Tal

Good post, Shorinryu Sensei. Distance from the gunman is indeed critical. if you are in arms length of the attacker, you have a chance, but the chances of an attacker letting you get to arms length before pulling the gun are very small.

If the attacker has a gun, I'll do what he says. Unless the attacker is totally incapable of using a gun, I'm going to get severely injured or killed if I try to fight him. I've seen a lot of techniques that are supposed to be used against gun-wielders, and I almost laugh watching them. Anti-gun techniques are a joke. The only way they can work is if: a) the attacker is so stupid that he can't actually shoot the gun; b) the attacker has extremely slow reactions; c) the victim is very tough and can continue to make his defense after taking a few bullets. So, if he has a gun, I'm going to lay down and behave. Perhaps later I'd think what a coward I was for not fighting him, but then my sense of reality would kick in and remind that if I fought him, I'd be severely injured/dead. And so much for saving my friend: if I make a move on the attacker, chances are we're both going to get shot. And if I get shot and my friend doesn't, she's going to get raped/killed anyway (unless she's secretly a totally awesome ninja or something). So in the situation described, if i fight, there are two possible results: a) both me and my friend get severely injured/killed. b) i get severely injured/killed and my friend gets raped/killed. Both of those outcomes are rather bad. If I don't fight, there are also two possible results: a) My friend gets raped/killed, and the attacker shoots me anyway. b) I survive uninjured, and my friend gets raped/killed. Result a is still bad, but result b isn't quite so bad (one of us survives). If the attacker doesn't have a gun, I'll probably fight (depends if he's on his own, how tough he looks etc). I know I have chance against a knife/baseball bat/machette wielder, but a gunman - no chance.

Yes! That's a great book, but it takes loads of training to get any of the techniques right. Its also written more from a karate/kempo perspective than a JJ perspective, but you can still apply some of it in JJ. It brings a lot of meaning to karate kata. Its not really a JJ book; hardly any throws or locks in it, but the pressure point attacks kick *.

there is a girl in my karate class exactly like that. i just don't play along with her. when she acts stupid i just look at her really seriously and she realises that i don't find it funny.

i'll list all the major martial arts that are practiced today that i can think of. i won't go into sub-divisions and schools of martial arts. i won't bother with weapon arts either as there are gazillions of weapons and several arts for each weapon. aikido aikijitsu boxing brazilian jujitsu capoeira cuong nhu hapkido jeet kune do judo jujitsu karate kempo kickboxing krav maga kuk sool won kung fu muay thai pankration pencak silat tae kwon do wrestling there are hundreds of others but you're not likely to come across many more. there are also mixed martial arts.

thanks for the replies. what's the ram muay?

LOL! i don't think i'm adjusted quite enough to the skirt-wearing not to notice things like that.

karate - not really sure. think karate is one of the most well known of the martial arts among non-martial-artists, so i think all the common misconceptions about MAs in general apply here. kendo - a lot of people seem to think that kendo is like star wars lightsaber fighting. sometimes i've invited friends to come and watch a kendo class, and afterwards they're like 'what?! you don't spin around and somersault in the air and stuff?!' the only sword combat people see these days is at the movies, which is totally unrealistic. they are then shocked by the apparent simplicity of real sword fighting, whose complexity is in subtle feints that you don't get in the movies.

i was wondering, what are the differences between western kickboxing and muay thai? i've never seen muay thai being practiced. is it very different from other forms of kickboxing?

the main reason i do it is because i like fighting, but i'm too nice to go and pick fights on the street

it looks super nifty. i'd love to try it. kind of like what eddy does in tekken.

i don't really know you (i'm new to this forum), but hello anyway

how did you know one guy was better than the other if you'd never done grappling before? never underestimate your opponent (easier said than done).

yes, it happens to me occasionally; usually for no apparent reason. its not like i'm tired or not concentrating, i just become r*tarded for a couple of hours. PS - WTF??!! this forum censors the word 'r*tarted'

in my shotokan club, the lower grades have tests every 3 months. basically everyone can attempt the test if they want, the sensei only advises. after brown belt the tests get further apart. i have several years to go before i'm even allowed to take my next test. in my kendo club you take the kyu tests 3 months apart then wait a year or so for the shodan test. i try to continue to advance in my skills gradually. i take tests and get belts but they don't mean that much to me.

