Shawn

Smokey, I agree that there is a presence with Martial Artists that helps, but I don't think it is quite what you envisage. I think the key is that people who attack others usually look for easy victims. Most martial artists appear confident, happy and aware and therefore, do not portray themselves as easy victims. In the event that someone has picked you for a specific reason though, this will not help and I completely agree with Luckyboxer that if someone has decided to attack you, your appearance will not make the difference. Appearance just helps to deter them from making that decision in the first place.

meh, another good version, always the way with these things. Thanks for that. So yeah peoples, if you have any kewl little stories, send 'em in.

Hi Cathal, I completely agree with you. Although I can't say how is has changed my life because it has always been a part of my life, I can say that it is a big part of who I am today. These changes are common and are some of the wonders of the Martial Arts Journey. I hope you continue to notice these positive changes. Best of luck in you MA.

Ancient masters used to teach a lot of their wisdom through phrases and small stories. There has been threads on sayings, but I am interested to hear any short stories you have with a lesson in them. Eg. A master sat down in front of his students and produced a cup. He filled the cup with rocks and asked his students if it was full, to which the students replied, yes. He then poured in small pebbles and asked if the cup was fall, to which the students replied yes. The master then did the same with sand with the students advising that the cup was full. He then pulled another cup and filled it with sand, then demonstrated that he could not put rocks or pebbles into the cup. The master said, think of the cup as your life. If you fill it with lots of small, unimportant things first, there will be no room for the big or important things. Fill your life with what matters first and there will always be room for the little things too.

Delta1, When I did Kenpo and Karate, we were taught with moderate/heavy contact and yes I do agree with what you are saying about understanding the mechanics of a technique. I do believe though that there are particular styles that are effective even though they are not trained with full force/contact. For example, when I was a bouncer (crowd controller) I found that I used my Jiu Jitsu the most by far out of anything else I had learned. It worked well in most of the frequent real life situations that were part of my job. These were not simulations and they were with real people trying to attack me and in some instances, multiple attackers... and the Jiu Jitsu worked. But what is interesting is, when I trained in Jiu Jitsu, it was done slowly and gently. Bare in mind, this was not simulations, this was the real thing! We actually did train gently and it still worked. So yeah to summarise, I think that contact training is good and can produce certain positive results, infact, I myself enjoy training this way, but it is not the only way. I guess it comes down to personal preferance.

Luckboxer, I agree in some instances that traditional is subject to interpretation, but where there is a clear concise path to the founder of the style, it is not. For example, you could not say what is traditional hapkido or jiu jitsu because the path travels back to far and can't be traced, where as for Judo it is Jigoro Kano, for American Kenpo Karate it is Ed Parker, for Jeet Kune Do (although not a style as such) it is Bruce Lee, and for Karate.... it is Gichin Funikoshi (the founder of modern karate). It is for this reason WUKO (the government recognised organisation and holder of the world titles and biggest Karate research organisation in the world etc etc etc) only recognises these styles. Not because it choose those cos they look pretty or even because of how long they have been in one family line, but because they have a defined history back to the founder of Karate as it is known today, and because that history can be proven as fact. This is NOT to say that a) all schools that practice these four styles are good schools or b) all schools that practice other styles are rubish because that is not the case. I was merely stating a RESEARCHED FACT that they are the only styles recognised by that organisation. The possibility that others chose not to agree with WUKO is besides the point I was making.

