italian_guy

Welcome back to both of you

The thing I would do is notify that to the main instructor he will talk with the guy if is a responsible person but aside of that I will consider it an accident and carry on.

Yes I agree it's a good exercise for the cardio and it's good also for coordination and syncronization

Congratulations!!!

Welcome to KF

I think kickboxing is a good choice for what you are searching. It gives you a quite complete workout and you will learn the basics quite fast. Also the sparring is very related with endurance so it is a quite good exercise and in many school you can spare at whatever level of contact you want. If what you look for is not a traditional martial art bringing spiritual (along with physical) benefits, I think that kickboxing is a very valid choice.

Good post, I fully agree with it. Sometimes is good to refresh the technique at the source, where you learnt it. Have fun.

I think that 25 lbs (around 12 kg) is definitly too small for kickboxing. For kickboxing you need about twice the size. A good thing is also to put sticky tape markers at average belt and neck heigth in order to have a good idea of how high are you kicking. Enjoy your bag.

It looks has nothing to do with martial art. It looks just another healty dance.

Yes but in kickboxing you block the opponent's shin with your shin and this hurts a lot if you are not conditioned. The thing we do is bag work (you his as hard as you can an heavy bag) and conditioning (alternatively hit and parry shin-to-shin with a partner).

I don't think that any martial art is too effective for this, if this is the main drive of your life I think you can spend your time more efficiently. Even as a workout there are more efficient ways to have a nice body without any risk of injury. One thing that may impress women is showing some maturity and maybe you should work on this.....

I haven't much experience about spiritual side of martial arts. I practice tai chi chuan since little time (mid January 2004) and kickboxing since one year. Kickboxing has discipline but I would not consider it spiritual at all, and since now I haven't experience the spiritual effects of tai chi chuan jet. Anyway I never heard that here in Italy teacher use martial art as a trojan horse to convert people to oriental religion if this happens to you please report your experience.

Welcome to the forums

Congratulations Karatekid1975

Congratulations

We have exactly the same height. Why 185 cm is the upper limit?

Welcome to KF.

My kickboxing class is about 1 and half hours. first 10 min running. 10-15 minutes warm up and other physical exercise like pushups. 5-10 min leg streching. 40 min combo practice or bag work. 10-15 min sparring or shadow boxing. 5 min abs. Tai-chi is mostly basics and forms at my level (beginner).

I do Tai chi chuan (so is the martial version). It is a very complete art it has puncing, kicking, grappling locks etc. It give a lot of enphasis in forms, basically at the beginning is mostly forms and basics done at slow motion. After some time you start to practice fighting skills at regular speed and I think that, even if it takes long time... let's say black belt level, once you start to get into it can be very self defence effective. For this reason I consider it a good complement for any other art at least at my age ( I not very young anyway ) so I practice also kickboxing which is a totally different MA.

I have two Dojos both are good. Kickboxing dojo is in a Gym it is clean and has lots of equipment. The tai chi chuan is more a traditional style dojo but is also well equipped and furnished.

Good luck to both of you. BTW karatekid1975 is this your BB test? in this case double good luck.

I have two classes one is at walking distance (kickboxing) the other is bout 4 miles away (Tai chi chuan)

I think that the reasons why we do martial art changes with time. At the beginning for me it was just looking for a less repetitive aerobic exercise. I was just boring of jumping up and down a step or attending the spinning class. So one year ago now the gym where I go opened this kickboxing class and I gave it a try. I never was such an atletic guy I started to go in the gym 4 years ago after almost 20 years of no sporting activity. Thanks also to my instructor I started to become confident with the art and make visible improvements. At that moment I started to like MAs so I started to read books about it and I joined this forum where I can write to people and sharing thougths. Now my motivation have changed now I'm also interested in the inner benefit of the art not only on the external benefits which anyway are more than the one I had when I was doing aerobics. I recently (since the 12th January) joined a Tai chi chuan class in order to improve the inner benefits. Concerning the social aspects of martial art I say that those are not my driving factor nevertheless I have to say that I was scared at the beginning that a MA class would be a place where you can easily meet bully or cocky people. Luckily I find that the people attending MA classes are much better than average people, and socially I find myself very well with those people coming from all social classes and having different level of education, I can really say that everybody's nice.

Welcome to KF. I agree that actual knowledge is much more important then belts, however, sometimes taking belt tests helps you to focus and give you some additional motivation. You know I think that MAs are a great thing even if sometimes the necessary repetition of routines may become boring if you do not have a test where your skill is acknowledged. Anyway I appreciate a lot all the posts you made. Once again welcome to the forums.

Welcome.