isshinryu5toforever

You need to ask your instructor. If he won't help you, then you should rethink staying at the school. If he won't help you AND you want to stay at the school (I don't know WHY you would do this) then look for deals on places like karatedepot.com Don't go with the cheapest, don't go with the most expensive. Find something in between. Buy a basic set. Don't get caught up in the flashy foam padding junk that a lot of people buy. If the rules allow it, I prefer cloth gear. If you need the foam padding stuff, give Century or Macho a shot.

What I would assume would happen is when someone needs to fly in people from the Hombu, the expense will belong to the dojo hosting the testing. That means test fees will likely go up. They would likely have to come up with accommodations for the people coming in as well. Quite a few organizations seem to have this setup. It looks like you guys have a lot of writing ahead of you. There will definitely have to be revisions. I think a US branch is necessary, AND they will have to give the US branch a lot of power, or raise the belt level test at which it is necessary to fly to the Hombu.

The forum ranking is based on number of posts. As far as sparring, find other people that want to spar, and practice with them. Failing that, find a different school that does things you want to do.

Ask your instructor. They have this little event called the Battle of Atlanta every year as far as I know. http://www.battleofatlanta.com/

I don't know this ninjutsu of which you speak. Fujita Seiko was the last person to have a verifiable koga ryu lineage. He died saying that he didn't pass on his teachings and that he wouldn't. That means, there are no modern ninjas.

They need someone to represent their interests though. They also need someone that is tied to the hombu. They have to make sure that the hombu rules aren't too ridiculous. If every single person testing for shodan and up needs to go to the hombu, not many students are going to test for shodan. The hombu will have to create rules governing the way grading is carried out in the US. The situation can get difficult if you don't have enough high ranking people. Let's say you're testing for 2nd dan. They can put it in the bylaws that you must test at the hombu, OR if you can't you must receive permission to test with the US branch chief. You must have a panel of 5 people, the head has to be 5th dan or above. The remaining 4 judges must be 4th dan or above. That's a pretty normal setup. If a good number of the highest ranking people are either moving, or aging, or both, you are going to have trouble carrying out gradings. If they can't work all of it out, they may end up with two Shindokan organizations.

That's the definition for Ippon in a Judo competition, not a Shotokan one. In Shotokan, it's generally a specific technique, or set of techniques chudan uke, giyaku tsuki for example, that is performed cleanly with speed and power, that the other person doesn't block or move away from in a timely manner. It isn't as easy to explain as you'd think. It's much better to be shown.

You can hit to the face, you just can't punch to the face. Fights would end pretty quickly if you punched people in the face with no protective padding. That said, some of the organizations, Kyokushinkan among them, are experimenting with various hand strikes to the head to see which they want to allow. Eg, you can use open hand strikes to the face, but not punches. As far as leg kicks vs head kicks, you have to be able to do both to win in Kyokushin. Most of the time, you wear people down with leg kicks, but you end the match with a head kick. Kyokushin uses knockdown rules for more competitions, so you need to be a bit of an all around striker. You can't just rely on one skillset.

I don't think it is doomed. Maybe the US presence would be, but the style might live on. They would definitely have quite a lot of competition in Okinawa. Tsuyoshi Uechi has been petitioning to have Isshinryu Karate included in Okinawa's traditional styles. Goju-ryu still has Morio Higaonna as their leader. Still, I don't see why they wouldn't include a US branch in their plans. Are there any other schools in the US? Or was the Hombu the only one? What are they going to do about their already existing student base? The issue I see here, with a US branch, is they may ask you to head it. It might be easier for them to stomach if you offered. I don't know, from previous threads, if this is something you would be willing to do. There are a lot of issues with becoming a branch. Who makes the decisions, how do you run the business model, etc. That can all be worked out. All of the Kyokushin organizations have branches in other countries, Shotokan has successfully done it. There are examples around.

Weight loss can help your blood pressure a lot even if you're a relatively healthy individual. Any weight loss should result in a drop in blood pressure. Like many health issues, it really comes down to a clean diet, drinking enough water, and consistent exercise.

I'll echo both of the above posts. If you do it wrong, you're liable to blow out a knee. Watch the Human Weapon Taekwondo episode where one of the guys tries a spinning kick in a match and messes up his ACL.

If you're ever switching from one style to another, start over. If you show a great affinity for the new style, they might grade you faster. If they don't, don't worry and don't be surprised. Look at my style list. Okinawan Karate, Taekwondo, and Japanese Karate in that order, I started at white belt in every single one. I was a 4th dan in Isshinryu Karate when I started Taekwondo and had picked up a first dan in that when I started Kyokushin. I picked up the material fast, so I graded to 2nd kyu at my first grading. It all depends on YOU. How good you are at remembering things, how good you are at that style's techniques, and how well you can perform them under pressure.

