DarthPenguin

Honestly if it's a brand you like and are comfortable with already then I would just go with that. Gis can vary so much between manufacturer, so if you've found something that you like then stick with it.Yeah that's why i was thinking about their karate gi's. But since i have only ever tried their BJJ ones i was curious if there was a difference in quality for their karate ones etc. Thanks for the input though

Thanks, that seems like a few votes for Shureido and KI so i think i'll check them both out. From a quick look at their sites their sizing options look like they might be a bit better anyway - i'm 193cm so the Isami ones might have been a little small. Thanks for the suggestions

Congrats

Nice to (electronically) meet you

Thanks for the suggestions! I have a couple of Isami BJJ gi's already that i have had for years so they came to mind straight away as a decent brand, but if there are others that are better (and sized better too) then i will take a look

Thats a fair point! I also agreed with your point above about the variety of topics you can easily access on a platform such as facebook. Strikes me as a little like the chicken and the egg scenario: the more posts / active posters then the more people will be interested in participating and the more frequently people will post. This will then lead to more people becoming active and posting more etc. I have noticed though that a lot more posts get views than replies. As a simple example i had posted a message in the gear section with a question i had on Isami gi's and it has been viewed 70+ times but not a single reply

Solid post!! As far as getting another trainer is concerned, I'll not be searching another trainer because I can't trust them at all. That makes a lot of sense. You no doubt have a mental database of plenty of exercises and you know exactly the problems you have so with a little more research you should be able to construct a good programme yourself!

Just read that - an excellent story (and i empathise with the sore hand). I can totally relate to the putting on a brave face and trying to display no injury. I remember several years ago doing one myself where i was breaking a couple of suspended pine board only held at the top (so a speed break) with a ridge hand strike. Performed the technique and broke them. Looked perfect, i had done it and broken them cleanly enough that the top halves of the boards were still in the holders hands. Downside was a i had actually completely messed up and rather than hitting with the normal surface my wrist bone was slightly in front of my hand and i broke them with that. So i'm standing there with people saying how fantastic the technique was etc etc while my wrist is gradually swelling up more and more and going nice and purple! Thankfully no break but was an excellent bruise! Breaking techniques can lead to some amusing stories!

Apologies for raising an old thread from the dead but i thought putting down some goals in black and white where other people can see them might be a good idea (am very tempted by the idea of a log like bushido_man's ) For me challenges are: short/medium/long term -Get my lifting numbers back up : took too long out of the gym and numbers have regressed pathetically. I want to see a gradual improvement on a monthly basis medium term -Earn my next belt at bjj. got multiple injuries and took a lot of time off the mats. Back consistently now and want my purple and onwards! Trying to use the fact that my new coach is a bb now and a former training partner as an incentive that it is indeed doable! -Re-earn my Shotokan Shodan. Have started back and working my way through the grades again. I want to earn every belt and be confident i have earned the bb again when i get it longer term -Progress through the dan grades at shotokan. I'm getting older but i would like to learn more and get more skilled. -Eventually earn my bjj bb (i said it was long term!)

From reading that there are a few immediate red flags that jump out, namely that you had disclosed an existing back injury and he had you perform several exercises that either directly work the back or involve it as a significant stabiliser I would have assumed that he would have had you perform some unweighted exercises that may stress your back first to ascertain what you could do. Working up to deadlifts etc would be the ideal but if you can't do it currently then you get the person to very very gradually work up to it! Personal trainers are a total bugbear of mine - there are far too many bogus ones with smart sounding certifications that are utterly useless running around. As a personal example i got an extremely bad arm injury a few years ago that necessitated 18mths off the mats (a complete dislocation of the elbow with other issues) and was told by physios and the medical people that i would never regain full range of motion. I read up on it and self rehabbed it - have full range now. To paraphrase you directly : you usually sign off with "proof is on the floor" in this instance, factoring in your pain, you should apply the same maxim. This trainer (regardless of how nice an individual and how credentialed they appear) caused you to finish a session injured and in pain. I'd 100% suggest finding a new one Best of luck with the routine though - sounds like you have the two most important parts nailed down already : commitment and willingness to work!

