Hudson

That's completely possible. My oldest brother was awarded an "honorary black belt" in some form of TKD. He had earned a 2nd degree black belt and then his school was shut down, so when he went to a new school of TKD they promoted him quite quickly, even though they had some differences in their systems.

I've been a demonstration dummy a few times. I'll never forget the first time he was demonstrating an escape from a choke hold on me, and he did a pretty standard break and hit. But then he continued to say "That's not the only thing you can do from a choke hold. There's all sorts of things! You can do this!" At that point, I choked him again, and in two seconds I was facing the other way with my own arms tying me up. I remember one day back when I took Tae Kwon Do (Where we also practiced Hapkido), we were practicing and I was obviously feeling a little less energetic then normal. So our instructor comes up and makes himself my partner for locks. We practiced normally for a little until he realized that I was going through the motions, not really looking at my technique. So, when he had the oppurtunity, he locked and gave just a little extra pull to his grab, which in combination with my lazy stance caused me to fall down, nearly slamming my face into the mats. Sure enough, I woke up.

I thought this was dead, but since it's been resurrected, here's my two cents. Sure, Bruce Lee wasn't original, he wasn't the greatest, and he wasn't the undisputed greatest grandmaster of all time. He was, however, undisuptedly quick, extremely fit, quite strong pound for pound, and he was cool. His philosophy was his own, just as I could take Bruce Lee's philosophy and add to it my own to make it my own. He was a constantly evolving person who strived towards perfection. I think he's a great role model as well as quite an inspiring person - ever read "Striking Thoughts"? I keep it next to the Art of War and Book of Five Rings.

That's great, if you wanted to cut for a few contests or over the summer and then went back to bulking, but Ephedra won't keep off anything and is too expensive to supplement into your diet and the FDA doesn't even approve of use of Ephedra past seven days. I know it works wonders for people who need to be down to contest prep weight but your average person seeking to lose weight does not need to take an ECA stack.

Water, not a huge fan of energy drinks, the only one I do like is the new Stacker 2 Stingers, now that they're ephedra free.

People with reach are at a natural advantage in kicking range, so you dont want to stay there. Obviously you understand you need to move in, so the question is "how?". First off, it's my styles tactic to work circularly, moving to the outside, and we have techniques for that. For example, we have a downward block that is actually a semi-passive sliding block with a hooked hand to trap front kicks, and its something that you can really control an opponent with. But generally, you need to be light on your feet, and you need to disable his leg advantage. Catch, hook, move in or move to the outside. Everything you do should always be moving in, never moving backwards. Also, keep him walking in a circle, that will equalize things a bit and make it easier for you to get to him.

I think theres different types of sparring for different reasons - Obviously, point sparring will not teach you to endure, to counter once you get hit, etc; Contact sparring will give you an advantage when it comes to taking hits and enduring Theres other forms which work purely on the philosophy behind your techniques, such as one-step sparring (Partner throws technique a few times, you execute whatever you believe is best for the situation and counter on the last time. This becomes step one. Step two the partner thinks about what you did and then reacts and counters. It's almost like inventing katas and isolating work on strategy.) But as far as not getting hit, I think it's practical to train getting hit equally with avoiding hits. I want to avoid a strike, but if it does make contact, my first thought will be "So what?"

Luckily we meditate before class at which point I tell my brain to shut up and start listening.

Respeck! Anyway, great story, I'll have to tell this to our district manager at work, he's British.

I keep thinking about that Rex Kwon Do guy with the USA Flag pants. "You think anybody wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I'm wearing these bad boys? Forget about it" I think the only person who ever, EVER did martial arts in a yellow uniform and looked good was Bruce Lee, in the yellow and black jumpsuit. Well, come to think of it, they wore yellow in Enter the Dragon as well... but, no. A yellow gi would be tacky and senseless.

Sure, the Karate guys have nice high quality uniforms made by Tokaido and Shureido - but are there high-quality uniforms like the ones seen in Chinese MA's? I'm not talking about the TC Kung Fu uniforms, they're not bad but they're not great. And they're not at all at the level the Tokaido/Shureidos are...

Ephedra has been known to cause: Hypertension (elevated blood pressure), palpitations (rapid heart rate), neurophathy (nerve damage), myopathy (muscle injury), psychosis, stroke, memory loss, heart rate irregularities, insomnia, nervousness, tremors, seizures, heart attacks, and death. I know, if it happened once, they have to list it, but the fact is that their are way more risks involved then say... running. Sure, it may help, but really, it's much healthier in the long run to lose fat without supplements, cardio and healthy diet are the key to losing the weight. Whatever you do, don't just take the supplements and eat MacDonalds. That would be the worst possible thing. EDIT: Also, it just occured to me that by doing cardio and eating healthy, versus taking an ECA stack, you would be able to mantain a low body fat. However, you'd have to continue to spend your money on pills to keep the pounds off on a supplement program.

