doubletwist

I don't have a lot of experience with competition, but the last comp I went to [i didn't compete sadly ] had a rule that you had to compete in the class that matched the highest belt you had earned. So if you had a brown belt in say TKD, and were taking classes as a yellow belt in Kenpo, even if you went to the competition with the Kenpo school, you'd have to fight as a brown belt. As for the other posts, I didn't have a problem with people coming in wearing a black belt from another style. The issue I had was with a guy that came in from another school of the same style who had no business having the belt he had. He wore a 2nd degree black belt, but apparrently whatever school he had been going to had handed out belts like candy. I was only an orange belt and felt I could have taken him. I feel that someone like that should be tested and placed accordingly, not just blindly accepted as having the belt he/she *claims* to have.

Thank you for all the advice and info. I will of course let everyone know how it goes. [scheduled for Jan 20th]. My instructor says he's got some good hand-technique stuff for me to work on that I can do sitting in a chair or whatever, so I will still be going to the dojo, just not moving much. DT

Well if we knew them, they wouldn't be 'lost' now, would they?

Yup, big time computer geek here. Sysadmin, mostly Linux, with some Solaris and Windows. And I've been building my computers and chatting online since the early 90's [mostly bbs's and irc] Know anyone hiring in the DFW area? DT

At that point you can do just about anything. An eye-poke/gauge will probably get him to let go. Or kick/knee him in the groin. Or depending on where he's got your clothing grabbed, maybe you can reach with a middle-knuckle strike to the nerve pack in the armpit. Or, if they come in and just grab your lapels [or that area if you're wearing a t-shirt], you can use Mace of Aggression[#8 on that page] from Kenpo's techniques. But you have to react as soon as they go to grab you. Once they are swinging you around, that probably won't work so well.

I think he's suggesting that you learn how to use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling as a method to make your life better; as well as making your posts easier for us to comprehend. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with him, just translating for you. DT

Well, I'm still pretty much a beginner so I haven't had much chance of getting knocked out yet in an MA scenario. The only time I've been knocked out is when I got hit in the eye with a wet baseball. I remember getting hit, then stumbling slowly towards the front door of the house. I can remember fighting away the darkness/woozieness and thinking to myself 'I'm not going to make it, I'm not going to make it...", then I woke up about three seconds later, laying on the driveway. [i know it was only a few seconds because I saw my grandparents start to open the door before I dropped, and they hadn't made it off the porch yet when I woke up]. It was a very bizarre feeling. DT

Yup, we are taught the exact same thing. DT

See, I take the angle that I actually worry a little about people noticing. Aside from the fact that I'm a pretty shy person to begin with, I worry that some one will either think I'm trying to "show off", thus giving MA a little bit of a bad rap; or worse, that some punk will see me and decide he wants to try and prove something.I may be training to fight, but I'd really rather not have to, especially over something so trivial. DT

This is one of the things I've learned in Kenpo. Any time there is a fight, there are 3 points of view involved. Yours, your opponents, and a witnesses. Now this has several important aspects to it, one of which is the importance of the witnesses point of view. If you get into a fight, and a cop comes and takes a report, he is going to get the story from you, your opponent and the witnesses. Guess which story will be the most important... the witness. Both you and your attacker are likely to color the story in a way that will make it seem like it's not your fault [no matter who's fault it really is]. In theory, a witness probably does not have any reason to do this [assuming they are not affiliated with either of the fighters of course]. Now this does have it's pitfalls, but I learned this from a cop, so this is really how it happens. What you have to do, is know this before and during the altercation. As an example. You are in a semi-dark parking-lot. You KNOW this guy is going to hurt you, so you decide to strike first. You start yelling/saying loudly, "Stop, don't do that! Don't do that!" [or something along those lines]. Now the witness might not be able to see clearly which is which. But afterwards, the witness will tell the police that they clearly heard *your* voice yelling to stop. Sure it's sneaky and low, but that's the story that the police will go with. Of course, we also learn to drop the attacker and run so that we aren't there when the cops show up, although I guess that has its bad points as well. Anyway, just another thing to think about. DT

