Guy_Who_Fights

Rising Soldier, there is one very important step to defeating your friend that, unfortunately, no one has mentioned yet. After each time you spar with him you should go home and get out a pen and piece of paper. Write down everything your opponent did that worked against you, all of your opponent's favourite moves, all of their strengths and weaknesses. As well, write down everything you did that worked against your opponent, everything that didn't work, and your favourite moves. The next step is to look at all of your opponent's favourite moves and fugure out a simple counter or at least defense for all of them. Go through your counters in your head time and time again until you have mentally countered all of your opponent's favourite moves dozens of times. Do this also for everything that they used that worked on you (hese will not necessarily be their favourite moves, but you can be positive they will use them all at least twice against you). Now take all of their strengths and weaknesses that you wrote down and figure out how to take away their strengths and exploit their weaknesses. Next is you. Look at everything you did that worked and don't stop thinking until you find out why each of those things worked. Once you know why, you can deduce what other moves have the same principles and characteristics that caused the first one to work. Figure out how to land these new moves, and do this for every single move that worked for you. You should really have a lot of information by now... Next, look at everything you did that didn't work and figure out why. This will teach you strengths your opponent has that you may not have realized (or weaknesses you have). These principles and characteristics of the things that did not work are things you should always avoid next time. Finally, figure out why your favourite moves didn't work, and how to make them work. (I know that we shouldn't have favourite moves, but everyone has specific habbits in their fighting, and those habbits are your 'favourite moves' in this case) Do this after every time you spar with your opponent, and review your notes before each time you spar with them. It all adds up to a lot of information but the end result is there is no way you should spar against an opponent 3 times and still lose by the 3rd match. You should at least draw with your opponent. Don't knock this strategy until you've tried it, I have notes on every fighter who has ever given me the slightest trouble (this does not mean that they can defeat me and I need to know how to defeat them, in many cases it is that I can defeat them but wish to defeat them more easily - one wrong move can lose you a fight on the street). There is a dojo in my town for which I have notes on all 7 instructors. I guarantee anyone out there that this practice will make you a better fighter at a much faster rate than you would otherwise progress. It teaches you how to strategize and the more you practice it, the better you get at it. More importantly, the better you get at strayegizing quickly in the ring - where it is needed most. Strategy is like any other skill in martial art, you don't get good at punching without throwing thousands of punches, and you won't get good at strategizing without practising just as much.

Topic, inexperienced fighters are tricky and kind of go crazy when they charge in throwing punches from odd angles. This makes sparring against them tricky, but in a real fight it is a different story, fortunately. This is because they always leave themselves open, their strikes tend to lack power, and their strikes tend not to be aimed at crucial targets. One of my beginning students charges in with lots of punches, some of which are tough to block because of the odd angles they come from. The great thing is that, since they are from such odd angles, it is nearly impossible for even an experienced fighter to put power into those particular punches. So rather than an "odd angle", perhaps I should call it a "bad angle". So even though I don't block that particular punch well, I only come away with a tiny bruise on my hip (he is using very ill-padded gloves and high contact). So it is nothing I need to worry about. I just pop him with a cross when he keeps throwing that punch because it leaves him open. So althoug hbeginners are tricky to spar against, they are easy to fight.

Despite what you may have heard, the primary goal of boxing gloves is to protect your opponent. Protecting the hands is just a side effect, but they don't protect the hands to the extent you would imagine. The gloves used in all boxing matches are brand new and quite hard because of that fact. Those gloves offer far less cushion than the gloves used in sparring. As a result they mainly protect against broken jaws and ribs. The gloves disperse the force of the punch over a greater area on the opponent's body, so cracked skulls, etc. are less common, but I have been hit by new ring-gloves and bare fists, and there is very little difference. Gloves in boxing clubs are worked in and are designed to have more cushion padding. 14 oz cushiony gloves are the standard for sparring, but 8-10 oz fairly hard gloves are the ring standard. Many boxers have broken their hands in the ring. Bare knuckle boxing and sport boxing are different only in the fact that the size of the 12 and 14 oz gloves make it more difficult to land punches on your opponent, but that will only make a bare-knuckle fight seem that much easier to you. Conversely, the large gloves can make it easier for you to defend if you defend like a boxer. But all you have to do is be more acurate with your defence and treat it as if you didn't have gloves on. Giving you a slightly better defense is the only downfall of the gloves, but you can change the way you train with them to remedy that. You can also just use smaller gloves - saves you some scars, and if you get a broken jaw it would be a long time before you spar again, only to rebrake it. Also, it is very common to get an accidental or even intentional thumb or finger in the eye when not using gloves. This has happened to myself and friends of mine a few times and can be dangerous. I'd rather wear gloves than lose half my vision in one eye because some guy didn't trim if nails... Even if you still decide to go for bare-knuckle boxing, I would highly recommend training with boxing gloves and helmuts until you have developed a solid defense, then you can move to the realism of bare-knuckle fighting with far less risk of injury.

