Jussi Häkkinen

Makiwara's idea is not to condition your knuckles but to prepare your wrist and bone alignment to the impact. Nowadays a good heavy bag does the trick beautifully. If you use a makiwara, be sure that it has enough give in it. It should not feel very stiff. I have done makiwara training and never experienced any harm to my knuckles (i.e. "conditioning", which causes cartilage to form in knuckles, is actually harm, not a good thing), nor have they got bigger. Still, I can punch with no problem and I haven't noticed that my knuckles would be weak. Use makiwara to get your mechanics well - not for conditioning. It is not a conditioning tool by origin.

Go Kan Ryu is commonly known as a McDojo of a worst sort. Avoid.

Yes, I know. However, he just says aloud the stuff that many of us do think. His ideas about "karate for lifetime" do hit the nail.

I think that you should read this: http://www.24fightingchickens.com/mu/lifetime/index.html Rob, again, hits the nail with that text. Read it, swallow the recoil it will cause in you, and read it again.

Heh...well, I tend to laugh at people who use foreign symbols as tattoos. Think about it - how would you react if a japanese person would have a text "school of waving pines" written in clear English on his body? Well, anyone who can read Japanese will react similarly when they see the "shotokan" text in Japanese as a tattoo. Overall, I'm having fun when looking all the people following the current body mutilation (tattoos, piercings) trend. Wouldn't take tattoo for any reason - and if there would be any reason, I wouldn't tattoo my hobby to my body. Hobbies may change or they may stay - I don't use martial arts T-shirts, badges or anything else outside the dojo...nor I print it to my body.

And nothing is certain - probablities just go closer to 1 but never reach it. Nothing is impossible, true, also - it can just be very, very highly unlikely.

http://www.stadion.com/ Read about the dynamic stretching. Rather beneficial for martial artist. Personally, I don't do all that much stretching - but now again, I don't do high kicks. Kata applications usually literally hit below the belt.

Naturally. I though this to be a natural thing which needed no further recommendation. If you carry a weapon, you have spent time with it and know how to use it. Indeed they do. In Finland every weapon needs to be licensed and you can not get a pistol license without being a member of a shooting club and getting a recommendation from two persons. Also, practically only police officers may carry firearms in ready-to-use way. Knives are also forbidden to be carried in a ready-to-use way (i.e. in your pockets or in a bag if they can be taken right away. This applies to folders and multi tools as well). So, my advice isn't meant to places such as Finland or other similar relatively peaceful nations. I think most of the USA would fit under that definition as well. My suggestion was for areas where self defense is a daily issue and a real threat. Although things happen also in peaceful countries, one generally does not need to study martial arts for self defense purposes - nor they are, although often marketed as self defense arts, taught in a way that would aim for realistic self defense. Of course, that is partially up to the student as well (increasingly when he gets more training years under his belt).

Slight correction for a name... Chatan Yara no Kusanku. Chatan Yara is a name of a person. "No" refers that the version is his - rough translation would be "Chatan Yara's Kusanku". And yes, it is a nice kata.

Well, "shaolin" is a Chinese word, "do" is a Japanese word. Same words in Chinese: Shaolin-tao. Same words in Japanese: Shorin-do. Given that the person has had no clue about basic linquistics when naming his style, it's rather safe to assume that he has no friggin' clue about the martial art side either. And well, I have only heard negative things about Shaolin-do. The issue has been discussed in forums such as E-Budo in a quite a thorough manner. Lineage is utter bullsh*t. Avoid like the plague.

Impossible. You can only make your probabilities better. My suggestion: Train karate for hobby and excercise (or switch to Sanshou if you wish to), get a good knife and/or gun for your self-defense, if the area you live requires self-defense ability (Most really don't). Also, I suggest that you try to rise your awareness level about your surroundings to better be able to avoid the harm and possible situations. This is done by simply training to watch around.

Ah, I understand. You respect the style so much that you're embarrassed to bring its name to a public discussion?

smr: Excellent input.

Chosin Chibana, you mean? Good stuff, so go for it.

martialartsreseacher: Can you get any info about the branch of Shorin-Ryu in question? It is about the largest style family among the Okinawan styles. If you get some extra info, we'll possibly be able to shed some light to the stuff you'll be having there.

Why would one want to brake a brick? Are they too fast for you? Oh, you did mean breaking a brick...

