Sasori_Te

I'm sorry, but could you possibly repeat that in a way that makes sense when you read it? I'm not trying to be mean. I'd just like to understand what it is that you're trying to get across.

I know that in Arizona you couldn't have one of any type. It matters little to me as I prefer my cane anyway. Let's see you try and get an expandable baton on an airplane, or anywhere with any sort of security concerns.

Okay, I think we all know what they are. Aren't they illegal for your normal everyday citizen to carry?

Stances are transitory movements and you may actually use them in a fight if you ever get to the level to understand what I mean. I'm not trying to belittle you or anything, you just seem new to the arts to me as your complaint is a fairly common one. Straightening the back leg on a forward/zenkutsu dachi allows several things to happen: 1) You stabilize yourself for making contact with an opponent 2) You give your technique a fuller extension 3) If you throw the technique at the same time you lock out the back leg you put more body mass into the technique. You also need to understand something else. If you are in a Japanese style ( Shotokan based ), The stances you train in, are not the stances you will fight with, or at least they shouldn't be. That's just my opinion btw. The deep stances in Japanese arts are meant to strengthen the leg muscles as well as the core muscles as you move between stances. The theory being that if you can move well between and through deep stances, then you should be like lightning if you shorten them up. I personally train the shorter stances all the time as I don't want to risk putting deeper stances into muscle memory. That's just my two cents worth. Good luck in your training.

I agree. The more techniques you know, the more you can control the escalation of a situation. After all, is it necessary to swat a fly with a cannon? I also look at it another way. The more tools you have and can use well in your toolbox, the more detail and quality you can put into building your house. Are those analogies enough? I can give you more!

I'm speaking specifically about choking people out in a dojo environment, or even in a bar environment if you are a bouncer. A choke is something you should use in a situation only if you don't mind posibly seriously injuring or killing that person. I think chokes are taken far too lightly.

I believe that it's interprets. And yes, if you have time to think about a situation before you jump into it, you had better consider the legal ramifications. At the very least, if your training comes to light in the court room, you can be charged with aggravated assault at the very least, if things don't go your way. I have all of my students look up the local codes on use of force and then require them to answer questions concerning specific scenarios. We also discuss how to view potential situations you might encounter outside the dojo. After all, it really does you no good if you successfully defend yourself from an attacker if you find a knife in your back from his girlfriend because she thought you were hurting her boyfriend (who happened to be assaulting her at the time). Or better, you get 10 years because you were found to have used excessive force trying to protect her and she testifies against you on an attempted murder charge. It's unfortunate the these things need to be thought of before you help someone but, we live in a very litigious society.

I'm following your answers DM. I'm just curious as to why 47martial wants to keep dragging things out without giving any of his own solid answers. It's a bit tedious really.

This topic sure seems like an attempt to start a flame war. Maybe a moderator could step in here?

The basics are the most important things to learn correctly. Therefore they are the most important things to have taught to you by another person that understands them and can explain them to you correctly. If you are advanced in your studies, then it shouldn't hurt to pick up new techniques and theory from a book now and again. The reason that I say this is because you can then filter the knowledge from the book through what you already know. It makes the techniques easier to understand. Most of the time it will just be a matter of tweeking a technique you have already learned by giving you a different perspective to think about. Remember, you can't build a house on a foundation of sand.

Matousek you probably have a lot of growing left to do at 14. I wouldn't worry about it too much. I just wanted to make a comment about your favorite phrase and tagline "knowledge is power". It's not. Applied knowledge is power. It's also sometimes known as wisdom when the knowledge is applied correctly. If you understand and follow that you'll be way ahead of the curve. Good luck.

It's hard to know what to say here. We're obviously only getting one side of the story, which is the case on most forum topics. The originator of this post did seem to have quite an attitude for never having done any real training. It leaves me wondering what else was said during or before class. There are a number of reasons that this could have happened. Maybe the instructor got wind of the attitude and wanted to see how the new guy would handle a situation like this. Who knows.

Can I ask question? People have already said that kung fu = skill acquired over time. I'm not getting the point of this post anymore. If you know something else besides this (respectfully asking), please state it. Inquiring minds want to know.

Here's another viewpoint. Someone earlier mentioned the carotid sinus reflex, or activating a sympathetic nervous response using the vagus nerve. This cause the body to think that the blood pressure had a serious rise. The sympathetic response causes a corresponding drop whick causes knock out. The rise being caused by back pressure from the arteries and veins. This back pressure can also cause existing genetic defects to rupture (stroke) and the person could feasibly die. You would then be fully responsible for this whether you meant for it to happen or not. Just something else to think about.

As a "Traditional Martial Artist" I would have to saythat I would try and talk my way out of it by apologizing to the guy for his being such an idiot. Seriously though, it's usually easy to make a bully look like a real a**hole. If you do it right you can usually walk away. This in my opinion is by far the best move to end a fight. Just a friendly word of advice to Mayo. I would NEVER get involved in a domestic dispute situation between a man and a woman (unless there was serious violence being done to one party or the other). That's a sure way to get seriously hurt or maybe even killed. Call the police, although they even hate to work these type scenarios. Either party can turn on you before you know what happened.