Hm. It being your first match, you were probably against someone who was also on their first or second match. The unfortunate thing with a lot of boxers on their first few matches is that they tend to jump backward at the first sign of a punch, making it annoying to try and hit them. The more aggressive fighter gets extra points in the judges eyes, so good work on pressing forward. Unfortunately if your opponent keeps running backward to the extent I've seen many times, you may just have to stand your ground and force them to come to you, then counter. The good news is that as you fight more experienced fighters they will opt to move in when you punch because that is when you are the most open. Bad for you but it will in the end give you a better chance of catching them with something. Throwing feigns is a great way of creating opneings, especially against fighters without a lot of full-contact experience. Feigning a hook punch will often result in their blocking arm extending way out from their body. So feign a hook and quickly pull it back and jab with it. Feigning a jab and going into a hook also works. Going to the body might leave you less open for uppercuts. It's tough to deal with people who run away. In essence you have won the fight in real life because they are running and not fighting, but in the ring this doesn't hold true. Many boxers have success with standing their ground and countering at the same time the opponent attacks (a rather advanced tactic), or waiting until their opponent has finished attacking and then immediately attacking them while they are on their way "out" i.e. moving back. It would have helped to know more about your opponent's tactics, but this should help you out. Good luck.

As a side note, are you sure it was your kidney? It may have been your liver. Look up some anatomy pages for a better reference, but as a quick description, the liver is on your right side, not as far around your back as your kidney, and a little higher. Basically if you threw a hook punch to the body and landed it just behind the elbow of your opponent's right guard, you would hit it. It is a crippling spot to be hit in and some boxers such as the great Micky Ward build their careers on punching the liver. It is unfortunate if you did get hit in the kidney because it is an illegal target in the ring. A few minutes of looking for anatomy picture of the body's major organs on the internet will allow you to * where you were hit, but you should go see a doctor reguardless if it's not better within a couple of days of the match. (of course, it is easy for me to say "go see a doctor" because it is free in Canada. If you are in Canada, then go for sure because it will cost you nothing)

I would say boxing is the best thing you can learn to defend yourself in a street fight if you don't plan on spending years enjoying the training of martial art. And here's why: Not because boxing is a better way of fighting than Kung Fu, Aikido, etc. (I bet I just saved myself a lot of hate responses there), but because boxing clubs focus mainly on sparring. Therefore you get fighting experience much faster. Since boxing is a sport martial art aimed at winning fights in a ring, they focus mainly on fights in a ring, not proper form in kata, deep philosophy, what to do when someone grabs your wrist, etc. All the other styles are just as good as boxing, but they have a much more general focus. Although street fighting and sparring are a part of those styles, they are only one of many focuses, and thus sparring is practiced less due to the fact that they have to fit everything in. Boxing on the other hand sees sparring as its primary focus, thus it gets the most attention. So if you are looking to skip the possibility of preventing the fight with a joint lock, aren't so interested in the history of fighting or the deep philosophy behind it, and just plain want to defend yourself when you and your buddies are at a bar and someone starts throwing punches at you because they think you looked at their girlfriend the wrong way, go for boxing. Since its main focus is throwing punches against someone throwing punches at you, that's what you will practice every class, and you will consequently improve in that one area the fastest in a boxing club.

