italian_guy

I stretch every MA lesson which means 4 times a week. And (almost like Budderfly) I go in horse stance anwering the phone at home.

Have you ever practiced with an instructor or do you want to start from zero on your own? If you practiced with an instructor just repeat your typical lesson substituting combo practice in pairs with combo practice with a bag and free sparring with shadow kickboxing or free sparring with the bag. In the other case if you have to learn the basics you better join a class.

I pay 40 Euro (about 50$) fot Tai chi and about 30 Euro ( about 37$) for kickboxing and the kickboxing fee is incusive of the other services of a gym (if I want to do aerobics,spinning or weightlifting it is included).

I think your attitude is correct I fully agree with that. As I previously said in a post about kchenault article about christian and martial arts it is always possible to discriminate the various aspects of MAs taking the one compatible and rejecting the incompatible and I think there is no incompatibility with christianity in learning martial chi even if I know that there is a 'religious chi' which is strongly related with eastern religion but that is just an aspect not the whole thing.

Yes, is important to use them practing kick at low speed . I use them in my tai chi chuan practice.

Looks cool I have already added to my favorites.

Thanks for this clarification... before that I admit that I didn't fully understand the article and in the dispute between Martial Artist and Killer Miller I was more in agreement with KM, but if this is the real meaning of the article... I appreciate it more

Yes I think for most working adults MA education is not a money problem. Things changes if you have financial problems or you are a kid in a non-wealty or large family. Sometimes the availability of school compatible with working schedule or reasonable distance may be a problem... in any case most TMAs have internal benefit so if availability of a internal MA school is the problem the best thing to do is do what you can find and try to focus on the internal aspects of your karate/TKD. Anyhow for an external art like kickboxing I can say that learning it from books or tapes maybe is better than nothing but for an internal art learning from books can be even harmful.

Actually I'm doing both styles: two days a week kickboxing, two days a week tai chi. I know at the beginning it is hard to relax... but then I discover that if you concentrate in slowing down your breathing, relaxation will come out naturally. I'm still having this problem (I'm practicing Tai chi since 2 months now) but I feel I'm on the way to solve it.

when I do light/moderate contact sparring I wear: Foam Booths, Shin guards, groin protector, boxing gloves and mouth guard. If I'm doing just drills everything I mentioned except mouth guard.

For kickboxing I use hand wrap and boxing gloves, for tai chi chuan bare knuckles ( but we do not free spar until pre-black belt level 1st chi)

Thanks, for the explaination, I am less worried now. I was not able to do capers, or roll properly even when I was young.. not to mention now.

Welcome to KF.

I did arnis for 1 month also (like you) but I have a completely different opinion, one manouver you do in Arnis is the so called ' breaking the snake's teeth' which may mean hitting the opponent hand which holds the stick, even with all the protections I don't think this is too safe for the hands.

Hi, since it has throws it will have also falls, I'm not too agile (I'm 42) and for me will be hard to learn capers or things like that; does this style include also acrobatic movements?

Welcome to KF. I was 41 when I started martial art (last year). So don't worry about your age there is always time for learning. BTW tell me something about your art, I've never heard about it.

Hi, I know that in my town there is a Shorei Kan dojo, since I'm interested to replace my kickboxing with some karate can you give me some information about this style. Thanks

If she wanted to write a piece of literature for me is fine, I liked it, but then another question arises: is "my journey in the dojo" a real story or it was a piece of literature? My Journey In the Dojo is very real. I wrote this thinking about all the threads about gi's that have appeared here. Thanks for the answers

If she wanted to write a piece of literature for me is fine, I liked it, but then another question arises: is "my journey in the dojo" a real story or it was a piece of literature?

I think kickboxing is very good for fitness, the training is a very good aerobic/anaerobic work with some conditioning added. The sparring is all about skill, endurance, speed and if you practice full contact also strength. From the point of view of effectiveness it is not a self-defence art but I think that self devence skills can be easily added, and if you practice full contact the level of contact is as close as possible to a street fight .

Jeet Kune do is a self-defence based martial art. I studied it for 1 month only in conjuction with Kali. It takes various elements from different arts even if the core is wing chun kung fu, it has no forms, it has throws, strikes, punches, kicks, locks it is a very rich art, usually the teaching is very informal like in a modern martial art. The lessons I took were lasting about one hour, the first 10-15 minutes general warm up and some stretching, then 15-20 minutes technical work in pairs or with focus pads or with the heavy bag, 10 minutes case-study self defence, 15 minutes kali, 5 minutes abs work. I never practice sparring but I think because it was too early in my study.

I think tai chi is also a very soft internal style. I'm doing yang style tai chi chuan and I enjoy it.

I think 3 months is a good period for you to judge. Pay attention to the quality of the instruction, the way how the sparring is done (even if you do not spar yet), the real ability of the high grades.... and if you go into turnements you will have the chance to compare your skill with the skill of other students from other dojos and this will clarify the situation of your school.

Nice article... but I'm confused. In the article my journey in the dojo at the end (or in the intro) you refer yourself as senior student... and learning black belt material.... and now you describe yourself as white belt.