Lots of fancy stuff which was trained to match a fancy stuff that others performed... Generally, nowadays the movie martial arts have little or nothing to do with martial arts. Check out the Matrix revisited. It's a behind-the-scenes view to the making of the Matrix. It reveals the methods by how the martial arts scenes were done - Reeves just mimics the movements that others designed for him. No freefighting, nothing free - just sticking to the blueprint. So, although he probably is physically talented, I doubt that he picked up anything really useful.

Aren't we all. However, while still a yonkyu, you might reconsider and stay in the curriculum of your chosen art... There is a reason why science is generally not made by freshmen.

Yawara stick is a short weapon that varies a bit from its shape. It is practically a very short baton, about 1.5 times the width of your palm. Common usage is to use the ends of the baton to strike the vulnerable points of the body. Yawara stick is not unalike the better known "kubotan" weapon.

Yes, although judo follows the ideas of ju-jutsu and other Japanese martial arts. Its kata (please note: kata, such as karateka and sai, is a singular and plural. No "katas" but "kata") are usually done in paired fashion and are rather short, having only a few movements. Similar fashion can be seen in iaido, jujutsu and other similar arts. Karate kata does come from Chinese tradition, connected with Okinawan ideas. Chinese forms generally are long and encapsulate the whole system in one kata. This was the way on Okinawa once - Choki Motobu talks kata as "systems of karate" - and, to the some extent, still is. So, while in Japanese arts, kata concentrate into smaller things - single techniques or into single situations - in Chinese or Okinawan arts kata cover the whole system or reasonably wide part of the system. Jujutsu may have (for example) 15 kata for different throws, each kata concentrating on one throw. Karate has more wide based kata - if you learn some kata such as Kusanku or Gojushi-ho well, you really do not need anything else for fighting. So, the idea behind karate kata is different than the idea behind the kata of classical Japanese martial arts.

Taekwondo does have forms, called poomsae (Kukkiwon-taekwondo) and tul (ITF-taekwondo). Forms/kata are not necessary for studying self-defense or martial arts. They're just one tool for training and storaging the techniques. Kata does have its benefits - but if one doesn't study the application side, I pretty much say that kata is worthless. Application, in my opinion, should be taught before or in the same time when the kata itself is taught. Kata should just put everything together and store the knowledge to be trained at home and to be remembered later.

Umm, in 1800's, the "golden mile" was 4 minutes, not 12 minutes. It took a while to break - first person to break it was Roger Bannister in 1954. We haven't got THAT much better, even though people are using doping so much as they do now. However, one minute improvement is still a huge one. If medicine will improve as much as it has improved since 1800's, after 100 years some athletes may actually explode when they've been pumped to their limits.

Kata is very important, if you know how to break it into applications and how to apply the applications freely. You can learn these things also without a kata, but kata is a great memory aid and helps you to train without having a pair with you. If you don't learn the application while learning the kata, I'd say that then that particular kata is more or less worthless to you - you're only learning an ugly dance. Learning a kata is all about learning an application.

If it is an accepted way in your style and in your group, there's nothing wrong with it. However, in open seminars (where are people from many styles or you don't know the teacher personally), it's more safe to just plainly bow when entering a room, without saying anything. When you've been corrected, say "hai!" ("yes") clearly, then in beginning and in end rituals you may use following phrases: In beginning (when bowing to each other - otagai ni rei): Onegaeshimasu! In the end (when bowing to each other - otagai ni rei): Arigatoo gosaimasu!

Well, "oss" in Japan is a grunt - a positive, "DUDE!" -type of a grunt - used in male sports clubs and other similar activity groups. It is a rude word to be used in everyday life and among the people you don't know. Women very rarely use this expression. It doesn't, however, mean anything particularily perverse or negative itself. Its use is limited by nature - and should stay as such. I don't feel that an internet community - be it about martial arts or not - is a good place for "osu!":ing each other. Although the user may found other martial artists as a bunch of lads he wants to be friends with, others may very well not feel so. I have been addressed with "OSU!" in real life by a rather well known, internationally respected sensei (from an other style than the one I do study) and couldn't help thinking that "he should know better". In other words, I did feel mildly insulted - I had came for his open seminar to learn things and to study seriously. I didn't know him - and he obviously did not know the etiquette behind "osu":ing.