Zorba

i currently cross train with TKD and Shotokan. I find they work well together as they have pretty much the same basis, however in TKD we work on kicking a lot more than in Shotokan, but in shotokan i learn a lot more hand techniques, so currently that has 2 ranges. personally i would like to take up a weaponry art and a grappling art, my shotokan sensai also teaches Combat Hapkido, Tenjin-Ryu Jiu-Jitsu and weapons (Zanshin Kbudo) and if time was not such an issue i would probably do the hapkido and kabudo as well

we have always been told that for the beginners its ok to have the inside of the foot straight forward. but the senior students should have the outside of the foot straight. the back foot should also be as straight as you can get it comfortably too. tho after seeing the tape of my last grading (6th kyu) my stances sucked. tho i look at myself as a black belt even tho in shotokan im only 6th kyu.

the whole point that was made at the seminar (which wasnt held by the inosanto academy mind you, and the price is the same when other people come as well) was not that bruce lee was the best martial artist of all time and dan learned everything he knows from him. the point that he kept repeating was that people have to learn what is best for them. what works for one person may not work for another. it was the philosophy of martial arts that makes bruce the legend that he was, not just his skill. there have been a lot of really great martial artists, but thats all they were. i beleive that what you said there was exactly what bruce lee was about.

i dont remember him being in double impact with van dam, but he as in bloodsport with him said the same thing bruce said in enter the dragon "boards dont hit back", except he said bricks.

Jiffy refers to "his student" that went with him to seminar. that student would be me, so i thought i would give you a different persspective on the day. a couple of months ago i was talking to sempai (jiffy) about seminars and mentioned how great it would be to go to one held by guro dan inosanto, i said if he ever comes back let me know, i wasnt really expecting him to , and definitely not so soon. when i got the email asking me to go, i couldnt beleive it, nor could i really afford it but that wasnt going to stop me i had never been to a training seminar before, so i didnt really no what to expect. i too woke up early, and pulled out my bruce lee box set that included a dan inosanto self defence feature, and started watching. thought it was funny when i walked in to sempais house and saw the exact same thing on his tv. when we arrived at the venue, i looked at all the other martial artists there, most of which are jeet kun do students of the npiama as mentioned. a couple were warming up with kali sticks and it was quite impressive to watch. they had a store set up with an array of inosanto academy merchandise, and i wished i had more funds to buy some stuff. but ah well, i can always get it from the website. once the seminar started and warm ups were finish, it was time for guro to show us the first technique, and it went some thing like this: "your opponent is going to attack with a right cross, you parry it, then punch one two three, then kick. the second one is two punches, so deflect, parry punch 1 2 3 and kick, the third one is the same, but parry and kick to the groin, then 1 2 3 and kick any questions?" i was gobsmacked. someone asked him to repeat it and he did so a bit slower, then we went off to attempt it. being a TKD black belt, this type of defence was a lot different to what i had done in the past, especially once we got to the throws, locks and grappling. i partnered with sempai and even tho he had done this kind of thing before, he still wasnt sure of some of the techniques. it was a great experience, and a few times, when neither of us could get the technique right, we would call guro over and ask advice, he would help us out and watched as we tried again, and would give his approval of "thats it!!" when we got it right. now i dont know about you, but hearing that from bruce lees no 1 student was a big deal for me. i left the seminar worn out and excited, more in to martial arts than ever before, wanting to do more, learn more practise more, if only there were more than 7 days in a week. i now plan on attending as many seminars as i can, as even tho i am only able to train 3 nights a week in 2 styles at the moment, at least i will able to get exposure to different styles in the odd seminar that comes our way.

Hey, Just wondering how many people train in multiple arts, and what your instructors think about it. im currently doing both TKD and shotokan. my TKD instructor isnt overly happy about it but he accepts it, but my Shotokan sensei is very much for cross training. i would like to start something else, but money and time are constraints

He was the man that inspired me to take up martial arts. but people must also remember he was a very good comedian. I will always remember him most as mr myagi, but i will also never forget him as arnold in happy days. Rest In Peace Myagi San

Clubs that let people pass easily will also lose students. I am starting to get right back in to my martial arts after an extended break, but before my leave of absense i was a black belt at a club that started promoting some dubious people. when your serious and dedicated students start seeing people acheive grades with out the skill level and understanding required, they will begin to question their own ability, and move to a more diciplined club. so you have a choice, keep the dedicated students that want to learn, or keep the students that are only interested in belt colour.

did anyone see the "double dragon" movie, that was pretty bad, had one of the guys from party of five in it. also , and i cant beleive no one has mentioned this one yet...... NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER

i did, they hardly got any attacks in. i had one of them just cower away from me tho we never did any contact sparring, (well, not with them, with the other black belts that were more my level we did light contact that some times got a bit rough, especially without protection)

Thanks for voting for me peoples, even tho i havent been on much this year. I think that is the first time anything i have written has been nominated for an award let alone win one. hell, i barely passed high school english. thanks again.

