Dijita

Is the foot that is planted turned so it is facing the opposite way that you are kicking? I know that sometimes if I don't pivot my foot my hip hurts.

It makes sense. I mean essentially when you get really technical about it, the simple act of walking is a constant state of putting yourself unbalanced and balanching again.

I think it is probably easier for me to say what makes a good instructor rather than a bad instructor. - A good instructor is involved in your training and shows a desire to want to help you to learn. - A good instructor is approachable. It is natural to feel nervous sometimes when talking to your instructor but that is because you usually want to show respect. The important thing is that when you do approach them, they are helpful. - A good instructor is accomidating but at the same time will push you beyond what you think you are capable of. - A good instructor knows how to motivate and keep things fresh. - A good instructor recognizes your weaknesses points them out to you and helps you to work at them. At the same time knows your strengths and encourages them. - A good instructor is versatile in their teachings. Not everyone can learn in the same way and when an instructor can recognize different ways of teaching someone, is when the entire class will excel. - Most importantly a good instructor demonstrates that they want to be there and teach the class. The worst would be to have an instructor that shows that he/she doesn't like being there and mopes. That's what I can think of for now, I'm sure there are other really good points to making a good instructor.

I don't think you should forcer your daughter to stay in it. She obviously doesn't share the same enthusiasm as yourself. However I wouldn't just let her quit cold turkey. I like your idea of giving her the option to choose less classes to attend. Find out what she really enjoys about the classes and try to encourage that. Talking with the instructor can also be effective. If she really doesn't like the classes anymore, then it's probably time for her to leave. If the only reason she wants to quit is because she is being made fun of at school, then there has to be a way to help her develop some integraty and realize that she doesn't have to do certain things to be "cool" or anything like that. I hate seeing kids get pushed around by their peers because they feel like they need to fit in. I think the most important thing though, and it has been mentioned, is that if she does quit Karate make sure she gets invovled into something else. Your daughter is growing and going through many changes, so perhaps Karate isn't her thing anymore, but as a father I think it is your job to introduce her into different activities. Sit down and talk with her, and try and find out what else she would like to try. At that age, kids are curious and they want to try many different things so it is often impossible to keep them focused on one thing unless they absolutely fall in love with it. Keep her involved in things and continue to be a part of her life and giving her options. Down the road she will thank you for it.

In my opinion, I don't really care whether or not my martial arts is effective. To me, it is not the reason I take it. But in relation to a street fight, well in all honesty I avoid fights as much as I can. I never get confrontational with people and I avoid putting myself in a dangerous situation. However if I were put in a situation where I had to defend myself I'm sure my martial arts would come in handy, but not in the way that is expected. I take Kyokushin Karate, and it is a hard contact martial art. There are many martial arts that train to avoid being hit at all costs. Kyokushin trains our bodies to avoid being hit, but also it trains and conditions our bodies to taking the hits and striking back quickly. I think this would come in handy if I were in a fight because if I were hit, I wouldn't flinch or be stunned for a moment but instead I would fight back hard without hesitation. When it comes to actual fighting techniques, I don't think I would necissarily use exactly what we are taught in class. I would restrict my kicks, and I would probably gouge eyes, kick at the groin area, and elbow to the face. I would do whatever it would take to get me out of the fight alive even if I had to use "dirty" techniques. EDIT I just wanted to add, that if you were to ask me this 10 years down the road, I would think that I would be a lot stronger in my art to effectively use it quickly. I strongly believe that you must train at martial arts a very long time before you can even begin to effectively use the skills innately.

That's awesome, glad you found a class that you enjoy so far.

I don't know of this style, do you have a link to some info on this? I'm interested to learn what it is about.

Whoops, I accidently typed Oct 1, when I meant Oct 11. So it hasn't happened yet. However I will let you know how it went, that's for sure!

My favorite is Kyokushin... see if there is a class in your area that you can attend. 13 years eh? That is a good commitment, why do you choose to leave now?

