OneKickWonder

I’d say Royce Gracie (and family) is easily the most current/latest game changer. Enormous impact on MA today. I’d also add whoever brought TKD to the US. There’s easily more TKD schools than any other style. In my area, possibly more than every other style combined. It’s not a stretch to say TKD schools make up at least half of the MA schools here, give or take 10%. The only reason I did not mention the rest of the Gracie family, was that it was Royce who was the face at the beginning. It probably could have been any of that generation at the time. TKD seems to do well in this country. TKD thrives in the US because of the Korean war. The US side with South Korea, against the Soviet and (unofficially) backed north. This meant that a lot of US service personnel were stationed in South Korea. It also meant meant that a lot of South Koreans became familiar with the US way of life, and so there was a significant cultural exchange. After the Japanese had all but crushed Korean culture including its martial arts during the occupation between 1903 and the just after WW2, they wanted to reassert themselves a bit. The Korean war came along. It was hardly a stroke of luck, but with the US presenting an opportunity, here was a chance for Korean martial arts to be shown to the western mainstream. Hence, TKD thrives in the US. But for the record, it didn't stop there. TKD is massive in the UK too. Perhaps not as much as in the US, over here karate still seems to hold the biggest share, but there are a lot of TKD clubs.

I think it's worse than a marketing thing. I think it's a lie. Not necessarily a lie to others, but a lie to ones self. As has already been said, every martial art is potentially deadly. But then so is every act of aggression or panic, trained or not. There are plenty of stories of untrained thugs killing innocent people with a single untrained punch. And why close the doors to the public? My guess would be to lock out the open minded skeptics that might quite reasonably look at what is being taught with open eyes. A few years ago, it was easy for martial arts teachers to tell massive fat lies. Tradition had it that you respect your teacher like some kind of god, for absolutely no other reason than that he was the teacher. Nobody cross trained, and there was very little interaction with other styles. It was perfect for anyone that wanted to make you sign an oath of secrecy and commitment to only use what you'd learned in genuine defence of life and limb. Don't even show your best friend and all that. Nowadays of course martial arts are laid bare. We can pick and choose. We can switch styles on a whim. We can talk freely to practitioners of other styles. Time to close the doors if you're teaching rubbish.

In class, when it comes to sparring, we have to wear those awful padded boots. The ones where the sole of the foot is exposed, but the tops are padded. I hate them. They offer no significant protection to either the wearer or the opponent, and often a well blocked kick results in the round stopping while the kicker fumbles about putting the padded boot back in place. But anyway, some friends and I want to practice outside. Either in one of our gardens or the local park or beach. We don't want passers by to see lycra clad amateur warriors. We just want to look normal (or as normal as you can look when engaged in mock combat). Any suggestions for footwear that looks fairly normal, isn't too brutal for the recipient of a kick, and for those of us with previous injuries, offers some protection for the toes?

There are people that still practice many styles into old age. But I wonder how many. start a new style in their later years. I have two main worries about starting judo now. 1. I don't bounce quite as well as I did when I was young. I'm quite used to being thrown at the floor because we practice that in TSD, but we don't really land hard there. We're more kind of tipped over than thrown. When we've done break fall practice I tend to be, shall we say, rendered inert, if I land wrong. 2. Being a fully grown man, and quite big (big as in a bit fat, but also big as in quite well built), and with plenty of other martial arts experience, I think this may make me a person to experiment on, with the assumption that I can be smashed down to the floor without problems.

