Tal

Kendo shodan was my last grading (we don't have belts in kendo) was fairly easy physically, compared to the previous two gradings I did (Shotokan nidan and jujitsu shodan). I had to spar with eight kendoka: another guy testing for shodan, six guys of various dan grades and this japanese hachidan dude. I beat two of them, the others kicked my butt. I had to do a load of kata with the japanese guy who was a total perfectionist, and criticised me for having my grip half a centimetre to high on the bokken tsuka! The other guy testing for shodan got grilled pretty badly on fitness, but I'm fitter than most people at my dojo so I was fine physically. It was just the severe pickiness of the hachidan dude grading me that I found annoying.

wtf are they?

I have done in the past. If i start training in Shotokan seriously again, I will practice breaking. A part of some MAs, yes. It is little use, for example, a BJJ practitioner, but it can be very helpful to a karateka. I used to break wooden boards, breeze blocks, doors, anything really. I've only ever done breaking in Shotokan. I like it. I love smashing things up. Its also good training for me. For me, yes. Some people don't find it beneficial. Breaking considerable increased my striking power.

A staff/bo is probably the most common worldwide. Nearly every culture across the globe has some form of staff combat in it. In the east you have the bo, in Europe there is quaterstaff. There are also many, many different staff fighting methods and philosophies, almost as many as there are unarmed MAs. Swords are also pretty common, because they are such versatile weapons. As with staves, almost every culture in the world has some form of sword combat in its history. Europe is extremely rich in sword combat forms, because there were so many different swords used, from tiny short swords to massive two-handers. Other common weapons include flails (including nunchaku), general bludgeoning weapons (maces, hammers etc) axes, and spears/polearms.

It depends on the rules of the duel. Does it involve armor? If so, what type? Is the duel to first blood, or to the death? For an unarmoured duel, a rapier is hard to beat. It is extremely fast and very accurate for thrusting. You can stab the heart or the throat without even thinking about it (almost). The disadvantage of the rapier is its damaging potential. Even if you stab your opponent, he'll most likely be able to continue fighting for at least a few seconds. You may ultimately kill him, but its difficult to end the duel with one stab (unless you're fighting to first blood), which is a big disadvantage. A rapier is also innefective against heavy armor (its too flexible). A sabre is fairly fast (depending on its length and weight) and more decisive than a rapier when you make a hit. It has only one edge, which can be limiting, and is not as accurate in thrusting as a rapier. I think of a sabre is being more of a mounted weapon (as Hoju said) than a footman's or duelist's weapon. With the katana, you need to specify whether its a traditionally made blade from Japanese ore, or a modern one made with high quality ore. Japanese iron is, well, crap, and that is a big disadvantage. The traditional Japanese forging methods somewhat make up for the poor iron, but a well forged European blade will be stronger. Anyway, if you parry properly and aren't fighting an opponent with armor the quality of the iron shouldn't matter too much. A katana is fast and manoueverable for its size, but nothing like a rapier. However, a good cut from a katana will be very decisive. A traditional katana would be hopeless against heavy armor, as the blade will just blunt. A modern katana would might fare a lot better, I don't know. There are some other swords you may want to consider - European broadswords especially. A well forged broadsword is an awesome weapon. Better than a traditional katana in most situations IMO. The double edge is quite an advantage, but a broadsword doesn't have quite the cutting ability or manoeverability of a katana. You can increase the cutting ability by having the centre of mass further forward, but this will be at the expense of manoeverability. For dueling, manoueverabilty is more important IMO. A broadsword will still make very deep wounds against an unarmoured opponent. A broadsword is also fairly effective against armor. I would say, for an unormoured or lightly armored duel, you can't beat a rapier + dagger combo. Especially if you have one of those nifty parrying daggers with the big quillons and blade-breaking mechanism. This will give you lots of speed, and if you fail to parry you're opponents attack with your rapier, you can catch it with the dagger and break his sword. If you're wearing some decent armor (like chainmail), I'd say a broadsword. Its durable, but still fairly fast and manoeverable. Against heavy (plate) armor, forget the swords and get a warhammer or something. At the end of the day, its the duelist who will make the difference, not the weapon. In some cases when both duelists are very evenly matched, the weapon might make the difference, but most of the time a good duelist will defeat a poor duelist regardless of the weapon he uses (within reason of course, someone armed with a knife will not defeat someone armed with a good sword).

