AnonymousOne

Which books do you have ? I have the "underground guide to warrior fitness " and like it alot . Lots of great stuff in there . Just wondering what his other books are like . I also have "underground guide to warrior fitness " and "The Boxer's Guide to Performance Enhancement" which is a fantastic manual, especially in the area of developing training schedules

Our school is an equal opportunity trainer. The women are brutalised equally along with the men

I guess its a free world. I have seen people in weird gi's with all sorts of stuff and also ones with the USA or English flags on them. They look like kooks to me, I guess I am not that patriotic. Our school is very traditional. Heck, the emblem on your gi cannot be a proper embroided one until you reach sandan. I dont know why that is. What the heck, live and let live.

I have a friend I have known for about 46 years. He used to train with me about 25 years ago. Over the years he got into business and had a very hard time financially. He got lazy and packed on weight to the point that he was 120lbs over weight. That’s fat! He also had many health problems such as asthma, a bad back, swollen sore knees and ankles. I saw him just before Christmas. I called to see how he was and his wife told me he was in bed and wasn’t well. So I paid him a visit. He wasn’t sick, he was exhausted. He couldn’t pay some parking tickets and the court ordered him to do a day a week of work for the government. This meant cutting down trees and the like. He had done one days work of manual labour and this put him in bed for 4 days, that’s how unfit he was. That’s bad. Anyway… when I visited him I walked into his room and he was in tears. His life was in a mess and he was distraught. He asked me for advice. I said to him “Brother you need to get your body back in shape so that you can physically and mentally handle the demands of this tough world”. He agreed. I went on to say to him, “My brother, I have known you all my life, and I would be doing you a disservice if I wasn’t honest with you and told you straight. You know that I love you as a brother, but you need to get off your backside, lose that weight, start eating right and you will have more energy, think better and work through your financial problems with greater enthusiasm. You have let yourself become a slob. You are greater than that. You have much potential within you and you need to get back to good health and you will find life will be different. I am sorry to be so straight forward but I don’t think your family or friends have the guts to tell you like it is. Please forgive me if I have offended you, put good medicine is not always a nice flavour, don’t you agree?”. He looked up at me with tears in his eyes, then leaned up and hugged me and said “That’s exactly what I needed to hear and I have been thinking the same thing – thank you”. Then he asked “Will you train me?”. I said “Brother, no I wont”. He asked “Why not?”. I said “Because you need to harness the fire within. That frustration, anger and depression you are feeling, needs to be used as a catalyst to change your destiny. You need to harness this and draw out the motivation from within you and turn all that negative stuff in a positive direction. Use the negative for a positive. If I train you, the motivation comes from an external source, if you train yourself, you will feel far better about yourself because you have made yourself do the whole thing. But I am not saying I wont train you eventually, but initially you need you draw out a driving force from within you. If you can propel yourself out of that bed and start exercising from your own mental discipline, it will have far more far reaching effects on you, than if I make you do it.”. He said “I see your point, but what do I do?”. I replied “Okay, I will make up an mp3 audio training session that you can follow at home. Of course you can do it anytime you want and stop whenever you want. You will have your own empowerment. I wont make it too hard considering your physical condition. Slowly work up to one hours training. When you can make yourself do that, I will train with you. That may seem tough brother, but you need to motivate yourself. Your life is in a mess because you lack discipline but I now see you have reached a point where you cannot bare this any longer and you need to exploit that and use it to propel you forward”. He agreed to do this. So I made the mp3 and dropped it into him. To cut a long story short about the suffering he went through, not only physically but psychologically in terms of making himself start this exercise, but 6 months later, he can now do that one hour training session and has lost a total of 92 lbs. Now get this. This is a man that is 48 years old, was 120 lbs over weight. He was so unfit that doing a normal days physical work put him in bed from severe exhaustion. Apart from this, his weight caused his ankles and knees to swell up after exercise and all he had was himself to force himself to start exercising. He started off only being able to do one push up. Initially he could only go for less than 5 minutes of training. Now he can do one hour of hard out Karate training and easily run 2-3 miles. In my book, that is one fantastic achievement. My question to myself and to you is this: “If he can drag himself up from the lowest point in his life mentally and physically, under those very difficult conditions, why cant you and I make ourselves do more with less adversities? This man is like a brother to me, and I am so proud of him. He is now so much slimmer and has so much energy its mind boggling. My thanks go to the art of Karate-Do for instilling in me and more importantly him, the self discipline to achieve what many only ever dream about. While others wallow in the quadmire of mediocrity, we train in a system that empowers us to perform what seems to many people, to be the impossible. Karate goes far beyond the dojo, its encompasses our whole life!!