I paid $90AUD from a shop called EZY Dvd if your player can play multiregion you can order it from https://www.ezydvd.com.au

Just bought the bruce lee commerative box set. 6 dvds. big boss, fist of fury, way of the dragon, game of death, game of death bonus disk and commorative bonus disk all with both the english dubbed (pfft) and original chinese soundtracks.. w00t i took some pix of the box here

i think it was great for martial arts as in really showed the philosophy behind it, not just the idea that you can beat the crap out of anyone, and those that were taught that way, ended up losing in the end. same with number 2. sato held the grudge, but miyagi forgave him in the end and it showed him he was wrong, and the nephew that still had the grudge got his * kicked. then number three had the same as number one, with the mcdojo losing again. there was a number 4 but i have since purged that from my memory

yeh, im sure it was eddie, i just had jeff stuck in my head that was all.

im sure it was jeff. ah well, you know what i mean

exactly, a lot of the basics are very similar, infact at the club im at now, the first poomsai is exactly the same as the first kata at my shotokan school. the blocking is similar as are the stances. the main difference is that tkd concentrates on kicking while shotokan concentrates on hand techniques

i did a couple of lessaons of capoeira. there are a few reasons i didnt continue, but that was more to do with the school rather than the art itself. as for effectiveness. the original people that did it were slaves and hid it in a dance so their masters wouldnt find out, im pretty sure they would have used it to break free. i sure as hell wouldnt like to get in the way of some of those spinning kicks. besides, be honest now, i bet most of you play as Jeff in tekken

"ego is not a dirty word" (actually , that is an australian bands song so a few of you mightn ot get it) anyway, i can honestly say i have not got in to a real fight. any fights that have had potential ended before they started, just a quick non hurtful display of my ability and they back off pretty quickly.

its not like i do them both at the same time. its quite easy, when im wearing my shotokan gi i do shotokan, when im wearing my tkd one, i do tkd. its like playing indoor and outdoor cricket, the basics are the same, just different style of shots.

Hi people, Another update, I have re entered the world of tae kwondo, this time at different club and a different federation. i will be graded in 6 months to determin which rank i will be starting at. My new instructor has said that in the past, black belts from other clubs are able to maintain there black belt status without to much dramas, but being that i am completely un fit, i wouldnt be shattered if i had to start a little further back (not to far back tho). so we will see what happens

hey people, i have been away for a while, i stopped training due to a lack of finance, but im back into it again now. back at that shotokan school. in relation to a few peoples question. "when you get a black belt you are only just starting to learn". but in order to become a black belt you should be proficient in the art itself, i dont personally beleive some of the people that graduated were proficient enough. and also, once i got my black belt, i stopped learning. at regular classes all we ever did was basics, i guess black belts dont grade as often so more money can be made from lower grades. i went to the brown belt and higher classes in town for a while, but they only concentrated on the brown belts that were training for there grading. maybe twice a month they had black belt only classes, but they were still just the same stuff but faster, and maybe a few different combinations of the same techniques, still nothing new. it got boring. "if i knew they didnt allow studying other arts why did i join" - cos at the beginning i wasnt interested, but once i got my black, i wanted to learn more (see above) but i also wanted to maintain what i was doing, hence wanting to do more than one art. "why dont i make consideration to other people abilities like they made for mine" my problem was a physical impossibility. i physically can not make a full fist, my technique however, was fine. i do not beleive the people i mentioned had good enuf technique to acheive black belt. "was i a trouble student" no, not once did i walk out of a class or talk back to the instructor. people that did that kind of thing were kicked out of the club (if they did it regularly)