Holy cow, I feel like I am the first person to actually respond to the initial question. I actually am a boxer and dirty tricks in boxing are things that the ref will not catch. They know about hammerfists and backfists and you can get a point taken away if you don't heed the ref's warnings. Here are some that will not get caught if you do them right: 1. When throwing a hook punch on the inside (this is too obvious if not in-fighting because the angle at your elbow has to be 90 degrees or less to do it descretely - the closer you are to your opponent, the smaller the angle at your elbow). If you are close enough or in a semi-clinch when throwing the hook punch, grind your forearm and elbow across your opponent's face. Actually striking with the forearm or elbow is way too obvious unless they move their head to avoid the punch just right, then you can turn it into a slight strike and it will be a justified miss of your glove. 2. When retracting the same or a similar punch in the same or a similar situation, you can grind your elbow and forearm across their face again, but you must go for another punch with that same hand immediately. If you do not, it looks like you are striking with the elbow or forearm. If you go for a punch with the same hand, then it looks like you were innocently trying to free/retract your arm for another punch, and the forearm, if seen at all, was just a part of the contact that comes naturally with close-range fighting in the ring. 3. When your opponent is trying to tie you up and clinch, keep your gloves up by your forehead and your head turned down a little. So now it looks like you are ducking your head to avoid getting hit, and keeping your guard up (which is all rather funny since your opponent is obviously the one who wants to clinch and not punch. Make sure one of your gloves is just past his face and push hard into his face with your forearm to get him off of you. If the ref is on your left side, then place your right glove on the right side of your opponent's face (your left), his cheek or temple - really it just needs to be near that area - and push with your forearm. This way the ref doesn't see it. 4. In the same situation of while just in-fighting, grind the top, top/side, or top/back of your head into your opponent's jaw, face, or temple. Evander Holyfeild is terrible for doing this. Keep at least one glove up while doing this so it looks like you are guarding one side of your head with a glove and innocently using the opponent's head to guard the other side for you. 5. Stepping on feet. 6. When an opponent ducks and they are close enough to you or trying to clinch, tie them up but keep them bent over. Basically you are now waiting for the ref to break you up. While you wait, you place almost your entire bodyweight on your opponent to wear them out. They will try to ramain standing because it's either that or they go down. While going down in this case will rarely result in a knock-down ruling, it is still possible, and going down for any reason influences the judges. Some boxers get really frustrated by the over-use of this dirty tactic (by far the most commonly used one) and actually pick up their opponent on their shoulder just to show how much their opponent was leaning on them. 7. If your opponent is offbalanced but not hurt by one of your punches, move in close and push them with your entire body while throwing some poor punches that are only there to make it look like you are punching. The puch will knock your opponent down and you can commonly get away with a knock-down ruling. 8. Throwing a combination at your opponent when they go to tough gloves at the beginning of a round. This is very dirty and very obvious but 100% legal. Just start the combination with a jab so that it looks like you are going to touch gloves too. Well, that's all I can think of for now. Watch some boxing as soon as possible and see how many of these you can spot. 1-3 happen most commonly on the ropes. I am not anadvocate of these tactics and never use them myself. However I do box and thus know of them because 1. they become easy to spot and you see the pros use them a lot, and 2. it is good to know of them in case you come across an opponent who uses them. So now you all know what dirty tactics to watch out for against a boxer, and will hopefully not be surprised by any as I have now and then. Happy fighting.

I agree strongly with you, Shorinryu Sensei. As a note (for everyone) on why there are so many ads, it is because magazines actually make extremely little money off of their subscriptions; not nearly enough to sustain the magazine. Around 75% of the money Black Belt Magazine makes will be from their ads. I forget what their rates are, but those tiny adds that there are so many of can easily cost $250 - $500 US, just for the tiny ones that you see around 20 of per page. That's up to $10 000 per page. Think of how many pages are full of adds (more than 50% of the magazine, that's for sure. I've looked very closely at the magazine industry because I at one point considered starting a magazine of my own. I decided against it because it is 80% marketting to sponsors and those likely to advertise, 10% printing a actual magazine know-how, and 10% subject related content...it's rediculous. Anyway, that's why there are so many ads, they pay the salaries, not subscriptions. And if they cut down on ads and got a few more subscriptions, the difference would result in them losing a considerable amount of money. Therefore, print martial art magazines will always have just enough actual content to keep it seen as a magazine and not a classified ad. Their goal is to have as many people see as many advertisements as possible. So if that means they have to split the advertisements up by three 1 800-articles every month, then that's what they'll do. If they put out a magazine with only two articles and it does just as well, then they will only use two articles every month and use the newly opened space for advertising - about $30 000+ worth.