IMO full contact is vital for anyone who really wants to learn how to fight. You learn how to carry on after being hit. Physical strength and 'resistance' to being hit come into play - extremely important factors in a real fight.

For kendo I wear black hakama and dark indigo keikogi. For jujitsu I wear a blue gi top and white pants, and an all white gi for karate.

I've been beaten by women in kendo, and in light contact sparring in karate. There's this chick at my kendo club who consistently kicks my *, but she has an extra two years of experience over me. There's nothing embarrassing about it. I've never fought a woman for real.

I'm 10th dan in everything.

I've been there. I used to get into a lot of fights, and I enjoyed fighting. Adrenaline kicks *. When I was your age, I did exactly the same thing. If someone start trash-talking me I'd be in their face in no time. Don't worry about it. You're young and you've got shed loads of hormones whizzing around you. You'll grow out of it in time. However, you must still be wary. One day, you might 'start sh**' with some guy who has a knife - or a gun. This is basically how I learned to control myself. An old friend of mine once got trashed talked by this random guy in a bar, my friend stepped up to him and trash talked the guy back. The guy pulled a knife and slashed my friend's neck. He was very lucky to survive. Since then I just assumed everyone had a concealed knife or a gun, and they were willing to kill me. Once you have that mindset, you'll think twice about starting sh** with people.

Jujitsu is the Samurai's unarmed method of combat. Its a very complete art with striking, throws and grappling. Lots of very lethal moves in it. IMO it is the most well rounded unarmed MA around. The main principle of Jujitsu is to momentarily stun your opponent or part of your opponent with a strike, use that fraction of a second to manipulate them to your advantage, disable them with a throw or lock, and finally kill them with a lock or strike. You can of course, miss out the killing part and finish by breaking a limb or something. Kendo is a watered down form of Kenjitsu - Samurai sword fencing. Kenjitsu is an amalgamation of many different japanese sword schools. Kendo is a much simplified and safer form of Kenjitsu, and only includes a fraction of the techniques used in Kenjitsu. Today, Kendo is really a sport, but it still involves a lot of etiquette and spriritual stuff. Kendo emphasises concentration, speed and precision, and strikes have to be accurately executed if they are to count (just hitting your opponent won't do).

Unfit people annoy me the most. We spar for like a minute and they're almost dead. There was this dude at my Shotokan club who was terribly unfit, and practically every minute he'd have to run off for a drink and half an hours rest. Stinky people are also annoying if you're grappling. There was this guy at Ju-Jitsu who always used to eat a really hot curry before class, and his breath and everything stunk of it. There was this other guy at Ju-Jitsu who had really stiff joints. I don't know what the hell he was doing in MA or how he managed to reach brown belt, but we'd grapple, and he'd tap out almost before I put a lock on. It was a complete waste of time training with him because he'd tap out at the slightest manipulation of his joints. He also sat around half the time doing nothing because of his bad joints.

I know the feeling. There are many training partners in my MA history who I've got on really well with and learnt loads from. You just need to be careful not to get too used to one person. You learn a lot from training with different people, and I try to train with as many as possible. Its good to train with people of lesser, equal and greater skill than you, as well as with people of lesser, equal and greater stature than you.

I think its better to start with something a little lighter if you're not used to it. You can strain muscles and stuff if you've never done it before.

