Shane

We use to all be required to wear black gi's except for the Head Instructor who had a white top with black pants. That was about 13 year ago, we no longer wear gi's we train in regular work out with t-shirts and thai boxing shorts, or board shorts now.

For sure get wraps, wraps offer much needed protection for the hand and wrist. Bags are not only hard on the hand but extremley hard on the wrists so always wrap even for light bag or mitt work. Those gloves only offer a small amount of protection, I would suggest investing in some boxing gloves and everyonce in awhile train with your old gloves, I rotate mine in training but anytime I"m doing intense hard pad work I go boxing gloves for the added protection, then I train mixed martial art gloves other times for the realisticness of them. Anyways like I said get some wraps and boxing gloves and then rotate between gloves.

If your going to thailand and your into the martial arts especially kickboxing then its a must to atleast fit in some training, any is better than none. I'm going for my first time this Aprill (2006) I will be in country for 17 days training at rawai muay thai camp. I'm going with 2 fellow martial artists so it should be nice. We do plan on taking the weekends off from training and going out to do the tourist thing, that still gives us 9 training sessions a week, so 18, 2-3hr training sessions in two weeks and we get Friday evening thru Sunday off to go do the tourist thing. Of course I main objective in our trip is the training but we are still going to fit tourist activities in, so someone going backbacking etc. should have not trouble fitting in a few training sessions. Ben, we are training at the same camp you are we arrive in Mid April so we'll see you there!!!!!

MuayThaiBoxer For the Record I was totally joking with that post, and I consider stand up fighting to give you about 20%-30% of what you need for a real fight the other 70%-80% comes from ground training to include takedowns. With that to make it easier for training I train in a Mixed Martial Arts class to cover all aspects. So Yes the unbeatable stand up was part of the Karate Kid Joke.

I think taking a small number of techniques and training these techniques in several ways, and several situations is best. I would rather be an expert of 25 techniques that I could use in 500 different ways, than be just okay at 500 techniques that I prabobly could not even use that effective in 25 ways.

Look out for #1 train what you want to train if you think you would be happier elsewhere then go elsewhere.

UFC = Mixed Martial Arts = Best of all worlds

To compete even at the amatuer level of mixed martial arts you should be training the best of all styles, thats what MIXED MARTIAL ARTS is. You cant afford to have weak points because your opp. is going to find that and then use it against you. Example if your a week grappler then your opp. is going to want to grappling common sense tells me to make it in the MIXED martial arts game you need to MIX it up. Especially now days the sport is forever changing and getting harder and harder each day due to mixed martial artists perfecting themselves and their game (all aspects of the game).

I train under master danielson, from the karate kid video serries I dont know if they are available on dvd yet or not but they will be soon if not already. The system was changed a bit by a female practitioner later on in karate kid 4, this female later left the oranization to become a boxer in milion dollar baby she has since pasted on. Not really based off of Jiujitsu in any way but with these skills I dont really need to worry about going to the ground since my stand up is unbeatable, even if a jiujitsu practitioner got in close enough to me I would sweep their legs, a technique covered in the karate kid 3 video.

as you can see from all the other posts these two styles are different, I do not even relate them together at all.

When I was in the Army we never were taught akido, they showed you some basics hand strikes, elbows, knees and how to do a hip throw, thats about it as far as your initial hand to hand, I hear now the army is moving more towards brazilian jiu jitsu. I think that is great as long as they keep training the old course also basically just adding some BJJ techniques to the course. Now what you learn at your unit is way different. That article is about a soldier training members of his unit, so its not an army wide course just those who are there with this akido instructor are learning it. I personally dont feel akido is the right thing for the Army, I agree with teaching soldiers to move in quick strike hard take the enemy to the ground while the soldier is still standing and finish them from there, stomps to the throat head you name it training BJJ is good so if they end up on the ground, we have to remember Military have a way different objective than law enforcement, trust me I know I have done both and the hand to hand is so very different for many reasons a lot because of the courts and laws which are different on the battle field than on the street as a cop.

I studied San Do Shootfighting for a little over 3 years and our training consisted of stand up and ground work. Basically our stand up was based off of muay thai kickboxing but also used a lot of JJJ techniques from the standing as far as joint locks and chokes go, the takedowns where basically wrestling style takedowns with a few JJJ/Judo takedowns, the ground work was pretty good, limited compared to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, we trained a lot of hand strikes on the ground and knees, the intructor trained it more as a self defense than sport class so we would always discuss the use of thumbs in the eyes while standing or on the ground especially while your opp. is in your guard and other techniques that would not be allowed in ring or cage. Very good program I base a lot of my mixed arts class off of it today in my school.

I've started adding BJJ to my training a few months ago and I'll tell you that there is no way that someone with not a lot of experience prior to starting could be at that level in three years even if they picked up on things fast, and even if they got as skilled as a true BJJ black belt I dont see how they would have had the time to learn instructor skills since each moment training would have to be perfecting their technique to even dream of doing this in 3 years. Anyways I've read about the program it could be an awsome one and looks like you get some good info to really benifit you but I cant see it bringing you to that level that fast. BJJ is one style that when I hear someone has a black belt in I dont totally think to my self THAT MEANS NOTHING TO ME, thats due to the normally high standards and time it takes to get it to where a lot of other styles I could care less what belt they have we will see during sparring sessions rather it be on the mat or stand up.

Boxing skills can make a world of a difference especially when applied with other martial art techniques, joint locks for example are sure a hell of a lot easier to obtain after delivering a few hard strikes to the head and body, the bobbing and weaving techniques are good for the sport of boxing, I dont find bobbing and weaving very usefull for other ring sports or self defense (its good to know and can be used) but slipping punches is a technique that I find very usefull. I actually try to start each of my fighters off in a boxing bout before enteringthe Kicboxing ring or NHB ring. Like someone said in this topic already if you get the chance to hope in the ring with a boxer go for it you will learn a lot.