Just as an interesting side note to everyone: I teach private lessons and after a 1 1/2 hour class (their first) I have my student strap on some 12 oz boxing gloves (I would recommend 14 oz for high contact sparring, but I just don't have any) and a helmut. I do the same, and then we spar. I keep a low effort and make sure to focus on giving them opportunity to use what they have learned. I keep my contact low (but not zero contact) and tell them to go medium-high contact. So they have to keep their guard up (one of the things they just learned) but will not get hurt, and they get the chance to actually do their best to hit a moving, living target. They LOVE it!!! Usually they feel bad about me using such low contact and ask me to hit them a little harder, so by the end of the 1/2 hour sparring session I am using medium contact (but still a low effort, just low enough to allow them a slight dominance in the fight). They enjoy it so much because, lets face it sparring is fun, that they keep telling me that they can't wait to spar again. As they get better I increase my effort accordingly. We always start off with a low contact level and work our way up together throughout the session. By the end of the session they are confidently having what it almost an amature boxing or kickboxing match but they are holding their own quite well and really enjoying it. A key point is that I always make sure to give them chances to use whatever they have learned, and I don't dominate them so that they can maintain a good enough composure to use what they have learned and strategize a little while still being in a fight - they are not too scared but do not have a false sense of security. Also, since I am sparring, have have just as much opportunity to improve and have fun as they do. So it is sort of like a class for me as well. The results are amazing. I have turned out some great fighters who all developed a passion to think and strategize on their own. They will come to me the next time we meet and say, "I was thinking and wouldn't this be a good thing to do if this happened?" Sometimes it will be stuff that is close but just barely doesn't work out well, and other times they come to me with stuff I have seen win ultimate fighting matches. In my opinion sparring is the greatest and least-used tool for teaching a student, mainly because it requires the student to learn things on their own and forces them to think of solutions. It results in very clever and innovative students who adapt extremely well and are excellent fighters. The whole time they are developing their fighting, they are developing their philosophy on their own without even knowing it, and they develop it well. Anyway, that's how my classes go and though the results might be an interesting side note for you guys.

HAHAHAHAHA. Okay guys, unfortunately this is the truth about breaking bricks. They are put in an oven to make them more brittle. You know how if you try to break a board and it is soaked all the way through, it is harder to break? Same thing. The worlds top breaking competitions actually have regulations about how long and at what temperature bricks are "baked" for, and they will openly tell you if you just ask what the regulations are so you can practice using their official terms. Brick breaking may have been real looooooong ago when bricks were of much lower quality, but unfortunately it is more science and less training today. I can say "less training" with great confidence because I have actually seen a performance by the Shaolin Monks (renouned for the "amazing feats" performed in their shows) where a monk was going to break a large stack of bricks. He took the top brick and gently hit it on a table to show that it was real; the brick shattered! Not just broke into two pieces, it shattered into about five. Needless to say I was very disappointed to see that it was mainly all gimmicks for even the top martial artists. So anyway, try putting a number of bricks in the oven at 300 F. Every hour take on out (be careful, they will get very hot), let it sit for however long it takes to cool down, then try to break it. Keep doing this until one breaks, then you will know how long to bake them for. Don't just put two bricks in, it may easily take up to 5 or 6 hours to make the "perfect brick". Good luck!

Simultaneous punches aren't used because they leave you too open for counters, stop-hits, etc. Also, if you look closely at them, double punches have a slightly shorter reach than single punches, which makes a big difference in a fight where your opponent is usually trying to keep you at a distance with kicks (this is not to say it is impossible to get inside on your opponent in these tournaments, it is quite easy. However, punches on the inside are harder to see and thus less likely to be scored by the judges who are usually not as experienced at spotting points in in-fighting the way professional boxing judges are). For 99% of the people out there, double punched just don't work. As far as a simultaneous punch and kick goes, feigning with a punch and then kicking is great, but to try and and strike with both at the same time results in a massive loss in the force of each. Also, unless you are doing a little Wing Chun kick to your opponent's shin (which is more of a distraction than a crippling attack), the two strikes will have completely different ranges and thus one will be rendered useless. This means that you should have just thrown only the useful strike, and gained maximal force on it.

