OneKickWonder

I'm thinking of migrating to muay thai. In my cursory research of the style, it looks like the right path for me given my interests, goals, and body type. I should perhaps throw in at this stage that I have no interest in competition, but I don't think that would be a problem. One thing I notice though is that muay thai folks like to deliver roundhouse kicks to the sides of their opponents knees. From a combat perspective this makes perfect sense. Knees are not built to bend sideways. If they do, then typically that leg is finished, and by extension, the fight is finished as your opponent can't even stand never mind fight. But from a training perspective, I'm wondering how folks manage to train regularly without destroying their knees. I'm sure at this point lots of 20 or 30 year old people will be thinking it's a silly question. I'd be interested to learn how people in their 40s and 50s and beyond get on.

Turnips? Starting this semester with a cold. Had really been looking forward to today’s club dojo session - it’s been so long - but it seems the virus my toddlers have had caught me too. Soon though. Soon. Always a bit nervous going back for the first session after summer, really don’t like missing the first one... Lol sorry, it was a lame joke Swedes and turnips are both vegetables Anyway, I'm glad you are enjoying your training! Osu I see Fun to learn a new word, being an English teacher in a public school here in Sweden I’m always looking to expand my vocabulary For a bit of useless trivia, in England, the vegetable that most people call a turnip is actually not a turnip but a swede, which is part of the beet family along with beetroot. Which reminds me. The thing many know as spinach is actually not spinach at all but the young leaves of the beet. So we eat the roots of the beet and call it beetroot, and we eat the leaves of the beet and call it, spinach. A particularly large kind of beet is the swede which we call, turnip, while an actual turnip is fairly small and often mistaken for white radish. Useless veg trivia I know, but in my defence, I never started it lol. I mentioned that a particularly large variety of beet is called the swede, which most call a turnip. The swede has another colloquial name in the southwest of England. That is the wurzel. A large rather bland variety of which is rarely consumed by humans but is often fed to livestock. This is the mangold wurzel, which has nothing to do with mangolds, but does lend itself conveniently to the name of a cheesy pop/rock tribute band that likes the famous band from the 70s, that is the mangled wurzels, tribute of course to The Wurzels. Although some might say calling a wurzels tribute band the mangled wurzels is in slightly bad taste, considering that the founder of the original wurzels band, Adge Cutler, was tragically killed early in his career in a car accident. Sorry. Massive tangent of veg related tenuous trivia there

Why stop at salutations? Why not get rid of foreign language terms for techniques, kata names, titles, and so on? Because you start to lose the origins and traditions of the system. I personally think some of the terminology and traditions go a tad too far, but I’d much rather keep it than get rid of it. I've come to realise that so many of the folk we put on pedestals and seek guidance from in our training, don't actually know even half of what they might choose to lead us to believe. I think because of this, the Korean / Japanese / Chinese / whatever language terminology has great value. Here's my reasoning. The thing about these eastern languages is that they rarely translate directly to western languages. Most translations are approximate and context based. The very same words in even slightly different contexts can mean something very different. If we switched to the English translation, it would be one translation of possibly many. But it would be the translation we are taught. Whereas if we keep it in its applicable Asian / oriental language, then as well learn, and realise there are other possible translations, we suddenly see that there could be other intentions behind the technique. Let's take a classic example. I'm more recently a Korean style person than Japanese but if I remember right, blocks in Japanese are called something uke. The something being the type of Block. Uke is widely translated as block. That has implications. It implies that the purpose of the technique is to block or stop an incoming technique. This interpretation can lead to the common misconception that we're supposed to simply smash a high speed punch out of the way to block it from getting to us. Very simplistic. Another possible translation of uke is the verb, to receive. Knowing this gives us other possible interpretations of the intention behind a technique. Now, instead of simply blocking an incoming strike from hitting us, now it can mean to receive that strike. The implication now being that you are supposed to do something with it rather than simply knocking it out of the way. It further implies that the arm action is only part of the technique, as to effectively receive an incoming technique, we have to play with body positioning too, rather than statically blocking (and failing if it's fast, and getting knocked out).

Wasn't it Jake Mace that started the horse stance challenge? I think that's a good thing, for a bit of endurance fun. Apart from that, he has so far not impressed me to be honest. But that's not to say he's bad in any way. He does what he does. He seems to enjoy it.