I teach a watered down kickboxing class at a gym basically we spend most of the hour working thai pad drills and sometimes boxing drills with the focus mitts. So the members better understand the techniques me and my assistant will spar (light for insurance purposes) with them every once in awhile. Every so often I get a few who want more and thats when I invite them in for a class at my studio to experience the full meal deal. But its amazing how many people in this gym come into the class not expecting a good work-out. Some of the students have brought their personnal trainers in to try it because the trainers were telling them to take one of the cardio kickboxing classes instead of mine because you dont get a cardio workout in my class. Lets just say that those trainers where not thinking that at the end of an hour on the thai pads hahahaha I found it funny to destroy them on the pads. I actually enjoy teaching this class because I get to truley prove to a lot of people that this style of training is some of the hardest training that they can do. The worst thing is when I have cardio kickboxing instructors come up to me and tell me that they also are a kickboxing instructor.

Muay Thai will give you want your looking for and then some. Have Fun With It

When I think of Martial Arts I think of self defense. You asked if Muay Thai is a martial art I sure think so. I believe it to be one of the most effective martial arts in the world as far as stand up fighting goes. a major bonus about training thai boxing besides the fact that your learning effective techniques that can be used to defend yourself, is that the training is very hard and draws on your aerobic ablility while toughening up your body, its fun and intense and if you wish to compete that is also an option.

I have trained both and I notice a big difference, but its all going to depend on the schools. The JJJ I trained focused on more stand up joint manipulation techniques leading to a takedown and a finishing move. The BJJ I just currenlty started training covers more in depth on positioning and set up along with escapes while on the ground. I think both are very good but the JJJ I trained I feel was incomplete due to the fact that it did not go as in deph on transitioning from one move to another while on the ground. But it works both ways because the BJJ does not cover the stand up portion as in deph as the JJJ I was training. My whole post would basically be reversed if I had trained BJJ prior to JJJ hahahaha funny huh, they both work well together.

If I was you I would check out both of the schools you listed and possible some other schools in the area and pick just one school to train at. I believe it is best not to overwelm yourself with to much even for the experienced learning something new and different can be a long road and trying to learn to much at once can take away from how you benifit. Just my opinion on this

If the head instructor is not aware of this then he/she needs to be. If the problem continues then you might want to move on to another school. You shouldnt have to feel like you do at training.

The great thing about MT is that you cut straight to the point. Right off the bat your kickboxing and you notice the difference in your skill very quickly due to the fact that you spend so much time training on fight techniques. Working pads is a very important part of training along with sparring drills and you do a lot of these training methods in MT and thats one of the main reasons for the fast progress in learning. Lets put it like this, at some schools you will start off with stretching this will last anywhere from 5-15 minutes, then after this you will train on your required Kata and any additional forms within your belt level or previous level for review. Then when this is over a lot of schools will train their self defense techniques, when I was training traditional we had set attacks with set self defense techniques that were required for each belt and depending on the day you might get some sparring in or other training methods are used. Okay so the above is actually good it just takes the student longer to become proficient, we know good things happen to those who wait so yes these people whoe stick with it will become proficient. Now with MT and other kickboxing programs you stretch out and then start in on conditioning drills mitt drills, bag drills, thai pad drills, leg kick shield drills, sparring drills, sparring etc. You you can see why most students progress quicker with their fighting abilities

You also need to remember that a lot of the early Judo players were former jujitsu artists, so some would have an advantage in tournament due to the fact that they have trained jujitsu prior to training Judo. And personally Jujitsu in sport (tournaments) just does not make sense to me. If you want that I say go for Judo, using Jujitsu in sport takes away the true application of many techniques and it for sure takes away entry techniques, for example eye gauging your attacker while he's in your guard prior to moving into a straight arm bar. Of course after eye gauging someone its going to make the armbar easier to get than if your just trying to get the arm bar and personally thats what makes judo and Jujistsu different Rules and Methods of entry to these techniques that are very similar in many ways. Just my opinion on it!

Most forms of Jujitsu, Jujutsu, jiu jitsu (various spellings) are going to adapt well to real life situations due to the fact that jujitsu is designed for combat rather than sport, I know that now days we are seeing a lot of jiu jitsu sport matches, but originally jujitsu was the combat system and then judo was made from it to be sport. There are various styles of Jujitsu and each school will train differently, for example I teach a kickboxing class seperate from my mixed arts class that is based off of JJJ, so I give those students my kickboxing training also. Basically you will find that most of these forms of Jujitsu can be very effective in a real situation, the indivdual using the jujitsu needs to be aware of each situation and decide to use the proper techniques, you dont want to go to the ground when your fighting multiple attackers or when there are groups of people around, you will probably find yourself getting stomped on, so in that situation you would want to take your attacker down and finish him while your still standing and thats the benifit of most jujitsu programs is that they give you various techniques that have several variations for several types of situations.

it really doesnt take long on the ground, since normally you find yourself training the same technique over and over again so that it becomes second nature. You will see that you probably will advance faster on learning ground techniques than learning stand up. Good Luck

1kickKO, If your serious you need to post the web address where we can purchase your DVD series. I've been in the martial arts a long time and I have never seen such a complete package as yours. hahaha J/K I find the biggest problems with these so called complete packages with belt included is that the instructor selling the packages are hurting these individuals by giving them a faulse sense of the ability to defend themselfs when really all they really know is how to get their butts kicked.