I've seen various posts regarding advice on where to look when fighting/sparring. Some say look at the eyes. They say that most people look where they're going to strike. Personally I think this is wrong. Maybe with someone who has never fought before, you could get away with watching the eyes. But I've found that anyone I spar with that has any experience doesn't always look where they are going to strike. Especially the Kenpo guys who probably couldn't move their eyes fast enough to look at each target they are going to hit. I'm in the 'watch the shoulders with a peripheral focus on the waist" school myself. You can hit someplace without looking at it, but it is much more difficult to hit without moving your shoulders. It's not impossible of course, but if you are focused more on the shoulder/torso area, your field of view will include their shoulders, waist, torso, arms, and legs. Those are the areas that are going to move and show you where the attack is coming from and going. Plus I figure if your opponent is dumb enough to be watching your eyes, and all you're doing is looking at their shoulders/torso, they will be very surprised when your fist is suddenly in their face. Where do YOU look when fighting and why? Are there any other good areas to watch? DT

Oh definitely. I have to walk down a rather long hallway to get to the bathroom at work. I usually end up practicing star-block or various hand techniques as I walk. Sometimes I will go through full techniques. I've stopped short of doing kicking set though. That might be a little too much for the other offices in the building to cope with DT

Yeah, gotta problem with that? That's what cups are for, no?

I've never even been in a tourney [yet ], but I would bet there is also a psychological aspect to the practice. If you hurt an opponent [say they fall to the ground], and you rush over to help them, they may not see it that way. Pain and injury does funny things to your brain; there's a good chance they will take it as an aggressive move by you, and strike out in a devastating way. By having you turn and go to your knees, you are assuring them that you are not going to come over and finish the job. So it is probably as much for your protection as it is theirs. Obviously you wouldn't want to do this in a real fight. DT

Well, I'm not going to slam any styles, since properly executed they can all be good self-defense. With that said, have a look at Kenpo [specifically Ed Parker's American Kenpo, although there are other similar flavors]. The majority of the curriculum is dedicated to self-defense. I haven't gotten to any weapons defense yet [execpt an over-head club attack], I'm only an orange belt, but further on there are weapon defense techniques. Then again, even what I've learned now could be applied to a situation involving a weapon if it really came down to it, and I believe the advanced weapon defense techniques are basically just modified versions of the "non-weapon" techniques. Regardless of what style you decide on, check out the school and make sure that it is someplace you want to spend your time, and that they have the focus you're interested in. That's probably more important that the style. You can do a search of posts by Delta1, who always has good information regarding Kenpo [as well as other styles]. I've learned quite a bit just watching his [her?] posts. DT

If I understand your statement correctly, this is what we call "Marraige of Gravity". Basically it's using good physics to increase the force behind your strike. Most of our stances aren't low [at least the ones I've learned so far ], but there are times where we drop into a very low stance as we strike downwards in order to increase the power of the strike. We certainly don't stay in that low stance. DT

Yeah me too. It wasn't worth getting riled up about. We knew our guys were kicking their butts. We still ended up with 10 trophy's for 11 people who attended. I wish I had been there. DT

There is a Kenpo technique called "Squeezing the Peach" as well for blue belt. A description can be read here [technique # 5]. It is for a rear-bearhug with your arms pinned, and in this instance, it doesn't really put you in any danger of getting a knee in the face As for groin shots, most of our techniques involve a groin shot of some sort. The very first technique we learn [Delayed Sword] has a front kick to the groin, so as far as I'm concerned, they are perfectly valid. And anecdotally: Some tournaments don't allow them I think though. Our school attended a tournament this summer where they were supposed to be allowed, but the ref's weren't calling points for them. Our guys kept landing good groin shots that weren't being called. My instructor spoke to the ref's afterwards asking them why they weren't being called when the rules specifically stated that they were valid shots. The ref's just said it wasn't fair so they didn't call them. Needless to say our school was a little jaded about that Tourney. Hopefully the one coming up in January 15th [at UT Arlington] will turn out better. DT

