SevenStar

what do you know about your opponent?

Every one I know that has done them every day ended up with a shoulder injury - the rotator cuff can tear from the repetetive stress. It happened to me also. But, I used to do 300 a day... If you do do them daily, limit the # you do.

That depends on the type of sweep you are performing. What you stated is good for sweeps like ko uchi gari and de ashi barai, but in the case of o soto gari, I actually want your weight in your foot.

Okay, this is a different animal. When I hear "modern" I usually think in terms of thai boxing and boxing, as sport arts are what people generally refer to as "modern" these days. Between modern karate and traditional, I would say traditional, however, it will vary from school to school and teacher to teacher. When I was training traditional karate, we sparred very hard, did lots of repetition. With the modern stuff, we focused more on kata, and the sparring was light contact.

modern arts do plenty of repetition...probably more. Most "modern" have fewer strikes than traditional systems, and we practice them constantly via sparring, bag work and focus mitt drills.

There's really not enough info given by her to determine that she's overtraining. Also, recent studies are showing that you don't HAVE to have 8 hours of sleep - it will vary from individual to individual.

definitely. I'm pretty sure that's not what he's talking about though. Most newbies talk about the pain of having an elbow driven into your knee.

That's about what I had guessed. I was basing it on your comment about strength. Strength actually plays a big role - you'll see when you compete. Technique is key though.

* beatings happen... such is life. Get in there and go for it.

keep him controlled. hold his lapels in your fist and have your fist right in his sternum. Keep your elbow down - it will look like a vertical fist punch. With your arm like this, he will not be able to sit up. from there, begin to make space. He will still be able to move his hips, so you will have to work quickly, or maybe make space without using that knee. As K4L said, the elbow in the knee will not cause unbearable pain on an experienced grappler.

why do you group raw muscle force with grappling?

I can understand that point. However, we've never had a newbie get injured. you start them off with active drilling, then move immediately into light contact sparring, with full contact rules. By light contact, I mean about medium or so. The coach will make corrections, and you are also drilling, so you are learning proper technique at the same time you are fighting.

on that same token, the wonderful techniques you use that are so lethal don't mean anything if you can't hit the specific target.

It is a good argument, except for one thing. A lethal strike, in most cases, is obvious. You know it will work, but prefer not to apply it. Granted, i haven't killed anyone (that i'm aware of), but that doesn't mean it's untested, only that i have not applied it. I'm not saying it can't work, but look at the last part of your sentence - YOU have not applied it. Consequently, how do you know that YOU can make it work? There are thai boxers that can make a flying knee work in the ring - I can't, because my flying knee sucks.

That is exactly why sport fighting arts produce a fighter faster than TMA. TMA by design takes longer.

I disagree. We use gymnastic exercises in my bjj class - three of our guys placed first in the schwarzenegger classic (the gracie national tournament) this year and are invited to fight pro next year, so we must be doing something right. Our warmups consist of various calisthenics - handstand walking, front hand springs, cartwheels, jump squats, rolls, etc. plyometric type exercises. We also do hindu squats, pushups, etc. afterwards, we move into fight drills - pummeling, duck under, high crotch, etc. followed by technique training and finally 30 mins or so of rolling. class is usually 2 - 3 hours.

if you want to kick harder, kick a heavy bag. Also , you can wrap cables around your legs and do kicks with them.

you can also do jump squats. and do plenty of calf work.

karatekid, do you compete in judo, or do you only train it at the dojo?

on the ground, you're not gonna be using his weight to your advantage... he will use it to his advantage... he will crush you. What you need to work on is positioning. 1. become proficient at escaping a bad position - upa, elbow escapes, etc. 2. become proficient at esablishing and maintaining a strong position 3. work attacks from those positions. out of curiousity, what kind of grappling experience does your karate instructor have?