Vito

this is maybe the first forum ever where everyone agrees. wow.

i seriously doubt youre young enough to become a contendor- but then again, if you have the talent it's entirely possible. either way you ought to get into it if you want, its great stuff. even if you are too old to win a ufc championship (not that im saying either way for sure), at thirty youre nowhere near too old to benifit from mma.

while i dont have any experience with it, my impressions are that its serious stuff. however, there is no such thing as a dim mak, and any school claiming teach/know one, or even that one exists, should be looked at with a lot of skepticism.

while lucky's right about not getting those skills from three lessons, its still true what you said, i think, that muay thai is a whole different type of training that will prepare you for fighting like tkd doesnt. dont get too big a head yet- youre still a newbie, but hey, youre obviously doing well so keep up the good work and all that cliche stuff.

lifting weights will niether slow you down or decrease your flexibility, despite the myths you hear. in fact, in the 70's (arnolds day) a bunch of body builders were tested just for general health, and they were in the top percentiles as far as cardio fitness and reaction time, among other things, were concerned.

bandaids?

work out with weights at a gym. every day youre there, run on the tredmill.

illuminate? i think you mean elaborate. anyway, yea- that is not a good idea; youll probably end up hurting yourself if you do it for long enough. and hey, weight training will do nothing but help you in your martial arts endeavors (provided you do it right.) despite the myths, i assure you: it will not slow you down, will not decrease your flexibility, and in order to become "musclebound" you would need to seriously lift for a very long time. its quite hard to actually get to that level, and stay there. (dont underestimate the muscle bound guys though, theyll still tear your head off- they can afterall.)

i dont, though i understand that its reeeally good for getting your legs ripped. me, im a tredmill guy.

if you become an avid runner youll get calves. other than that, its a standing calf machine (calf raises) and then a sitting one, and you do a LOT of weight. calves require a LOT of weight, and also- you can work them every day (provided they are not sore) like forarms and abs. remember, do a LOT of weight- thats what calves respond to.

i dunno bout the stairs, diets better but waters the best, and forget pushups do weights.

master toddy is the man... and his other teacher in vegas, master chan, is also the man. (theres two schools in vegas under the master toddy name.) and no! i keep missing the damn show, stupid job keeps me from watching tv all day.

youre just going to have to find out for yourself what works with you, against who, and so on. theres a million combos out there. for boxing though, i will say this: never underestimate the jab.

i really dont know who my fav is, but i do love ali. (so long as he isnt coming at me!)

so it turns out that different people learning to fight off of different systems, developed from the same older system, have a lot of the same ideas. guess they know what theyre talking about eh?

JJ as we know it now (not BJJ but TJJ) was developed by the samurai, although the roots of what influnced it probably go back a long ways or something. so we have samurai, who made TJJ. that later was adapted to judo by this one guy, then later still some guy made up aikido.

less emphasis on the arm (jiujitsu based on samurai fighting without a sword; against a guy who still has a sword usually) and more emphasis on ground fighting.

it's spelled philosophy...

that's a really common cliche about how much force it takes to break an arm and a leg... and i often hear different numbers (usually higher than those.) let me assure you though, in real life, when you have somones arm and youre trying to break it, it can be quite difficult. not just any skinny weak little guy could do it.

My first martial arts experience was in a crappy mcdojo, so I felt kind of like a moron.

San Shou is almost identical to Muay Thai. The only difference is that MT doesn't allow throws while SS awards points for them (the ref decides 1, 2, or 3 depending on how good it was) while MT uses elbows while SS does not. SS was apparently developed by the chinese military and soon became a sport. If you ever get a chance to watch "Kickboxing" (as it is listed in the tv guide) on espn2 usually, while it's mostly K-1 fights, often they show a SS match or two. While SS and MT organizations have tried to get into the olympics, it's probably just a dream, as the sports are far too brutal. Even boxing is widely criticized these days. Anyway, ask around in the kickboxing forum, you'll probably get more info there.

i didnt think tkd fighters had any need to block their legs.

its too vague a question. some people do martial arts to learn to fight... in that case its probably some sort of mma (depending on the person, they may have to settle for less and never become as good a fighter.) if its for spiritual development whatever the crap... then whatever floats your boat. if its just for competition, whichever you like best. etc etc. mma rocks though, there i said it.

if you want to learn to fight... seriously, niether. unless its shotokan karate- i understand thats pretty good. otherwise, find a boxing gym or mma or judo or soooomething other than those mcdojo crap places. but, assuming you have only those two choices, karate seems to be, in general, more geared towards fighting as tkd is almost completely nonsense. this of course may not be true if you find a good teacher who happens to do tkd, but that seems to be the way it usually works.

yea seriously- who talks like that? people sure have some strange ideas when it comes to punching people.