SevenStar

I've got one of the $150 hurley stretch racks. I've had it for years and it works well - you can achieve the same results without one, but a stretcher makes is easier to hold your legs in place without sliding.

just play music and buyt a timer. In our classes, we pump music out while we're drilling and doing padwork. the timer is seperate, that way the music never stops. You can pick up a decent timer from wal-mart for seven bucks.

you can train multiple styles - I train in 3. It's a good idea to have a firm foundation in something before picking up something different though. you don't have to have it mastered, but you need to understand the priciples of the techniques you're applying and should be aboe to apply them properly. There are some considerations to make though, such as compatibility of the styles you are picking. IMO, they should be either totally opposite or bery similar. for example, I train muay thai, bjj and judo. muay thai and bjj are total opposites, so the principles don't conflict. judo and bjj are very similar, so principles don't conflict. in my pre-grappling days I trained in kung fu. their roundhouse was different from my thai roundhouse, and I was constantly being corrected because it was "wrong"

The only time I throw a hook like that is if I am circling to his outside as I throw it. Otherwise, I throw it "the boxing way"

blue belt isn't about tapping people. the main staple of a blue belt is knowing how to get and maintain a position of control and also how to escape. Now that you can do that well, continue to hone it, and start mastering subs for your purple.

you don't have me beat... there are no belt testing fees in judo and no rank in thai. there is a fee in bjj, paid to adriano lucio of the brazilian top team, as he's the black belt we're affiliated with.

not kempo and kenpo - kempo and chuan fa. the first two are both japanese names, but I think different romanizations. chuan fa translates to kenpo in japanese. chuan fa = fist art kenpo = fist law/method

CoCo, which organization are you guys a part of?

How many styles of each there are is somewhat irrelevant. he wanted a comparison of karate and kung fu. The problem is that that is a VERY broad thing - within kung fu itself, you have styles that utilize mainly a straight line, and others with circular; you have styles with several forms, and styles with very few; you have styles with varying methods of power generation. You will find these same differences between some karate styles. The question needs to be a tad more specific.

I completely agree. My only point was that there are more hand techniques than alot of people think. That doesn't really mean much though - it tends to cross over to the jack of all trades argument, IMO. I actually don't like the idea of having all of those techniques.

that's the thing right there - you're getting reamed on the belt tests.

sure it does. common sense tells you that 4 hours of expert instruction is better than one. hour one - I drill you with padwork, honing your combinations and getting you warmed up hour two - technique and corrections hour three - sparring and corrections hour four - tactics, review of sparring session

at my club, for 75 a month, you get brazilian jiu jitsu 4 days a week, judo two days a week and muay thai 2-5 days a week... bjj - 2.5 hours, judo and muay thai are 1.5, except for on saturday, when the focus of the thai class is conditioning. those sessions are about 3.5 hours.

the ka and ken in kajukenbo represent karate and kenpo - karate. karate is in the style's name twice, indicating a heavy karate influence. now, admittedly, it tends to follow (from what I've seen of it) more of the kenpo influence, which considering it came from empirado explains why it looks like it has more of a chinese flavor.

yeah, that's true also. kempo was the name given by the japanese. It was their trainslation of "chuan fa" the reason shaolin is in the name is because of the influence of kung fu in his system. castro was a student of william chow, whose "kara ho kempo" was a combination of kempo (kosho, I think) and 5 animals kung fu. castro's shaolin kempo emphasizes the 5 animals moreso than the kosho ryu, which is why he calls his style shaolin kenpo. In actuality though, it is by no means shaolin.

in a real fight, sure. In terms of ring fighting, I disagree.

http://www.usmta.com/Muay%20Thai%20Fighting%20System-Low-Kicks-1.htm check out the first pic of a low roundhouse to the back of the legs. notice how the kicker is leaned away from the kick - that keeps him out of range of his opponent's counter strike. Look at his base leg - it's bent so that he can angle downward. http://www.usmta.com/Muay%20Thai%20Fighting%20System-High-Kicks-1.htm notice that on the high roundhouse, the arm is thrown back to counterbalance and the base leg is straight.

As far as the left hook goes, if I'm not mistaken, the muay thai left hook IS the boxing left hook. traditionally, muay thai only uses straight punches. the uppercut and hook were assimilated from western boxing.

it goes way deeper than use of the shin karate roundhouse kicks are chambered, where as muay thai uses a "dead leg" karate kicks tend to snap out and recoil back to a chambered position. Muay thai kicks go through the target. the recoil on the karate kick is caused by the kicker bringing his leg back quickly. in thai, the recoil is automatic created by the impact of the kick. the thai kick has three angles for attack depending on target area - diagonal, inward and downward. the base leg is bent with a low thai kick. the thai kick is usually thrown in conjunction with a step offline. the upperbody is used to counterbalance the kick, allowing great power for thai kicks. Throwing the hand out/back also has tactical advantages. karate exponents tend to keep the hands up when kicking. There are additional differences when discussing a lead leg roundhouse.

when you are bouncing, you lose your root and you are expending energy unnecessarily. you are just as mobile when you shuffle as you are when you bounce - actually you are more mobile, as you can shift direction at the drop of a dime from a proper boxing stance. When you bounce, you leave yourself open to be attacked/swept, as was stated earlier. you can't necessarily attack faster either. let's say you aren't bouncing up and down, but rather back and forth. Now, you aren't open to the sweep, but I will still time you.when you are coming forward, more weight is on the front leg - asking me to kick it. When you are going backward, your weight is also backward, asking me to rush you. While you are in a certain direction from the bounce, you are commintted to that direction - meaning you can't quite as readily go another direction.

when you are bouncing, you lose your root and you are expending energy unnecessarily. you are just as mobile when you shuffle as you are when you bounce - actually you are more mobile, as you can shift direction at the drop of a dime from a proper boxing stance. When you bounce, you leave yourself open to be attacked/swept, as was stated earlier. you can't necessarily attack faster either. let's say you aren't bouncing up and down, but rather back and forth. Now, you aren't open to the sweep, but I will still time you.when you are coming forward, more weight is on the front leg - asking me to kick it. When you are going backward, your weight is also backward, asking me to rush you. While you are in a certain direction from the bounce, you are commintted to that direction - meaning you can't quite as readily go another direction.

Lol! We are one of 2 schools in the whole miami area... Id apreciate it if you stopped insulting my school and started thinking about more mature replys you can make. two schools or two shito schools? And I'm not insulting them... you said yourself that by all standards, your school is a McDojo, except that your instructor is training you hard since you asked him. And actually, all of my replies have been quite "mature" - I even went so far as to ask you how you broke your finger. You just dance around everything other than the fact that you don't thnk you're in a McSchool...

shaolin kenpo wasn't created by the monks. it was created by ralph castro and is an offshoot of kenpo karate.

it's not a lack of flexibility - it's intentional. It's done for a few reasons, one, to assist in "sitting" into the kick, the same way you sink into a power punch, like a cross. It is also getting him out of the way of a counter from the attacker (in conjunction with the step and lean). I don't think people do it on high kicks, only on mid and low level.

There are plenty of GOOD schools in miami, I'm sure - not just McSchools such as yours and others you describe...