I almost take an hour to myself before any MA to warm up, run through basics, and prepare mentally. I also take time in the morning, before I run, before I lift weights, anytime I'm going to put stress on myself. On the street, it'd be an entirely different story, but I'm not going to be concerned over pulling my groin when someone has a knife.

It'd be interesting to see if he was a good teacher or not. He's qualified to compete, sure, but to teach? Teaching is a whole new world. I know black belts who have three times the experience of Chris Gallio who have flawless forms and powerful strikes, but are horrible teachers. 15 is a rough age. To be teaching a school of martial arts? Not impossible, but highly unlikely. And as far as starting his training at 4 - that's not a huge thing. Can you really say that at 4 years old you were ready to start training martial arts, and if so, get promoted in rank? You can do the movements (Which apparently Gallio is champion at), but you can't do the martial art.

Those are those forms done at Black Belt Level - There are some schools/organizations/teachers who will reserve certain forms to the senior ranks, advanced techniques and attack philosophy that would take a strong base (AKA White to Black Belt's worth training) to apply effectively.

Wow... I'd love to learn this, but unfortunately I'm still healing up my toe after practicing the Jet Li pool ball kick trick. Seriously, the only technique I've ever seen REMOTELY CLOSE to this is a double-palm hit to trap air and knock the wind out of somebody. But nothing about the heart. It's almost rediculous.

Heh, a lot of style-specific advice being given here, so let me add my two cents here. Roundhouse kicks above the waist - Moving in isn't a bad thing. There is more force at the end of the leg (foot) in a roundhouse kick then say, if they hit you with their thigh - think about this. Your hip has to move just a few inches for the toes to move a foot. So, given that you've gotten inside, you can strike, block, or catch, and follow with a strike or sweep. This is just how our style operates, we tend to move in and jam. As far as hand positioning goes, I'm going to have to have a stylistic disagreement here - long arms do keep distance, but there really are only two distance you need to be concerned with - kicking and punching. Having your arms extended more outwards will put you more into a kicking range, at which point you're back to trying to figure out these confounded roundhouse kicks. Also, with an outer guard, you can't punch effectively. You'd have to draw your hands back to punch, which is the best way to telegraph a punch. And since hands are for punching, it makes sense to have your hands at a position they can punch from. I prefer a closer guard, with any sort of distance in the hands coming more from hipwork. That might not make sense, so heres a little demonstration - stand with your hips facing front, squared off. Put your hands in a guard, but put your elbows to your hips. Now draw one hip back - the hands dont move, but the distance between them grows. This is how we get range in my style. Also, if reactions bug you, you just need to keep sparring. Believe me, eventually you'll adapt a way that you find best, and the roundhouses won't bother you anymore.

As far as why people say "Wing Chun" instead of "Kung Fu", it's because Kung Fu doesn't give any clear picture as to the style. Saying Wing Chun would be a way to shorten saying "Wing Chun Kung Fu". You could add "Kung Fu" to the end of any of the styles, such as Hung Gar Kung Fu or Pak Mei Kung Fu, but just saying Hung Gar or Pak Mei would suffice, since they're known to be Kung Fu styles.

Is that list in order of importants? Because I would think technique would be top. Technique, Bagwork, Persistence, Time But that's pretty broad - for example, Focus is important, but that could be in technique. But focus, energy, a certain.. "evolution" of technique... Quite frankly, a strong punch comes from practice, practice, and more practice.

I'm taking a trip to China this summer, hopefully stopping at one of the Shaolin schools, and then going to HK to check out some Wing Chun schools. Speaking of which, what Wing Chun schools in HK are a worthwhile stop?

Can someone provide some light on what the rules are for a WKU sanctioned tournament might be? I'm not a kickboxer but I want to attend a match my friend is competing in and I'd like to learn a little more about it.

I train 6-7 days a week, which now includes running Monday, Wednesday, Friday, cycling Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Kung Fu Monday-Friday. I lift weights Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Of course, I have the occassional lazy day of doing nothing, and sometimes I trick myself out of running in the morning, but that's pretty much my schedule.

Err... I wouldn't reccomend that, but I guess its up to you to research and decide for yourself, although I'm pretty sure ephedrine has been proven to be dangerous.

Ok, first off, you can indeed learn something from sparring with people who aren't as good or just as good as you That aside You could probably measure your progress by the amount of bruises after each session

I usually spar with my friend, a Muay Thai kickboxer, who really I'm sure could break my bones if I were unskilled, but because of the philosophy in my style, and the way he fights, I've found Kung Fu very usefull. Especially when I use elements he doesn't have, such as jamming and trapping. Being able to move in close to a range where his legs are just annoying and his armss are easy to tie into knots, it's useful. I've also been successful in winning fights against Aikido stylists, Tae Kwon Do stylists, and Karate stylists, but mostly because they always trained for point sparring and I never did. (No knocking point sparring, just saying, my fight doesn't end when I hit someone in the chest)