I agree, but with a caveat. There is a lot of really good martial arts related stuff online as you say. But there is also an epic amount of utter rubbish, and then there's the heavily biased stuff. YouTube is chock full of videos that follow a tediously repetitive format of vs BJJ/MMA, where we know in advance that the BJJ or MMA man is going to beat up someone who is not very skilled in their art, and probably has little to no experience in the ring. Then there's all the self proclaimed experts. Those that demonstrate things against a compliant opponent and tell us it definitely works. And dare I even mention the self defence brigade or worse, the no touch chi masters. Or those that punch through 10ft of concrete or have base ball bats bust over their heads. And we all know, thanks to the Internet, that aikido doesn't work at all, and karate is a relic. A few years ago Krav Maga was the only style that worked. Before that it was Muy Thai. Today it is BJJ. There is a lot of good stuff online, but I think one needs to already be a reasonably knowledgeable martial artist to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Yes, I do have a terrible habit of not so much holding my breath, but breathing badly. Too shallow and with my abs permanently tense. The tense abs is legacy from when I trained years and years ago. We used to practice using our tensed abs as a last line of defence, should we fail to block or evade an incoming. But that alone isn't enough to burn me out. I realised recently that in sparring, I tend to go hell for leather all the time. I don't believe you learn much that way. It's not a fight. If it was it would be over in seconds because rules wouldn't get in the way. So if it's not a fight, then why go full on all the time? By that I don't mean full contact, I mean full speed with constant action. The trouble with this approach is your don't get to use your full range of techniques, because unless you can pull them off with a decent success rate, they tend to get abandoned in favour of techniques you can pull off. So then you end up with a range of techniques you can do against thin air or a bag or pad, but not in action. An example of this might be the spinning back kick. I don't think it's ever a good idea to choose to turn your back on an opponent. But if the opponent gets to the side of you or behind you, a well timed spinning back kick can restore the equilibrium. So in my last sparring session, I made a point of relaxing more, keeping the explosive bursts to a shorter burst, and focusing on practice of techniques against resistance rather than just playing high speed tag. Now my spinning back kicks usually work well if I save them for the right situation. But against one particular opponent, as soon as I started it, they were straight in with a volley of punches to the gut (light contact remember). This was great. So I did it again, and got pummelled again. And again, and again. So why did I keep repeating the same technique if it kept resulting in me getting pummelled? Simple. This opponent had an effective defence and counter against a strategy that works (for me) against most other opponents. I wanted to try to observe what they were doing, how I could use it, and how I could modify my own strategy to render their counter strategy less effective. It's all good fun.

I realise now I've been missing out on valuable training opportunities, through my own fault. Some examples. I've opted out of sparring opportunities on many occasions, because I want to focus on some technical points. On the technical points, I've modified the curriculum version of a technique to 'make it work', when I'm fact if I'd stuck to the curriculum version until I could get that to work, then any further improvisation would only serve to broaden the adaptability of an already solid technique. So what's made me realise this? Today I nearly opted out of sparring once again. Again I wanted to focus on technical stuff. But then I asked myself, what's the real reason? To my horror, I realised it was because I was a bit scared. Not of getting hurt. We knock each other around a bit but we don't really hurt each other. No, I was a bit scared of the pure exhaustion. The uncomfortable heat and sweat. The slight nausea. So I opted in and had a few good rounds. As happens every time I spar, I naturally became very fatigued very quickly, and while I held my own, I was dominated by my opponents. But here's what I realised. Yes, the technical details are important. Very much so. But they are worthless if you cant apply them effectively in a full speed high energy mock combat scenario. I used to think sparring (nowadays) is utterly pointless because over the last couple of decades or so, so many rules gave crept in that it's nothing even remotely like a real fight. I still think there's an element of truth to that. I can physically grab my opponent and throw him to the floor for example. Head butts and elbows and groin strikes are all banned in our style. But it's still fast and slightly chaotic and difficult, in the sense that your opponent is going to make life as difficult as possible for you, and vice versa. I think this last point is lost on many newbies these days. And not just newbies. I think in martial arts, folks often develop a false sense of security. Especially the youngsters. I think more students would do well to realise that fighting is extremely hard work. Even against a smaller, weaker, less experienced opponent, determination counts for a great deal. That's my random musing for the day Anyone else been making excuses?

I have one association T shirt. I wear it occasionally. Not to advertise the association. If people want to join us, they'll find us. Nobody is going to join just because they saw a slightly fat middle aged man wearing a branded T shirt.

Apart from my own experience and observations, it seems I'm not the only one to consider this. Here's some actual science. https://www.painscience.com/articles/stretching.php Key points, stretching doesn't change muscle length. I can believe that in the case of adults, but kids that are still growing might have a chance to prevent muscles becoming tight. I did the know. Much of flexibility is neurological. Training the brain to not tense the muscles to prevent over stretching prematurely. I can very much believe this one. If we use our comfortable full range of movement regularly, we can train the brain to allow the free use of that range. Gradually the brain learns that the safe range is greater than was previously benchmarked, so gradually the brain allows a little bit more until it gets to the actual real limit. If stretching for flexibility was real, then everyone who practiced would be able to achieve the splits. Some train for years and years and never achieve the splits. Why? Because they physically can't. Their muscles have not grown longer or more elastic. They're about the same as they've always been. But now their brain and nervous system has learned the safe limit.