in shotokan, green belts practice an extra kata that yellow belts havn't learnt yet. other than that, there's no massive difference. when i became a green belt, we started practicing kicking a lot more. before then it we didn't do much kicking. in the dojo i currently practice at, there aren't that many people, so we train mainly in two groups; orange belts up to green belts, and purple belts up to black belts (white belts do get their own instruction). this means that green belts don't train much differently than yellow belts other than the kata, but once they get their purple belt their training takes a quantum leap. ideally you'd have the training increasing gradually but its not possible in smaller clubs. remember that a green belt doesn't necessarily have a green belt because he/she knows more stuff than a yellow belt, but because he/she's better at it. look at the brown and black belts in your dojo. do they do more stuff than the yellow belts? its easier to spot bigger differences, so you might be able to see a difference between yourself and a black belt but not yourself and a green belt. finally, 'belts are there to hold your pants up' as bruce lee said. divisions by belt are very artificial. don't pay too much attention to them.

in shotokan, you use the hips to put power into a punch. just before you finish the punch, flick your hips so the side of your hip that is under the punching arm flicks forward. GKR might use a different way of putting power into punches. one method i found that improved the power of my strikes was breaking boards and stuff. it doesn't work for everyone but at least try it. ask your sensei about it.

patience! all martial arts start of with the basics. you'll learn new things as you progress. i don't know that much about GKR, but i don't think its vastly different from other styles of karate. in shotokan i spend 3 months practicing 2 blocks, 1 punch and 1 stance. if you persevere and keep at it, you will learn more techniques. you cannot learn advanced techniques before you master the basics. 4 basic kicks might not sound like a lot, but what else can you do? front kick, side kick, roundhouse, reverse roundhouse...what else is there? there's some back kicks and more difficult kicks but you won't be able to them until you master the basics. i didn't learn any kicks until about 4 months into training. no one's stories can reassure you if you get into a street fight. in a street fight its your abilties that count, no one else's. karate can be effective on the street if you train to make it so. if all you do is non-contact sparring and kata without learning effective applications, it won't be that effective on the street. if you want to make your karate street-effective, i suggest you go and do some reading to find good applications of your kata. i also suggest you get the basics mastered. its the basics that work on the street because you don't have time to think about fancy techniques. i have used my karate on the street and it has worked very well. other people find that their karate does not work well on the street. its all down to the individual and the situation.

remember the bonsai tree on the back of daniel's gi? daniel and miyagi do bonsai style!!!

karate kid's great because of mr. miyagi - he's da man!!!

all fights (well, nearly all) start standing up. if you're good enough in a stand up art you can finish the fight before you go to the ground or start grappling. i've been in a few street fights before, and i've finished them all off without having to go to the ground. as said already, UFC is sport and it has rules. what's more, the competition is very even (relatively). everyone's a trained fighter and becuase of the weight categories people don't have to fight opponent's twice their size. on the street, 'competition' is far from even. some are completely untrained, some are fairly well trained, some are very well trained, some a short and skinny, some are built like tanks. also, what constitutes a 'victory' on the street is not laid down in stone. if you knock someone to the floor on the street and then run, you have probably won as far as you're concerned. in UFC you can't kick people in the head or crush their face with your boot when you floor them. this works very well on the street, a lot better than grappling.

aikido and kali are very different arts, so they should not conflict with eachother. would you be able to, for example, learn soccer and basketball at the same time if you'd never done them before? if yes then you should be ok with 2 different MAs. at the moment i do both karate and kendo, and i know several other people studying more than one MA.

when i tell people that i do MAs, most of them are like 'cool!' and ask me all about it and ask me to show them some nifty moves and stuff. some people react negatively to knowing that i do MAs; its mostly bigger people. even people that i know well and would never get into a real fight with, because they know they cannot even play-fight with me becuase i'll kick their a**. no one's ever reacted really negatively by me telling them that i do MAs, some just seem a little 'bugged' by it.

thanks for the clarification. in that case i would consider a new style to be established and genuine when: -it is significantly different from other styles. -there have been at least 3 generations of instrutors & students.