singularity6

That's my take on them! I have not used either, though.

Has anyone played around with the Century Torrent T1 or T2 free-standing bags? At the moment, that looks like my best option for a "heavy bag" type contraption, given the low and finished ceilings in my basement. If so, what did you think? If you've had experience with other free-standing bags, that feedback would also be appreciated!

Participating in Tae Kwon Do has inspired me to take better care of myself. My physical activity levels have increased substantially, and my diet has improved quite a bit, as well.

I'm still a student (green belt, here!) So... no, not too many folks have done that to me in TKD. But I've had it happen in the classroom when I'm teaching math. It can be frustrating to deal with in front of the class... Sometimes valuable teaching moments come from these occurrences. other times its best to deal with it privately.

I've thought the cross-before-block was a bit much... Our instructors claim it's to protect your vitals... I always felt it was for show, and not all that effective. But, I didn't say anything like that to them!

Because it's not formalised as one. It's quite literally close combat. There is no lineage of former masters that dictated what it means. It's literally just the Israeli army close combat. Every army has its way of training for the eventuality that a soldier mat fund himself unable to fire a gun to neutralise an enemy. They all call that part of training various things like unarmed combat, combatives, hand to hand combat etc. The Israelis call there's krav maga, which just means something like close combat in their language. So based on your definition Karate before the Japanese took it and made it what it is today is not a style but rather just close combat. So close combat makes it what? Too many view fighting as a long distance engagement when this couldn't be further from fact. All fights end up in close quarters and turns into close range strikes, clinches, grappling, submissive/controlling techniques or throws. Just because Krav Maga has these elements it's not a style? What then is Judo, Jujitsu, or a 100 more styles/arts. If it teaches one to fight effectively then it's an martial art and thus is constituted as a style. I have never taken Krav Maga (so I'm no expert) but I have watched it in a few seminars and I just looked it up on google and to be honest I'm not sure why you are saying it's not a style. Like Sensei8 points out it basically has the makings of every style I've ever taken. Whether its an all around effective art or not, well... I'll leave that to those that study it. But style or no style? I think it's a style. Something happened in that lose last few sentences that solidified my opinion of what's happening, here. I think the word "style" should be replaced with "art." Krav Maga doesn't have forms, that I know of. They also don't use a special uniform, or etiquette. Like any other martial "style" that was adopted by a military, it was meant to be make relatively effective soldiers as quick as possible, and thus was pruned of forms, uniforms, etc. Is it a hand-to-hand combat style? Sure. Krav Maga will probably always be referred to as a martial art... We can just assume they lean more toward martial than art, though. Just my thoughts.

I once read an article that discussed a surgeon who warmed up with Katamari Damascy for at least 20 minutes before he would operate.

I can definitely vouch for this!

It'd be great to be able to split kids from adults in my school... not enough students, though. I frequently end up being paired off with a 10 year old green belt to train (he's the only other green belt who currently attends.) They to have us practice throws on each other... Incredibly difficult! He weighs like 70lb, and is about 4" tall. I'm 5'10" and 185lb. I do like the fact we have a total of 2 hours per session in our school, though.

I once knew a guy who was struggling with maintaining weight loss. He'd plateau and even gain weight with his routine, which was largely cardio, and minimal gym time. What ended up helping him was resistance training on muscles below the waist. Glutes and Quads are much larger than biceps and pecs, which means they burn more calories. Even with that, he only got so far - everyone's body type is different!

Tuesdays and Thursdays. Arrive at 6pm to change and stretch out on our own. Class runs from 6:30pm-8:00pm. There are occasional Saturday classes, and sometimes the black belts all meet up for black belt training, but those aren't part of the schedule.

Are we really heroes? Conversations about the defense of others seems to be fairly prominent in the news lately with the school shooting and all. The comments I'm hearing are quite interesting: Many people claim they'd charge in to be a hero if something were to happen (Armed? Unarmed? Doesn't seem to matter.) One thing I'm not seeing or hearing much about are heroes in these situations, which are becoming commonplace in the USA. There's lots of hypothetical talk of individuals becoming heroes in these times of crisis. But where are they when things really do go down? I'd like to think I'd be "heroic" in the event that a friend or loved one is being attacked. But I've never really been in such a situation. I do know that I get wound up when sparring to the point where I can't think clearly or react well... and that's controlled! Nerves also seem to get the best of me when I test for a new rank. How about a real test of life-and-death? How would I really react? I DON'T KNOW! What I do know is that heroes seem to be far and few between. I grew up near Detroit. Lots of bad things happened in the streets of Detroit. People won't even call the police when shooting starts in some parts, let alone physical attempts to stop bad things from happening. Ultimately, I believe that we can't rely on others... so taking and teaching "self defense" makes a lot of sense to me.

The toe is fine, now. Pain was minimal. I still didn't do any front or round kicks, as that might aggravate it. I was able to do side kicks at near full power with no ill effects. One of my classmates stepped on my foot during class last night, though. Didn't hurt the joint as much as I expected... but he did pull off my toe nail. That sucked

Maybe a break is warranted? Are there other schools you could attend for a period of time to change pace?