To the bold type above... Nope!! Just how many MA styles have been diluted?? Many MA styles are STILL around!! Again, who's to say that YOU/I/WHOMEVER is better than their Sensei?? Well, in my case, I suppose Soke would be better to make that determination if I'm better than Dai-Soke because Soke taught Dai-Soke. My Governing Body?? NO WAY!! That would be an assumption that bears no fruit. There are sadly so many instructors around today that don't appear to understand the subtleties of the art they teach. Perhaps a good example of that is forms/kata. Someone understood the art at some time, yet how many teachers could apply kata effectively now? How many can even perform it in the original intended way? There are a handful of practitioners that are working to revive the original message through experimentation and study, but many care more about what it looks like to a panel of judges.

I think simply moving is stretching enough. As in moving through our full range of movement, frequently. This in in contrast to my idea of stretching. Stretching implies damaging. If I stretch the neck of my T shirt, that T shirt is ruined. The fibres are damaged. Same happens in muscles. Except of course muscles can usually heal. Although when they did they often lay down scar tissue which is considerably less flexible than the original muscle tissue. Strong muscles, used in their full range, will maintain their range with reduced risk of injury. The tai chi folks move a lot. But they never really 'stretch'. They move a lot, throughout the whole of their natural range, and over time, that range becomes quite incredible. At my tai chi class there are elderly folk that can move considerably better than many of the senior grade youths in our TSD class. Yet the former never do 'stretches' while the latter really work hard in that respect.

I was practicing wado around the time karate kid was released. It used to amuse me because you could accurately forecast waves of new starters just by checking the TV guide to see if there was going to be yet another repeat airing of karate kid. We'd get a wave of newbies, all full of enthusiasm, all believing that within just a few weeks some ageing mystical character would turn them into the next elite fighter. After a couple of weeks of sweat and minor bruising, most would disappear. By about 4 weeks the last of the new wave would have dwindled away. Then, a few more weeks would pass, then lo and behold, loads of newbies again. The movie had been aired once again. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

What if, on your path to be better today than you were yesterday, you suddenly find you are better than your teacher? Do you cease your quest of self improvement foe fear of losing your humility? Would that not itself be an act of arrogance? I should point out by the way that this is just me sharing philosophical musings as a thought exploration exercise. I don't believe there can be a definitive answer. Though I could be wrong even about that. To the bold type above... Who's to say that I'm better than my Sensei?? Me?? Yeah, that's very arrogant of me, and that's not me. Someone else?? While that's kind of them, it's quite assumptive of them. My MA journey continues, irregardless, because my MA betterment requires it of me daily. What another MAist possess is for them; I can only be myself and not someone else. I strive to be better across the board; I'm never satisfied with myself!! My Sensei said I was better, therefore, he promoted me over those many years, and if it had been left up to me, I'd still be a white belt; I'd be fine with that. If I was still that white belt after 53 years on the floor, I'd be fine with that too. And I'd still strive to be better today than I was yesterday!! Very valid points well made. In all your years, when as you say your sensei said you were getting better so he promoted you, did you work really hard to perfect what he had shown you, to be able to do the techniques as well as him? Having tried your very best to replicate what your sensei had shown you, did you then stop, or did you keep on trying to further improve your technique? I always try to improve myself beyond what my Sensei taught me as well as what he was teaching me; always with his guidance, after all, I'm his student!! Is that not the same as trying to be better than your sensei, not in the sense that you are trying to be superior as a person, but better in terms of martial arts skill? Not for me!! I never try, nor want, to ever be better than another person, but to only improve my MA betterment across the board. I've never thought that about my Sensei, to be better or whatever than him in any shape, way, and/or form. Why?? He has his own abilities, of which, he partook of himself to provide the necessary efforts to help us, his students, find that which is within us in order that we can be better stewards of our own MA betterment and MA journey. Like a father who wants the best for his children; to be better than himself, so did my Sensei, and so do I as the Sensei of my students, however, for me, that's what I want for my students, but that doesn't mean that my students, or his students, like myself, desire that. I didn't come to learn from my Sensei so that I could be better than my Sensei. No!! I did come to learn from my Sensei how I can improve my MA betterment second by second, minute by minute, day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year, but ONLY ABOUT MYSELF. Our MA journey can be shared, nonetheless, our MA journey is extremely personal, in which in the end, we must be accountable to no one else but ourselves. Imho!! More good points well made. Thank you.