I completely understand what you mean about these guy's staring being disrespectful. What I always do is simply wave my hand in front of the guy's line of vision (he won't be able to help but notice a hand in his way and will then look at you) and say, "her eyes are up here, pal." Even if it is a guy with his girlfriend or wife, do it. The girl they are with will make sure they get what they deserve for staring once they get home. Now if your wife has the most entrancing eyes in the world and they are what everyone is staring at, then I don't have a solution to offer, but in the case of staring at her body, what I mentioned above has never failed to put an end to the staring because it gets the guy's attention and then announces publically to everyone around what he was doing. The most important part is that he will know that your wife is hearing your proclaimation of his actions.

I would have to say Soul Calibur 2 is the best fighting game because the game has so much depth to it. As a martial artist, SC2 actually allows me to fight in the game very closely to the way I fight in real life. Two of my friends own the game and I don't, but they cannot for the life of them beat me in the game because of my real life fighting experience. Now that's an impressive game - one that gives the real fighter an advantage over the mere gamer!

I'm not a big advocate of breaking boards anymore, but I did go through a phase where I was. By far the coolest break I ever did was a stack of 7 boards with my head (got it on tape too)! Make sure to put something on the top board like a small hand towel folded over once or else you may hurt your head pretty bad. Make sure to tuck your chin and keep your neck muscles very tight. If I were to do a break today though, I beleieve the most impressive break would be, by far, to break through 3 boards with a jab. Sounds really difficult, I know. But if it isn't difficult to break, all the jumping, spinning, and rolling in the world will just make me yawn and pick up a book while you break. Once your abilities really get up there, it is what you can accomplish with the simplest of attacks that is impressive.

It is true that th younger students use instant messaging for most social contact, but it is still very impersonal compared to the phone. It is also much more impersonal than a hand written note given to them in person. E-mail is actually ideal for you when you think of it. However, if you have something to say to them, I would recommend just saying it after class unless they e-mail you first. Allowing them to make the step of communicating outside of the dojo is important. If you are comfortable giving your students access to you e-mail address, go for it. I feel this shows an admirable commitment to your students. If they e-mail you with a question, go ahead and e-mail them an answer. If they begin using the e-mail for just personal chit-chat, you may want to keep your answers short and to the point in an attempt to be polite and friendly while giving the impression that the e-mail contact is primarily for dojo-related issues. When you mention going out with a group, I take it you mean kids. Obviously it is very important to let parents know about these events, and it can be a large responsibility keeping track of that many kids outside of the dojo. A dojo I used to go to used the alternative of having those "outings" in the dojo. It takes away from the "strictly training" feel of the dojo slightly, but if you are disciplined you can make your student's realize the clear distinction between class-time in the dojo and fun-time in the dojo. This dojo I mentioned will have a movie night once per month at which there is a martial arts film and chips, pop, etc. Students sit on the floor, the lighting is low like a theatre, and the event takes place at night (if the group is small enough, some fighting video games can also be a lot of fun with the exception of the overly-bloody Mortal Kombat type). They do things for the adults too such as inviting cooks to come in and hold sort of a charity cook-off. They will teach people how to cook with wine and other ingredients. Picnics in the summer. They have even gone so far as to hold a sleep-over night on the weekend. It is much easier for them to keep track of the kids and make sure they don't wander off, get left behind, get into a dangerous situation with a potential kidnapper, etc. when they are in the dojo. These nights always work out greate and the kids have a wonderful time along with the adults. Unfortunately this particular dojo was unable (or unwilling to put the effort forth) to make it understood that fun-time is not class-time, and had a lot of trouble with kids being loud and undisciplined in class. Things are getting better now, after a lot of hard work (harder than it needed to be). Just some ideas and experience for you. I would just make yourself available for that personal conection and let the kids decide how personal they want to get. If they want the movie night but no e-mailing, then they will come to movie night but won't e-mail you. Have fun!

