Fenris-wolf

NZ... as in New Zealand... you know, that little island below Australia?

I'm with you! Hell yeah! I ticked "tournaments and self-defence", although I was kinda torn by the "fun" thing... But now I've started Muay Thai I'm hanging out for my first fight. But baisically I just love martial arts. I always have. People think I'm mad, going so often, but everything; the people, the discipline, the spirituality if you will, everything is so... me, I guess.

Hell yeah! Sure, it's nice to have a pretty coloured belt, but it's not the be-all and end-all. If you're staying in an art that you don't enjoy just because you want to be able to say you're a brown belt, well that's pretty sad. Not that I don't respect rank, but you know what I mean...

This should probably be in health and fitness, I'm thinking... I've been trying not to drink in the name of being a better fighter, but I've given up on that one temporarily. I certainly won't be drinking anything for the last month or so before I fight though.

Alright, I'm probably going to start an argument, but I can't help it... Out of all the Americans here, what do you all think of the way your government's behaving??

Try searching in Google; they're usually pretty good if you're willing to spend a little while sitting around looking through web pages. I found a couple of promising sites, but it would probably be easier if you looked, since you know what you like.

Ah, yes! That frustrated me for ages... I still bend my knees and do sweeping blocks sometimes... which my opponent loves!

Where do you live, Tombstone?

Well, I don't know if anyone else has noiced the relevence of this post, but I thought it was kinda interesting in application to your topic: That was in a topic for ki "believers". I think you have a good point, by the way.

Sweeet, thanks You know, it was probably silly to set up a discussion board for this... Oh well.

Alrighty then. I have practiced/do practice two MAs. Seido Karate and Muay Thai. The first time I really learnt about grappling was in Muay Thai. We use the word "grappling" in reference to when you get your opponent into a grapple in order to knee them. ie: One hand on the back of their head high enough so you can pull it down to your chest, the other securing the grapple by holding your wrist and your elbows locked together on their chest. I have also heard this referred to as "clinching". I just went into a post about grappling and they were talking about grappling on the ground. Now I'm confused! Does this mean that what I refer to as grappling shouldn't really be called that? Or what? Help....

Why the angry face? And I practice Muay Thai. In summation; it is a very effective style, but not very fancy. The national sport of Thailand, it originated baisically with the rules of "last one standing wins". It utilises a lot of weapons; kicks/punches/knees/elbows, and even at novice level (which doesn't really exist in Thailand) we have full-contact head strikes. It is still relatively sexist in Thailand, if not in other countries, mostly based on the superstition that a woman "taints" the ring. Kickboxing is a bastardised form of Muay Thai (I hope I don't offend anyone, that's just insofar as I know), baisically a westernised form with no knees or elbows.

You have a good point, but I think it's a little more subjective than that. I don't think it can exactly be "taught". Someone can introduce to you the idea. But it really seems like you need to do what you feel. To elaborate; when you have a weakness, or a strength you rely upon, or you can see how certain moves from many different styles would come together well you implement it yourself. So baisically you have to be very good, experienced and above all, intelligent fighter who is always striving for "better". Just my 2 cents

Just to sound like a parrot; how is it overestimated?? Anyway, I think he meant underestimated as in not seen as a "real" MA by a lot of martial artists. A kind of snobbery, I guess.

Alrighty then, I did Seido Karate for about 4 years-ish and got to green belt (white-bue-yellow-green-brown-black with "tips" in between). I've practiced Muay Thai for about 3 months and I'm a semi-senior in my club. This just pretty much means I can come to any of the training sessions I want -since some are meant to only be for fighters- and I have a good basis of knowledge. This may sound fast but a: I don't want to sound arrogant but I am naturally fairly good at this kind of thing, and I have experience and b: I train 6 days out of 7 and am very enthusiastic, so this probably helps.

I completely agree Karate Woman, but over and above that, how many 3 1/2 year olds do you know with the attention span to memorise that many katas in the first place?? This is beyond weird...

Hehe, yes, it does look kinda funny. You're right though, it is the most incredible thing ever...

