granmasterchen

make sure that you practice at home, constant practice will make you a more proficient martial artists.

it was brutal....(my old school style) but many of the later styles that I ranked in were not nearly as brutal....

hmmmm tough question honestly. skill wise each is a master fighting wise each are legends bruce lee helped revolutionize chinese martial arts to the western world chuck norris has helped make the korean arts very popular in the states. each have a great movie career. philosophically each are undisputedly masters. everyone knows of bruce lees exploits of a new way to understand martial arts....but, chuck norris has also come to that concept, he just wasn't the first. If bruce lee would have lived much longer, then we could see how great he could have been, but he didn't ....so in comparison of how good he was as a martial artist: knowledge, skill and involvement in the community and society as a whole along with spreading martial arts.....each have become masters in my eyes. I think that chuck norris has had the benefit to learn from Bruce and has had many years to build on his teachings and surpass him. I give the upper hand to chuck norris, only because he out lived bruce lee. If bruce lee was alive today, it would be much different, i can only imagine what things he would have came up with.

when dealing with european weaponry, the thought was that strength was the key ability needed to take down your opponent the Japanese philosophy was more on elegance and skill, being graceful and precise. my guess is that the knight would come in strong, attempting to take out the samurai in one massive sweep of his sword....relying on his strength to crush any defense the samurai might have. I think the samurai, would wait for the approaching knight, sidestep at the last second out of the way, as the knights momentum takes him forward the samurai continues his spin from the sidestep, bringing his katana in a graceful, quick arc coming down at an angle from the back side of the knights neck ...thus ending the fight. just my generic, stereotypical view of the history and situation...

it happens to everyone at some point in time during their careers as martial artists if they stick to the arts long enough. Just remember to to practice when you get the chance. Doing your forms is a good way to maintain proficiency. Every now and then when you have a few seconds or minutes make sure to stretch to keep your flexibility also practice those stances while you are just standing around. you don't necessarily need hours to dedicate to an art just to keep your skill up, just some thoughts and practice. If you don't bother spending anytime thinking about it at all or stretching, you will notice a difference. so keep an open mind, and when you have a free second, practice a stance, technique or what not, meditate when going to bed...practice when you get the time...and remember that you can always make time...even if it is just ten seconds between a conversation to stretch or work a stance.... good luck!

not to burst your bubble...but the Japanese military does not have a group of ninjas that they use for recon or spying operations....no country does.... instead we have military groups that are trained in that area...but not trained specifically in ninjutsu...yet today's recon forces would be some of the closest things that you would find to modern day ninjas. my advice would be to watch each class and see what points you like, if you like one over the other pick that one. it all boils down to the instructor, if you have a good one you will learn some good stuff, if you have a bad one, then you will have a bad experience regardless of the style being taught. in my experience with each art I have found that combat hapkido works alot on manipulations like aikido....but with a little more striking arts miked in to give it the combat aspect compared to typical hapkido. as far as ninjutsu...."usually" the art form has the easiest katas I have ever seen, the self defense is designed to handle any situation, self defense is the strong point of the art, they also teach multiple weapons....but again, it all boils down to the instructor,,,,every instructor teaches differently from the next and may have a completely different curriculum for their students to learn.... so go check out each class and let us know what you find out. hope that helps

It teaches you to hit THROUGH your target.

just to let you all know, there are secrets in breaking just like there are secrets in kata.

my last break at a tournament/seminar was 24 inches (two feet) of concrete with an elbow strike. 8 bricks, three inches thick each

I think that the story of Dragons may have originated from dinosaurs....a few extinct creatures that are now dead....or maybe just some philosophers sitting on a mountain top smoking too much opium....and they thought they saw dragons along with all the other things...

I recall doing a seminar with Keith Hackney (the giant killer from UFC 3), this was awhile back.....but anywho.... we were working nunchuku drills with frizbees....we would have someone standing behind us and throw a frizbee at our backs, we had to "feel" the frizbeen and swing behind/over our shoulders or sides and strike the frizbee..... well let me tell you....there were ALOT of sore people that day LOL!!!

happened to me once, I found a guy that used to train in the same small town dojo as me back in the 90s.....its a small world

apparently he knew what he was doing, if not, he would have only hurt himself

nope, no samurai here....I've just studied the katana with many of the karate classes that I have taken, along with the classic japanese weapons, and also in my mdk tkd class

I think that they may have been derived when tsd and tkd were first coming into play and brought to the US.....just my thinking, so they must be pretty new katas(compared to the traditional ones that are hundreds to thousands of years old)

good luck, i'm sure you'll do fine

i've studied a lot of tsd i haven't taken gumdo but I have studied quite extensively with weapons, especially the katana....yep I know, Japanese, not Korean..... but then again, the forms of tsd come from Japanese karate....so no harm no foul

it is very sad to see it happening over here. It is something that is spreading all over Japan, the whole tournament thing.....many schools are dropping their old curriculums, not just kyokushin...numerous karate schools...it's sad to see. The whole art is just drilling some basic kicks and punches, and then full contact K1 style fighting, they have dropped pressure points, kata, beaking, and anything that doesnt have an immediate impact on K1

Has anyone heard of these katas know as the Americans 1,2,3 ??? they are upper level katas in my style, does anyone know where I can find some information on these katas? obviously they aren't traditional katas....so I'm having difficulty finding them online.

over here in japan, many of the traditional schools (kyokushin karate) are starting to quit teaching kata....they are changing their schools completely over to K1 style tournament fighting.....I think this is very sad, in the coming 20 yrs, if things don't change, much knowledge will be lost

i have a book on it somewhere

i was taught that if you ever decide to use a weapon in a fight, you must first be knowledgeable on how to disarm an opponent with the same weapon

depends on the instructor usually, whether he/she wants to teach weapons, and which ones they decide to teach, of course they would have to have knowledge so ....again, it all depends on instructor.

there was a fight within the last year over here in misawa japan, where one of the martial artists on the base had brought a set of nunchuku with him off base and went to a bar. He obviously did this because he knew that he was going to get jumped, must have started some trouble with someone. Well it turned out that three guys attacked him in the bar, he whipped out the chucks and with three swings, one to each, hit and took them out...then he ran off....they never did find out who the guy was.

read the book of five rings.....translation by stephen f kaufman.....this explains much about swordfighting the book was originally written by the greatest samurai known as miyamoto musashi i highly recomend this book, it will explain how to hold the katana properly along with how to fight properly.....the rest you can choriograph