Wow, next Monday (11-Oct-04) Shihan Seiji Isobe will come to our dojo to teach us that night. I couldn't be more excited. He is a 7th Dan in KyokushinKaiKan. Originally from Japan, he was asked by Sosai Mas Oyama to open a dojo in Brazil to teach. He has done very well and trained many respectible fighters including, the popular Francisco Filho who is was the first non-Japanese to win a World Tournament. I hope I can focus that class, because I know that I am going to be in awe. It will be very interesting to see how he will teach us. I can't wait!

Is there a way that you can sit in some of the classes and watch? I happened to find a Wado class at a college that I'm taking a course at. I went out of my class room to find the ATM and I heard "Ich, Ni, San..." and I knew it had to be some sort of martial arts class. So I have been sitting in from time to time to watch it. Seems like they do a lot of strikes, using their fists, open hands, and kicks. They seem to do a lot of attacking and counter attacking drills as well. The one thing I wasn't impressed with though, was that it seemed there high level belts (brown) were somewhat sloppy, even in the way they dressed. A lot of them had their belts tied with one end being super long and one end being short, and their technique didn't seem all there. I also noticed that after investigating further, there sure are a lot of 5th and 6th dans, which I find odd considering in the style I train in, 5th and 6th dan is preety rare and usually the people who are this rank are a lot older because they have been training for 30-40 years. I'm not sure if this just happend to be the class that I watched or if it's consistant throughout. So I guess after all of that, the only thing I can recommend is sitting in a class, or even participating if they allow it.

Yeah, Seiza can be preety uncomfortable after some time.

I don't have any of my fights or any videos from the tournements I've been to on the computer. Here is a link to a topic I started with some that I found on the internet as well. They are also short, but some of them are really good. http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=13076&highlight=kyokushin+video+clips If you want full videos, check out eBay, you can get them for relativly good prices.

Is Shotokan considered a hard-style? I'm just curious, I honestly don't know a lot about the art form.

As a few of you know, I participate in Kyokushin Karate. I like going to tournaments to test my knowledge and skills that I have learned over time. There are many different divisions in a tournament. There are even some divisions that I would rather avoid. This year there will be many challenging tournaments to enter, one in particular that will challenge my skills and spirit to its limit. Whether I do well or not, they're all worth it in the end because there is always something positive to take home with me. There are normally two divisions based on experience; color belt and open. The color belt division is usually the biggest divisions consisting of almost everyone except brown and black belts. In color belt division you are allowed to wear shin guards and often times it's mandatory to wear a foam helmet and mouth guard. Contact from the neck down, excluding knees and groin are full contact. By full contact I mean you are allowed to hit as hard as you can. From the neck up, contact is restricted to light contact kicks only. The color belt division is a great opportunity for people to begin their tournament experience at contact fighting. It is the division that I always enter. The open division is where the brown and black belts fight, once and awhile you will see green and even yellow belt fighters if they have a lot of experience and the confidence to fight in this much more demanding division. Contact from the head down excluding groin and knees are allowed full contact. Punches to the face are also restricted. Fighters in this division are excluded from wearing any protective equipment at all. The fights last a minute longer at 3 minutes. You can probably see why this division is for those who have trained a very long time. The divisions are also divided up by gender and weight. The men’s division usually has three weight categories where the women’s, because of fewer participants, have two. Normally I just squeak into the lightweight category, but this year may be an entirely different story. It seems that a few of the tournaments coming up have toward the weight in the lightweight division. I'm not sure if I'll squeak in this time. It's a little bit scary to think about because being a "light heavyweight" is not the best situation to be in. Everyone I'll be fighting will probably be either taller or much heavier than me. It is really hard to fight someone who is heavier than you because they can move you around a lot more and their kicks are usually a lot more powerful. I remember a time last year where there were not enough women to create two categories so in my second fight I had to go up against this girl who was about 20 lbs heavier than myself. The match ended just shy of the 2 minute mark with me laying on the matt clutching my thigh staring up at the air conditioning unit on the ceiling, wishing that it would just suddenly let go and drop on me to end the misery. This year, I am contemplating on entering the Vancouver Cup. It is one of the biggest tournaments on the West coast of Canada. There are no color belt divisions but only the gender and weight categories. I want to train very hard so that when the time comes I can fight my best, do well, and take a bit of experience home with me. If I can't sneak into the light weight category I know that my competition will be much harder. I know a few of the fighters who fight in heavy weight. They are VERY well experienced. One fighter happens to be my friend. She has been training in Kyokushin since the age of nine and competing almost as long. Last year she fought at the Women's Worlds in New York City and took home 2nd. She is fast, powerful, and hard to read what techniques she will deliver next. If I have to face her, I know that I may be scared, but at the same time it will be interesting to face my biggest challenge ever up until this point. A big part of Kyokushin to me has been about goal setting and pushing myself as hard as I can to achieve those goals. It could be as simple as being able to do 30 knuckle push ups in a row or as grand as coming home with a 1st place finish at the Canadians. I know that is why I like participating in tournaments. It's a good way to gauge what I have learned in order to set more goals for myself. The experience of fighting in a tournament often times gives me more experience than training for 3 weeks in the dojo. That is why even when I do lose in a tournament I still feel as though a part of me has won something more important; experience.