True. But the same applies to absolutely any fighting system. Even a battle hardened soldier is just a human being if he is caught completely off guard. But for me, if I were to pick one single thing that martial arts has done for me I'm terms of self defence ability, it would be that it develops awareness. Every style I've been involved with has free sparring. Sure there are rules and it's nothing like a real fight because of those rules, and because your opponent is your training partner and friend. But as several pairs of people are sparring in the same hall at the same time, you develop good awareness of your surroundings. You have to. If you don't, you end up getting kicked by someone that wasn't even aiming for you because you've backed right into someone else as they were about to kick their opponent. But even if one lands on you out of the blue. Another thing we develop as martial artists is sensitivity. The ability to feel the impact instantly and kind of subconsciously know it's trajectory and source and how to roll with it I guess. Of course none of this is meant to suggest that the martial artist is infallible. Of course not. But it does count for something.

Maybe. But that's not what I hear. What I hear in some circles is people saying oss a lot.

Going back to white belt doesn't bother me in the least, as long as club rules dont exclude people people from certain activities based on belt colour alone. I've come to learn that belt colour means very little.

The kung fu dudes take a different approach to hand conditioning to what many karate dudes do. I personally think the Chinese approach is more sustainable, and they still end up as tough as old boots, but they seem to keep their youth for longer. The kung fu folks like to fill little cloth bags with things, attach said cloth bags to something immovable, and hit that. What they fill the bags with depends on the stage they're at with their conditioning. They'll start with something fairly padded, like straw or dried herbs. Not like the straw rope of a traditional makiwara but straw as in like a cushion. Once they can hit that as often as they like without their knuckles going red or hurting, they'll refill the bag with something slightly more harsh like dried beans. I've heard of people building up to ball bearings or even gravel but that seems counterproductive to me. But in any case, because it's a bag of stuff, whatever that stuff happens to be, the contents can move around the impact, rather than all of the force smashing through your joints. There is something to consider when it comes to any kind of 'traditional' conditioning training. That is that often these historical dudes had no way of knowing any better. The science just wasn't known until fairly recently. Even now there are still folks that say no pain no gain. Sports science has come on in leaps and bounds in recent decades. Traditional is not always best. I think when it comes to hand conditioning, we'd do well to ask ourselves, who has has the hardest punch, and the ability to repeat it over and over, and how do they train? My best guess to this answer would be western boxers. Sure they wear big protective gloves all the time, but I bet the absence of such gloves wouldn't cause them too much trouble if they had to use their skills for self defence one time. In training, they hit really hard, many times, but they are hitting things that will absorb some of the impact rather than chipping away at their joints.

Why did you do that? What were you hoping to achieve? Muscle tissue can take quite a lot of punishment, and repair very effectively as long as the damage is only minor. Cartilage is a very different story. In most cases, the cartilage you have by the time you're about 20 is all you're getting for the rest of your life. Once you reach physical maturity and stop growing, your body changes and your cartilage tissue is effectively starved of a blood supply. That means that with a very few exceptions, it won't heal if it gets damaged. If you want to know what that means in practical terms, it means the following : Osteoarthritis Constant pain A reduction in mobility of the affected joint(s) Weakness around the affected area Sometimes visible deformity If you still want to smash your knuckles up, consider this. What I described above is just the beginning. For reasons that nobody seems to fully understand yet, once the cartilage is injured, the actual bone it is supposed to protect will start to grow around the injured site.only it won't simply replace the missing cartilage with bone tissue. It keeps going. On an xray it looks like little boney spikes. These little spikes grind against everything as the joint moves, causing very significant pain and further injury. This injury of course leads to inflammation. Trouble is, because there's not much room in the area of your knuckles, the nerves that supply your fingers run very close to the bone. Inflammation around there presses on the nerve. Over time this can damage the nerve. Apart from pain, this can also mean your fingers stop working. So you said you're looking for some wisdom. My advice would be, don't smash your knuckles to oblivion. If your training means they'll be out of action even for a day, let alone weeks or months, then you're effectively ruining your own future and any short term gains will quickly evaporate when you can't even do basic things anymore without hurting.

I agree with you. Every now and then, I see some students get particular about where they are in line during line-ups, and I always use that opportunity to tell them exactly that. Its one of the best lessons a student can learn. Agree, with both!! The line is just a line, really, it is. There wouldn't even be a line if there was never the first White Belt to stand there!! Besides, worrying about line positions starkly becomes quite clear when one understands that there's one spot in the line that they'll never ever stand at/on/in... IN FRONT OF THE LINE; that's where the CI's AT/ON/IN, and you, as the student, ARE NOT. Is the goal of your school to destroy student's aspirations? Why will they never ever be the chief instructor? To the bold type above... I'm speaking in present tense, and NOT in future tense!! I'm the CI of my dojo and our Hombu has a CI as well, so, when I'm in house at the Hombu, even though I'm Kaicho, I'm not the CI of the Hombu; there's no room, or reason, for me to stand in front of the line where the Hombu's CI stands. Aspirations are find and all, and I wholeheartedly support them, but until the current CI of wherever steps down, that spot in front of the line is reserved, for the moment. Anyone that knows me on and/or off the floor knows that I'm a staunch proponent for the Student Body, and that I encourage the entire Student Body in whatever their aspirations are, wherever they might be, and that includes becoming the CI wherever that might be. Sorry. My misunderstanding. I took the bit where you said 'they'll never ever', and took that to mean 'they'll never ever' instead of 'they won't at this present time'.