What if, on your path to be better today than you were yesterday, you suddenly find you are better than your teacher? Do you cease your quest of self improvement foe fear of losing your humility? Would that not itself be an act of arrogance? I should point out by the way that this is just me sharing philosophical musings as a thought exploration exercise. I don't believe there can be a definitive answer. Though I could be wrong even about that. To the bold type above... Who's to say that I'm better than my Sensei?? Me?? Yeah, that's very arrogant of me, and that's not me. Someone else?? While that's kind of them, it's quite assumptive of them. My MA journey continues, irregardless, because my MA betterment requires it of me daily. What another MAist possess is for them; I can only be myself and not someone else. I strive to be better across the board; I'm never satisfied with myself!! My Sensei said I was better, therefore, he promoted me over those many years, and if it had been left up to me, I'd still be a white belt; I'd be fine with that. If I was still that white belt after 53 years on the floor, I'd be fine with that too. And I'd still strive to be better today than I was yesterday!! Very valid points well made. In all your years, when as you say your sensei said you were getting better so he promoted you, did you work really hard to perfect what he had shown you, to be able to do the techniques as well as him? Having tried your very best to replicate what your sensei had shown you, did you then stop, or did you keep on trying to further improve your technique? I always try to improve myself beyond what my Sensei taught me as well as what he was teaching me; always with his guidance, after all, I'm his student!! Is that not the same as trying to be better than your sensei, not in the sense that you are trying to be superior as a person, but better in terms of martial arts skill?

What if, on your path to be better today than you were yesterday, you suddenly find you are better than your teacher? Do you cease your quest of self improvement foe fear of losing your humility? Would that not itself be an act of arrogance? I should point out by the way that this is just me sharing philosophical musings as a thought exploration exercise. I don't believe there can be a definitive answer. Though I could be wrong even about that. To the bold type above... Who's to say that I'm better than my Sensei?? Me?? Yeah, that's very arrogant of me, and that's not me. Someone else?? While that's kind of them, it's quite assumptive of them. My MA journey continues, irregardless, because my MA betterment requires it of me daily. What another MAist possess is for them; I can only be myself and not someone else. I strive to be better across the board; I'm never satisfied with myself!! My Sensei said I was better, therefore, he promoted me over those many years, and if it had been left up to me, I'd still be a white belt; I'd be fine with that. If I was still that white belt after 53 years on the floor, I'd be fine with that too. And I'd still strive to be better today than I was yesterday!! Very valid points well made. In all your years, when as you say your sensei said you were getting better so he promoted you, did you work really hard to perfect what he had shown you, to be able to do the techniques as well as him? Having tried your very best to replicate what your sensei had shown you, did you then stop, or did you keep on trying to further improve your technique?

Including one's present day self. Anyone can become better than their present day self. If my instructor had shown me a roundhouse kick once, and I practiced that kick at home only once each day, I would steadily become better each day. But would that be enough? Would it be fair to my instructor, who dedicates a lot of his own time to teaching me and others, if I only aimed for marginal improvement on the basis that I was at least ticking the 'be better tomorrow than you are today' box? How would anyone progress in the martial arts if they don't aim high? And is it not an honour to one's teacher if you choose him as the bar you want to exceed?

Sorry. Lots of folks missing my point. I didn't ask if you should BE better than your teacher. It was more should we ASPIRE TO BE better than our teacher one day. Certainly when I start teaching more formally, I will want my students to aspire to be better than me. If I believe they can only ever be nearly as good as me but not quite, then surely that would be arrogant on my part, believing I'm somehow above everyone else. I'd also be dammed annoyed at my students for not having the ambition and drive to become they best they can be, because there is a distinct possibility that the best they can be is better, in martial arts terms, than the best I can be. I don't want them to stop improving when they approach my standard. I want them to experiment and improvise and maybe spend some time with other teachers so they can build on top of what I teach them. Then not only could I be proud of my contribution to their outstanding progress, but also they could show me a thing or two.

OK. If you teach, are you happy to accept your students NOT taspiring to be better than you?

What if, on your path to be better today than you were yesterday, you suddenly find you are better than your teacher? Do you cease your quest of self improvement foe fear of losing your humility? Would that not itself be an act of arrogance? I should point out by the way that this is just me sharing philosophical musings as a thought exploration exercise. I don't believe there can be a definitive answer. Though I could be wrong even about that.