How did this happen? LOL

Actually it sounds more like a Ross Enamait workout . He is more of a body weight and calistetic guy with sandbags and medecine balls thrown in for added resistance . His workouts are real butt kickers . His workouts are great but not for the feint of heart . I do like cross fit as well . They have great workouts Too ! Just a different approach. I have practised such sequences for well over 30 years. However I have read Ross Emanaits manuals (2) and yes he teaches very similar things and is a very hard out young man. A true warrior it seems I learnt this type of training from my teacher orginally

This is highly debateable. Have you ever seen Mike Tyson knock someone down with a straight punch (boxings reverse punch) with his heel up? I have. Its very powerful

I guess a lot can only be put down to the mysteries in the sands of time. Of course there are many that believe the world only had one land mass at one time and this may account for how ideas were shared. I have no doubt that MA are alot older than we know

Skeptic 2004 I made some inquiries through a friend of mine who is a Maori Elder (Kaumatua) and he told me there are several Taiaha Schools here in New Zealand that openly teach its techniques and also teach the Maori empty handed martial art of Mau. If you want to learn a devastating martial art that is quite unique in the world then I would suggest coming down here and learning the Taiaha. The Maori Warrior spirit is something to behold. They were fierce warriors and also had an incredible reputation during world war 1 and 2 for bravery and fighting skills. The Taiaha is an ancient Maori weapon used by the Maori warriors of old in the heat of battle... The taiaha is a two handed fighting weapon that can be employed in a number of offensive and defensive fighting forms. Along with the Haka, it has become another highly visible symbol of the warrior traditions of the Maori. Today, the taiaha is mostly seen in the Maori ceremonial challenge called the wero or taki. The Teachings of Taiaha Traditionally the taiaha was part of the arsenal of the Maori warrior. It came under the teachings of Tu, the Maori God of War. Young children were trained from an early age using games and exercises to develop the necessary fitness, dexterity and agility to handle the weapon. Animal and bird movements such as the Pukeko and Fantail were modelled and incorporated into mastering the taiaha. Selected students then entered into schools of weaponry and war where various masters taught them. After graduation from the schools, students then gained full honours on the battlefield where their skills were tested in deadly earnest. Within many Maori oral histories, there are tales of duels to the death between taiaha champions where each one pitted skill and strength against each other. There have been tales where a single Maori warrior has defended himself against an attacking force by manoeuvring himself so that he used his superior weaponry skills to defeat groups of warriors. At the turn of the 19th century, a Dr D.A. Bathgate wrote of a duel fought at the New Zealand Parliament between an old Maori warrior, a giant reputed to be 80 years old, and a regimental sergeant-major of noted sword skills. During World War 2, a 28 Maori Battalion soldier armed with a taiaha defeated a bayonet instructor from the Scots Guards during a public demonstration at Maadi Camp, Egypt in 1943. The NZ Army has incorporated the taiaha into its physical training and parade ceremonies. All military dignitaries receive a Maori ceremonial challenge. After nearly 120 years of British based insignia, the NZ Army has now incorporated the taiaha into its official crest. Source: http://www.tu.co.nz/taiaha.htm

A real street fight is hard, fast, furious and ferocious, so therefore your preparation to meet the demand must always be hard, fast, furious and ferocious. Your simulation to prepare yourself for the actual event must be at the same velocity. Slow movements of anything will never prepare you for actual conditions. To run a 10 second sprint you must train all out hard when you run and sprint as fast as you can to build your muscles and endurance to handle the load for the required work. Its the same with fighting. From a physiological point of view, the body must be trained to develop fast twitch muscle fibre. If you practise slowly you are only going to develop slow twitch muscle fibre and if that is what is happening, your muscles are not capable at performing at fast twitch levels that are required and you will loose. The only time I recommend doing anything slowly is when you are learning something for the first time, after that it needs to be flat out fast. When Evander Holyfield was preparing for his fight when he became heavy weight champ, they changed his coach. The new coach performed some scientific tests on him and found his anaerobic endurance was poor because he was doing the normal boxing morning roadwork of 4-5 miles of steady state running. So they scrapped these morning runs and replaced them with anaerobic work which mainly was compiled of plyometric exercises such as sprinting, squat jumps, burpees, medicine ball exercises etc. Many weeks later they performed the tests again and his anaerobic threshold had increased significantly and he was able to endure much more in sparring. He didnt get tired any where near as quickly as before. There are many great lessons in this. Holyfield changed from slow movements in training to fast all out movements. This not only gave him far greater endurance but it enable him to punch and move faster and for much longer. When his opponents were getting tired he was able to carry on throwing out devastating punches with much greater ease. "The time-honored -- but unfortunately ill-conceived -- practice of long, slow distance work as a conditioning regimen for boxers is what Evander learned from the training dinosaurs of his youth, and had continued with for years. When I was brought aboard his team, prior to his fight against Buster Douglas in 1990, Evander was in sad physical condition considering the specific demands of his sport. I immediately tested Evander’s responses to three minutes of boxing specific total body work (see the 3 minute drill description below), which brought his heart rate above 180 bpm. He needed a full 7 or 8 minutes to recover back to 120 bpm after this single bout, analogous to one hard boxing round. What was worse, after doing five of the 3 minute drills with a one minute rest between, his heart rate remained above 150 between bouts. In short, he did not have the capacity to sustain a high performance level for even half of the duration of a professional fight. My responsibilities were limited to the physical conditioning component of Evander’s training, which had to be integrated into his skills and sparring training. Boxers require not only agility, speed and strength in short, explosive bursts, but also a high level of anaerobic strength endurance in order to perform these bursts over and over for ten rounds or more. I designed Evander’s training regimen and nutritional protocol to reflect these all-important elements. The road work ended promptly and completely. After the 12 week cycle described below, Evander recovered quickly from intense activity, even after a series of ten, 3 minute drills. His agility and limit strength levels increased, and his lean bodyweight increased from 208 to 218". - Frederick C. Hatfield, Ph.D., FISSA Source: - http://www.sportsci.org/news/news9709/evander.doc