I never thought I'd relate martial art to bull-fighting, but here it is... You know those clown that dodge bulls to keep them occupied while a fallen rider gets away? They actually have a very simple but effect strategy to what they do (I refer more to the guys who dodge bulls so well that they have their own show at the rodeo almost). It is easy to move too early so that this guy charging you will still be able to reach out and grab you or change his direction altogether and still tackle you. What the bull-dodgers do is, at the point where the bull is close but it is still barely too early to dodge, they lunge to the side as though they were going to dodge to that side. If they go to the left, the arms and left leg go to that side while the right leg stays put. They really make it look like they are running in that direction, when the left leg lands they bend it a lot and lean the body over it. Buy this time the bull/guy should be slightly changing his angle and reaching to that side to get you while you are running in this new direction. They dodgers then spring off of that left leg with all the force they can muster, snapping their upper body as well, and take a huge lunge to the right (both legs go). Remember suicide sprints in gyme class? Run to this line, then run back, then run to the next line, then run back, etc. Well when you reached down to touch those lines, if you utilized all of the elastic energy that that bending stored in your muscles, you were able to spring back up from toucheing that line and really take off in the other direction at a high speed. It is the same thing without touching the ground. Fake going to one side and spring off to the other. Granted this does not lead into and arm bars or anything, but if the guy is trying to tackle you, there is a good chance he will fall over without you even touching him and then get made fun of until he developes a complex. Practice this about a dozen times on each side and you will probably have the idea very well. The feign to the one side has to be very big though, not at all subtle and small in it's movement. If you have a lot of experience you can go for locks and takedowns, but if you have not been training for years and years, you will accomplish your goals with minimum risk to yourself using this method. Good luck.

Good point Coudo, the legs can easily produce a force greater than 9.8m/s^2, resulting in more force than gravity. But here's an ectra tidbit to add to you already existing knowledge for fun: When your opponenent is standing straight (as an example) and you punch them at an angle parallel to the ground, after overcoming their own inertia, they will move straight back with no further resistance (let's neglect air resistance for onbious reasons). When you punch they opponent on a downward angle, after overcoming their own inertia, they can move downward with no further resistance (in fact ,gravity will gladly help them to move down quickly). But when you punch the opponent on an upward angle, after overcoming their own inertian, they must still overcome gravity to move up! You are actually using gravity against your opponent. Sort of like punching them when they are against a wall - they cannot move backward as a result of the punch's force, and consequently more of the punch's force goes into the opponent. Gravity is like having a wall constantly above your opponent. It is not a major factor, but enough to add force to your punches. And in martial art, every little bit counts.

I have trained in Katate, TKD, and boxing. Just a couple of quick points: 1. With the exception of the jab, boxing does not use the ground to generate punching force. I have done extensive research on the physics of punching and boxing utilizes rotational energy. When I train my students in throwing hook punches my main focus is "just get your body rotating as fast as possible and the physics will do the rest." You may see some professional boxers on TV not using as much rotation but using more pushing off of the ground, these are boxers of lesser experience. There is a surprising number of pro boxers with absolutely no amature fighting experience, so there are therefore a large number of boxers with poot technique. Once they get good enough though, it's all rotation. 2. I don't know where the statistic came from on a previous page that boxing is 80% footwork and 20% punching, but with all due respect, this is way off. In boxing we actually use head and body work/movement more than footwork. Footwork is useful, but head and bodywork have many more tremendous benefits that only training can really help you to realize. But most of boxing is actually about timing and strategy. You really have to get in the ring to figure this out. It's difficult to feel the value of a fighter's timing and strategy watching it on TV because good timing and strategy just make it look like the boxer has a sub-par opponent. All of the footwork that teacher emphasize in boxing (and they emphasize a lot, making it easy for me to understand your thinking boxing is mainly footwork) is just footwork on the punches. And this footwork is designed to physically allow maximum rotation of the body with minimum resistance mechanically (see how it all goes back to rotation?). The boxing punches are more "powerful" than the usual Muay That and Kickboxing punches because those styles prefer to throw kicks after punches (which is a greate idea, I am not knocking it). If they threw punches with the amount of body rotation boxers do, the lower body is actually contorted too far to allow an effective kick to be thrown as a follow up (such as a jab, cross, cut kick combination). Since boxers never throw kicks in the ring, they train for maximum punching power alone, and acheive this by rotating the body more, which requires the legs and feet topivot to a degree where an effective kick is not possible. Muay Thai and Kickboxers make sure to leave themselves the option of kicking. 3. Why boxing is so effective: Plain and simple, the main reason boxing is so effective is because of sparring. A boxer may go to class five days per week, and each class will have at least half an hour of sparring. After that they may stay after to spar with someone or come in on a free sparring day on the weekend. These days it is difficult to find schools of traditional styles that spar at all, let alone more than once per week. Boxers make such good fighters because they spar every day with a decent contact level (this contact level is very important because very few of boxing's strategic defensive moves such as bobbing & weaving will work without a certain level of contact, thus classical styles sparing with low or no contact tend to think these tactics don't work and discard them). All of this sparring helps them develop excellent timing, endurance, and other abilities such as recognizing a telegraphed technique. I have trained extensively in all styles mentioned and hope my information was of some help to you all.