Before I comment, let me clear something up. 99% of people who say they do full contact are full of it!!!! A lot of people confuse FULL contact with a HEAVY contact sport. If you don't hit full force to the face, neck, joints, throat.... if you don't pull hair, do eye gouges, groin kicks.... if you don't put on arm bars, wrist locks etc with the intent to snap.... if you don't do any of the above, YOU DO NOT DO FULL CONTACT! Many people who do heavy contact arts like to boost their ego's by saying they do full contact.... it's rubish in most cases! There are VERY VERY FEW schools that teach full contact simply because they cannot retain students because they always are injured/incapacitated, not to mention the legal implications. So.... let's assume that what was meant by this post is HEAVY CONTACT ARTS. Now... I think there is a certain argument that you will fight as you train. If you train hard and learn to take a certain amount of pain, you will be better in the street. Having said that, it is important to remember what it is we are training for. For some people, they are not in it to be a meat head. In fact, there should be nearly NO CIRCUMSTANCES where you should need to fight as a true martial artist is humble enough to explore the alternatives. But also on another point, the shaolin monks did not train with any contact... how is it they revolutionalised combat and became one of the best forces the world has ever seen?

Apparently, the official cause of Bruce's death as appears on his death certificate is "Death by misadventure". I have no idea what that means though. While he was an amazing person, correct he was simply human. It just seems unusual that Brandon also died suddenly and "accidentally" when he started teaching "round-eye" too. Not saying that they were definately murdered, but it's something interesting to think about.....

Yeah, I started cos my dad was doing it, and then it just stuck. Now we run a school together. See instructor profiles at this site https://www.aacd.info

I would have to say I agree with the later comments. I have now been training for 17 years (man that makes me sound old). What I realised when I started cross training (about 6 years ago) was how little I knew. I realised that I was the big fish in the little pond (my style) gone to the small fish in an enourmous ocean (Martial Arts in general). There is so much that I wish to know and yet the biggest challenge is my own intellect. So for those of you who truly beleive you are anything over a 5 or 6, it's time to start training an additional aspect/style of Martial Arts and strap on that white belt again! A favourite saying of mine "You have now reached blackbelt, you are finally a beginner" PS - I would give myself a 3.5 Have Fun people

While there are plenty of tactics to try and overcome this problem, prevention is better than cure. You need to ask yourself WHY are they fighting toe to toe. In most cases, it is because they feel more confident than you. So how can you resolve this? You need to shake their confidence. The first thing you need to do is change your face. If you look like an absoloute pshyco, I guarantee they will be less inclinded to rush in. When the fight starts, go in hell for leather, don't back off. Although it seems hard, it is the best option. You will only need to do this for a short while, and they will back off, you can then work the distance you prefer. Also remember, the people you are up against next round will be watching, so let them see that getting close is not a good place to be with you. Have confidence in yourself and get in there. Once you can back them off a bit, then work the tai sabaki, side step and get the point. Keep your head high, look tough and the rest will come, and if doesn't work for you the first time, examine why and learn from it.

Hi Guys, There are some great responses here as to how you can deal with the person. If they are a danger to students, then it is important to ensure that the danger is stopped, that means fixing them or giving them the boot. I won't go into that any further, but I will go into something else that caught my eye and that's when a few of you mentioned he was trying to show the instructor up. There is something that most instructors forget and that is the true essence of Martial Arts - Be Humble! You are not the best at what you do, and there may be students in your class that point out mistakes you actually do make. We are not super human, except the challenge from a student as a learning experience and then pass that on to your students. If they are physically challenging, then put them down hard, but then point out to students how important it is not to let yourself get into this situation in the street as they can now see how hard it is to get out of. Be Humble. Shawn

I hope I can provide you with an unbiased opinion seeing as I teach both. Correct, it does depend on the school. While there are only four "traditional" styles of Karate recognised by WUKO (World Union of Karate Organisations), there are many other variants. Having said that, there are throws and grapling in Karate, but this is usually only at a high level, or with a less experienced teacher, not at all. Japanese Jiu Jitsu is a little different as there is no standard, so what can be Jiu Jitsu for one school may look completely different to another school. For the most part though, it is a standup grapling art. That is throws, locks, chokes, disarms etc. Many systems though do branch into weapons, strikes and all sorts of things. The best thing to do is attend each school, watch the classes and ask questions.

I couldn't agree more. There are alot of instuctors out there that don't teach Bunkai becuase they simply don't really understand Kata. Also, a lot of them teach Oyo and think they are teaching Bunkai, there is a big difference.