This post was originally published as an article in a dedicated KarateForums.com Articles section, which is no longer online. After the section was closed, this article was most to the most appropriate forum in our community. When I was young, my father used to tell me all the time that he studied Karate. We used to play fight all the time and we would rent Bruce Lee movies nearly once a fortnight. I was still not 10 years old so he would cover my eyes on the more graphic or "adult" scenes. I kept saying that I wanted to do karate myself. He told me that when I turned 10, he would let me start. When I was 9, we moved to a new neighborhood and the children across the road were students in the local Tae Kwon Do school. He convinced me that all the Martial Arts in movies were really Tae Kwon Do and they called it Karate because that was a well known title. So I joined. I spent 2 years in my first Tae Kwon Do school. I achieved the rank of "blue 1", which is approximately half the way to black belt. Today, the things I remember are, getting hit on the head by the instructor if I did something wrong, gradings that went until 10 or 11pm – full of stuff that wasn’t the grading – and at the end the grand master would just say "everyone passed" and that was it. Being only 11 years old, I wasn’t really having fun, so I left. Two years later, at a new school, a friend of mine was a student in a different Tae Kwon Do school. I went along to a few classes and enjoyed it a lot more. I trained hard and in 2 years, I was pre-black. I put off my black belt test for a couple of years as I had not gone to enough destruction classes and by the time I had, I was doing year 12 (final year) at high school. Once this was finished and the summer break was over, I started to train for my black belt. My day finally came, and I was the only one grading for black belt that day. I performed my form and did the basics. Then came breaking. Turning kick, side kick, spinning heel kick, jumping back kick, knife hand strike and elbow strike, in all of which I was successful in my first attempt. Then came downward punch. I could not break it. I tried time and time again but could not do it. I have a problem with my fist, my fingers do not compress as much as most and instead of being close to right angles with the top of my hand, they are more at 45 degrees. I explained this to them and after much debate, they allowed me to do a downward knife hand. I broke the boards easily. Then came sparring. One on one, two on one, one step, free – I did it all. I got hit in the groin a couple of times, but showed no pain. My club was ITF and sparring was non contact, therefore no pads were worn. I fought until it was finally over. The grandmaster stood up in front of me. “Andrew *******, Promote 1st degree black belt”. Everyone cheered and clapped. He took off my brown belt and replaced it with my black belt. I was so proud. Over the years I got interested in instructing. The teacher said I could not instruct as I was not available for regular training sessions. This was fair enough I thought. Suddenly, a lot of people were getting close to grading for their black belts. I did not think they were good enough. I didn’t think they were good enough to be brown belts let alone blacks. Black belts are supposed to be the pinnacle of the sport. Sure enough, they passed. Not long after, they were taking their own classes, while I was still training with everyone else. I wasn't even allowed to fill in if an instructor was sick, nor did they use me to train the beginners at the back of the class while the seniors trained. I also wanted to compete, but our master would not allow it. "It’s an art, not a sport" he would say. Also, the club was very snobbish. We weren't allowed to study another martial art while we were there. If it wasn’t Rhee Tae Kwon Do – it wasn’t worth studying. If you were found "bowing to another instructor", you were kicked out of the club. The last straw came when they promoted an 8 year old girl, her 12 year old sister and her tubby 14 year old brother to "junior black belt". They may have had semi decent technique, but I did not feel it was good enough to wear the black belt. Nor was there any power behind the techniques. To top it off, their grading was modified due to their age and there is not another test when they are old enough for the senior black belt. My belt suddenly didn’t look so impressive. So I left. Looking back, I wish I had moved on to another club. I know a few people that did leave and were able to maintain their belt status at their new club. It is now 4 years later and I began Shotokan a year ago. I am enjoying it immensely. There is more explanation for the reason we do things. We are encouraged to learn other arts. We are allowed to compete. Once we have our blacks, we are allowed to take our own class and encouraged to do so. I lost so much of my flexibility and fitness in the time I was away. Two weeks ago was my first tournament and I loved it, even though I lost in the first round. I have been inspired to train harder to do better in the next one. And I have even considered going back to Tae Kwon Do, albeit another club. I look forward to the day that I meet my old instructor in my travels, so I can tell him what I am doing now and hear his reaction.

i like bloodsports. i like it a lot. I dont like when people say they dont like a movie cos it was unrealistic. How many movies do you konw that are? and im not just talking MA, im talking all movies. Movies are fictional, and meant to be entertainment. they arent meant to be absolutely true to life.

Correct, the koreans were constantly invaded by horse mounted soldiers, hence the high kicking to dismount them.