I agree that "full contact" (many definitions of that around here, but i think I know what you mean) would help, and it did help me after I realized I didn't want my body going completely on autopilot. I've also quit drinking since then . That helped too. It's tough finding and keeping training partners with enough steel to train like that though. At least that's been my experience.

I agree with sevenstar here. Stances have become far to formalized in a lot of martial arts styles. Stances were never meant to be too deep to move effectively out of. Stances were also not meant to be held after executing a single technique. I think this mentality comes from a fundmental misunderstanding of kata. Again, just my 2 cents.

Well, here's a story about ingrained technique. ONce upon a time .... There were some people at a bar. There was an argument between two friends, nothing major. An outside third party decided to get involved. The outside third party in the end received and ingrained two hand punch technique followed by an ingrained finishing technique stomp to the head. The third party ended up with trauma to the neck area and hasn't worked since. That was 11 years ago. From my own personal experience that's what can happen letting ingrained technique take over. There was no thought about what I was going to do, it just happened. Luckily for me I didn't kill the guy. He said he had a gun and there were witnesses to that so I didn't get into trouble for it. Again, I was lucky that there were witnesses willing to say this. Ever since then I have looked for ways to train in order to keep some presence of mind.

I'm not talking about anything to do with tournaments. I've been in numerous tournaments when I was younger and I've also been in my share (and maybe someone else's) of fights. I'm not proud of this but it's true. When I was younger I was a little hot tempered. Anyway, no tournament EVER prepared me for a street fight. The feeling is completely different. I understand what you're saying about ingrained technique. But, here's the problem with ingrained technique. You perform an ingrained technique exactly the way that you learned it. I agree that all techniques should be practiced enough to be in your "muscle memory" but you should also practice having presence of mind enough not to half kill someone because you used an ingrained technique that worked too well. Here's a little something that most folks don't bother to learn. If you use more force than is necessary to subdue an attacker, even if they started the entire encounter, you will go to jail for aggravated assault ( unless you had valid reason to fear for your life). Cops and judges don't care if a technique was ingrained and just happened. I know, but I'm just presenting different information to keep the subject interesting. You have to look at all sides of a thing before you can make an opinion. If your arguments are good you might even change my mind.

Sahdow, this is a problem with MANY styles, not just TKD. The problem is, I have found, that the instructors have no idea what the katas are for. They don't teach proper bunkai and oyo technique. On that same vein I think knowing between 5 and 10 empty hand kata plenty to base any system of martial art on. If you seriously delve into even one kata you can derive an entire system from it. This is as it should be since each kata represents the techniques, strategies and philosophy of the originating master. I'm speaking specifically about the original Okinawan katas passed on from the great masters from the lineages of Shuri Te, Tomari Te and Naha Te. Before you can truly appreciate kata for what it is you need to be able to break kata down into it's component parts: footwork, body mechanics, breathing and individual techniques. This is a simplified list, but a good start. There are also exercises that can be done with kata to better understand the not so obvious techniques that are being presented. Good luck and don't give up on kata. Without it you just have a watered-down shadow of an art.

I have a question. You practice meditaion in order to reach a certain level of awareness. If you use music to accomplish this (conditional learning), would you be able to reap the rewards of meditation at another time without music? I'm thinking particularly of mushin (no mind) in a confrontation situation.

Have you seen a five element diagram? Notice that the destructive cycle follows in a pattern of triangles. In turn the the constructive cycle is circular. These could be the patterns that you need to study. Most movement patterns in martial arts are either circualr or angular as such. Could this be the view point that you are looking for?

Bio Feedback is the Western equivalent to chi gung. Obviously that's an over simplification, but in order to use chi gung you need excellent concentration and visualization skills for a start.

I'm going to have to go with ShorinRyu Sensei here. Even if you're a naturally good kicker (I'm not, I work my butt off) you end up relying on luck more than skill if you use a high kick in a street fight. You also forgot to mention that even successfuly blocking the groin with the methods you mentioned you can sustain serious injury to the hand.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree here. I don't think there is any way with physiacl training alone, that you can prepare for an all out attack from someone that feels they don't have anything to lose. I din't say you couldn't prepare at all. I said mental training was needed with the physical training in order to prepare the defenders mind for the shock. All I was saying is that your average martial artist isn't mentally prepared for combat at any given time. I'm not talking about physical movements at all. The techniques in most (and I use most loosely) martial arts are sound enough to use if you have the mind set to use them. I would also like to add that since most mixed martial artists don't fight life or death battles that they would run into the same problems. They may have some added advantage because of the reaction drills that they do but not much. I do agree however that it is the training methods that matter most. However, even training doesn't overcome basic instinct in some cases. Some people just have a warrior mentality and some don't. Training will enhance this if it's there but it can't instill it if it isn't. I know I'm going to catch flack over that comment, but I believe that it's true as a general rule. I'll answer with my reasoning as arguments come up.