal? I really can't allow or disallow anything outside of class - I'm not their parent. I can advise, but can really do no more, other than punishment within the school, like kicking them out.

That's exactly what I was talking about... jujutsu isn't verifiably traced back to china. several people have theories, but nothing concrete. several people also have theories on how jujutsu was developed completely on it's own - we'll never really know, I guess. The set ups you see in sumo though - like crashing into people it very similar to shuai chiao. I've been training it for about two years - nothing real concrete though - the guys I train with are about 8 hours away from me, so I try to work the forms that I know and apply it to my judo and bjj and thai boxing when we randori/spar. I only get to actually see the shuai chiao guys a few times a year.

I think this is why many people think katas are useless...