thats the first double episode in the books: what did people think of it? Myself i enjoyed it, couple of small gripes but i was pleasantly surprised

I remember this from when i was a kid but didn't know there was a film. I'll need to get my son to watch it and see what he thinks

don’t know what professors you’ve delt with, but all of mine have actually done the stuff they teach.Same with my gf… Criminal justice majors who have never done anything within the justice system, like law enforcement and such. But teach courses on such subjects as community policing. I think this can tend to happen in accounting as well, and business courses. They never do any actual accounting, or have ever actually run a business, but teach courses on it. I'd slightly modify the statement at the bottom - work wise what i have observed is those who are good at it do it, those who aren't good enough teach it. (the old "those who can do do, those who can't teach" saying). Slight modification i would make is most of those in the business /accounting sphere have done it, but those who weren't very good at it after a few years teach. Myself i'm an actuary and (with a few exceptions) i'd say the same holds true for my profession - we also work with a lot of accountants and general business folk, and from what i have observed the same is true for them. This reminds me of an old debate i have had with friends about football : do you need to have played to a high standard to coach it? I don't think so as it is a different skill set (i point to Jose Mourinho who was an interpreter before becoming a leading coach; Arsene Wenger did economics i think and a few others as examples. In fact most of the 'great' players who went into coaching failed as the players weren't up to their standard. To come back onto topic, the fact that Abernathy openly says he doesn't have much 'real' fight experience doesn't mean he doesn't know the techniques and can't teach them properly. It might mean that in a pressure situation he couldn't personally utilise them but that doesn't mean he can't teach someone else the mechanics. I did have a former coach that would have massively disagreed with me though here : as part of his grading system he wouldn't promote you beyond a certain point unless you could 'demonstrate some real self defence experience'; his solution for this was you had to work the door at a place in Glasgow a friend of his owned for a while. This led to 'practical training' fairly often (total scam of his but thats another story)! There’s a difference between teaching mechanics, and telling people what works in a fight and what works in real life, and what training methods are best. There’s a difference between teaching self defense, and teaching the mechanics of certain movements. Saying that combat sports training or combat sport style training doesn’t work for self defense, is that exact opposite of my fairly extensive experience. The traditional self defense training that was very similar to what Abernathy preaches and what can be found all over various TMA self defense videos did not prepare me for situations where I ended up having to protect myself or others. What did help? Combat sport training, and a self defense drill I haven’t seen replicated any where else. I think we sorta agree. Where we differ is i don't think there is an issue with someone who is a technical expert teaching the techniques but then i do agree to demonstrate that you can apply/use the techniques that you need to have applied them in the most realistic environment possible. I am always quite sceptical of some of the massively complicated 'self defence' things that are taught - in a high pressure situation will you remember "intricate precise combination 15?". In the (thankfully relatively few) times where i have had to use any i always found that i resorted to a straight front or read hand punch; front kick; elbow and (since i am Glaswegian) the head! To produce some of the complicated bunkai sequences in a high pressure, adrenaline rich, self defence situation seems like quite an ask to me! Personal view only and there are plenty of people more skilled than me who maybe can apply these things and have examples of landing a 360degree roundhouse kick in an actual fight!!