First, will you please stop acting so elite and above everyone else. You act like you can beat anyone in a real fight. Secondly, will you stop acting like everyone puts your art down. Please just address this if someone actually DOES put your art down in a thread.

Basiclly, yes you are trying to end your fight in less than 3 minutes if you can. But no most people don't do it in such a way that it severely injures a person (ie: breaking arms, legs, etc.)

Well typically the fresh fighters try to show some respect, so if the student testing isn't trying to knock the guys head off then the fresh fighter generally won't do so as well. However, the fresh fighters do try to go for really hard blows that may wind, hurt, or cause the other person to lose the will to fight. Again though, it boils down to respect, the fresh fighters aren't intentionally trying to break bones or cause some semi-permanent damage. I'm sure it varies elsewhere, as well though.

The 10 man Kumite for your Shodan is not a contest. A person testing for their Shodan fights 10, 3 minute fights back to back with a fresh brown or black belt each fight. So essentially you are fighting for 30 minutes straight with a fresh fighter every 3 minutes. You fail the test if you lose the will to fight or can no longer fight. No safety equipment is worn.... except mouth guards are allowed I believe. To me its a test of spirit, will, dedication to train hard, and endurance more than a test of "how well you can fight."

Its hard to saw, I mean Kyokushin is so broken up now. There are so many different organizations and offshoots of the art.

Its a technicality on words, no need to fret yourself over it. People use the term full contact all the time, and people understand what it implies. Just for your info though, old Kyokushin had no rules. Yes you could grab a guys leg that was kicking at you and then boot him in the groin if you wanted. Kyokushin now has rules in tournements yes, but it is preety hard contact. You do try to knock your opponent out. To the original poster. Our fight training we do lots of combo drills, lots of pad work, we condition our body a lot, especially the stomach by doing drills that involve hitting each other in the stomach hard, we do running, shadow boxing, semi contact, and free "full contact" fighting.

I train in Kyokushin Karate, more specifically under the IKO1 organization. IKO1 is the organization thats run by Kancho Shokei Matsui who was appointed as head organizer by Mas Oyama when he passed away in 1994. I'm sure it is quiet different from the World Oyama Organization, but probably a lot of similarities as well.

I'm 24.

Best place to hit someone hard if you want to down them in one hit. Almost anywhere along the center line. That is the imaginary line drawn from the top of the head that goes right down the center. So this includes, the head, nose, chin, throat (this is a good one), chest (not as good cause its hard), solar plex (another good one), and groin.

Umm... I hope this doesn't come across as rude, but please tell me you're no where NEAR getting 3rd Dan at 16 years of age? In our style, I think the youngest I've seen someone with a 3rd Dan is in his 30's. Actually he's still 2nd Dan but is testing for 3rd Dan this October. He received his 2nd Dan in 1994, and started training in Japan in 1982.