Hmm, crunches, knee-pushups, chin-ups... I'm about to have surgery on my knee soon and I plan on being in the dojo working on my hand techniques Just a thought. Hope it heals well and quickly for ya. DT

So I learned today that due to a knee injury way back in 1992 [dislocated patella], that over time, things have gotten worse. There's a small bony fragment floating around in my knee, the patella has pressure pushing it up against one of my bones, and I've got "avascular necrosis", which means part of my bone isn't getting any blood. The doctor says he's surprised I can walk, let alone do martial arts. So I'm scheduled for some arthoscopic knee surgery to try to take care of things. My question is, can anyone who's had something like this done give me an idea of what the recovery is like. The doc said possibly 8-12 weeks recovery, but I don't know if that means I'm on crutches for that long, or what. Will I be able to attend classes [maybe no kicking ,focus on hand & flow techniques or something], or will I be sitting on my @ss for 2-3 months? [At least I have a nice easy desk job ] Thanks for any info. DT

Not only do you continue to practice your white belt stuff, but make sure that every time you advance a belt, you spend time reviewing ALL your previous belts. I saw a good example recently of someone testing for their purple stripe [in our school the strip signifies that you are have about half the techniques/basics for, and are making progress towards your next belt]. Anyway, The student knew his new techniques very well. And he knew his Yellow Belt techniques very well, but he struggled with the orange belt techniques. Why? Because he had just learned the new stuff, and we always go over the yellow belt techniques with the new students, but he had neglected to continue practicing the orange belt stuff. It fell by the wayside. I will be testing for my orange belt on Thursday, and I will be in no rush to get on to the new techniques [although I certainly look forward to it ]. Every day I go over as many of my old techniques as possible so that I do not forget them or get out of practice. The moral of this rambling little story is to take advantage of every moment you have to practice the stuff you already know. Even at this early belt level I can tell that for me, the more I practice what I know, the easier it is for me to learn the new stuff. DT

Bad Cop. No Donut!

As I've mentioned before, we did a ground-fighting lesson in my AK class. If you're on the bottom in guard, there are striking things you can do. For instance, if you are holding his collar/sleeve, it is very easy to do an eye-poke with your thumbs, hopefully getting them to let go or lose their balance. We also were learning about using some of our standing techniques, just slightly modified for the ground, since your leverage will be from your shoulders instead of your legs. If you can get his arms bent/broken, you can use a timely knee into his back/rear to force him to roll off of you, enabling you to hopefully get back up again. With that said, I'm certainly not looking forward to taking on anyone who does grappling daily. DT

Because I spent 8 years in Nothern California, and I LOVED it. I miss all the things I was able to do there that just aren't available here in the DFW area. Things like 30min drive to the beach/boardwalk, 20min drive to hiking in Redwood forests, 3 hr drive to ski in Tahoe or gamble in Reno... There's also nowhere good to ride my motorcycle. Nothing beats coming out of a long set of twisties and seeing the ocean spread out before you; then stopping at a beach-side grill for lunch etc... Now I'm selling my bike because there's no where good to ride it, and the dumbf*ck drivers here are as likely to kill me as not. It's really rather depressing. And since I know someone's gonna ask, the reason I moved back to Texas is complicated. It was partially to do with being able to afford a house, and having a good school system to put our kid through [kid is still on the way ] At this point the only thing making it bearable is Kenpo, and the fact that I'm here with my wonderful wife... DT

Ok, I'm not quite awake yet. It looks like that is actually a parody. You'd think after 13 years on the internet I'd have learned not to get suckered in by now I'll leave the post so you can make fun of me and see the link, which is still pretty funny: Here's a story from a Santa Barbara police blotter about a guy who was caught fighting [grappling] with his friend, and decided to challenge the cops to a fight. Of course I love the line " Unable to stand up to the spray's superior kung fu ..." hehe It doesn't mention anything about the guy being drunk, so I guess it's just an example of how adrenaline can make you do stupid things. So don't challenge cops to a fight. They have weapons and backup... you aren't going to win. DT