isshinryu5toforever

A high quality Shureido superheavyweight dogi is over $200. Tokaido dogi are very good quality. There is also a custom company called Satori. satorigi.com is their website I believe. That is where I got my dogi from. I can say that I like the one that I have very much. Good quality, very durable. 15 oz canvas material I believe. It was around $150 I believe.

Wing Chun is probably your best bet in that group at least for what you're looking at. Football player tough doesn't touch Muay Thai tough. Kendo schools that are traditional aren't fast-paced. They are very precise and disciplined. I think my friend's dojo starts each class with 500-1,000 overhead cuts before moving on to anything else.

thank you all once again

How would you fight someone much larger than yourself, but slower? What did Ernesto Hoost do against Bob Sapp until he let the "I'm a man" mentality take over. He used angles, kicked Sapp really hard in the leg, and got his butt out of there. If you can kick someone that big in the leg enough times, especially around the knee, they are going to buckle. You can hit pressure points, just not necessarily in the chest of cut. You're missing the entire rest of the body.

The club offers KKW certification if you wish to actually go through the ranking process, but then you have to pay for classes. This is my way of keeping up with competitions a little bit, staying in shape, and learning a little bit about another martial art. I'm not worried about the KKW, because I'm not planning on competing in TKD nationally let alone internationally. I did get the, You should be good at TKD because you're Korean thing at first. I've been asked more than once why I don't want to go for the KKW certification since I'm in the club and I already have a black belt in another style. I guess it's just not that important to me.

It's WTF affiliated. I'm not an official rank though, because it's just a sport team. They compete in the Great Northeast Ivy League. After a year though, the politics involed in the WTF are quite clear. After almost 14 years in full contact karate, it's been interesting.

naw, you're just noticing something I'm surprised nobody's called the associations on yet. It's one big pride thing. Honestly though, once you're a certain rank, does it really matter how high of a rank you achieve? It would be nice to be considered a master instructor, but is it necessary? Not really. I think we put too much value on rank sometimes, but still what the associations have done throughout the years as far as promotion goes has been wrong. I understand it though, because TaeKwonDo isn't like baseball there, it's much more than that. It encompasses their culture, their history, and their physical prowess as a fighting people. They feel it would be disgraceful to be represented by non-Koreans.

Of course it's racism. Of course the Koreans are being fast tracked. Is it right? no. Does it make sense? yes. The Koreans have been trying to beat Steven Lopez for the last how many years? They have put him in the most difficult brackets, made scoring, er interesting, and basically tried to screw him over in every way possible. So, yes, Koreans are sensitive about Tae Kwon Do. And yes, they are fast tracking these Korean black belts. They don't want non-Koreans to be higher ranked than Koreans in their martial art. It's a pride thing. Does that make it right? of course not. By the way, I'm Korean so you can't really accuse me of being racist. I'm just admitting the truth.

I don't know about that. There are some very talented martial artists out there. Just because you haven't heard of them doesn't mean they aren't good. It just means they haven't garnered the exposure of other martial artists. This could be because they didn't seek it, or because they just don't care. Besides that, how many people really do keep up with Jet Li?

Chuck Norris is a Tang Soo Do guy, but Tang Soo Do is fairly close to some of Karate's hard styles. You are right though, Jackie Chan, Yun Biao, and Samo Hung should have very similar styles, Chinese Theater. They have added some real Kung Fu though.

Simon Rhee, the fight between him and his brother at the end of Best of the Best was choreographed pretty well. Don "The Dragon" Wilson Michelle "The Mouse" Krasnoo It could be interesting to see someone like Casey Marks on screen. Big men like Bob Sapp make movie fights entertaining although we know they may not be the greatest martial artists. You named a lot of people off. Also, it doesn't seem that a new generation of martial arts action stars have really risen. Jet Li is about 42, Jackie Chan is 51, Van Damme has all but fallen off the map, Segal hasn't made a theater released movie in years, and most others of note have basically retired. Other than Tony Jaa (Phanem Yerum) I haven't seen many new martial arts superstars. And Tony Jaa is still yet to be a household name in the United States. It would be interesting to see them find some unknown martial artists of various styles for a movie like that. I'm sure that high a few high level martial artists in a room could create some good fight scenes.

no, but i have had new students ask me if we use stealth techniques

these are more critiques than complaints. There's no denying the amazing physical stuff in the movie, but that's all it is. It's a highlight reel for Tony Jaa to do his thing, the plot isn't really anything special. It's cheesy at best, and is really just a backdrop for Tony Jaa to show off, which he does quite remarkable. His physical talent, and the fight choreography, do make the movie worth watching for someone who loves action films.

we don't do membership contracts, but I have seen 1 year contracts and 3 month contracts. They don't guarantee you anything though.