don’t know what professors you’ve delt with, but all of mine have actually done the stuff they teach.Same with my gf… Criminal justice majors who have never done anything within the justice system, like law enforcement and such. But teach courses on such subjects as community policing. I think this can tend to happen in accounting as well, and business courses. They never do any actual accounting, or have ever actually run a business, but teach courses on it. I'd slightly modify the statement at the bottom - work wise what i have observed is those who are good at it do it, those who aren't good enough teach it. (the old "those who can do do, those who can't teach" saying). Slight modification i would make is most of those in the business /accounting sphere have done it, but those who weren't very good at it after a few years teach. Myself i'm an actuary and (with a few exceptions) i'd say the same holds true for my profession - we also work with a lot of accountants and general business folk, and from what i have observed the same is true for them. This reminds me of an old debate i have had with friends about football : do you need to have played to a high standard to coach it? I don't think so as it is a different skill set (i point to Jose Mourinho who was an interpreter before becoming a leading coach; Arsene Wenger did economics i think and a few others as examples. In fact most of the 'great' players who went into coaching failed as the players weren't up to their standard. To come back onto topic, the fact that Abernathy openly says he doesn't have much 'real' fight experience doesn't mean he doesn't know the techniques and can't teach them properly. It might mean that in a pressure situation he couldn't personally utilise them but that doesn't mean he can't teach someone else the mechanics. I did have a former coach that would have massively disagreed with me though here : as part of his grading system he wouldn't promote you beyond a certain point unless you could 'demonstrate some real self defence experience'; his solution for this was you had to work the door at a place in Glasgow a friend of his owned for a while. This led to 'practical training' fairly often (total scam of his but thats another story)!

Training for enjoyment can be good for creativity and can also lead to some 'ah ha' moments too. Plus if not enjoying it then, it is a LOT of time to dedicate to something you don't like. You said you have trained for decades, so is there really that much more you can learn for basic self defence that you haven't already covered? (obviously you can still improve but i'm thinking of the 80/20 principle here)

Hi All, I am going to get a new Gi shortly and was wondering what people thought of Isami gi's for Shotokan? I know they have quite a strong Kyokushin following but it looks like their traditional gi is fine for Shotokan. I have a few of their BJJ gi's that i picked up in Tokyo a decade ago and i really like them - soft and extremely well made, so i thought i might go for one of their karate ones next. I did also have a question on the sizing : my BJJ gi's are a size '6' and it looks like they only go up to a size 5 on their website - does anyone know if they do a size 6 in the karate gi's? I saw that all of the gi's are made to order, so if the sizing exists i wouldn't see it being a massive issue. Failing that is there another brand/gi that people would recommend as a similar alternative quality wise (without getting into the realms of £300!) Thanks!

Congratulations!! You've worked hard for it and sounds like you deserve it Now you get to enjoy it for a bit then start working towards that Nidan!

Yeah I have always heard the same thing. The only slight caveat i would put on it is that if your instructor is relatively junior for an instructor ,and as your grade is approaching theirs, there is a (slight) possibility that they may not identify some minor issues that the grading examiner would pick out (am envisaging here a 2nd dan instructor somewhere, student grading for 1st dan with the examiner being an 8th dan master etc.) I've always taken two views on it as a student : 1) my instructor wouldn't let me take the grading unless he/she already knew i was at that level 2) as long as i give my best on that day, then that is all i can control. If i do that then i come out with the grade i deserve for that day @ Aurik : sounds like you will be fine though - the CI wouldn't be wasting his time telling you he thought you had already passed that section if he didn't have confidence in your ability

Somewhat belated response but congratulations. Also great to hear about the recognition of prior training from Master Kim. If things are so similar it makes a lot of sense but you sometimes get people who are very dogmatic and believe "but it wasn't learned from me". Glad to hear that he isn't like that, is a positive sign for the longer haul too - i have always found instructors like that better to learn from as they teach to your ability/skill rather than just blindly following the syllabus. Enjoy (re)learning the new forms for the new belt and best of luck with the training

Definitely. What the coach chooses to teach is especially relevant i think in an art like bjj which doesn't have a strictly defined syllabus. I'm 6'4" and about 225lbs (in American measurements ) and my bjj coach and karate instructor are both about a foot shorteer and probably 50-60lbs lighter. My BJJ coach's preferred techniques will naturally be different to mine (though i think he does a good job of covering a wide range of techniques). For my karate instructor the more rigid syllabus means that at least i get exposed to the required variety of techniques for my grade etc. I do tend to agree with you though that it is likely the specialist discipline training will win out in the end - it already seems to have done tbh