What are the weight classes? I fought heavyweight in university despite my short stature, because it's 165 and above. I'm about 180, but athletic, so the jump spinning kicks aren't difficult to do, I just don't see how they fit in ANYONE's sparring plan.

The way you're describing it. I would agree with this. Movement, choose a few techniques, but don't make it specific, attack at will. Makes sense.

The problem is that it is pre-set AND it's static. You aren't moving in a realistic fashion. You wait for them to punch, they punch, leave it out there in the air, you counter. It's the same for three steps, but they throw three techniques. Once the first one is thrown, you might be a little late, but you can catch up because you know what the next two will be. They can try to throw you off with broken rhythm, but you already know what is coming. Especially if you say, OK right hand first, left leg first, etc. This video on aliveness will demonstrate what I'm talking about: Not everyone used is the cleanest, but the theory is sound.

Contact the Judo schools in your area, they will answer all you questions. Call them, don't e-mail. It's much easier to get all the answers you want by calling them directly. It's a lot more difficult to get your answers by asking a bunch of people from different countries on the internet.

I like Heraclitus' definition: "For every one hundred men you send us, Ten should not even be here. Eighty are nothing but targets. Nine of them are real fighters; We are lucky to have them, they the battle make. Ah, but the one. One of them is a warrior. And he will bring the others back." A warrior is not only someone that makes war and is good at it, he is someone with courage and conviction. He is also an example among men. You could say there is even a difference between soldiers and warriors.

Haha, that video was high comedy. I thought at the very least someone would mention Ashida Kim.

If they can be done in an alive manner, sure, but I have yet to see anyone actually implement them that way.

WTF gets crap for fancy kicks and certain ITF competitions are REQUIRING an aerial kick during a sparring match? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me haha.

There are no ninjas. The verdict is still out on zombies.

If the Rose Bowl were this Saturday, I would say it will be an even keeled game. The problem is that it's all the way in January. I think TCU will beat the Badgers even though they're my team. TCU is very good, and the Badgers have been riding out their hot streak. A full month is plenty of time for that to cool off. If they can pick up where they left off, the Badgers will be tough to beat. Many a college football hot streak has been cooled by December though. My guess is too many beers, not enough practice.

I would take the sparring class over 3-steps. I don't really know what you gain from 3-step sparring. You're supposed to work on muscle memory, but no one throws three techniques exactly the way you see them in 3-steps. It just seems to use up a lot of time you could use working on other things. Like actual sparring. It's up to your instructor though, which can be the tricky part.

Yes, and they spend a lot of time on footwork to get those kicks in. It turns into kind of a chess game. Too bad I've always sucked at chess. I need to learn to move my feet faster... Not just footwork, but timing. I've heard, no way to substantiate it, that Korea tends to choose its competitors based on who matches up against the rest of the world the best. They have full profiles on other countries' Olympic hopefuls and tend to do their matchmaking that way rather than through selection rounds. It seems to have worked with overwhelming success so far. You really just need to spar a lot more. You can work on your timing that way. Speed is a great thing to have, but I've seen the faster fighter lose a lot, because his timing wasn't very good.

I've got a lot more experience with WTF than with ITF. So, from the WTF standpoint here it goes. The main point of focus seems to be competition sparring. Don't let the gear fool you though, it's full contact. Yes, they wear head gear, chest protectors, shin and forearm pads, and now foot gear, but they encourage hard kicking and knockouts. Some dojang concentrate on the points game, others concentrate on hitting the other person harder. Both can lead to competition wins, but one is better for self defense in my opinion. The only real criticism I have is that they don't score hand techniques at all. That isn't to say someone with good hands can't use them, but they're going to have to kick to win. The Taeguk forms are the standard forms you need for any WTF grading. Some schools still teach the Palgwe poomse, but the Taeguk poomse are standard. They are short and easy to learn. The stances have been shortened in recent years to make them even more accessible. It's easy to see how WTF Taekwondo is becoming a martial art for everyone. Most schools have a self-defense curriculum for gradings, but I'm not sure if it is standard across the board. I'm sure it's supposed to be, but we all know things aren't always the way they are "supposed" to be. You do see some fancy kicks, but they really concentrate on three kicks, the round kick, the axe kick, and the back kick. There are variations on these, like doubles and triples, a fast kick, which is a skipping in round kick, etc. However, these are the staples of competition, and you will rarely see the high flying kicks the Korean Tigers have made famous. Those are reserved for demo teams. If you watch high level TKD competition they rely almost exclusively on the back kick and roundhouse kick.