At my old Shotokan dojo, the lower grades would do every kata they knew about 3 times each every lesson. The near black belt grades would do about 3 kata about 3 times each lesson. For the black belts it would vary a lot. I used to just do one kata each day and do it about 10 times. To answer your second question; it depends on your style of Karate. Ask your Sensei.

It seems to be mostly TKD here (English Midlands), but there's quite a bit of Karate too. Judo is also fairly popular.

Both. A bokken is much more like a real sword in terms of weight and balance. Its also heavier than a shinai so it will build your speed and power better. However, you'll never use a bokken for sparring so its good to get used to a shinai as well. Its probably best to start with a shinai as its easier to manipulate and less tiring (and less damaging if you accidentally hit something/someone with it).

Suburi! (swinging the shinai at an imaginary target) Do loads of them every day. Do them until you can no longer lift your arms, but make sure you do them properly (if you don't know how I'll try and explain). This will greatly improve your speed and accuracy. Start with just the three basic strikes - to the top of the head and to either side of the head. If you have armor and a partner, spar. If you don't have armor, spar anyway but keep things controlled. If you have it, use football or hockey armor. Don't spar with bokken!! Bokken break bones. You need a shinai for sparring. You could also do the kata, but they're kind of hard to explain in text. You should be able to find a book or website with pictures/videos of the kata. Propably most importantly, keep up your aerobic fitness! Kendo is the most tiring MA I've ever done.

My black belt tests only involved semi-contact. I tried boxing when I was younger but kept getting my * kicked. I've been thinking of trying Muay Thai for a while now but there are no Muay Thai schools near me.

What's it made of? I assume it's some elastic stuff tied between your ankles. I've never tried anything like it before, but I'd expect if you used it too much and then kicked without it, you'd loose balance. Gotta watch you don't trip over it too I'm sure kicking a heavy bag would be better, but as I said I've never used one before so I don't know.

That's the tricky part. How do you train to to fight in chaos? The only thing I can think of is to have your Sensei randomly jump you in the middle of a training session. I've never seen that done in any dojo. Perhaps it would be a good idea to try

Stamping on my opponents face after I've floored him. For sheer coolness, my favorite would be [insert random Capoeira move here].

Northren Ogre, that's pretty much what I've been thinking. And man, I love Fight Club best movie ever. White_Tiger, defense is fighting (unless you have the option to run or talk your way out of a situation). I don't see how you can defend yourself from an attack without fighting. By fighting I mean physical conflict with another person(s), armed or unarmed, with no rules (i.e. not sparring). Whether you attack that person or defend yourself from that person's attack, its still fighting. Besides, maybe one day I will want/need to take offensive action against someone! You never know. I have done in the past. My question is, do you need real combat experience to be a good fighter, or is controlled training enough? I don't think your comments are out of line, but I don't see the difference between fighting and physically defending yourself. I think fighting and self-defense are not only mixed up, they are inseparable.

sounds pretty fun

I was thinking, I havn't been in a real fight for several years. I feel I'm getting out of touch and my MA practice is becoming less meaningful. In my mid and late teens I used to get into fights fairly regularly and my MA had a lot of meaning. I learned which MA techniques worked and which ones didn't in real situations, and I could go through real fights in the dojo and learn how I could have better dealt with the situation. I'm now a more mature person and real fighting isn't a regular event in my life anymore but I feel that if someone attacked me now I wouldn't be as able to defend myself as I was a few years ago. I hear stories of martial artists who got into a real fight and get beat easily, and I also hear stories of martial artists who get into a real fight and win easily. Everything seems so chaotic - outcomes of fights seem depend almost entirely on the individual and the situation - can a MA really make that much difference unless the practitioner gets real 'practice'? What do you think? Is real fighting necessary to be a good fighter? And what is the best preparation for real fighting other than real fighting itself? I've tried competitions, but they don't feel anything like the real thing and I never come away from a competition feeling 'satisfied', whereas I used to come away from real fights feeling satisfied that I had learnt something, even if I 'lost'.