Dijita

Hehe, I can see why. I'd be scared of fighting in a tournement with elbows allowed One good elbow strike the face/head and you're done!

I love my Gi as well. I have this sense of pride with it. I always take really good care of it, and lay it out nice and flat when I get home. I find the pants EXTREMELY comfortable, and even when I practice at home I wear my gi pants because it gives me so much freedom of movement. One cool thing about wearing a gi top is that you get that really cool *snap* sound whenever you strike. I'm addicted to that sound

Killer, you have some preety strong opinions about things. I have fought point sparring before quiet a bit when I used to do Kuk Sool Won. Yes, the techniques are the same, and someone who has done point sparring would have a good chance at doing well in knockdown because they are probably good technical fighters... however that shouldn't mean that a person doesn't need to train differently for knockdown fighting. It's important to do a bit further training if you want to lower your risk of getting hurt. In a knockdown tournement, one point wins, the only way you are going to get that one point is if you sufficently hurt your opponent that they lose the will to fight for a moment. Learning how to not pull your strikes and kicks actually takes some time. As an example, I still tend to pull my kicks at the head, because in our color belt division kicks to the head are supposed to be just touch contact. I want to enter an open tournement by the end of the year so now I'm trying to train to follow all the way through with my head kicks. As I stated earlier, conditioning your body to get used to being hit is vitally important. If a martial artist is not conditioned to being hit, theres more risk of injury, and the student is more likely to back off during the bout. Proper breathing and the ability to keep your stomach tense also becomes extremely important, because the opponent is looking for the that oppurtunity to wind the fighter. Not only that, but if you've never practiced fighting without gloves or shin pads, it's going to really come as a shock the first time the practitioner strikes shin on shin. Killer I've shown my respect to you always in my posts. Your post however has a very strong tone of implying that I am completely ignorant and don't know anything about fighting in tournements. Thanks.

Gloves are also a shock absorber, much like a helmet... so the force will be absorbed and not be 100% of what the punch could have been. Just out of curiosity do MT tournements allow elbows to the face/head? I can't believe how deadly those are.

Karate is a Kyu system. I thought the Kyu system is more reliable than the color belt system because the belt colors in every style is so different?

Good Advice, I really have nothing more to offer. Actually, you're going to need to practice a bit of knockdown sparring with a partner though... you need to get used to taking the hits as well. If you haven't been hit hard repeadidly in a tournement it will come as quiet a shock to you the first time it happens. So condition your body for these hits. Condition your shins as well because the unconditioned shin hurts when you kick.

Well, when I'm in martial arts, I find that I am able to focus my energy a lot better now. I'm known to be preety scatter brained. I'll sit down to finish a task and I'll get sidetracked and do something else. Kyokushin for some reason has helped me to focus a lot better to sit down and not move until the task at hand is completed.

I seriously want to cry.

FLAMES IN SEVEN!! Tonight our city will be up and roaring because we are takin home the cup! WOOOoOoooOooOooOO!

LOL! I suffer from verbal diarehha and Drunken Monkey says what I wanted to say in a heck of a lot less words. Thanks, Drunken Monkey.

That's awesome!! Congratulations! (I still think your handle, Krunchyfrogg, is weird)

Where do you live? Do you not have a store locally?

Oh and one more thing... I don't think Jade was starting this post with the intention to say that Karate was the only way she (sorry if you're a guy, but Jade sounds like a girly name) could have improved herself. I think she was just stating that Karate has happened to improve her life. Why bring in the arguments about soccer and such in the first place. Perhaps if Jade had been doing soccer she would be on some soccer forum elsewhere saying how much she's glad she's been doing soccer for so long because it has improved her life. You may think it's bogus and you may not have gotten anything positive from martial arts, but a lot of people have. So no, you have not ruined anyones world because their life has already been enhanced by the sport or martial art that they practice.