While I agree with this, it does raise a couple of difficult questions. 1. How does one measure and test to see if that mindset and wisdom is there? Age alone can not be a measure. 2. Is a 50 year old ex soldier or doorman or policeman in a white belt less wise and knowledgeable than a 20 year old college graduate in a black belt? I guess the real question is, if age is part of the criteria, how can that be fairly backed up and supported with evidence?

I agree with you. Every now and then, I see some students get particular about where they are in line during line-ups, and I always use that opportunity to tell them exactly that. Its one of the best lessons a student can learn. Agree, with both!! The line is just a line, really, it is. There wouldn't even be a line if there was never the first White Belt to stand there!! Besides, worrying about line positions starkly becomes quite clear when one understands that there's one spot in the line that they'll never ever stand at/on/in... IN FRONT OF THE LINE; that's where the CI AT/ON/IN, and you, as the student, ARE NOT. Is the goal of your school to destroy student's aspirations? Why will they never ever be the chief instructor?

I'm same. I never bothered with grading in previous styles I've done. Kung fu didn't even have formal grades. So although I believe I have a lot to offer, I have yet to attain black belt in anything. I'm quite aware that that means in the eyes of others, I'm not a black belt and therefore not worthy of being a teacher. I used to share this view. But more lately I've come to see it differently. If you have the confidence to spar and really get into the game, then I'd agree, point sparring is pointless. But some people, especially kids, lack the confidence to get stuck in. They often play a defensive game. You can't block forever, so they get knacked. By making it point sparring, it's competitive. There's no points for defending, so I think this might encourage the less confident player to press forward for the strike. That's just a theory. We don't do point sparring, only free sparring, so I'm kind of limited as to how much I can study this where I am at the moment. There are effective karate clubs. I know because I used to attend one. But I think from my own more recent experience and observations, and things I've seen or heard from some others at other clubs, I'm starting to reach the conclusion that if it's fitness and agility and fun you want, you can't go too far wrong with karate. But if you want effective self defence skills, perhaps save your time and money, and sign up for a door supervisor/registered security guard course, making sure it includes the 'physical intervention' module. Wing chun and indeed many styles of kung fu are so effective against the karate practitioner because they learn to use their hands properly. The two systems are perfectly compatible. After all, karate takes a lot from Chinese kung fu. But whereas the kung fu dudes learn to relax and move fluidly from the outset, karate often starts off very rigid and robotic and doesn't loosen up until a certain level of proficiency is gained. I personally think that a few weeks in about any kung fu class would be worthwhile for any karate student. They'll teach you how to relax, breath and move. Then you just take those principles and apply them in your karate.

Remember what evolution has done to us. Your average person can move forward faster than you can move backwards.

If I could only train one part of myself for self defence, what would it be? Tough question. I thought about strong legs. Lots of obvious benefits. But no good if the crest of you is weak. Thinking more, I'm kind of torn between strong neck muscles, or strong hands. I'd probably lean towards strong hands. Here's my reasoning. Neck muscles are so often overlooked. Yet if you are knocked down, guess which muscles have to serve as brakes to stop your head bouncing off the concrete floor. If someone punches your head and lands a good shot, your new kitchen muscles are all that stands between the rotational force and your vertebrate. But that's all a bit defeatist. If you are getting beat up, you can't protect your head and neck for very long without doing something else, whatever that something else might be. So if I could only train one part, it would probably be my hands. With weak hands, I can't punch my attacker without injuring myself. I can't grip him and wrestle/grapple him. If he grabs me I can't apply a wrist lock leading to an arm bar. If I fall forward and instinctively land in my hands, if they are weak, they are finished. Thinking about training, in free sparring (mostly kicking, punching and blocking) I think I've sprained fingers and wrists more often than any other kind of minor injury. In one step, the only thing that can save a technique when you miss the perfect spot is pure strength in the hands and wrists. Likewise said strength can be enough to negate a technique being applied to you, if your opponent doesn't get it perfectly right.