I used to believe that true, until I thought about it, and realised it's just yet more brainwashing. Think about it's value in psychological terms. What are we teaching when we ask students to smash a stationary object that is being held still by often several of our friends? How does that help develop the self defence mindset? Then think about other aspects of training that help develop self confidence. In sparring we have a moving, resisting opponent trying to hit us. At first it's scary. Over time it becomes less so, as you learn that you can move as well as anyone, judge distance, and land strikes against resistance. Of course in sparring, unless it's full contact, we don't kick full force like we do in breaking, so we could say that breaking gives us that opportunity. But so does pad work. You could say you need to know that in a self defence situation, you need to know that you can and will kick with enough force to disable an attacker temporarily. There's 2 problems with using board breaking to help with that. One is that a pre cut breaking board or an inch of soft pine tells us nothing of our power, and secondly, if you're full of adrenaline because you're under attack for real, you won't hold back. So when we analyse the pros and cons, we find that at best, most of the time it looks good and makes a satisfying noise. At worst it teaches you to kick stationary restrained objects possibly bruising or breaking your foot just to win the approval of a panel that have only asked you to do it because that's the way it's always been done and they've never questioned it. Hmmm. I'm not talking about self defense anywhere here. Punching and kicking through one pine board is quite easy. How about 2? Eventually we go though 3 and 4 boards bound together. This takes great power, focus and technique. One also needs to prepare mentally, as our instincts tell us that "it hurts when we hit hard objects." Sure, you can bruise and break parts when hitting these things. This is why we work up to it, gradually increasing the challenges, honing our technique along the way. Can these skills be taught in other ways? Absolutely! Bag work, focus mitts, kicking shields are all great, and should be used. Is it necessary to break boards and bricks? Perhaps not, but it is part of the martial arts culture, and seems to have ceremonial value. (One could also ask the question about martial arts uniforms, bowing in/out of class, etc... see Sensei8's post about pageantry in martial arts: https://www.karateforums.com/the-pageantry-of-the-martial-arts-vt51102.html?highlight=pageantry )

I've experienced that more often than not. Our instructors tend to talk a lot. There've been times where I only get to practice a particular technique a couple times in 5 minutes because whoever's teaching at the time is on repeat (or, someone gets too carried away and shows us everything else you can do with that technique.)

I got burnt out last year. December, 2016 was pretty rough (end of the semester, among other things) and January was pretty much the same (beginning of a new semester, among other things.) By the time February had ended, I realized I wasn't going to be attending class during that semester. I ended up taking a break from martial arts until about June. I regret losing the time training, but my body and mind couldn't take it. I needed the rest!

There is a psychology involved, here. Breaking a board isn't exactly the biggest feat of strength. It's more a mental feat, for most. People usually do not strike hard objects due to fear of injury. Going through a board with a new technique helps overcome that.

Oh wow, that video was priceless!

I recommend that you go see a Physician for scans and a diagnosis. As the Chiropractor can only do so much. As with any health professional, they can only go so far with a physical palpation of the injured site. Especially with breaks, they have to have some imperical evidence (i.e. XRAY) prior to diagnosis. Understood. Fortunately it's feeling much better than expected. If it were still in rough shape, I'd be going in for an X-ray. Regardless, I'm going to tell my instructors that I'll need to take it easy until it's completely pain-free.

The injury happened on Thursday, and I have almost full range of motion (nearly pain free) as of this post. The swelling has gone down substantially! Interestingly, the injury wasn't from a kick at all. I was practicing the hip throw with an instructor. He tried upping the realism by committing more to his attacks and speeding things up. I made a mistake... Whenever I make a mistake with this guy, I see one of 3 things coming at my face (in slow motion, no less): A fist, a foot, or the ground. In this case it was the ground. I landed wrong, and while on my way down, I grabbed him, and he fell on top of me. My toe was injured somehow in all that mess.

I'm glad to read you're probably not as hurt as you thought. Out of interest though, how do you do pushups without putting pressure on your big toes? I'm interested because big toes are now next to useless, so I'm always looking for ways to train as normally as possible without them getting in the way. My left foot is fine, and I probably shifted a little more weight to that side, and I tilted my right heel out, putting more weight on the smaller toes.

Isn't that what sparring's for? No. I can't say this with any degree of authority because different clubs have different sparring rules. But note that last word there, 'rules'. Sparring has them. Sparring is great for cardio, for honing reflexes, developing good judgement of range. There are many good reasons to spar. But sparring is not fighting. I sometimes worry that some of our students think they can fight just because they are good at sparring. Being good at sparring means you are good at applying the techniques you've been taught, within the rules you were taught, against an opponent who is also following the same rules. That is very different to fighting. The answer to the question, how do you know this works, should always be, I don't. Techniques are developed to give us options. A good teacher will never claim that something always works. A good teacher can teach you that something 'might' or 'can' work, but it should always be backed up with other options and the readiness to switch to something else the instant it becomes apparent it's not working. For example, if you get an armlock on, but your opponent starts to slip out, rather than trying to force the technique to work you should immediately switch to something else. A swift kick perhaps to create distance from the inevitable incoming. But to attempt to answer the original question, modified slight to how do I know it CAN work? Practice against willing training partners who will steadily increase the resistance and decrease compliance. Every time they neutralise your technique, try to figure out how and why it failed. In an armbar for example, perhaps your opponent is still able to punch you with his free hand. Figure out how come, adjust, try again. Repeat many times against many opponents until you can dominate in the vast majority of cases even against full resistance. My post was a stab at humor.

It's not glamorous or even "insightful," but "do what you gotta do" comes to mind.

Heh, my brother was a bartender at a strip club for a while. Because of his stature and training (an accomplished wrestler,) he was also in charge of escorting the rowdy clients out.