What are you all talking about!? It is EASY to make a punching bag! Get some used carpet (either stuff of your own that you won't use again, or go out on junk day and find some), roll the carpet up, use a saw (a normal saw that you power yourself works best) to cut the carpet to the desired height of your punching bag, roll it up tight, tie some twine about 1 foot from the bottom, 1 foot from the top, and in the centre (so you have 3 rings of twine around the carpet, preventing it from unrolling), now drill a hole about 6 inches from the top that goes all the way through the carpet. Put some rope through the hole and tie it to a tree or something. I keep rope tied through the hole and a rop on a tree in my backyard. When I want to use the bag I use a mountain climbing hook (you can get them at any walmart type place or shoe store) to connect the two ropes. The bag is heavy but not overly hard like most punching bags. It has give like a human body. If you want a standing bag, do the same thing with the carpet and twine but roll the carpet up around a 4x4 piece of wood. Slip the 4x4 through the holes of two cinder blocks, use some heavy duty long screws to attatch the 4x4 to a large wooden base and there you go. Instead of the cinder blocks and wood, you can also nail some wood to the bottom of a used tire and fill the tire with cement. Hold the 4x4 in the cement until it dries. See? Easy! I saw some carpet by the road while out for a walk on day so I picked it up and walked home. Took me about half an hour to make a fully functional bag that is taller than I am and comes down low enough for leg kicks. A bag that big costs a lot! Just make sure you beat the carpet before you do all of this. It's not nice to breath that stuff while working out on the bag.

Grab his leg and grin back. When he says it's against the rules, ask him if it's against the rules in real life. And if he cops out behind, 'it'd be different in real life; you wouldn't have caught my kick,' invite him outside to spar there.

By 'new' I mean that an instructor branched off from the styles they originally trained in and gave a name to the new one that they do, such as Jeet Kune Do (please no Bruce Lee stories or info, it's just an example). By 'established' and 'genuin' I mean that you consider it to be genuin and not just something some guy made up and has no credebility.

When do you consider a new style as 'established' and genuin?

Been looking for years and have yet to find one. I would say don't waste your time looking. Regardless, it is much better to learn boxing's subtleties in the ring. I train in boxing and it definately more of a style where you are taught the basics but learn the advanced stuff on your own in the ring. You try to hit someone and can't, so you observe them until you figure out why you can't hit them. Then you learn how to avoid strikes like they are doing, as well as hopefully how to defeat that strategy and land punches on them. Boxing classes primarily consist of sparring because the rate of improvement is much higher that way. Just keep in mind when you go to a boxing club that you are there to learn boxing, not to try and defeat boxers with your knowledge of Karate. Be open to the new ways of striking and defending - you will be very impressed after not too long. Good luck.

I can't help but point out two massive downfalls in your personal library: 1. All books focus on the same, if not very similar styles. Yuo can learn a lot more about what music is by listening to each genre than you can by only listening to Elvis your entire life. 2. Nowhere in this thread have I seen anyone write You Personal Journal by You. Your personal journal forces you to think about everything you do in martial arts; how you do it, WHY you do it, should you do it, should you change it, etc. I have learned more from my personal journal than any other source to date. Don't forget, some of the best books to help you along your martial path are found in the Philosophy section of the bookstore.

Bruce Lee actually stressed punching on an upward angle throughout Tao of Jeet Kune Do. Read the book again to find out why. (this isn't a plug for T of JKD, it's just that I'm not going to quote half the book)