Ripper, you're missing the point. In your original post, you made it seem as though Karate cannot be used to change a persons character. I'm saying it can, and I am not arguing that other sports cannot. I am also not arguing that other sports require mental training. Of course it requires mental training that is why I say there is an entire field devoted to sports pshychology. However the biggest difference in the mental training... and I'm having a hard time to describe this is that the mental training in other sports is for the sole purpose to increase the potential and the capacity for the athlete to win. It's not necassarly intended to make you a better person outside of the sports that you participate in. In other words, most athletes can be complete dinks and still be a phenominal athlete... the coaches aren't going to take much effort to better the persons attitude unless it hampers theirs or a team mates performance. In this example I am also exluding kids leagues because I think that is different entirerly and would hope that a coach would deal with a kid that had a piss poor attitude. In martial arts, I think most schools are careful with their teaching to instill a more humble attitude and I believe that piss poor attitudes would be dealt with a lot more seriously. No martial arts doesn't have "drills" to perfect ones character (unless you consider meditating a drill), but learning isn't always done with drills. It's the environment you are in, the way you are taught, the way the instructor leads, sets an example and guides the way.

Hrmm... Ripper I can see how you think that it can't change people. I partially agree, however I can see how it can also change people. I think that in most cases, if you're super obnoxious going into Karate, chances are there won't be too much that will change that unless the teacher recognizes this and is willing to work directly with that student to try and change their mental attitude... however at the same time the student would have to have a willingness to put forth the effort to change. But if the student is a young child, then yes I think Karate can have a great effect on the mental state, as the child is still learning and developing. I agree that Karate can have a tremondous change on a persons confidence though. It wouldn't be an overnight change but it could be a change taking place over the years. A really great example of this is a few of our yellow belts (yellow is a higher belt in our style BTW) are preety darn shy people. In the last few classes our instructor has forced them to get in front of the class and lead the class in warming up and kata. They were hesitant of course at first an spoke very quietly but by the end of class they were bellowing out the commands to get us to do things and getting the students to ask questions. Other examples can be getting a student to enter some tournements... it's a huge confidence builder even if that student loses because they've already fought the battle of getting the nerve to enter in the first place. I think Karate is much different then many sports like tennis or soccer... because it doesn't have the same mental training. This of course depends on the dojo as a lot of dojos are more "sport" oriented. However I think it's important in martial arts to train the mind to be calm in tense situations, to be able to focus, to be humble, show respect, and to build the confidence level of the student... where as the mental training for other sports is more to prepare the practitioner to win the game, to not lose it under pressure, and to deal with team mates. It's quiet interesting though, because there's a whole field devoted to sports psychology. I'm not saying that other sports can't develop a persons attitude either. However to say Karate cannot change a persons attitude, in my opinion is a slightly narrow minded opinion. Most martial arts (and again it depends on the school) is very devoted to self development.

In May when I was at the Canadians, the guy that won the male open division, won a fight by kneeing his oponent to the head. The guy was hurting and he went down instantly. It was beautiful because it was so unexpected. When I get the video onto my computer, I'll see if I can make a video clip of it and post a link to it, if you want.

Meh, it's not dying. Truth is, the split up of all the organizations is really annoying. When Mas Oyama died, I guess there was big arguments as to why Kancho Shokei Matsui was given the honor of taking over the organization. So there was a lot of political reasons as to why other people started their own branch of Kyokushin and wanting to do things a bit differently. IKO is the intended Kyokushin organization in my opinion... because Mas Oyama chose Kancho Matsui to run it, and therefore put his trust into him.

I'm a sweaty girl, now come and give me a hug.

Just a note, if you're not going to wear a gi top... a t-shirt is the next worst thing you can wear. Usually made of cotton, they don't wick away sweat and it doesn't breath very well. When I'm not wearing my gi top I wear some kind of lightweight breathable shirt that are made for runners or hikers or whatever. Then I don't sweat so much.

During formal class time we wear our Doji tops always. On our Thursday night class for the tournement fighters, we are not required to wear our Doji tops. When we do any sort of water training we do not have to wear our Doji tops as well, but belts are worn.

I find some Thai fighter and wiggle my toes in their face.

I have noooo idea. Sorry.

Barefeet rules! I hate wearing footwear. Seriously though, running barefoot is technically bad for your feet because they are not being supported and you can suffer from fallen arches or other foot problems. I have no arches myself. The advantage probably is the calus you would build up I suppose. In the summers, I'm usually bare foot anyways when I can. I go camping and I hardly ever wear shoes. I run on gravel, sticks, twigs whatever. I have nice Flintstone feet by the end of the summer Not because Im trying to benefit my feet for karate or anything, I just really really hate footwear.