Very interesting JerryLove. I'm pretty athiest myself (insofar as more than just not believing in a deity I have difficulty with anything unprovable), but I've always had a "feeling" that some of these things exist. Put it down to my upbringing maybe -Mum's definately not religious but is fairly spiritual. Not hippyish, just that she believed in souls the way I believe in atoms. But... Maybe it's just that it seems very small minded to only believe in ideas within our own influence, so baisically, if the concept's hard to grasp it must be rubbish. Anyway, I like to discuss but I leave decisions up to other people, thank you! But what I really want to say is thank you for putting in a decent poll!! Almost everyone feels the need to make the options "yes, definately", "no way" and if you're lucky "I don't know". I really appreciate having decent options. Random comment, yes, but thanks anyway.

Hmm. I don't actually meditate, though I'd like to. But as for a reason... It baisically incorporates all the things you listed. Of course it helps with your MA because you have a clear mind. It helps you seperate yourself from anger so that you can fight with a clear head and think before you act. Yes also to relax, but pychologically rather than physically. Baisically having time away from stress. I'm having difficulty articulating this, but also to have control over your senses, be more aware of yourself and not be ruled by emotions. Hope that helped

I'm practicing Muay Thai too, but I used to practice Seido Karate and I'd really like to take that up again when I feel I've gone as far as is reasonable in Muay Thai. In the meantime, I'd be quite interested in cross-training in something a little more formal, provided it complements Muay Thai. Unfortunately I don't really have the time in my life right now so I'll have to research that properly. But since I'm here, anyone got any recommendations?

Yeah, that was really good. Our trainer sent us this link, which isn't exactly along the same lines but it's very inspiring. http://www.recordholders.org/en/list/ulysses.html I feel that I'm quite lucky really, everybody in my club is really positive. Whenever we have any interaction with other diciplines we will discuss the respective merits and lacks of it, but we definately focus on what we like and I always try to be respectful of other practitioners.

Hmm, I won't get offended, because I admit that I too used to have a certain prejudice against kickboxing/boxing, and to an extent it's still there, but... Kickboxing is just a westernised style of Muay Thai. While Muay Thai is not nearly as formal as many Karates it is as much a martial art as Aikido. I know what you mean about the spiritual side of martial arts, that's actually what puts me off boxing a lot of the time. But Muay Thai does have it's little ceremonies. First, there is a series of bows called the Wai Kru which are performed before class much like in Seido Karate, which I used to attend. These are signs of respect, the first bow to your trainer, the second to the lineage of your trainer (ie: your trainer's trainer etc) and the third is to the club. (If anyone else tells you otherwise it just means they were taught differently, but the general idea's the same. eg: I have read that the third bow is religious, but I'll just stick to what I was taught) Also, there is a dance or ceremony called the Ram Muay which a fighter performs before his fight. These used to be specific to a club, so you used to be able to tell where they trained by which Ram Muay they performed, and a lot of the audience would use the quality of the Ram Muay to judge the prospective quality of the fighter. It is used to demonstrate your skill and also to settle the fighter's mind before a fight. So you see, it is not completely devoid of anything but sparring! To actually answer your query, I wouldn't personally recommend mixing it with karate. I used to do karate and there are a lot of small but telling differences between the arts that could conceivably really screw with you. The most prominant being that a Muay Thai fighter kicks with a straight leg. I won't even go into how long it took me to stop flicking my kicks at the end! Also, the guard is very different and we don't use any of the stylised blocks. This probably wouldn't be a problem with your cross-training, but in terms of what you're used to you should remember we allow head strikes. I hope that helped, I'm afraid you just got my started on one of my favourite topics!

Well, there are a lot of female beginners in my club, actually more women than men, but I think a lot of people actually start kickboxing for fitness. In order to keep out club running our instructor advertises it that way, even though he teaches traditional Muay Thai. Anyway, a lot of the women drop out. There's about a 1:5 ratio of female to male seniors in our club and I have to say I like it. Because at half of our trainings either I'm the only woman or my friend, who is a biig girl (ie: tall, strong), everyone I spar against/hold pads for tends to be bigger than me. Which is good, because if I can hold my own against the 75kg guys it makes it a lot easier to fight a 60kg girl! More specific to the topic though, I've never had a problem at MA with sexism. There is one guy at our club who doesn't like to hit girls, but he just tries to work on his guard and throws in light hits when my guard's particularly open. Everyone else just goes as hard or soft as the other person's skill level indicates.

Thanks

This is sort of peripheral, but... You know, I find that a little disturbing. It means every would-be rapist on the street knows just that little bit more than they would otherwise. ie: every male in Finnland knows how to fight to some extent or another