I have read a lot of books, and I have far too many I like. The Art of War, Hagakure, Plato's Republic (as geeky as that is), bash: three plays by Neil Labute, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, It's Not About the Bike, The Illiad, The Odessy, Erehwon (great book, try reading the title backwards), 1984, Animal Farm, I actually like a few of Asimov's Fairy Tales (Bicentenial Man, AI, I, Robot), ok this list is getting pretty long, those are just a few

Thank you all very much, and to answer the question of what I was doing for 6 years. For the first 5 1/2 I was practicing on my own and learning things from sources outside of the Isshin-Ryu world. I picked up a few outside views on bunkai and technique from people who did kung fu and Tae Kwon Do. For the last 6 months I have been visiting an Isshin-Ryu Karate dojo in Brooklyn off and on, and while I have been home, I have been going to my sensei's dojo 50 miles away twice a week. Once again thank you all very much.

Chen Zhen, the Chen Zhen Bruce Lee portrayed in Chinese Connection inspired pride in the Chinese workers in America. There's no way to prove this, but I'm sure it made many of them more aware of their rich martial ars background. Gichin Funakoshi was one of the main men that brought Okinawan Karate out into the open. General Choi Hong Hi, helped create modern Tae Kwon Do, one of the most popular martial arts in the world. They aren't so much martial artists as some of the most recent promoters of the martial art. The Walchowski brothers. A whole generation will never forget the phrase, "I know Kung Fu" Mas Oyama (Yong I-Choi), an amazing Korean man who created a Japanese art. His physical prowess is amazing, but surrounded by a lot of myth. Still a remarkable measuring stick for strikers. There are tons of others.

I just got promoted to sandan (third degree black) in Isshin-Ryu Karate. After six years of being away from my instructor, and 8 as a shodan, he decided to double promote me after my test on Saturday. I have become the biggest exception he's ever had as a student. Before me he had never promoted someone under the age of 16 to black belt, but prompting from other high ranking sensei in the area made him cave. And now, I'm one of two to be promoted more than one rank after a single belt test. I'm happy about this, simply because I can now promote other people to black belt. This allows the line of passing down knowledge from one person to the next continue, as they can become instructors at shodan, eventually being promoted to sandan, and then they can have black belts of their own and so on and so on. This, above all else, makes me happy. I am also glad that he has the faith in me to allow me to do so.

I only liked the first two really. It's fun to see the Wong Fei Hung legend stay alive though.

that's funny, I'd call it more a difference of religious beliefs than racism though lol.

I live in New York City 9 months of the year, I have friends who are musical performance majors at one of the country's best schools for it, and I can get free tickets to at least one show. Oh, and I have student rush available any time I want. Of course I go to shows. Broadway is one of the coolest places on earth. Oh by the way, Wicked is a musical, not a play. 12 Angry Men is considered a play. It was a very good one I might add.

I love Cold Stone too, that's why I never want to see the amount of calories or fat their ice cream contains. Men's Health is a magazine for everything pertainint to men, so yeah they have a bit of fashion stuff in there. I think it has a pretty decent amount of fitness information in there though. They cover nutrition, not just exercise.

Ong Bak was in theaters here in early February I believe. It saw limited release in theaters in New York City (where I saw it) and other larger cities. Yeah, this isn't a movie you see if you want to get a great plot, gripping story, and dramatic appeal. It's a movie you see if you want to see an absolutely amazing athlete and martial artist do what he does best.

Why is it not fair for someone to be double promoted? Rank is supposed to be representative of skill, not necessarily time. It someone posesses the knowledge, skill, and most importantly the attitude to be of a certain rank, then why not let them be? I don't think double promotion should be a normal, every-day occurrence in a dojo/dojang. I think it will naturally happen every once in a while though. There will always be those of exceptional skill. If this skill is coupled with a great work ethic, attitude, and humility, I could find no reason to not promote someone to a rank they deserved. If I had a green belt who worked hard, had a great attitude, and kept humble, and he was ready to be a brown belt, his knowledge level was excellent, he knew all the katas, and could even execute bunkai from the katas, I would test him for brown belt. If he passed he would be a brown belt, if he failed he would stay a green belt. It's an all of nothing thing. It's not like you test a green belt for a brown belt and if they don't make it they're a purple belt. Double promoting is something very risky for the student to attempt. At least the way my dojo does it.

I've practiced with guys from ITF, WTF, and ATA. The ATA stuff seems awfully close to Shotokan. I don't have a lot of experience with members of that TKD group though. I have noticed that even though the ITF guys I have been around are from far different place, Bulgaria, Connecticut, and New Jersey, all of their stuff is exactly the same. They do tul the same, kicks the same, stances the same, absolutely everything. The different WTF schools I have seen have varied massively. One I've seen does only Taeguk forms, another does Palgwe and Taeguk, one does only Palgwe. The ITF seems to be much more uniform. I guess I like that uniformity. I like doing Isshin-Ryu here and knowing that the same katas I do, they will do no matter where I go. There may be some slight differences, but the katas will be fundamentally the same. So, I like ITF the most.