I'm most certainly not. Nor am I ever likely to be. My instructor simply has too much lead on me. If he stopped practicing today, then by the time I'd accumulated his number of years experience I'd be an old man. But should we aim to be better than our teachers? It seems to me that if we only aspire to be as good as, we'll always fall slightly short. Then those we teach will never be quite as good as us, and so on, until the art is a sorry shadow of its former self. But this gives us a paradox does it not? If we aim to be better than our teachers, then on some level, even if unintentional, that would lead to contempt. Then how would we learn all our teacher can offer if that contempt is lurking in the background? But then if we put the teacher on a pedestal no matter what, and shun all other sources and endeavour to stay true to the style without improvising or experimenting, then surely that's at least as bad? This pondering is inspired by a video I saw of a once awesome but now slightly elderly and less capable martial artist. When I say once awesome, I mean still awesome, and still very capable, but now perhaps a bit less so than might have been the case a few years ago.

If you can stretch Forward enough to touch your toes while keeping your legs straight (but not locked at the knees), and if you can do a calf raise on one foot with the other foot off the ground, then you can kick head height. The first point, that's because if you get the technique right, most of the tension goes down the back of the supporting leg. It certainly shouldn't go through the hip. The second point is if you can do that, then you have the strength needed to get the foot pivot done. Most people can easily achieve both, so after that it comes down entirely to technique.

Side kick and roundhouse kicks just don't work unless you get the foot work on the supporting leg is right. No foot pivot, no decent kick. Super flexible people might be able to sort of do it, but for most, the body doesn't bend the way you want it to unless you get the footwork right. As for the kind of brutal flexibility your instructor recommended. Depends on many factors. But for most it is a terrible outdated idea long disproven by science yet still pushed in training halls everywhere. You will see rapid short term gains, as you tear muscle fibres. But they'll vanish quickly as the muscle heals. Worse, the muscle pulls tight to protect itself from further injury while it heals so you can end up less flexible in the long term. Go to a yoga or tai chi class. They don't force their stretches yet they are often super flexible. Flexibility is something that takes time and patience to develop. And sadly, we all have limits that no amount of training will overcome. But a combination of strength training and gentle but frequent stretching is, in my experience, the best long term solution. That and getting the minor details of the techniques right too so that you're working with what you have rather than against it.

B. He (or she) is making best use of his time and initiative to gain the fullest possible understanding and skills level in the time available. He is using his limited class time to get the most he can out of his instructor, and taking that and practicing and cross referencing before returning next week for some refinement and top up. A is simply learning how to do as someone else tells him, which will count for nothing in a real situation where by the very nature of combat, he's going to have to figure it out for himself. Also if A ever becomes a teacher, he will only ever been able to teach what he believes his instructor taught him. If you only ever try to match someone else, you will never be quite as good, as they will always have the lead. So over time and generations, the art on that lineage degrades.

I was about to say something similar like the single biggest thing is the micky mouse instructors and organisations with flashy images ,too much ego and not much substance . By the way to the thread starter martial arts is about self defence and self defence is about martial arts ....sure you first do your best to avoid to fight and walk away but if you have to then you switch on your weapons . With respect I disagree. There are plenty of techniques in martial arts that if you have time and energy to do them, you also have time and energy to run. The jump 360 roundhouse that I believe the TKD folks call a tornado kick is one example. It's immensely powerful, but it's relatively slow. Even the term 'martial art' means skills pertaining to war. There are of course self defence elements in martial arts. There has to be. You could be warring with someone who also has fighting ability. But we are kidding ourselves if we think martial arts is all about self defence.

All true in general terms. But in Britain and Europe we have seen a rise in terrorist attacks involving some nutter running around stabbing random people. The original question was, can we train to be prepared for that? Giving people guns is not the answer. That just puts more guns in circulation, and the person planning the attack always has the advantage, because after all, they know what they're going to do. And do we really want lots of panicked civilians opening fire in a crowded street? That would be like doing the terrorist's job for them. What I really don't want to get into is a gun debate. That's happened plenty of times and innocent people still get shot dead. What I'm really interested in is, do we think it's possible for someone who has not gone out armed expecting conflict, to suddenly successfully neutralise an attacker armed with a bladed weapon?