You should always see a doctor before doing exercise to ensure it is safe. However some people who perform squats do it wrong and end up with knee problems. Some go as far as to say that squats cause knee problems. This is wrong. Its not squats, its poorly performed technique. If done with proper technique squats, are very safe.

I cant think of any wasted movements. I can however think of movements that I would never use in an actual fight BUT they make the art an art and contribute to neatness of technique, self discipline, good physical exercises to do and much else

I remember being 7 years of age and having to spar with a 2 kyu and it freaked me out. I didnt want to go back!! But in time as your skills grow you naturally develop confidence.

Squat down and jump up into the air and bring your knees up to your chest and land down again in the squat position

There isnt one in our school and would never be allowed to get to that point. Teachers that are over weight are not practising what they preach at all. They are setting an extremely poor example. The head of our school is aged 63 and is still at the peak of his physical condition. All the other 40 instructors are all incredibly fit and slim. Can you imagine the heavy weight boxing champ trying to defend the title and being 40lbs overweight? Just couldnt do it! To be battle prepared is to be at your peak of physical fitness and this wouldnt allow for one lb of extra weight. If you are training properly you would burn it all off. Get out of a McFat dojo and get to a school that sets a proper example where they live what they preach and believe. A warrior is an action taker and not an action faker

We have a school X-Mas party every year and for me I attend instructors meetings

I have Scheuermann's disease in my back and I have had that since I was 13 years old. I find the training helps my back but at times it plays up badly, so I wrap a back-strap on, grit my teeth, ignore the pain and train anyway. Often the pain in my back is far worse than my training but I battle on regardless. See your doctor before you train

Never heard of it sorry.

If you are pressed for time, try this sequence: 20 Burpees 20 pushups 20 star jumps 20 pull ups 20 squat jumps Repeat as fast as you can for 10 minutes!

Its interesting to note that Mike Tyson only ate steak, pasta and drank orange juice while training

Absolutely none for me. In fact I find sports rather boring

Jake the Mus may be a fictional charactor but I have met, known and hung out with many guys just like him. In fact I can think on 3 just like him in the street where I grew up. That movie was filmed 2 miles away from where my parents live and where I grew up in a suburb called Otara. The warrior spirit lives on in many Maori and when mixed with alcohol has disastrous effects. However I have found that when they get over age 30 or so, they tend to calm down and live differently. It can be quite frightening for people that are not used to people like that, but I grew up with them and its kinda normal for me. In the end they have self image problems and express their frustrations in life through crime and violence.

It is not known where the Maoris actually came from, certainly somewhere in the pacific, so how it relates to the Hawaiians I dont know. The Taiaha is indeed a lethal weapon made of native new zealand hardwood. One blow would certainly kill you if received from the hands of an expert. The maoris are fantastic warriors thats for sure and that spirit still lives on in their culture The maoris using the taiaha alone were often successful in defeating their english oppressors during the maori wars. Maori culture has had a great revival in the last 30 years and ancient arts such as the Taiaha have also received great interest and imputus. To watch a master of the Taiaha is very impressive. They display powerful movements http://www.tu.co.nz/taiaha.htm http://whakaahua.maori.org.nz/weapons1.htm http://www.angelfire.com/ma/jfjkd/FANZ.html

I'll make up a .PDF with the exercises and forward it on to you (via PM) over the weekend. That'll give you a good idea. The reason for not working with benches etc (yes - the equipment is available to me) is that all exercises are targeted at using the complete body (in particular the core) to perform them. The problem with 'standard' weight exercises is that they focus on a specific muscle (or muscle group) and this is not how a fight works. These exercises are tailored toward 'strength for grapplers'. And that means utilizing the complete body as one. I'll make a .PDF and send you a link so you can download it. That should give you an idea. I do each exercise for 40 seconds with 20 seconds brake and rotate the complete workout for an hour (as a circuit). It's a complete mix of strength, core and condiditioning exercises. -V- I am a great believer in body weight exercises but also like to use weights. But not things like bicep curls. Weight training that is overall functional in assisting the capabilities of plyometrics and anaerobic capabilities

Say "I will" instead of "I wish" and start training until you drop and proceed again soon with the same strict regiment