Cheers for the opinions everyone, sounds like it is worth a watch but one to be added to the watch myself whenever i get a chance list (alongside the Boys!). Hopefully they have an episode on where Ralph Macchio found the elixir of youth - he was in his 20s when he made the original film and seems allergic to aging much!

there are a lot of elite level kickboxers in MMA, but i think there needs to be a caveat to that, because modern KB in japan, and the US, comes from karate, and many of those elite level kickboxers are also karateka who spent years training karate, and chose to test that karate via kickboxing.Edit Also to address the sport specific training angle, we’re roughly 30 years into formal MMA’s large scale rise and many MMA gyms are still coaching serious fighters in individual single styles for both striking and grappling, and then combining them, and most fighters still have an individual martial art as a base rather than being ‘pure’ MMA fighters. It’s my opinion that if training ‘pure’ mma were the best method and route to go, we’d see a lot more of that, especially at the higher levels. It doesn’t seem to be the correct approach because it seems to be better to have an area of expertise that’s extremely strong, either in striking or grappling which is kinda hard if you’re training ‘pure’ mma. If you’re a jack of all trades master of bone pure mma type, you might be able to out grapple a high level boxer, kickboxer, nak Muay, etc. but will you be strong enough of a grappler to overcome their striking AND the lie take down defenses? If you’re a jack of all trades you might be able to out strike a high level grappler, but is your striking and takedown defense capable of keeping you on your feet against a high level grappler? The example that always comes to my mind when i think of this is Rory MacDonald. When he was coming through there was always a big deal made that he was the first in a new wave of purely mma trained athletes and they would dominate. Didn't work out that way really. Best example of the training separate styles school of thought i can think of is GSP. He was an excellent Kyokushin Karateka. Wanted to improve his ground game and is now a multiple degree BJJ BB under Danaher. Wanted to improve his wrestling and became so dominant at it that most people erroneously think of him as a wrestler who took up mma. My view has always been that if you learn the art itself in it's "pure" form then you can choose the techniques that work for you to integrate into your personal style. If you, for sake or argument, decide to learn Kyokushin, Greco Roman and BJJ, you can then choose the techniques from each style that you believe complement your style and each other, rather than relying on a coach having the same 'database' of techniques and teaching you them all. Will be interesting to see how things progress over time and if there does end up being a shift to people who have only ever trained mma. Maybe they will use that as their base and then train in individual disciplines to improve on that aspect - eg go train Sambo to work on leg locks etc

Personally it is something that i think has very little actual bearing on my training etc. It is nice to know you are studying something that came from country X, and has been around for ages but it's the effectiveness of the training itself and the instructors that matter to me. As a simple analogy, i am proudly Scottish and the Gracie family are originally from Dumfries and emmigrated to Brazil (we used to get members of the family over regularly since they wanted to learn about their roots and referred to themselves as Scottish-Brazilian). They then were taught a Japanese martial art when in brazil and named it brazilian jiu jitsu. I can't think of anyone who would think of referring to it as Japanese (even though all the core techniques at that time would have been found in Judo) or Scottish (even though the founders were all Scots). Tbh i only refer to it as BJJ rather than just jiu jitsu when conversing with people who are also aware of Japanese jiu jitsu to differentiate it. The country it originated from just doesn't seem really important to me - other than giving a pointer to where a lot of the best practitioners can be found. Same with Karate in my book. Is it Japanese or something else? I'm not really bothered! Do i enjoy my training and believe my instructor (and their lineage) are legit? Yes i do. Thats all i'm really bothered about. Again this is purely a personal view, and probably completely missed the point of the original question!

Congrats, you also get the snazzy belt icon for the month too!

Awesome, glad to hear you are enjoying it. Just remember that bjj is very much an example of playing the long game, you get smashed for years but then gradually you get smashed less and suddenly realise you have become slightly competent (then some brown or black smashes you while having a conversation with someone and you realise how long the path is!) Here's to an awesome next 6mths (and more) on the mats!